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2023 Paid VPN Relationship and Corporate VPN Ownership Map

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Re: 2023 Paid VPN Relationship and Corporate VPN Ownership Map

#81
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IVPN are studs of the industry, no doubt. Very serious folk working hard on sticking to their privacy principles - rare today for sure!

That’s good to hear as a mullvad user. They’re amazing, but often the only player recommended in the space.

Mullvad are absolutely the GOAT for most people so that's fair.

If you need port forwarding or other fringe uses then not so much but you can't go wrong with how well they stick by their guns and by who they choose to associate with.

The top right feature the last remaining indies who for better or worse are the last remaining folks holding onto any kind of standards. Corporate VPNs use tons of marketing tracking, affiliate marketing, and skewer the discussion to suit their profits over all else.

Kape for example have been on a buying spree over the past few years so now all those VPNs tout whatever line is set from above.

Re: 2023 Paid VPN Relationship and Corporate VPN Ownership Map

#82
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the author of the map and I'll get those updates on there now, the Mozilla node was actually hidden (as I need to update the corp info) and there's other corrections I'm making now. If you have any other suggestions I'm more than happy to look into them and start getting them updated. This has been a passion project of my own for the past few years so I'm really grateful for any other feedback.

Also, https://brave.com/brave-and-guardian/

Cheers mate! Will see to them too :D

Re: 2023 Paid VPN Relationship and Corporate VPN Ownership Map

#83

Aren’t VPNs much less useful unless they’re proven no-log VPN? I remember going down the rabbit hole and people online were skeptical unless the company had a proven FBI raid with no logs taken, haha.

Man, fighting "all or nothing" thinking is a lifelong endeavor.

There are several reasons to have a VPN, and the VPN logging connections is a detriment to some of those.

Reasons include:

* Evading geo-blocking to appear from one country or another

* Evading profiling by websites by laundering your public IP address with others

* Evading privacy invasion by ISPs that most definitely use data for ad/tracking purposes and definitely have logs for law enforcement

* Doing things that could attract interest from law enforcement

The last bullet is the only one affected by logging at the VPN. In this case, the question is which entity do you want to have your traffic? Someone with a reputation for privacy to uphold, or ATT?

Re: 2023 Paid VPN Relationship and Corporate VPN Ownership Map

#84
post #52

Why would I even want to use a VPN in the first place?

In no particular order: 1. To pirate content without getting sent threat letters or being sued 2. To prevent your ISP or the wifi access point or anyone else from seeing which domains you are connecting to and selling that data 3. To prevent government surveillance or blocking 4. To bypass corporate or institutional firewall rules 5. To prevent packet sniffers from snooping on public wifi 6. To prevent your parents,…

1. To pirate some content which isn't relevant for 99.9999% of the population yet still protected by Disney law

Re: 2023 Paid VPN Relationship and Corporate VPN Ownership Map

#85
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sort of; proper political donations can be looked up https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress

Those are just the over the table tip of the iceberg ones...

https://twitter.com/windscribecom/status/1667177373534494729

Here's one bang on subject for example. The company that won the bid to formalise digital IDs donating directly to the party members responsible for choosing in favour of them. 6 states are trying to link porn sites to a digital driving licence. So porn habits and identity are linked for example.

Re: 2023 Paid VPN Relationship and Corporate VPN Ownership Map

#86
post #56
post #50

Happy to see my VPN of choice, IVPN, out there with no affiliations coming out of it.

IVPN are studs of the industry, no doubt. Very serious folk working hard on sticking to their privacy principles - rare today for sure!

That's a big reason why I went with them. I did a ton of research to see where I felt most comfortable but ultimately went with IVPN because of how transparent they seemed about who they were and what they could/couldn't do. Mullvad was my second choice but at 3 years at a time IVPN was more cost effective. I usually connect via the NY, NJ, and IL gateways and get good speeds. I've got a 500/500 line and pretty consistently get in the 400's each way.

Re: 2023 Paid VPN Relationship and Corporate VPN Ownership Map

#88
post #4

Used to be a customer of ExpressVPN but after the acquisition, it no longer worked properly in China. Mullvad somehow survives despite their server IP ranges being public

I'm surprised Mullvad works in China. Do you have to use obfuscation software (shadowsocks, etc)? The GFW blocks WireGuard, right?

> surprised Mullvad works in China.

It doesn’t. At least on few tests I did

Re: 2023 Paid VPN Relationship and Corporate VPN Ownership Map

#89
post #54

This is good! I will use this as a reference to share with friends and colleagues who ask me about XYZ VPN. I think something that is missing in the network of connections is Mozilla VPN. From what I understand, they are just a re-brand of Mullvad. There are other providers not listed, but finding a good VPN provider is kind of like finding a good watering hole--you don't want to spread the word too widely, else bad-…

I'm the author of the map and I'll get those updates on there now, the Mozilla node was actually hidden (as I need to update the corp info) and there's other corrections I'm making now. If you have any other suggestions I'm more than happy to look into them and start getting them updated. This has been a passion project of my own for the past few years so I'm really grateful for any other feedback.

I find the map software a usability nightmare and had to give up on it. Cute but crap. I'd much prefer the data in a table that I can just... read.
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