VPN recommendations wanted

Discussion in 'privacy technology' started by Uitlander, Feb 5, 2018.

  1. 142395

    142395 Guest

    You mean Iceland? I also have heard that they're so, but not sure about Norway. Switzerland is controversial. On one hand, sure they're said to have strong privacy law so gag order or NSL is impossible. On the other hand, a people voted for more surveillance, and of course they have a treaty with US for data request, and ofc they're not outside of spying .
     
  2. 142395

    142395 Guest

    I have no experience with Nord, but I won't use that program unless at least it's open source.
     
  3. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Yeah, AUS, I should have known ;)
     
  4. Stefan Froberg

    Stefan Froberg Registered Member

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    Yeah, sorry Iceland. I particularly like this story where they jailed 29 real criminals :D

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/stefan-simanowitz/iceland-has-jailed-29-bankers_b_8908536.html

    So they have right attitude and don't bow to money.
    I stumped to this today and Norway seems to be a-okay:
    https://privacypolicies.com/blog/privacy-law-by-country/
     
  5. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Well, Iceland is an island. And in Icelandic, it's called Ísland. So hey ;)
     
  6. The Radius Kid

    The Radius Kid Registered Member

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    The first install of the app'was from the Play Store.
    After the garbage started, I uninstalled and cleaned up the leftovers from Nord's client.
    The second time around was installed directly by download from Nord's website.
    The PC was done both times directly from Nord's websute as well.
    The phone is rooted so when I want something gone, I go dig it out and get rid of it.
    The laptop install was done right after the phone install and that's when it complained about the out of date NVidea drivers.
    Since the "experience utility" was gutted, I'm guessing that's why it complained about out of date video card drivers.
    Why the video card drivers need to even be installed to make the Nord program run right on my PC is beyond me.
    That's the one burning question.
    As to the phone, my apps all run without the Play Store app' running in the background.
    Why Nord's is demanding it, I don't know.
     
  7. roger_m

    roger_m Registered Member

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    @The Radius Kid I still need more detail. If you installed Nord using it's own installer (apk file), how is the Play Store involved?

    What was the exact message you got about updating your video drivers? Even if it suggested you update to more recent drivers, you do not need to use GeForce Experience to do this. So the message has nothing at all to do with you uninstall that, unless it specifically mentioned GeForce Experience.
     
  8. The Radius Kid

    The Radius Kid Registered Member

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    1. You tell me.
    I don't know and Nord wouldn't give me a straight answer.

    2. Why is Nord complaining about updating video card drivers in the first place?
    It shouldn't matter to them.
    It doesn't matter to any other program on my PC.
     
  9. roger_m

    roger_m Registered Member

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    You have not stated how Play Store is involved. So, unless you provide more information, I can't tell you, as I have absolutely no clue what s going on, as you have only given very vague information which tells me nothing.
    I've got know idea and it would help to know the exact message that Nord shows about video card drivers. But even without seeing that, unless Nord will only install or run if you update your video drivers, it is a non issue. If it is not required, you don't have to do it.
     
  10. 142395

    142395 Guest

    Hmm, tho the 1st link is not about privacy law, it seems they have good legal soil. Yup, Norway seems to be OK as long as the personal data protection by companies goes. But what the 2nd link covers is just one aspect of privacy, there're a lot more one have to take into account, you know. This really troubles me as I'm layman about law.
    You showed a tip of your erudition! I hope it won't give a clue to who mirimir is for sby. :D
     
  11. Uitlander

    Uitlander Registered Member

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    Thanks a lot for your tips! Wish I understood more of what you said, but I'm sure my tech guy will. If I'm guessing correctly, you said I can run either OpenVPN or IPsec through the router. I looked into Mikrotik support, and it looks like IPsec is okay, but not sure about "IKEv2 and Diffie–Hellman key exchange"...all I see is this:
    https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:IP/IPsec#Diffie-Hellman_Groups
    https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manu...ior_setup_using_IKEv2_with_RSA_authentication
    If I'm guessing correctly, it appears only L2TP/IPsec is workable. So other than contacting each VPN and directly asking, is there any other way to determine if a VPN "uses IPsec with IKEv2 and Diffie–Hellman key exchange"? I do not recall seeing such details mentioned on any of the VPN sites.
     
  12. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Sorry, I'm no IPSec expert. But I believe that what I wrote is accurate. Hopefully your tech guy knows more. About VPNs, you gotta ask them.

    I'm pretty sure that you'd get an informative answer from IVPN support.
     
  13. kdcdq

    kdcdq Registered Member

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    Many many thanks to mirimir for his excellent short list of recommended VPNs. After trialing three of them, I chose IVPN and could NOT be happier with my choice! Expensive: Yes. Worth it: You BET!!
     
  14. Palancar

    Palancar Registered Member

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    You will be happy with IVPN. They are in my top 3 as well. I can't actually call 1 or 2 or 3 because those three are just ALL good as can be! Believe me I know because there are pages of others that just don't measure up.
     
  15. caspian

    caspian Registered Member

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    I use to use Mullvad. But it kept losing connection and it was slow.
     
  16. caspian

    caspian Registered Member

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    Why does airVPN insist on you using Canada. If you lose connection in one country it always takes you to canada automatically. If I remember correctly, you said that airVPN did not leak unless it lost connection and reconnected. That's terrible because some of those countries drop connection and take you straight to Canada,
     
  17. caspian

    caspian Registered Member

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    What are your other two favorites?
     
  18. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    I don't have a clue. Maybe it's the default in their app. Or maybe their app by default pings all their servers, and uses the one with the lowest latency. You can probably configure that. Me, I just don't use custom VPN client apps.
     
  19. Palancar

    Palancar Registered Member

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    It is very easy to configure Eddie to only use the servers or countries you select from their extensive list. If a break happens Eddie will only re-route to your approved list of servers. YOU decide unless you simply run default settings, but who does that? I only use Linux so if there are any abnormalities with my post due to Windows I acknowledge I have no VPN experience on that platform (thankfully). If properly configured there are no leaks during the transition. I would entertain logs which attempt to show otherwise, but in linux I have never been able to find a "hole" in the client. Still, I backup my rear end by pre-enabling firewall rules on my own too. Enlighten me where I may be wrong if anyone reading along has particulars. I am not going to enable M$ as an OS for any tests, but will run things against Linux.

    Caspian, now you know one of the other ones. LOL!
     
  20. n8chavez

    n8chavez Registered Member

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    Really? That has not been my experience with them at all. With both wireguard and openvpn versions I lose about 1/10 my non-vpn speed when connected to a US server and 2/10 when connected to Europe. I suggest you try Mullvad wireguard. It's awesome!
     
  21. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    I agree. So far I had no problems with MullVad's service. I'm waiting for Windows client of wireguard to be released to test it. I'm reading good feedback about this new protocol :thumb:
     
  22. caspian

    caspian Registered Member

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    Thanks for thr the tip. I was using it as a second vpn on a virtual machine. IVPN aslo disconnected twice. With airVPN the security block makes everything go through the vpn, but when IVPN dropped it just allowed my regular connection open up again. I have no reason why?
     
  23. caspian

    caspian Registered Member

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    I'll have to learn that configuration. I have head that I can boot Linux on my computer, that I can choose which OS to run as my host. That would give me a way to learn Linux ove a period of time. What version of Linux do you use?
     
  24. 142395

    142395 Guest

    Now I have to say I lost trust on RestorePrivacy. I saw a post in a forum that restoreprivacy deletes unfavorable posts. And gotcha, I found my commnents were deleted.

    Fortunately, part of my commnets are saved in WaybackMachine.
    Current site: https://restoreprivacy.com/protonvpn-review/
    WBM: https://web.archive.org/web/20180524124540/https://restoreprivacy.com/protonvpn-review/

    You'll see comments by "Yuki" is not on the current site (pls ignore what I wrote there lol.) Actually I wrote more and it included that PerfectPrivacy's founder is Neo-Nazi, but that was not saved in WBM. Maybe I had to feel weird when they altered what I wrote.

    Also, their push for PP appears for me to be too much. Recently they published ad/tracking block test in which ofc PP wins - too obvious for me, as PP's TrackStop incorporates around 30 public block lists available online (with their own whitelist) accordint to their official statement (Germany forum) and the test was done using some public lists (BTW it also causes some FPs and you can't make an exception). If one really care privacy, he should emphasize domain-level blocking can never alternate ad-blocking addon thanks to e.g. https://contents.com/etc/tracking.js.

    Maybe it's because they're PP believer. Or because of affiliate. Or even may be run by PP employee (not much likely). Also I somewhat feel their knowledge and research is not enough (but mine too, ofc). Not only L2TP/IPSec thing, but they often misinterpret things e.g. they quoted news about a Swedish bill proposal as if it suggests Sweden is not safe - but it actually has no impact on VPN provider and it was just a proposal. Criticism they make on some services or even sites like TOPG often miss the point too.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 15, 2018
  25. kdcdq

    kdcdq Registered Member

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    Here in the U.S., I trialed several VPN solutions and settled on IVPN. It does everything I want it to do, easily, on Windows, Android, and IOS. When it is time to renew, I will do so with no hesitation.
     
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