VPNs

I like ProtonVPN. It's free and it's made by a bunch of people who work with Swiss banks and CERN, so that sounds really professional to me.
 
  • Thunk-Provoking
Reactions: WolfeTone
Is there any VPN that doesn't require fucking systemd to run it's gui?
 
Last edited:
Basil II said:
Is there any VPN that doesn't require fucking systemd to run it's gui?
Click to expand...
I tend to just use the openvpn command line tool, with .ovpn connection files from my provider modified to take creds from a file. There is a OpenVPN plugin for networkmanager from memory, though that would make it harder to do a randomized connection to one of a bunch of .ovpn files, if you wanted to spread out your connections more rather than just having 10-20 or so to pick from.
 
I keep seeing a lot of recommendations for ExpressVPN, is it paid shilling or actually solid?
 
ProfDongs said:
I keep seeing a lot of recommendations for ExpressVPN, is it paid shilling or actually solid?
Click to expand...
The only relatively major VPN providers I'm aware of that at least claim they don't pay for shilling are Mullvad and WindScribe.

Whether ExpressVPN, or any other VPN provider, is solid or not is a separate question from whether you're being shilled something. I believe they have a particularly profitable referral program.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: ProfDongs
I use NordVPN on my PC and haven't had any issues. Can even torrent movies at decent speed. For mobile, I've used DNS 66 for years, you can get it via F-Droid. Never get any ads on the few mobile games I play, and it scrambles your location unless you have GPS activated on your phone.
 
Just shelled out the money for ProtonVPN against my better judgement. Gotta say, I'm hardly noticing a difference between it and NordVPN in terms of speed. Secure Core is interesting, but it's too slow to be genuinely usable. Well... I shouldn't say "too slow," but the latency on it is fucking abysmal. I can live with a ping of <100ms, but anything more than that is fucking stupid.
 
IbnTaymiyyah said:
Just shelled out the money for ProtonVPN against my better judgement. Gotta say, I'm hardly noticing a difference between it and NordVPN in terms of speed. Secure Core is interesting, but it's too slow to be genuinely usable. Well... I shouldn't say "too slow," but the latency on it is fucking abysmal. I can live with a ping of <100ms, but anything more than that is fucking stupid.
Click to expand...
Has anything been written about how secure they actually are? Now that they are launching a cloud service I am seriously considering shelling out $200 for the black friday deal where you get the two years of their premium mail service, VPN and cloud service and gradually moving away from the Google ecosystem.
 
IbnTaymiyyah said:
Just shelled out the money for ProtonVPN against my better judgement. Gotta say, I'm hardly noticing a difference between it and NordVPN in terms of speed. Secure Core is interesting, but it's too slow to be genuinely usable. Well... I shouldn't say "too slow," but the latency on it is fucking abysmal. I can live with a ping of <100ms, but anything more than that is fucking stupid.
Click to expand...
Proton may have inadvertently screwed themselves by just having their free service be so good you don't feel a need to actually pay for it. I'm also just always worried to pay for a VPN because the cheapest (nearly free) way is to buy a year in advance. And then you do that and they immediately sell out to some sketchy Israeli malware company.
 
  • Feels
  • Agree
Reactions: NoSpiceLife, Agent Abe Caprine, IbnTaymiyyah and 1 other person
Never Scored said:
Has anything been written about how secure they actually are? Now that they are launching a cloud service I am seriously considering shelling out $200 for the black friday deal where you get the two years of their premium mail service, VPN and cloud service and gradually moving away from the Google ecosystem.
Click to expand...

A lot of this is gonna be recalled from memory, so forgive me for the lack of links proving what I say is true. With that in mind, ProtonVPN ultimately has my trust for the following reasons:
  • ProtonVPN is far more transparent about their practices than NordVPN could ever be. Their apps are open-source, they post frequent updates on their blog, and best of all? They don't have hundreds of thousands of YouTubers advertising their service.

  • ProtonVPN firmly exists in Switzerland, which is always a net positive. I never trusted NordVPN's ownership situation because it exists in this weird limbo where it's Panama but also something else. While it is true that the Swiss government cooperates with 14-eyes countries, they're under no obligation from Swiss law to maintain logs. What's more is that Swiss law already has precedent for privacy, if I'm not mistaken. Technically, countries like Denmark are better on paper for a VPN company to base their operations out of but it comes at a cost - lack of precedent. Proton AG justifies their choice of Switzerland because if they were based out of Denmark, the Danish court system would be overrun with legal issues that they have no precedent for.

  • I haven't looked at the source code for the VPN app itself, but I do recall reading somewhere that ProtonVPN anonymises everything to the point where they have nothing to turn over even if they received a Swiss court order. I think the VPN client only saves the last time you logged in by design, but someone who's savvier in code can speak more about that than I ever can.
I sprang for the Black Friday deal, because that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I still have a year left on Nord, but I'm far too interested in Proton at this point in time to pass it up.
 
  • Informative
  • Like
Reactions: Falcos_Commisar, skeng, Dick Justice and 6 others
WARNING: as appears to be the case with all previously good VPNs, ProtonVPN has now gone rogue and is blacklisting IP addresses. That's why it hasn't been working for the .net address for several days. Specifically, they have taken it on themselves to declare crypto mining pools "malicious" and block them, even though they aren't. We're probably caught up there for falsely being included in one of these blacklists years ago.

1607717790571.png


From plebbit:
 
  • Informative
  • Thunk-Provoking
Reactions: Fomo Hoire, user176, The Demon Pimp of Razgriz and 6 others
while still incredibly shitty and unprofessional, they tried to clear this up saying that the blocking will be 'configurable'.

1607722387362.png


Might be possible to clarify to them that this site was blocked by mistake (don't even tell them about the .is domain), but who knows. Remember this is the same country where making gay jokes is literally illegal.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ditto
Rusty Crab said:
while still incredibly shitty and unprofessional, they tried to clear this up saying that the blocking will be 'configurable'.

View attachment 1782461

Might be possible to clarify to them that this site was blocked by mistake (don't even tell them about the .is domain), but who knows. Remember this is the same country where making gay jokes is literally illegal.
Click to expand...
Hasn't happened yet.
Code: 
$ nslookup kiwifarms.net
Server:		10.1.0.1
Address:	10.1.0.1#53

** server can't find kiwifarms.net: NXDOMAIN
 
  • Informative
Reactions: ditto
AnOminous said:
Hasn't happened yet.
Code: 
$ nslookup kiwifarms.net
Server:        10.1.0.1
Address:    10.1.0.1#53

** server can't find kiwifarms.net: NXDOMAIN
Click to expand...

It seems to have been fixed because I’ve been trying out a few VPNs to test speeds and features for my home servers and Proton has been connection to the farms without issue. They’re some of the better speeds I’ve tried but I’m still not entirely sold, but if you’re just looking for a good VPN to pirate shit you can’t do much better for the cost imo
 
I have some connection issues with proton, I constantly get blocked from random websites until I switch to another server. I'm not sure if it's a connection problem or the webhost is blocking them. Its interrmittent.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back