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Has anyone ever noticed that within the last few years VPNs have become more mainstream now?
Nord VPN especially is one of the most shilled for VPNs on YouTube which is a very shitty VPN.
Compared to like 5 to 10 years ago when VPNs were still mostly used by computer nerds like us VPNs have absolutely become a lot more mainstream now in recent years from what I've seen.
So i have to ask what exactly happened? and who is to blame for this?
The average person uses a VPN for two purposes:
- Consuming geo-restricted material, e.g. American Netflix, BBC iPlayer
- Downloading torrents without getting prison-raped
Commercial VPN services provide a means to those ends that works well enough, have a large base of potential customers, and the barriers to entry are low (you could run one right in your home computer), to the point the market is oversaturated. That's it in a nutshell.
As for "computer nerds" who used them "5 to 10 years ago", I was hacking my own SecureIX premium accounts back on 2007, do I win Internet? :stuart:
There are three main causes for this:
1. Govt Regulations
2. Trade War
3. Covid19
The growth in online business & internet users saw an upsurge in the last decade specifically during the pandemic. Earlier only "computer nerds" had to find a way to access the restricted or regulated contents. Now almost everyone has to something out of their reach.
Moreover evey national is trying to reduce the data flow (user info) & trade deficit (money flowing out to other countries via online). Like, US & China, India & China restrict certain app/sites. Whereas countries like UAE, North Korea has their own regulations.
Above all restrictions over porn sites. I found from a reliable source that approx 70% of the content in internet is errotic.
On top of it, covid19 pandemic limits our out door activities. So enjoy via VPN.
The other 30% is VPNs that unblock porn sites!Quote:
Originally Posted by Prolife
Seriously, though, 70% seems like a stretch... but it's all about how you define "content" and "erotic" and do your sampling, I guess.
why is nord bad?
The answers may be aggressive marketing, no support for port forwarding (despite having P2P-exclusive servers), and the fact one of their private keys got breached once. Reviews generally agree that the service is good, though, and also among the fastest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by koolyt
I cannot trust it and its garbage simply because YouTubers shill for it way too often and that's annoying. :dry:
I'm using Hola VPN but it's not free. Are there any free VPNs as good as that?
Hmmm. Any relation to the Hola plug-in for Firefox et al.? Because that one was gathering and selling your data, from what I heard.
Hola is owned by a company called Bright (formerly Luminati) which sells private proxies. When you use it, your computer joins that network and others become able to route traffic through it, which potentially includes illegal content like kiddy porn and hacking attacks that then become traceable to your IP. It's the same dilemma Tor exit node operators face, except there was zero transparency regarding this behavior (which has since changed), hence the controversy.
Anyway, the only free ones I can recommend are ProtonVPN and Cryptofree. The former is fairly generous, but as usual, don't expect premium-tier service for $0.
ProtonVPN is good because it's operated from Switzerland so it doesn't collect or give out data, plus it's unlimited. The downside is that without the premium you are going to encounter slowdowns . Been thinking about trying Bitdefender VPN as it's relatively dirt cheap, you don't need to sign up for a long term plan and it's torrent friendly.
A little tip... whenever they advertise "P2P support", make sure that actually means port forwarding... because it often doesn't :wacko:Quote:
Originally Posted by IdolEyes787
What about me possibly suggests to you that unless it involves either alcohol or ships that I know anything about ports, poindexter?
Well, Meg said something about you having a boy in every port... :unsure:
You're pretty funny for a Sandinista.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFV1uT-ihDo
I wanted to be with theMariosContras :(
If you live where governments monitoring their citizens who can't have free will to express their opinions or do internet censorship or companies making lawsuits because copyrights infringement like pirating. VPN could save a lot regarding privacy and other things like security and money.
For those cases, I'd recommend Tor instead... it provides anonymity by design (as opposed to by policy) and its usage can be concealed via pluggable transports.Quote:
Originally Posted by incognito
True that, If someone uses tor he/she shouldn't use google's sites. And yes, he/she can use tor for everyday use, it is slower than any "normal" browser.Quote:
Originally Posted by anonFor those cases, I'd recommend Tor instead... it provides anonymity by design (as opposed to by policy) and its usage can be concealed via pluggable transports.Quote:
Originally Posted by incognito
Don't worry, the multiple captchas and blocks will prevent you from doing that in the first place. Same goes for a lot of stuff that's behind Cloudflare :wacko:Quote:
Originally Posted by incognito
I've had slow Internet service for a large chunk of my life, so I'm used to that. But for others, it will be a deal breaker. Also, good look trying to stream video better than 360p. Nonetheless, when it comes to online anonymity, Tor and knowing how to use it are as good as it gets.Quote:
And yes, he/she can use tor for everyday use, it is slower than any "normal" browser.
I think a time will come when the anti-piracy thugs will come after VPN services and pressure them to throttle sites that promote illegal activity like torrent sites etc.
Most of them are incorporated on carefully-chosen jurisdictions precisely to avoid that sort of situation. At most, the less pirate-friendly countries can put pressure on individual servers within their territory (and it's happened), which usually results in the VPN service packing up and leaving, perhaps offering a virtual location as a replacement. Or at least, that's how it is for now ;)
TweakNews comes with a VPN as part of the package. Anybody have any thoughts as if it is any good?
Reviews agree they're generally doing things right, but there are a few caveats: relatively small selection of servers compared to the big players, no anonymous payments, no Wireguard support and no mention of port forwarding. The facts you're getting it as a bonus for purchasing a different service and until recently that was the only way to gain access at all, make it understandable that they'd have to cut some corners. But for casual usage it looks fine.
My complaint with their VPN is that it's not a stable connection. Every so often you lose connectivity and it resets.
Not a big deal if you are grabbing stuff from usenet, but it really pisses me off when I am downloading some 2GB files from a one-click host and it kills the download at 99%.
Awful scenario indeed, but as a downloader there's little reason to use VPNs on file hosts besides bypassing IP-based traffic limits? And personally, I'm rarely in a rush anyway...
I've been using Privado VPN; it came with my Newshosting sub (unlimited on VPN and News for $40/year). It maxes out around 30mb/s depending on the endpoint (US is fast, elsewhere not so much). P2P isn't so good; port-forwarding doesn't seem to work.
I purchased a lifetime one from slickdeals a while back but never used it, and now AT&T offers a free one if you have their unlimited plan. I have yet to try it on the desktop and typically just use it on the iphone
Few services offer that. In most cases, when they claim to support P2P traffic, it merely means they don't disallow it.Quote:
Originally Posted by stargazindreamr
How does that work exactly? Who supplies the actual VPN service?Quote:
Originally Posted by jojobrown911
I get a free one with my newsgroup provider, but its slow as molasses.
Can anyone recommend a fast VPN with minimum 1GB speed?
Of the names that usually find their way to "top fastest VPNs" lists, Mullvad and Nord are the most reputable, but I don't think any of them is able to offer gigabit or even near-gigabit speeds for a single user. If this is a dealbreaker, consider renting a dedicated server in the location of your choice and setting it up yourself (there are scripts to easily automate it).
Thanks anon i will check out those, and maybe read into how to setup own vpn if its easy i try it or else it will be a sub. vpn.Quote:
Originally Posted by anon
https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand - was very good, but is no longer supported.
https://github.com/trailofbits/algo - actively maintained, but only has WireGuard and IPsec.
Is PIA VPN still crap?
Like Express and CyberGhost, they were bought by Kape, which is a very untrustworthy company to put it mildly. Beware of any VPN review and ranking sites that has them among their top picks - Kape also owns several of those.
VPNs have been around since 1996. First crafted to protect the data transmissions of remote workers, they have been used widely in the developing world as censorship efforts like China’s Great Firewall have taken off.
Very nice
I use IPVanish and I really like it.
I use IPVanish as well, but it lacks Port Forwarding feature. I have heard good things about MullVad but have'nt tried.
Surfshark also good, i use it daily and almost every time, feel safe browsing with vpn turn on.