a good vpn recommendation as of september 2013?

I agree with both you and ComputerSaysNo. In a way, we can't really help each other unless we keep exploring. In particular, we've settled on about six VPNs. But there are probably tenfold more VPNs that I've never tried, and more every day (or week, anyway). I wouldn't use a new VPN, unless maybe I snagged a "lifetime account" such as LiquidVPN offered initially. The problem is that even I don't need more than six good VPN services, so I've been lazy about testing new ones. But I'd been thinking about the possibility of using VBoxManage to automate changes in nested VPN chains. LiquidVPN's new "Modulating IPs" option reminded me. It might be possible to implement "modulating VPN chains". That would be cool, even more Tor-like

 

Here's my query, and their response:

 

Thanks for the information. It would also be interesting to know if its Northern or Southern Ireland they are based. Northern Ireland is more under the pressure and control of UK laws, where as Southern Ireland is much less.

 

I am a complete newbie to using a VPN and basically did not know anything about them. i just very recently signed up with IPvanish and i have been pretty impressed so far (tho it has only been days).
Easy setup as they have software that does everything, but more importantly is the speed and no loss of connection.
i use cable internet and using l2tp as my connection type, I have not really noticed any slow down at all when downloading anything.
It could just be my imagination, but if I am downloading a torrent, it does seem like it takes it just a tad longer to connect to the peers, but i am talking maybe a couple of seconds. Once connected tho, I can't tell the difference between using the VPn and not using it.
Again, it has only been a few days, but I have not lost a connection yet. just to check it out, except for when i was setting up my email etc, i have left it connected since signing up and i have not lost a connection yet.
The one not good thing was being really ignorant , i did contact customer service about something and i have yet to hear back from them - 2 days later.
But as far as speed and loss of connection, I am very happy and pleasantly surprised because I thought I would lose some speed, but as mentioned, besides having a different ip, as far as speed goes i can't tell the difference 9I have not done a speed test, but it sure seems good to me)

 

If your on LT2P its quite likely your DNS is leaking. I would check at (https://www.grc.com/dns/) if you see any DNS servers that are your ISP servers then you have a problem.

*Side Note*

I have been looking for a script like the one for OpenVPN that DNSleaktest.net provides that works with L2TP. I have not found anything outside of programs or firewall rules. I would very much like if there was a script somewhere anyone knows about?

 

@mirimir
Well there we go. An official response. I'm more assured now. I can now gladly recommend SecurityKiss to my friends and anyone.

 

SecurityKISS is based in Dublin, Republic of Ireland.

 

One more question to ask a potential VPN provider (in addition to the 4 questions that Torrent Freak asked for its 2013 list of VPN providers) is:

Do you support perfect forward secrecy?

-- Tom

 

I'm sorry if I come across like that. I don't mean to, it's just that giving advice is a two edged sword. Sometimes it can help sometimes it can hurt.

If you want my real opinion, use ALL of them. Not just one VPN but 4 or 5 VPN's. There at least 4 mentioned here that I use, I switch between them regulary and I hope that ensures my anonimity.

 

Avoid:
Mullvad (insecure)
EarthVPN (insecure)
proxy.sh (monitors)
LiquidVPN

I personally use iPredator. I have also reason to believe AirVPN and even Private Internet Access are good. All three of these VPN are run by activist.

 

Why Mullvad is insecure?

 

Type "mullvad openvpn" on Google. A hacker can now replace the UID with any brute force or guess.

 

So they can brute force your user ID? I guess that is for sure a simple task, but who cares? they can't get your personal info, the best they can do is get a free VPN use off your account.

 

Yes.

In particular, multiple logins with the same user credentials aren't connected with each other to allow traffic. That's an option for openvpn configuration, but no VPN service would ever enable client-client connectivity.

 

I'd rather not trust my security and privacy to a company who can't even pay that much attention to details.

edit: Have you tried iPredator? It's a much better overall experience than Mullvad.

 

I have, its slow and after messaging them a year and a bit ago they gave me some weird answers to my questions. I can't remember what it was but it made me shelf them and not think about them since that point.

 

After using AirVPN for the last few months I'm using Mullvad since a few weeks. Although it works better than before, it still has the same issues as always, evey X minutes the connection is unbearably slow, SSH is hanging, websites take forever to load. Like the servers are overcrowded at some times. Besides that, it works pretty well, but I'm still prefering AirVPN.

 

It's my impression that pretty much all VPN services are maxed out with new customers, struggling to add infrastructure, and so on. I've seen articles about some growing exponentially at times.

 

I don't think Air is even close. If I bring up the Air client during login I can see the server loads allowing me to select which of the 40 + servers I want to use. There is a whole bunch of bandwidth still available on the Air network. Even when I select a server showing 100% load I still just about always pull 4-5 meg through the pipe. Obviously that is not super fast like when I select a server at 50% or so. The thing is that you can see how many folks are on the server (status tab) even if you are not a member. When you need to blend in (remember the exit node is on any VPN server) the more folks the better. I frequently will sacrifice just a bit of speed to know there are over a 100 members on the same server. That is how all this works.

 

Just want to chime in and recommend Mullvad here. It seems that it has as good a privacy policy as is available (like boleh, air, maybe private internet access--this has been covered ad nauseum in a million threads on wilders), and with cash payment and bitcoin available, if you're so inclined.

But mostly it stands out for the software. It just works, including auto-shutdown of the internet connect if the vpn connect fails. In addition, it blocks DNS leaks with a simple checkbox option in the client. Neither of these critical features has ever failed in my 8 months of use.

To me, advising a user to setup firewall rules to block dns leaks is a significant step down from a user-friendliness point of view. I know many of us are more technically savvy than most (myself included), but I'm not looking for extra work---I just want to use my VPN. This feature should be rolled into the client, and it should work. I'm very satisfied with mullvad, including speeds which depending on the server range from 12Mbps to 50Mbps (my connection's max).

 

Testing Boleh right now. Honestly, I do not see any difference with Air.
They both perform well.

 

BolehVPN/Mullvad are the best in my own opinion. I use both.

 

hey there talis.
how would you rate boleh in below departments (for us/uk servers only):
number of servers,
average connection speed & consistency,
ping time & connection drop frequency,
number of ip's,
cleanliness of ip's (whether blacklisted or not on mainstream websites such as hulu, netflix, etc. AND on google search (you know, free from "too much queries warning"),
surf & stream speed on us/uk servers (for s-hd content streaming),

is it possible to view server loads and ping times as in hidemyass/airvpn client software?

AND any other vpn service provider you'd recommend MAINLY FOR us-uk s-hd content streaming (tv, hulu, netflix, etc), so privacy and logging not that important.

what is your opinion of ipvanish, expressvpn, vyprvpn for US/UK s-hd content streaming only?

last but not least, i read on another thread you recommend to absolutely stay away from airvipn because of dns leak issues, constant & SECRET connection drops.
if you compare boleh w/ airvpn, would those cons matter if the main purpose will be us/uk s-hd content streaming?

thanks in adv.

 

BolehVPN have (1) day trial accounts now, so you should think about picking up one and trying it out for yourself. I looked at your list and to keep it simple and short, you should have no problem with BolehVPN regarding your questions. AirVPN/BolehVPN are about the same speed if not the same, only difference is BolehVPN has less servers, which does not matter because they most likely from my testing have better server hardware then AirVPN's servers. If you want to stream HD content from the UK/US servers like Iplayer/Hulu you will have no problem with either AirVPN or BolehVPN, but due to my other problems with AirVPN and all the benefits of BolehVPN there would be no reason for me to recommend AirVPN over BolehVPN.

Get a (1) day trial account and test it out, its very simple software.

*Edit* BolehVPN has a ping test built into the software UI.

 

I use SecurityKiss and highly recommend it.