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Someone is probably going to ask what other HN users recommend as an alternative. Personally, I use Private Internet Access because they're the only provider I
by mdorazio 7y ago
Someone is probably going to ask what other HN users recommend as an alternative. Personally, I use Private Internet Access because they're the only provider I've found with a track record of demonstrably not being able to turn your records over to someone asking for them [1].
[1] https://torrentfreak.com/private-internet-access-no-logging-claims-proven-true-again-in-court-180606/ https://torrentfreak.com/private-internet-access-no-logging-...
- tmikaeld 7y agoYeah, they have been around for a very long time too. Used to be the more expensive alternative though, glad to see their prices have fallen a bit.
- FactolSarin 7y agoEDIT: I said I used IPVanish mostly because the EFF endorsed them, but someone pointed out below they got caught logging. I suppose that would explain why they're not endorsed on the EFF VPN page anymore. So, I guess time to find a new VPN. :(
- rasengan 7y agoIPVanish was caught logging while claiming they didn’t log [1]. [1] https://torrentfreak.com/ipvanish-no-logging-vpn-led-homeland-security-to-comcast-user-180505/ https://torrentfreak.com/ipvanish-no-logging-vpn-led-homelan...
- FactolSarin 7y agoUgh. Good to know, thanks.
- WhoIsSatoshi 7y agoUsed IPVanish for a few years, it was great the first, sucked the 2nd. I switched. These days I use VyprVPN. I like their Chameleon encryption that hides the VPN (although some data still leaks and some sites still detect it) and the killswitch option (prevents connections out if VPN not active)
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 7y agoPerfect Privacy is pretty good too.
- ganoushoreilly 7y agoThe thing is, almost all of these providers share infrastructure and IP blocks. Lookup MicFo and the associated lawsuits (not even including their lawsuit with arin). They provided the exact same IP blocked systems to dozens of the top VPN providers. The reality is, if someone else owns the infrastructure you're just pushing the risk to a different location.
- rasengan 7y agoThis is only an issue if the keys of the VPN are compromised (like it appears to be for NordVPN).
- SEJeff 7y agoProtonVPN comes from the same people who run ProtonMail, a very well known security focused email provider.
- jorvi 7y agoProtonVPN has a large history of being connected to TesoNet, a company providing among other things data mining(!). An extra cherry on top of that is the CEO of TesoNet also being the CEO of CloudVPN, which more or less controls NordVPN. Now that doesn't mean ProtonVPN is automatically compromised but I feel with stuff like no-log VPNs one should always err on the side of caution.
- protonmail 7y agoThis has been thoroughly debunked, most recently by Mozilla and the European Commission as part of their due diligence. ProtonVPN is 100% owned by the company behind ProtonMail, which in turn is funded by the European Union, so this has been verified by the European Commission. Details here: https://bit.ly/35RDKzB https://bit.ly/35RDKzB
- jorvi 7y agoI mean this[1] is pretty convincing and not directly from the accused company's blog. The only thing it gets wrong is framing ProtonVPN Lithuania as the main ProtonVPN company instead of as a subsidiary. Regardless of that, there is so much mud being slung I recommend anyone to just search for 'protonvpn nordvpn tesonet', read a few articles on the topic and form your own opinion. Like I said, you can decide if you want to err on the side of caution or if it's a risk you're willing to take. In case anyone wants VPN recommendations, I have good experiences with TorGuard and Private Internet Access and can also recommend Mullvad. Other people (that I trust) say iVPN and Tunnelbear are also solid. [1] https://vpnscam.com/nordvpn-protonvpn-proton-mail-owned-by-tesonet-ceo-darius-bereika/ https://vpnscam.com/nordvpn-protonvpn-proton-mail-owned-by-t...
- protonmail 7y ago
- harikb 7y agoI am surprised why isn’t anyone suggesting Cloudflare’s Warp VPN? Genuinely curious what is the difference. I guess Clodflare one is only for mobile?
- Santosh83 7y agoCloudflare's Warp is not an anonymising VPN as far as I know. It is just a way to speed up Internet speeds, especially in poorly connected areas. They make no effort to hide the origin IP. So it is not in the same class as other VPN providers.
- edf13 7y agoThis is interesting to read that Cloudfare is suggested here... shows that the term VPN is still thought of as private. (I know it is Virtual Private Network - but the termination is almost never private).
- jiveturkey 7y agoIt's anonymous wrt your ISP. Which is what 95% of the complaints here refer to.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pm7 7y ago> I guess Clodflare one is only for mobile? Yes, unfortunately it's currently not possible to use Warp VPN on PC. Otherwise, quite good service. https://airvpn.org/ https://airvpn.org/ is also worth mentioning.
- dx034 7y ago- Doesn't work for Georestriction - Shows your IP address (some pages) - You cannot choose your data center - Only for mobile
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- comboy 7y agoIt's the same shit. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17258203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17258203
- protonmail 7y agoThe claims there have been thoroughly debunked, most recently by Mozilla and the European Commission as part of their due diligence, details here: https://bit.ly/35RDKzB https://bit.ly/35RDKzB
- sneeze-slayer 7y agoDo you have a non-shortened link?
- protonmail 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21321598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21321598
- privateSFacct 7y agoTheir Google cert literally is "Tesonet" - how is this claim debunked - you can check it yourself.
- protonmail 7y agoThere's actually a point by point write-up about this on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn_and_tesonet/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn... There's a historical, almost accidental connection dating back to the infamous November 2015 DDoS against Proton, but zero connection today, and certainly not in the way it has been portrayed by people seeking to attack Proton. Android certs are permanent and can never be changed so that is why there is still one mistakenly issued Android cert out there today.
- 7y ago
- huskyr 7y agoApparently The Wirecutter now recommends TunnelBear and Mullvad because they post regular transparency reports and do third-party audits. https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-vpn-service/ https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-vpn-service/
- unicornfinder 7y agoI've been using Mullvad for a while now and I have nothing but praise for them. Only complaint is they're more expensive than some of their competitors.
- dddddaviddddd 7y agoWhat aspects of a VPN provider would you praise? Customer service, consistency of connection speed? Seems almost like a utility where it's hard to differentiate.
- bjoli 7y agoI am not OP, but they helped me with a rare openvpn config for which my forays into the openVPN forums led nowhere. Out of my 110/12mbit connection Mullvad let's me use 108/11 of that, and even has wireguard support.
- huskyr 7y agoI would say transparency/security, quality of the client(s) and customer service, in that order. It's one thing to offer a VPN service, but to make sure you have a nice app on both iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows and Linux seems like quite an investment.
- LeoPanthera 7y agoMullvad is a great choice, but I'm mildly surprised about TunnelBear as a choice. They log bandwidth and they incentivize social media spam. Citation: https://thatoneprivacysite.net/#detailed-vpn-comparison https://thatoneprivacysite.net/#detailed-vpn-comparison
- some_furry 7y agoI have a slightly dissenting answer to these questions, in the form of an interactive Q&A website: https://faq.dhol.es/@Soatok/cryptography/which-vpn-service-will-protect-me-from-hackers https://faq.dhol.es/@Soatok/cryptography/which-vpn-service-w...
- ohazi 7y agoHow is this not the top comment? Nobody should be using a VPN provider, full-stop. It is structurally impossible for anyone to verify their claims, they have more incentive to lie than your ISP does, and they're cheap and easy to set up, so the industry is a cesspool. You should assume that all of them are behaving badly.
- roywiggins 7y agoPretty much a textbook "Lemon Market" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
- fireattack 7y agoPlenty of people using VPN for: pirating, get an IP from a foreign country to bypass some content limitation etc., so they still need one, secure or not.
- lame-robot-hoax 7y agoYou can always setup Algo on your own personal VPS running on Azure, GCE, DigitalOcean, Vultr, etc. https://github.com/trailofbits/algo https://github.com/trailofbits/algo Also, hasn't CloudFlare been audited to verify their no log claims? I know while Mullvad hasn't been audited to verify their no log claims, they have at least been audited to verify the security of their app. https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/ "1. We don't write user-identifiable log data to disk; 2. We will never sell your browsing data or use it in any way to target you with advertising data; 3. Don’t need to provide any personal information — not your name, phone number, or email address — in order to use the 1.1.1.1 App with Warp; and 4. We will regularly hire outside auditors to ensure we're living up to these promises." https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2018/9/24/read-results-security-audit-mullvad-app/ https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2018/9/24/read-results-security-...
- linuxlizard 7y agoI've been using Private Internet Access (PIA) since 2016 and can also recommend it from a usability point of view. I'm not a security expert so I defer to others on PIA's security.
- ryanlol 7y agoIn 2015ish PIA got hacked via https://old-support.privateinternetaccess.com https://old-support.privateinternetaccess.com because of https://classichelp.kayako.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006460899-June-2015-Security-Advisory-Kayako-Classic-4-70-1-and-Earlier https://classichelp.kayako.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000646089... and never told anyone. This bug loudly announces itself on every pageload, it speaks of tremendous incompetence that they ever let this go into production. The site used to set a cookie that looked like this: Set-Cookie: SWIFT_client=a%3A1%3A%7Bs%3A15%3A%22templategroupid%22%3Bs%3A1%3A%221%22%3B%7D; expires=Wed, 28-Dec-2016 23:24:13 GMT; path=/; httponly Obvious PHP object injection vulnerability that should've been caught by any automated auditing tool.
- rasengan 7y agoWhile the helpdesk software PIA used to use years ago did have that potential vulnerability, fortunately, Private Internet Access never exposed the support desk via plain http, and therefore, PIA itself did not have the vulnerability in its helpdesk.
- ryanlol 7y agoHahahaha, this bug was perfectly exploitable via TLS wrapped HTTP (so HTTPS, which is still HTTP as far as the PHP application is concerned). The SWIFT_client cookie gets passed directly into unserialize(), TLS has literally nothing to do with this. FWIW rasengan is one of the PIA founders, he should know much better. This response is so utterly silly I must wonder if this is all just an incredible display of incompetence instead of malice.
- rasengan 7y ago
- WillDaSilva 7y agoIf we're offering recommendations, then I'll go ahead and recommend Mullvad. They've got great clients for most common operating systems, good customer support, good performance, lots of servers to choose from, the ability to open ports, etc. Something I find pretty neat about them from a technical standpoint is their account creation, user authentication, and payment processes. Sign-up literally takes less than a second, so even if you don't plan on using their service, I recommend you try creating an account.
- QualityReboot 7y agoI've had fantastic experience with airvpn. They're cheap, fast, reliable, and support all the configuration types you could want. I'm not affiliated with them but I'm surprised nobody here has mentioned them yet. By far the best VPN provider IMO.
- klingonopera 7y agoAnd it's run by internet activists, support them, support the cause! https://airvpn.org/mission/ https://airvpn.org/mission/
- retromario 7y agoAnother vote for AirVPN. Good track record, happy customer for 6+ years.
- swinglock 7y agoPIA is also compromised. They installed the known criminal Mark Karpelès as CTO.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- seaghost 7y agoMullvad
- alphast0rm 7y agoA good resource for comparing different VPN providers is the VPN Comparison by That One Privacy Guy [1]. I personally use Mullvad [2]. [1] https://thatoneprivacysite.net https://thatoneprivacysite.net [2] https://mullvad.net/en/ https://mullvad.net/en/
- ReptileMan 7y agoExpressVPN - gets the job done, a bit expensive but rock solid reliable, breaches great firewall of china.
- c3534l 7y agoFreedome VPN has been similarly been shown to do the same.
- soulofmischief 7y agoDon't use Tunnelbear, they're known compromised. Honestly it's hard to beat Mullvad right now but that does make them a hot target, so keep your eyes peeled and know when to jump ship.
- antisemiotic 7y agoIPv6 VPN is available for free from https://ungleich.ch/ipv6/vpn/ https://ungleich.ch/ipv6/vpn/ if you buy a VM from them. Haven't tested it, just rembered datacenterlight from a HN thread about buying a mainframe.
- dx034 7y agoAny provider that offers that many IP addresses? I found NordVPN to be the only reliable service if you need to run requests from many IPs from different countries (web scraping).