VPM /proxy

[The Duke]

For years I’ve used hotspot sheild premium (around £18 for 5 users). just woke to find the bank account I have set up for micro transactions didn’t have enough in it to cover this year’s sub.

I was about to rectify it and pay it, but then thought I’d ask in hear for any suggestions.

I need on that will give me next to unlimited bandwidth and won’t slow me down to much. I’m on a 80 down line, and hotspot shield wousk get 20meg all the time.

Im very happy with HSS, been using it for probably 10 to 8 years, first free then premium. However back them there was nothing that could touck it, and I’ve never looked elsewhere since.

So over to us guys, I’m even up for some pi play maybe or test some paid apps bit It’s has to work on android and Windows.

All suggestions are welcome.

[blacklion1725]

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/vpnsecure-lifetime-subscription-1250-stacksocial-lifetime-vpn-for-5-devices-3106521 I use Torguard as their streaming IP adding are cheap….overkill for you though. If you don’t need it for Netflix etc you can get VPN-Secure lifetime for £12.50 (!). I have it as a backup and speeds are fine but no good for Netflix or iPlayer (blocked). Can’t seem to paste the link but search VPN on hukd

 

[The Duke]

Cheers for trying but they tried a second time for payment. Normal procedure, I should of fon into the app and canceled it, so I’m on it for another year. Lol.

Thanks anyway. I’m not bothered as it’s worked for me for years, I was just interested in seeing what options was out there. I think I’ll set a reminder to look next year, and cancel it before it takes the cash.

[Tippon]

Have a look on piracy forums. If they don’t work, they get busted, so they take their VPN seriously 😀

Private Internet Access and NordVPN seem to be mentioned regularly. If you want to stay private, I think they both accept gift vouchers as payment too, like Google Play cards and iTunes vouchers.

[Ed P]

Funnily enough I just read an article saying that all free/cheap VPNs are fronts for Chinese Intelligence . Good luck to them imho most are used either to watch illegal TV or p0rn. I think Duke’s use to improve security on public wifi is a lot less common.

[blacklion1725]

On public wifi I just ovpn back in to my home router and use my home internet. The commercial VPNs are (as Ed suggests) just used for place-shifting (mainly). I’ve also had cases where the VPN actually improves performance of streaming – guessing because what’s wrapped up in the VPN can’t easily be filtered based on protocol or host.

[Tippon]

Kaspersky is on Amazon’s Black Friday sale, and the 10 device version is £17 and includes a VPN.

[Dave Rice]

The free secure connection is limited to 300mb / day.

Premium Protection – Annual Subscription £20 (monthly £4) for 5 PCs unlimited and various locations http://tinyurl.com/y76etxpa

[blacklion1725]

I’ve not seen an Internet Security provider offering VPN as part of a product before…….interesting.

NordVPN are the only compay I’m aware of that are actively advertising on UK TV, emphasis on security not Netflix USA (although they actively support most UK and USA streaming services via VPN).

I still think if you are just interested in security when out and about then connect back to your own router (via openvpn) and you are as safe as you would be indoors. Placeshifting is a moving target, the bigger companies (e.g. NordVPN) react quicker, but it is cat and mouse.

[Dave Rice]

Since this thread started I’ve been looking into using a cloud server for OpenVN. It could only be in one location but even a basic Digital Ocean $5 server comes with 1TB of data transfer per month and that goes into a pool. I currently have 3TB of data transfer per month in my pool and currently use 0.09GB.

Digital Ocean are clearly up for it as they have a tutorial on their site. As I’m still in my $100 credit period I’m going to give it a go. If it’s successful maybe we could all share it.

It looks like it needs 2 VMs, 1 for the Certificate Authorization and 1 for the OpenVPN server. That would bump the monthly traffic up to 5TB. Here we go…

[JayCeeDee]

Dave Rice wrote:

The free secure connection is limited to 300mb / day.

I thought that I’d give Kaspersky Secure Connection a try and the first thing I noticed was that as it was pretending to be in Amsterdam, Forumite thought I was a Johnny Foreigner and kicked me out. Haven’t bothered after that!!

[blacklion1725]

Interesting you post that Dave – I’m pretty sure I tried them a few years ago – VPS or “Virtual Prvate Server” – dodn’t have a lot of luck (specifically Netflix) – be interested to see how you get on….

[Dave Rice]

It works but it’s too slow. Probably a setting somewhere, will look tomorrow. There is a ton of very techie settings in the configuration files. Pings aren’t too bad but actual website requests fail, probably NAT or gateways.

Netflix and VPNs? My guess is they keep abreast of the IP addresses the VPN providers use. That could be simply be looking at the amount of traffic coming from an IP (or block of) address. If you had your own VPN server based in another country that isn’t going to attract suspicion on the basis of traffic.

If I get the speed sorted out we can have a look at all this, it’s not going to cost anything for another 4 – 5 weeks and even then it’s only $10 for another month. I’m not going to send the boys around for that ?

[Tippon]

Dave Rice wrote:

The free secure connection is limited to 300mb / day. Premium Protection – Annual Subscription £20 (monthly £4) for 5 PCs unlimited and various locations http://tinyurl.com/y76etxpa

Thanks for the heads up Dave.

It’s a bit naughty of them, there’s no mention of that on Amazon. I would have bought it on the assumption that it’s a ‘proper’ VPN.

[Drezha]

I have a subscription with Private Internet Access that I use occasionally, but rarely.

As BL states, if I’m looking to secure my online browsing from unprotected WiFi (looking at you Travelodge!), then I’ll often use a VPN back to my Synology NAS. In fairness, that’s only a L2TP VPN I’m using – I should probably look at getting OpenVPN setup on it (probably before I fly to Geneva at the weekend!) However, in this instance, PIA will usually cover me (I’ve also used the Tunnelbear free app for small periods of time, but as the free data is like 300Mb a month, this is usually an “emergency” situation).

I could look at getting it set up on my GL.iNet router… That’s a handy little device. Supports OpenVPN, but I’ve used it in the past to just get around Travelodge’s two items on the Wifi policy.

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Dave Rice]

VPN into my own network is easy with the Draytek supporting all the major protocols and it’s own SSL VPN. Just coming home from a job will try and look at the server project later.

[Dave Rice]

I’ve officially given up, it’s just too fiddly. Couldn’t get the traffic flowing and setting up a user is just bloody awful and far too easy to get wrong and cockup existing users at the same time.

Still it’s cost me nowt and I may well have a look at other tutorials as it’s a good idea.

Well that didn’t take long. Found a script that did it all painlessly and correctly in minutes. It only does 1 user but can’t see that as an issue.

It doesn’t knock off much in a speed test, but despite the server being in London the traffic appears to be coming from Brussels.

If anyone want to help test this, just PM me. There should be loads of bandwidth available, 4 TBs comes with my number of servers and I’m using hardly anything.

[Dave Rice]

Been using it ever since. I forget that I am.

[D-Dan]

Grab a raspberry Pi, set up your own. Works a treat for me.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Drezha]

D-Dan wrote:

Grab a raspberry Pi, set up your own. Works a treat for me.

I’ve looked at the PiVPN setup here. Seems to make it simple, but I’ve not tried.

Seems odd that whilst it’s in London, it appears it’s from Brussels? I believe our firm have a permanent one setup, as for whatever reason, we appear to be near London, not the middle of Manchester. Caused me some concern initially when my iPad was asked to confirm an iCloud sign in from London, when I’d just asked it to sign in whilst sat in Manchester.

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

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