4 ms·

I 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-w

I 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 ago
How 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 ago
  Pretty 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 ago
  Plenty 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 ago
  You 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-...
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  > they have more incentive to lie than your ISP does A lot of ISPs openly collect user data, so I don't know how much that factor matters. And while I can go get a VPN, I can't just get another ISP.
- dx034 7y ago
  Shouldn't matter to your average torrent user or someone who wants to watch US YouTube. And I guess that's most people who actually use it.
jplayer01 7y ago
... this site is awful. It doesn't address the actual reason why people use VPN's. They don't want all their activities to be recorded/tracked by their ISP's (which depending on jurisdiction log everything for at least 6 months if not more) or other actors. And if somebody wants to deanonymize your traffic, they have to go to extra effort, whether it's by exploiting or establishing a relationship with your VPN host or whatever else. Or there are other use cases, like wanting to torrent in a country that is very liberal with serving fines (Germany). And frankly, his alternatives are just absurd. Tor? Really? Has he ever tried to use Tor for usual daily browsing? Does he expect people to try to use Facebook, Instagram, Youtube over Tor? Really?

ohazi 7y ago

How 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 ago
Pretty 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 ago
Plenty 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 ago
You 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-...
Dylan16807 7y ago
> they have more incentive to lie than your ISP does A lot of ISPs openly collect user data, so I don't know how much that factor matters. And while I can go get a VPN, I can't just get another ISP.
dx034 7y ago
Shouldn't matter to your average torrent user or someone who wants to watch US YouTube. And I guess that's most people who actually use it.

jplayer01 7y ago

... this site is awful. It doesn't address the actual reason why people use VPN's. They don't want all their activities to be recorded/tracked by their ISP's (which depending on jurisdiction log everything for at least 6 months if not more) or other actors. And if somebody wants to deanonymize your traffic, they have to go to extra effort, whether it's by exploiting or establishing a relationship with your VPN host or whatever else. Or there are other use cases, like wanting to torrent in a country that is very liberal with serving fines (Germany). And frankly, his alternatives are just absurd. Tor? Really? Has he ever tried to use Tor for usual daily browsing? Does he expect people to try to use Facebook, Instagram, Youtube over Tor? Really?