Suggestions for VPN provider?

Casual conversation between friends. Anything goes (almost).
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justsit
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Suggestions for VPN provider?

Post by justsit »

This is probably a good time for me to get a VPN. I don't need all the bells and whistles, and cost is a factor.

I read that some companies have been bought by a shady group called Kape Technologies. https://www.cloudwards.net/kape-technol ... xpressvpn/. Express was my first choice, but Nord looks good too.

Any suggestions? caveats?
Thanks
Archie2009
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Re: Suggestions for VPN provider?

Post by Archie2009 »

Air VPN; I've been using them for years. Great app/client (Eddie) for Mac OS. Absolutely no logs are kept. Operated by activists & hacktivists. Big discounts yearly on and around Black Friday. Based in Italy. Servers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Proton VPN (+ Mail + Drive); I've been using their free mail & drive to great satisfaction. Would like to upgrade but money, money, money ... Best free, secure email service, though. Based in Switzerland.

"Proton was born in Switzerland in 2014 when a team of scientists who met at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) decided to build a better internet where privacy is the default."
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Suggestions for VPN provider?

Post by Kim O'Hara »

I've heard good things about Proton and know some people who are using their email service and are very happy with it.

Mozilla, the people behind the Firefox browser I've been using for years, offer a VPN too - https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/products/vpn/ - but not where I live. This review of it - https://au.pcmag.com/vpn/88451/mozilla-vpn - has some useful comparison info, and comes from a decent source.

:namaste:
Kim
PeterC
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Re: Suggestions for VPN provider?

Post by PeterC »

justsit wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 2:29 pm This is probably a good time for me to get a VPN. I don't need all the bells and whistles, and cost is a factor.

I read that some companies have been bought by a shady group called Kape Technologies. https://www.cloudwards.net/kape-technol ... xpressvpn/. Express was my first choice, but Nord looks good too.

Any suggestions? caveats?
Thanks
What are you trying to protect against? That will probably determine what you need (which may go beyond just a VPN)
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Suggestions for VPN provider?

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

https://ssd.eff.org/en

Here the EFFs surveillance self defense page. I think what PeterC says is probably right, this stuff gets pretty complex and needs to be geared towards what you are actually trying to do.
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justsit
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Re: Suggestions for VPN provider?

Post by justsit »

I have a strong inkling that the next group in the Supreme Court line of fire will be LGBT. While I am fortunate to live in a mostly-blue state, I have supportive relatives, friends (LGBT and straight), and health care supporters in other states and I would like to be able to communicate with them freely. I also need to search online for LGBT news and other relevant information (support groups, location of protests, ACLU data, etc.) without an audience. And maybe once in a while watch something on the BBC iPlayer.

That could change if things get really dicey.

At present I use Win10 with Firefox and DuckDuckGo mostly, occasionally Google for something, and Instagram (I only look, no posting). No other social media stuff (FB, Twitter, etc.)

Appreciate all the input, thanks.

ETA Just starting to read the EFF link, look great.
PeterC
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Re: Suggestions for VPN provider?

Post by PeterC »

So it seems that you have two needs, both of which are quite easy to fulfil: (1) keeping your web traffic anonymous, and (2) being able to communicate without being easily observable. You don't need (3) ability to conceal your activity from governments, which can be very hard to do.

Most commercially-available VPNs, including things like Nord and Proton, together with a browser with privacy functionality/plugins (e.g. Firefox, Brave, etc.) should be enough for the first. You'll have to make sure you use all the settings on your devices/browsers to maintain privacy (do not track, use of cookies, etc.) which will in some cases mess up functionality of the websites, but probably not the websites you want to visit. People like EFF or Arstechnica have good instructionals on this.

On the second goal, this is a bit harder as it requires both you and the people you're communicating with to make some changes. Basically you should be on services which explicitly protect privacy - so for messaging, Signal not WhatsApp, for email, Protonmail not Google, etc. Usual rules about not using real names or sharing personally identifying information online apply.

The above will make you largely invisible to the casual observer (e.g. someone trawling for data about people looking for certain content or in touch with certain organizations). It won't make you invisible to a technically skilled adversary, or a government, but unless you want to do a *lot* more work there's little you can do about those.
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justsit
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Re: Suggestions for VPN provider?

Post by justsit »

Clear and succinct info, just what I need to know.

Thanks for your input, everyone. :thumbsup:
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