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What makes a proxy a "VPN" again? Most popular "VPN" companies only offer a proxy that merely runs over a VPN protocol.

by m132 7mo ago

nl 7mo ago
> Most popular "VPN" companies only offer a proxy that merely runs over a VPN protocol. Well that doesn't seem true? Mullvad, Proton, Private Internet Access, NordVPN, ExpressVPN etc are all VPNs. You can use them for whatever protocol you want.
- tobz1000 7mo ago
  All of them offer only proxied access to the internet. They do not expose access to any "private network".
  - DaSHacka 7mo ago
    Depends on the VPN, I remember Nord had a private p2p network that allowed users of their VPN service to communicate directly with each other without exposing their p2p services to the greater internet. Granted, its been a lomg time since I used Nord, not sure if they still offer that service.
- ShowalkKama 7mo ago
  > You can use them for whatever protocol you want. the two most commons protocols used for proxying traffic support arbitrary tcp traffic. socks is quite self explanatory but http is not limited to https either! Of course most providers might block non https traffic by doing DPI or (more realistically) refusing to proxy ports other than 80/443 but nothing is inherent to the protocol. edit: this is also mentioned on MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Methods/CONNECT https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/... > Aside from enabling secure access to websites behind proxies, a HTTP tunnel provides a way to allow traffic that would otherwise be restricted (SSH or FTP) over the HTTP(S) protocol. > If you are running a proxy that supports CONNECT, restrict its use to a set of known ports or a configurable list of safe request targets > A loosely-configured proxy may be abused to forward traffic such as SMTP to relay spam email, for example.
  - m132 7mo ago
    To complement your comment, SOCKS 5 also supports two, less known kinds of traffic: UDP and the server side of TCP https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1928#page-6 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1928#page-6
- Gormo 7mo ago
  Well, only some of them actually offer full VPN service. Most of them are still just traffic-forwarding proxies, just not limited to HTTP. NordVPN used to offer full VPN service under the name "Meshnet", but actually discontinued it last year.
  - snowwalker222 7mo ago
    [dead]
ranger_danger 7mo ago
IMO if it requires a new network interface to be created on the machine, then it's a VPN. But an application-level tunnel (such as SOCKS) would just be a proxy.

What makes a proxy a "VPN" again? Most popular "VPN" companies only offer a proxy that merely runs over a VPN protocol.

by m132 7mo ago

What makes a proxy a "VPN" again? Most popular "VPN" companies only offer a proxy that merely runs over a VPN protocol.

nl 7mo ago

> Most popular "VPN" companies only offer a proxy that merely runs over a VPN protocol. Well that doesn't seem true? Mullvad, Proton, Private Internet Access, NordVPN, ExpressVPN etc are all VPNs. You can use them for whatever protocol you want.

tobz1000 7mo ago
All of them offer only proxied access to the internet. They do not expose access to any "private network".
- DaSHacka 7mo ago
  Depends on the VPN, I remember Nord had a private p2p network that allowed users of their VPN service to communicate directly with each other without exposing their p2p services to the greater internet. Granted, its been a lomg time since I used Nord, not sure if they still offer that service.
ShowalkKama 7mo ago
> You can use them for whatever protocol you want. the two most commons protocols used for proxying traffic support arbitrary tcp traffic. socks is quite self explanatory but http is not limited to https either! Of course most providers might block non https traffic by doing DPI or (more realistically) refusing to proxy ports other than 80/443 but nothing is inherent to the protocol. edit: this is also mentioned on MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Methods/CONNECT https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/... > Aside from enabling secure access to websites behind proxies, a HTTP tunnel provides a way to allow traffic that would otherwise be restricted (SSH or FTP) over the HTTP(S) protocol. > If you are running a proxy that supports CONNECT, restrict its use to a set of known ports or a configurable list of safe request targets > A loosely-configured proxy may be abused to forward traffic such as SMTP to relay spam email, for example.
- m132 7mo ago
  To complement your comment, SOCKS 5 also supports two, less known kinds of traffic: UDP and the server side of TCP https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1928#page-6 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1928#page-6
Gormo 7mo ago
Well, only some of them actually offer full VPN service. Most of them are still just traffic-forwarding proxies, just not limited to HTTP. NordVPN used to offer full VPN service under the name "Meshnet", but actually discontinued it last year.
- snowwalker222 7mo ago
  [dead]

ranger_danger 7mo ago

IMO if it requires a new network interface to be created on the machine, then it's a VPN. But an application-level tunnel (such as SOCKS) would just be a proxy.