I use Proton. But I continue to run into more and more websites and services that detect my VPN and refuse my connection, or just run literally 40 captchas in a row until I just give up.
I use Proton because it has a “suite” of products under a single subscription, but that benefit is losing it’s allure as some of their products are pretty shitty from a user experience perspective, their customer support is atrocious, and they don’t seem to pay any attention to what their users actually want.
Does anyone track known VPN servers? Is there a specific provider that causes less problems? Does anyone test different VPNs for detection?
Thinking about cancelling my subscription and moving to Mullvad.
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
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- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
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VPNs are not meant for privacy. The concept is clunky, as is the concept of our internet.
Tor or I2P are made for privacy, but the interactions with the clearnet have the same problems, you need a legal entity hosting the server, IPs are known and can be blocked etc.
Hosting your own VPN does not anonymize you anymore but is very unlikely to get blocked.
I use both AirVPN and Mullvad, and certain websites block them too, but it depends on which country and which server you’re connected too.
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I’m using SurfShark. I have not seen it once in the discussion so far. Is there something I don’t know that I should?
Haven’t looked into them specifically but Proton and Mullvad have been around and have a good reputation with the privacy community.
If you don’t need port forwarding, Mullvad is my pick. Since they got rid of port forwarding, I’ve moved to AirVPN and am happy with them. I just dislike AirVPNs’ GUI app, Eddie. I mainly use Wireguard directly for their servers.
Not OP but can I just comment that there are some high-quality answers here, good discussion. Thanks!
Windscribe…had it for a few years now and seems fine. I’ll probably look into proton or mulvad when my subscription runs out, but I’d re-up if I find another subscription deal.
Best thing i ever bought was my lifetime subscription for $40
I’ve been using Nord VPN for years. Maybe someone can educate me on why it’s not good but I’ve had zero issues with it and it allows me to do everything I need to for a great price.
I’d be interested to hear some evidence of why it’s bad too
I’m the same, it has wonderful Linux support
If I remember correctly, NordVPN keeps logs So, if a govt ever subpoenas their data, users can have their privacy violated.
Nord says they don’t keep logs. Who knows if they actually do or not.
So, it seems they’ll turn on logging if asked nicely enough.
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um I don’t use a vpn. Please tell me why I should use a VPN. It’s just something that costs money that seems unnecessary. I have nothing to hide. Why are you all hiding behind VPNs? What am I missing?
You have nothing to hide huh… So you take a shit with the stall door open?
It is up to you to use a VPN or not. Some people use a VPN to watch regular TV series which are blocked in their own country. Some people, like myself, despise the ad- and tracking- exploitation industry, other people may want to download e-books from anna’s archive or simply do not trust their ISP. Other people live in countries where their government is very oppressive and intends to arrest and torture any critical voices.
Reminds me of : “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
Recommended viewing : https://piped.video/results?search_query=Shoshana+Zuboff
It obscures your IP so that sites don’t know who you are by that, but really, they can just fingerprint your browser if you’re not addressing that too.
You can present your location to a site as being from any where the VPN has a server. Say you want to watch something that is only available to users in Canada, but you live in Mexico. You can use the VPN to present yourself to the site as being in Canada and watch it. Unfortunately, some sites are blocking content from being accessed by known VPN IP addresses. I think Netflix is one. Frustrating to me, lemmy.world doesn’t let anyone post or comment while using a VPN, though I understand that it’s for valid security and admin purposes, such as to reduce CASM material.
More importantly, it encrypts your data between you and the VPN. That means that no one between you two knows what the info you’re transmitting means. This includes your ISP that likely collects/sells your data or could report it to authorities. Additionally, it protects you from people that can join your wifi and steal your data that way, say at a public wifi like a coffee shop.
Personally, I use a VPN as much as possible, especially when I’m connected to any wifi outside of my home. In fact, I will absolutely not access security-sensitive sites (e.g. bank accounts, credit cards, etc.) on public wifi without using my VPN.
@helenslunch@feddit.nl
Nice story, bro.
When you post a real photograph of yourself, wife, kids, and all your social security numbers and bank account numbers, along with a complete history of all video rentals and library books, and your private confessions of folly, vice, and sin-- post all that on your Lemmy profile, then I’ll believe you have nothing to hide.
My wife? Gross! I’m heterosexual woman. and everything else you described, except for social security numbers, sounds a lot like Facebook. Which I don’t use.
A VPN doesn’t protect you the way OP thinks it does. It just hides your IP address from the websites you visit. Of course, now instead of one website seeing that you visited it, one organization can see everything you visit.
Basically it just moves your trust from your ISP to your VPN provider. So yeah, if you don’t need that, and you don’t need to get around geo blocks, you don’t need a VPN.
I believe there is clear evidence/jurisprudence showing that (at least some of the trustworthy) VPN providers donnot keep ANY data.
To prevent your activity being tracked across the web.
If “you have nothing to hide” then you’re in the wrong place.
I’m in the wrong place? You mean this place privacy@lemmy.ml ? Now I’m curious what y’all here are hiding.
Everything we possibly can, because it’s nobody’s God damn business.
Because mainstream porn sites are blocked or require age verification in my state. Other good reasons are to avoid some issues when torrenting things or to “be” in another country to get around Netflix and other streaming service region blocks.
Privacy and avoiding man in the middle is kinda bullshit. Nearly all websites use TLS, so mitm isn’t possible. And it’s only privacy from your ISP.
It protects your data from snooping or man-in-the-middle attacks on untrusted networks. Or your internet service provider.
Not really. Unless you’re visiting unencrypted websites. If you’re using HTTPS and DNS over HTTPS, your ISP can only see what IP address you’re connecting to, not the traffic.
There’s always the option of renting a low cost VM in the cloud and running your own VPN. They will probably monitor your traffic though.
Kinda pointless
Depends what you’re using a VPN for. If you’re using it for privacy, yeah, it wouldn’t help. If you’re using it for geo locked content, it works great. Or for privacy from specifically your ISP.
…he posted in c/privacy
If you’re trusting any other VPN provider, then you’re already willing to trust someone. What’s the difference between trusting Proton and trusting Digital Ocean?
If you’re only visiting HTTPS sites then your ISP already can’t snoop your traffic. A VPN gives you very little added privacy.
No matter what you use, you’re really only protecting yourself from your own ISP.
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You think that using a VPN is protecting you from the website you’re connecting to logging that traffic?
No. The website sees the traffic. The only thing they don’t see is your home IP address. That’s not even a useful piece of information for tracking someone. Home IP addresses are usually dynamic.
Websites track you through cookies and etags, and VPNs do not block those. If they did, you wouldn’t be able to log into any websites, and you would always be redownloading JS, CSS, and fonts you’ve already downloaded.
(Copied for convenience, since your comment is duplicated.)
It’s not an issue of trust but of obfuscation. You’re sharing IPs with other users
Wrong.
Wrong again. You’re protecting yourself from having your traffic logged by the sites you visit. Every modern website is collecting this information and selling it to data brokers.
@hperrin@lemmy.world
VPN + Tor = incognitopottamus
You think that using a VPN is protecting you from the website you’re connecting to logging that traffic?
No. The website sees the traffic. The only thing they don’t see is your home IP address. That’s not even a useful piece of information for tracking someone. Home IP addresses are usually dynamic.
Websites track you through cookies and etags, and VPNs do not block those. If they did, you wouldn’t be able to log into any websites, and you would always be redownloading JS, CSS, and fonts you’ve already downloaded.
It is logging the traffic. It just prevents it from collecting my personal information in that log and sharing it with all of their data mining buddies.
I don’t even know how to respond to that, other than of course it is…
You assume that I’m not also blocking those things.
Do you not understand the difference between first and third-party cookies?
Nice try fed, won’t narrow me down that easily
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Delete this comment you’re doxxing me bud
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Too late for this joke
Mullvad, it has ipv6 and way better linux support than proton
I used to be a Mullvad customer but switched to Proton because I use all the products on their suite. It makes financial sense to me.
Mullvad, however, has the best VPN experience ever. Faster, more stable and way less Captchas (though I’m not sure that’s good?). Plus, I love their bullshit free pricing. It’s 5 euros a month regardless if you buy 1 month or 2 years. Can’t recommend it enough, even though I’m no longer a customer.
Yep, I switched because I was moving away from the proton ecosystem lol. Their poor google-free android support for mail, and awful linux vpn support (they have a hard dependency on networkmanager, but I don’t use NM, I use iwd) plus no ipv6 pushed me away
Yep, I know exactly what you mean. Lack of ipv6 is mind blowing, to be honest.
No port forwarding though :(
I used to use Mullvad but after they disabled port forwarding I switched over to Proton.
AirVPN has port forwarding
Geph were not mentioned yet. It will likely not solve the problem mentioned by OP, but it is VERY censorship resistant.
Apparently unpopular but I use Mozilla VPN
You’re fine, it’s basically just rebranded Mullvad VPN
But at that point, you can just cut out the middle man and use Mullvad directly, I think their clients are much better and offer more features. They also don’t require your email address and you can pay anonymously with crypto.
Actually, the middle man is why I picked them… I’m just trying to give Mozilla extra revenue streams besides donations from Google.
But it is good to know its at least not a bad option. Their client is decent enough, I have no problems with it, so I’m happy to continue to support them and think of it as a monthly donation
Ok that makes sense, but wtf I just realized that it’s $10/month, Mullvad is 5€ which is $5.38 and they even give you a 10% discount if you pay with crypto
It’s $5/month with an annual subscription, but then you can’t go month to month like Mullvad.
HOW DARE YOU
Wasn’t it just rebadged mullvad?
Yes. I used it too for a year but the clients were bad