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Serious question, do people consider a cloud provider to be more trustworthy than a professional VPN company?

wetpaws 8y ago
It depends on a cloud provider
mirimir 8y ago
It depends. Some VPN services will go out of their way to protect users' privacy. Because it's a moral issue for them. Or because they value their reputation. Others will sell you out, to avoid penalties and costs. And the same is true for cloud providers.
filmgirlcw 8y ago
Perhaps? If you’re using a VPN to protect your internet traffic from being sold to ad companies, probably. The VPN industry has become a racket full of affiliate schemes that push people towards plans and services that don’t necessarily act in the user’s best interest. Figuring out the food from the bad can be difficult. And I’ve seen some services that when audited use outdated or insecure stacks. Of course, if you’re using a VPN to try to protect your browsing activity from authorities, obviously a major cloud provider may be more willing to turn your info over to someone else.
- mirimir 8y ago
  I've been using VPN services for over a decade. In my opinion, the most privacy friendly are AirVPN, Insorg, IVPN, Mullvad, Private Internet Access and Riseup. To my knowledge, HideMyAss, EarthVPN, IPVanish, PureVPN and WANSecurity have violated their users' privacy. For the most part, by sharing logs with investigators. Prudent providers make damn sure not to have any logs that could be seized.
  - Alexa_Anthony 8y ago
    Well, I will not advocate for any big brand here but it is also true that hidemyass, IPvanish, Purevpn has more than 50% total share of VPN users and indeed its true that new VPN services especially Private Internet Access is going great. I recently read some review of them at Bestvpn.co.
- auslander 8y ago
  > Figuring out the food from the bad can be difficult Lol. Funny, good VPNs are like good fishing spots, the ones who know the difference tend not to share their favourites, keeping it for themselves :)
sitepodmatt 8y ago
Serious question, are there any professional VPN companies? Dont most VPN companies depend on cloud providers for many locations too. Most VPN companies have had serious screw ups in the past. PureVPN - disable all encryption by default for performance on their Windows client - for example. StrongVPN I recall logging. Other popular ones recur billing at top whack after a year and refusing refund. Overloaded servers, port blocking and so on.
techsupporter 8y ago
Trustworthy? I could go either way, depending on particular scenario. Usable? Infinitely. I've noticed quite a few web sites and services putting obnoxious blocks or filters or other impediments against users coming from "widely-known" VPN and VPS provider IP addresses. But few seem to bother with Microsoft or Amazon IPs. So for something that has the purpose of either getting me out from behind a restrictive network or wrapping my traffic on an insecure network, a VPN to an Azure- or EC2-provisioned virtual machine works just fine.
- blacksmith_tb 8y ago
  I have a Streisand [1] server on a Digital Ocean droplet, and I do run into the occasional Cloudflare: blocked or extra-aggressive captcha when I am routed through it. 1: https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand
LeoPanthera 8y ago
It depends what you want. If you're trying to obtain some degree of anonymity, then a personal VPN server is obviously much worse, since you'll be a using a dedicated IP address just for you, instead of sharing a public one. But if you just want to secure your data from an untrustworthy local network, it's a reasonable choice. You're less likely to be flagged as connecting from a "bad" IP.
- mirimir 8y ago
  You can have both. Mirimir reaches the Internet using a nested chain of three VPN services. The last being IVPN, given that I work for them. But then I use private VPNs on VPS when I need to pretend that I'm not using a VPN.
auslander 8y ago
a professional VPN company is probably using some cloud provider themselves.

It depends on a cloud provider

It depends. Some VPN services will go out of their way to protect users' privacy. Because it's a moral issue for them. Or because they value their reputation. Others will sell you out, to avoid penalties and costs. And the same is true for cloud providers.

filmgirlcw 8y ago

Perhaps? If you’re using a VPN to protect your internet traffic from being sold to ad companies, probably. The VPN industry has become a racket full of affiliate schemes that push people towards plans and services that don’t necessarily act in the user’s best interest. Figuring out the food from the bad can be difficult. And I’ve seen some services that when audited use outdated or insecure stacks. Of course, if you’re using a VPN to try to protect your browsing activity from authorities, obviously a major cloud provider may be more willing to turn your info over to someone else.

mirimir 8y ago
I've been using VPN services for over a decade. In my opinion, the most privacy friendly are AirVPN, Insorg, IVPN, Mullvad, Private Internet Access and Riseup. To my knowledge, HideMyAss, EarthVPN, IPVanish, PureVPN and WANSecurity have violated their users' privacy. For the most part, by sharing logs with investigators. Prudent providers make damn sure not to have any logs that could be seized.
- Alexa_Anthony 8y ago
  Well, I will not advocate for any big brand here but it is also true that hidemyass, IPvanish, Purevpn has more than 50% total share of VPN users and indeed its true that new VPN services especially Private Internet Access is going great. I recently read some review of them at Bestvpn.co.
auslander 8y ago
> Figuring out the food from the bad can be difficult Lol. Funny, good VPNs are like good fishing spots, the ones who know the difference tend not to share their favourites, keeping it for themselves :)

sitepodmatt 8y ago

Serious question, are there any professional VPN companies? Dont most VPN companies depend on cloud providers for many locations too. Most VPN companies have had serious screw ups in the past. PureVPN - disable all encryption by default for performance on their Windows client - for example. StrongVPN I recall logging. Other popular ones recur billing at top whack after a year and refusing refund. Overloaded servers, port blocking and so on.

techsupporter 8y ago

Trustworthy? I could go either way, depending on particular scenario. Usable? Infinitely. I've noticed quite a few web sites and services putting obnoxious blocks or filters or other impediments against users coming from "widely-known" VPN and VPS provider IP addresses. But few seem to bother with Microsoft or Amazon IPs. So for something that has the purpose of either getting me out from behind a restrictive network or wrapping my traffic on an insecure network, a VPN to an Azure- or EC2-provisioned virtual machine works just fine.

blacksmith_tb 8y ago
I have a Streisand [1] server on a Digital Ocean droplet, and I do run into the occasional Cloudflare: blocked or extra-aggressive captcha when I am routed through it. 1: https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand

LeoPanthera 8y ago

It depends what you want. If you're trying to obtain some degree of anonymity, then a personal VPN server is obviously much worse, since you'll be a using a dedicated IP address just for you, instead of sharing a public one. But if you just want to secure your data from an untrustworthy local network, it's a reasonable choice. You're less likely to be flagged as connecting from a "bad" IP.

mirimir 8y ago
You can have both. Mirimir reaches the Internet using a nested chain of three VPN services. The last being IVPN, given that I work for them. But then I use private VPNs on VPS when I need to pretend that I'm not using a VPN.

auslander 8y ago

a professional VPN company is probably using some cloud provider themselves.