Suggestions for a good VPN provider?

[the_wind]

First of all, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who contribute to FST with guides and useful advices on various topics! Thank you all for your time and dedication!


Now, here is my story. In the last couple of weeks I've been trying to play with various VPN providers to get a sense of which one is the best for me. Here is a list of requirements that I have for picking a VPN provider:

1. Support for OpenVPN
   Since all my home computers/devices run Linux, I cannot (and will not!) use proprietary VPN software that some providers only create for Windows. PPTP + L2TP/IPsec could be an alternative, but I've seen some articles saying that PPTP will leak some traffic back to your ISP (e.g. DNS requests). I can't comment on these allegations and to save time digging deeper, I'm just going to stick with OpenVPN.
2. VPN servers located in various countries
   This would give me more alternatives to pick the right location for my needs whether it be speed or local privacy laws. One of the examples would be an exclusion of popular provider Ipredator from my list since its headquarters and servers are located in Sweden that is known for weak privacy laws.
3. Be reasonable with prices
   For quality and connection stability I'm only considering paid providers that charge less than you can find a crappy seedbox for.
4. Assign a dynamic dedicated IP address for every VPN tunnel
   Shared IPs have many disadvantages. One of them is not being able to reliably use fixed ports in the P2P client and in the firewall.

After looking around at different VPN providers and trying to get them work, I'm currently test-driving HideMyAss VPN. They seem to provide a good service along with Linux support and active user forums. The speed quality is okay since I have nothing to compare it to but with my throughput when not using the VPN. The uTorrent speed graph is like stock market charts in the current economy. The best down rate I've seen was 1.2MB/s (~10Mb with server in Canada), but averages somewhere between 800-900 KB/s and sometimes drops to 10KB/s and then goes back to the average. On the upstream side, I haven't had any torrents to run a good test on, but the best rate I've seen was 600KB/s. My ISP connection can handle much more than that.

Since I still have time before my trial with HMA runs out, I was wondering if anyone can share their experiences with VPN providers that they currently use and maybe I'll be able to find a better alternative. Please only reply if you still use the VPN since many providers that people have used a couple of years ago are dead now but their web-sites still advertise the service.

I understand that my home location and the VPN server location is a big factor in what throughput I can achieve over VPN, but having different alternatives is still a good idea.

For those of you that used VPN extensively in the past, but switched to something else to download torrents, please share your ideas too.

UPDATE:
Right after I submitted my post, I had a chance to try a "typical" for me torrent. The graph is attached below. It shows hiccups in up- and down-streams pretty good. Is it normal? Have you seen a provider with better speeds?
vpn_traffic.jpg

[vBooM]

These guys are solid, used them for 6 months.

[zot]

Nice review.

I thought I'd add that some providers that use a shared IP address will let you forward ports (just like a router) so you can use P2P without being 'firewalled'. With port forwarding, there's really no reason why a shared IP address cannot be used in most situations.

I prefer the old fashioned method of setting up socks/http proxy servers for each software application. Although a VPN is a much less labor-intensive setup, there are problems that socks proxies don't have. If I'm using a VPN to download on eMule and want to watch a streaming video without skipping, or post on Wikipedia (which bans many proxy/VPN IP addresses), I've got to shut down eMule (and lose my queue position) and disconnect the VPN each time. Proxies can be tied (or not) to each individual software client, letting me use multiple IP addresses simultaneously.

Also, proxies - by default- will *safely* disable the connection if the server fails or disconnects. In contrast, VPNs -by default- will generally expose your naked connection and real IP address.

I mostly use Usenet, but sometimes torrent, and having a VPN proxy for countries that only allow domestic access (like watching the Olympic games on BBC) would be a nice feature. But I don't want to pay $10-$20 a month for something I rarely use, and the cheaper providers ($5-$8/month) can be sorely lacking when needed. As with Usenet, block accounts (purchased gigabytes of service that never expire) would be ideal for me, but are rarely offered, and quite expensive at the very few companies I know of that sell them.

I hope that some day most of the VPN providers will sell block accounts just like usenet providers do today. Currently, usenet blocks sell for about $0.10/GB but VPN blocks sell for over $1.00/GB. There is no logical reason for this enormous 10:1 price disparity - especially since a VPN provider does not need to run a server farm with a dozen petabytes of hard drive storage.

To me, the VPN service industry today seems like the usenet industry was several years ago, before block accounts became widespread, and just about every company catered to the heavy, consistent user -- while ignoring the needs of the occasional, sporadic user. Hopefully that situation will change.

[anon]

I thought I'd add that some providers that use a shared IP address will let you forward ports (just like a router) so you can use P2P without being 'firewalled'. With port forwarding, there's really no reason why a shared IP address cannot be used in most situations.

When you have the same "visible" IP as many other users on the same service, you may run into trouble, for example in private trackers - they may think you're a dupe account.

Also, proxies - by default- will *safely* disable the connection if the server fails or disconnects. In contrast, VPNs -by default- will generally expose your naked connection and real IP address.

You can destroy the routing table entries for your connection, and add a single one that will only allow you to connect to the VPN server. This way your computer can only do that when the connection breaks, and you don't leak your real address. There's a tutorial about that on CheckMyTorrentIP.com.

[the_wind]

Also, proxies - by default- will *safely* disable the connection if the server fails or disconnects. In contrast, VPNs -by default- will generally expose your naked connection and real IP address.

I've decided to use a minimalistic approach for now by having a dedicated machine (a VM actually) on my network that is forbidden on the router to access internet on any protocols except for tcp/udp on port 443 (this is the port that HideMyAss uses for client connections, I guess other VPN providers would also use a fixed port). I could also restrict access to the set of provider's IPs, but that would only matter if my VPN connection goes down.

I hope that some day most of the VPN providers will sell block accounts just like usenet providers do today. Currently, usenet blocks sell for about $0.10/GB but VPN blocks sell for over $1.00/GB. There is no logical reason for this enormous 10:1 price disparity - especially since a VPN provider does not need to run a server farm with a dozen petabytes of hard drive storage.

To me, the VPN service industry today seems like the usenet industry was several years ago, before block accounts became widespread, and just about every company catered to the heavy, consistent user -- while ignoring the needs of the occasional, sporadic user. Hopefully that situation will change.

I think, offering block accounts for VPN would be cost-prohibitive for the provider since they would have to measure your up and down traffic (for usenet it's only down stream that counts) and they would have to synchronize that information among all VPN servers that they maintain in order to enforce the quota on your account. Even if they find a customer that buys a block of VPN traffic, it is highly likely that his/her usage will be lower than the monthly cost of unmetered bandwidth which requires less development and maintenance on their side.

[A]

Isn't it better buying a "slot" from a service like http://feralhosting.com and using it for your purposes?

[zot]

I hope that some day most of the VPN providers will sell block accounts just like usenet providers do today. Currently, usenet blocks sell for about $0.10/GB but VPN blocks sell for over $1.00/GB. There is no logical reason for this enormous 10:1 price disparity - especially since a VPN provider does not need to run a server farm with a dozen petabytes of hard drive storage.

To me, the VPN service industry today seems like the usenet industry was several years ago, before block accounts became widespread, and just about every company catered to the heavy, consistent user -- while ignoring the needs of the occasional, sporadic user. Hopefully that situation will change.

I think, offering block accounts for VPN would be cost-prohibitive for the provider since they would have to measure your up and down traffic (for usenet it's only down stream that counts) and they would have to synchronize that information among all VPN servers that they maintain in order to enforce the quota on your account. Even if they find a customer that buys a block of VPN traffic, it is highly likely that his/her usage will be lower than the monthly cost of unmetered bandwidth which requires less development and maintenance on their side.

I don't understand your logic at all.

I agree that (per byte downloaded) a VPN will expend 2x the bandwidth of a usenet provider. But does a VPN's 2x bandwidth premium justify a block account price (per byte downloaded) of 10X the price of a usenet block account? Considering that usenet providers must pass on the cost to customers of carrying multi-petabytes of storage (for handling those 1000+ days of retention) -- while VPN providers have essentially zero storage costs -- a VPN block account probably should be cheaper in my opinion.

In fact, unlimited VPN accounts can be found that are half the price of unlimited (1000 day retention) unlimited usenet accounts -- while conversely, VPN block accounts are 10x the cost per byte of usenet blocks. I can't see any rational reason for this mind-numbing contradiction.

[ca_aok]

Isn't it better buying a "slot" from a service like http://feralhosting.com and using it for your purposes?

This, imo. Get a cheap VPS/seedbox slice, you likely wouldn't need a 100Mbps stream unless your home connection is FiOS or something. Install OpenVPN, done. It might be a bit more costly/month but it's more flexible (you could do other things with the box, webhosting, torrenting, etc). I can't imaging it'd be that expensive though since the biggest price jumps on server specs seem to be hard disk space and speed, neither of which would be super relevant in this case.

I'm not saying OVH is awesome by any means, but they have a cheap VPS for 5 pounds/month that would be fine for this sort of thing (it's even 100Mbps from the looks of it). I'm sure other hosts have similar packages.

[the_wind]

I don't understand your logic at all.

It wasn't logical at all. I was just trying to speculate why it would not make sense for VPN providers to offer blocks of service. I actually have never seen a VPN block offering at all. Who is the provider that offers it for $1/GB?

This, imo. Get a cheap VPS/seedbox slice, you likely wouldn't need a 100Mbps stream unless your home connection is FiOS or something. Install OpenVPN, done. It might be a bit more costly/month but it's more flexible (you could do other things with the box, webhosting, torrenting, etc). I can't imaging it'd be that expensive though since the biggest price jumps on server specs seem to be hard disk space and speed, neither of which would be super relevant in this case.

I'm not saying OVH is awesome by any means, but they have a cheap VPS for 5 pounds/month that would be fine for this sort of thing (it's even 100Mbps from the looks of it). I'm sure other hosts have similar packages.

Wow! This is a pretty interesting setup that I have not considered yet. If I get a Linux VPS and install OpenVPN and then mount my home storage over NFS with FS-Cache this would untie my hands from storage limitations and would probably give me better speed for torrenting than I get at home (I mean without the VPN).
The only worrisome aspect of OVH's package for £5/mo is its very limited CPU speed. I could not find the details on what exactly 0.5GHz means in their package. Is it comparable to Pentium4 or i7 processors? It's hard to estimate without actually trying one of their packages. Too bad they charge £30 just for the initial setup, so it would be too expensive to try it for a month.

While I still have some time left in the HMA's tryout package, I'm still researching on different options and so far nothing comes close to the price and flexibility of VPN. Anybody can suggest a good alternative that will be close to $6.55/mo that I'm paying right now?

[vBooM]

Hide my ass is consistent, no downtime, easy, i mean 7 pounds a month cmon, huge list of ips, if your trying to watch a video which is us only for example, you switch ip to usa then you can watch, etc etc, you couldent do this with a NL vps lolz, and also the ip binding is great, you only can use programs you select which your ip is encrytion is enabled and all that, which is great for irc etc. Saves all the znc rubbish.