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NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

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Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#51

Post by LorenPechtel »

LordHeini wrote: post #7

Why are these VPNs even a thing? The only reason i would use one is to get cheaper steam keys from brasil and for that i can get a free one. From a security standpoint it is awful because you increase the number of providers you have to trust. Apart from your ISP and the server you connect to, you got a third party involved for no reason. And VPNs can not that trustworhty as shown by the leaks of logs and what not. M…

Getting around censorship such as the Great Firewall. I have relatives in China, we visit most years. Without the right VPN (most don't do a good job against the Great Firewall) you lose things like Google (thus your Gmail account), Facebook (no great loss), Dropbox and it's siblings, pretty much any major news site. Last time I was over there I was having some trouble with my VPN (it's always a cat-and-mouse game between the VPNs and the Firewall) and the only search services that worked were Bing (which saw my Chinese location and did a much worse job than normal) and Baidu (which is China-focused and thus did a horrible job of serving up results in English.) Both engines were more likely to cough up a mixed-language page that vaguely matched over an English-only page that would be a much better match. Note that I was using a machine with the language set to English and not one bit of Chinese in the queries.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#52

Post by LordHeini »

TillE wrote: post #40
LordHeini wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well afaik seeding on public torrents is just about the only way, where you would get in trouble for pirating. Just don't do that, use a private tracker and use Tor for small stuff like ebooks.

There's nothing magical about a "private tracker", those are regularly infiltrated too.

I may be completely wrong on this one but...

This is not much of a problem, because you are seeding to "friends" making the whole thing non commercial and a private affair in some legislatures.

Not sure if the laws have changed but what.cd used to have a certain number of users which was capped by the number of friends some judge thought to be reasonable.

If i recall correctly that whas around 200k meaning that you could run a private tracker and in case of a bust claim to know everyone.

Back in the day i had a what.cd account and when they got busted (took them many years) nothing happened to the users. I think they shredded the servers before the cops could seize them.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#53

Post by viseztrance »

LordHeini wrote: post #7

Why are these VPNs even a thing? The only reason i would use one is to get cheaper steam keys from brasil and for that i can get a free one. From a security standpoint it is awful because you increase the number of providers you have to trust. Apart from your ISP and the server you connect to, you got a third party involved for no reason. And VPNs can not that trustworhty as shown by the leaks of logs and what not. M…

I moved last year back to my home country from the uk, and did the final trip on my motorbike.

Midway I realized I was missing an offline map of a country I was about the be passing through the next day. I had an unlimited data plan with traffic abroad included, and despite this, it didn't allow me to download the maps for my gps (everything else worked!), even after fiddling around with third party dns.

So I downloaded a vpn app, and managed to get everything sorted out.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#54

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

LordHeini wrote: post #7

Why are these VPNs even a thing? The only reason i would use one is to get cheaper steam keys from brasil and for that i can get a free one. From a security standpoint it is awful because you increase the number of providers you have to trust. Apart from your ISP and the server you connect to, you got a third party involved for no reason. And VPNs can not that trustworhty as shown by the leaks of logs and what not. M…

1) people believing long-outdated guidance about not using open WiFi networks without a VPN

2) protecting your browsing traffic from being observed by your ISP (where you may not have much choice), at the risk of it being observed by the VPN company (which you trust).

3) Torrenting without having to worry about fines, nastygrams and other annoyances

4) Bypassing geoblocking

1 + 2 is what the VPNs advertise, but I think 3 + 4 are what people actually use them for.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#55

Post by dheera »

notRobot wrote: post #5

Honestly, nothing holds up to Mullvad [1]. They don't even take an email address while creating accounts, and you can pay easily with Bitcoin or even with cash mailed to them. I'm not affiliated, just a very happy customer. Mullvad is also who Mozilla trusts for the Mozilla VPN [2]. You can sign up with that if you'd like Mozilla to get a cut. [1]: https://mullvad.net/ [2]: https://vpn.mozilla.org/

I totally understand using a VPN service if you're trying to access the internet from another location, e.g. to get past the China firewall or get access to content from a different copyright jurisdiction.

However, I don't fully understand the privacy argument. It would seem to be that instead of handing over your entire DNS query history and unencrypted HTTP history to your own corporate IT department or the Starbucks Wi-Fi router, you're now handing over all that data to Mullvad. Are people okay with that?

I usually create my own VPNs. I realize that involves handing data over to AWS or whoever I use for my servers but I somehow feel slightly better about that than handing it over to some Mullvad dude.

Google tries to impose its VPN on Android too and my first insinct is: do I really want all my traffic going through Google?

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#56

Post by hatsunearu »

dheera wrote: post #55
notRobot wrote: post #5

Honestly, nothing holds up to Mullvad [1]. They don't even take an email address while creating accounts, and you can pay easily with Bitcoin or even with cash mailed to them. I'm not affiliated, just a very happy customer. Mullvad is also who Mozilla trusts for the Mozilla VPN [2]. You can sign up with that if you'd like Mozilla to get a cut. [1]: https://mullvad.net/ [2]: https://vpn.mozilla.org/

I totally understand using a VPN service if you're trying to access the internet from another location, e.g. to get past the China firewall or get access to content from a different copyright jurisdiction. However, I don't fully understand the privacy argument. It would seem to be that instead of handing over your entire DNS query history and unencrypted HTTP history to your own corporate IT department or the Starbuc…

>However, I don't fully understand the privacy argument.

Yes, it's crap, and any techbro worth their salary should know this.

It's also incredibly annoying when VPN this and VPN that pops up on youtube.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#57

Post by midasuni »

yoz-y wrote: post #32
Nextgrid wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You typically get on an airplane because you have to travel someplace. With VPNs I fail to see a reason beyond circumventing geo-blocking.

Whereas the VPN provider might do something with your data, your ISP most definitely does .

Does it? I don’t recall giving A&A permission to deal with my data in any nefarious way, i’d doubt they would anyway.

https://www.aa.net.uk/

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#58

Post by Cu3PO42 »

dheera wrote: post #55
notRobot wrote: post #5

Honestly, nothing holds up to Mullvad [1]. They don't even take an email address while creating accounts, and you can pay easily with Bitcoin or even with cash mailed to them. I'm not affiliated, just a very happy customer. Mullvad is also who Mozilla trusts for the Mozilla VPN [2]. You can sign up with that if you'd like Mozilla to get a cut. [1]: https://mullvad.net/ [2]: https://vpn.mozilla.org/

I totally understand using a VPN service if you're trying to access the internet from another location, e.g. to get past the China firewall or get access to content from a different copyright jurisdiction. However, I don't fully understand the privacy argument. It would seem to be that instead of handing over your entire DNS query history and unencrypted HTTP history to your own corporate IT department or the Starbuc…

The VPN providers promise not to keep logs. They go to different lengths to prove this claim to you.

If you do believe that, it's more private. If you don't, they still might have access to that data. Otherwise AWS or someone else will.

However, even so it will be more difficult for third parties to track you since you will generally not be assigned a dedicated IP address. You are probably NATed with a bunch of other customers from all over the world. If you set up a VPN in a VPS you'll most likely have a permanent public IP.

Personally, I believe that Mullvad is truthful about its privacy claims, but I'm not a customer.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#59

Post by [deleted] »

midasuni wrote: post #57
yoz-y wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas the VPN provider might do something with your data, your ISP most definitely does .

Does it? I don’t recall giving A&A permission to deal with my data in any nefarious way, i’d doubt they would anyway. https://www.aa.net.uk/

[deleted]

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#60

Post by hellcow »

midasuni wrote: post #57
yoz-y wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas the VPN provider might do something with your data, your ISP most definitely does .

Does it? I don’t recall giving A&A permission to deal with my data in any nefarious way, i’d doubt they would anyway. https://www.aa.net.uk/

ISPs monitor and modify your internet traffic in America (perhaps that's different in the UK?). My American ISP absolutely spies on me. So rather than accept that guarantee, I can use a VPN like Mullvad who at least promise not to do this, and whose entire business relies on keeping that promise.
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