Which product is the best for VPN?

[JAC]

Some useful links

https://surfshark.com/what-is-my-ip

https://ipleak.net/

https://ip.me/

https://nordvpn.com/ip-lookup/

https://www.expressvpn.com/what-is-my-ip

https://atlasvpn.com/what-is-my-ip

https://whatismyipaddress.com/

[JAC]

@JAC said in Which product is the best for VPN?:

You’re welcome to use my Surfshark to test Mark

Anytime pal

[JAC]

How’s your experience with Nord now? Still experiencing issues?

[phenomlab]

@JAC yes, funny you should mention that. For a while, it was bad. And I mean, bad…

Constant disconnects, crashes, etc. I seriously started looking at alternatives.

Then after what seemed like multiple updates, it’s now solid.

[JAC]

@phenomlab strangely enough I’ve had more trouble the past few months with Nord than I have in all of my time using it - random disconnects has been far the most annoying. Then the product ads and frequent notifications to boot.

It’s the same way that Surfshark (same company effectively) have gone, the VPN has taken a slight backseat for their other newer products I feel.

Glad to hear it’s working for you again though Mark.

[phenomlab]

@JAC In my experience, it can be somewhat flaky - I’ve had instances where the VPN disconnects for no apparent reason, and I can’t reconnect until I change the protocol.

[JAC]

@phenomlab agreed mate.

I’m back with Proton now.

[phenomlab]

@JAC is that for everything, or just the PC etc?

[phenomlab]

@JAC I had another issue with Nord again yesterday evening in the sense that it dropped connection and wouldn’t reconnect. I had to kill the app on my phone and relaunch it to get it working again!

Not a great experience.

[JAC]

@phenomlab not good mate, I won’t be extending when mine runs out unfortunately, it’s certainly changed for the worse.

I don’t have any complaints so far with Proton again, I think it’s going to be a slow process, it’s something I’m paying monthly for instead now so if major red flags crop up then I can exit swiftly .

[JAC]

@phenomlab everything yes pal.

Yet to try it on PC, will do this tomorrow and let you know how it gets on.

[phenomlab]

@JAC yes, I have to admit I’m having second thoughts also. I have a while to go before the next renewal but I don’t think I’m going to be extending unless things improve.

[crazycells]

@phenomlab said in Which product is the best for VPN?:

@JAC I had another issue with Nord again yesterday evening in the sense that it dropped connection and wouldn’t reconnect. I had to kill the app on my phone and relaunch it to get it working again!

Not a great experience.

If you do not need many different country locations at the same time… Instead of buying a VPN… Why do not you get a super cheap server, and then install Wireguard on it? And then use Wireguard apps (mobile or desktop) to use your server as your personal VPN? I believe it will be very secure, private and most importantly fast.

https://www.wireguard.com/

https://github.com/angristan/wireguard-install

[phenomlab]

@crazycells this is certainly worth looking at, and a great suggestion - thanks. For people like ourselves, it’s probably easy, but for those looking for something simple, it’s probably outside of their reach owing to setup and maintenance complexity.

However, I will certainly have a look at this for myself. It’s been on my list of investigations for some time but one of those things I never really got any time to look at. Perhaps now that will change!

[crazycells]

@phenomlab said in Which product is the best for VPN?:

@crazycells this is certainly worth looking at, and a great suggestion - thanks. For people like ourselves, it’s probably easy, but for those looking for something simple, it’s probably outside of their reach owing to setup and maintenance complexity.

However, I will certainly have a look at this for myself. It’s been on my list of investigations for some time but one of those things I never really got any time to look at. Perhaps now that will change!

I was also considering something like this for a while… and would be happy to listen your experience and of course get some help during set up

I think amazon EC2 servers can be used for free for 12 months… and then will probably be very cheap…

https://aws.amazon.com/free/

I think this should be enough, because it is for one person only anyways… what do you think?

[phenomlab]

@crazycells I’d certainly say it was enough, and your point around the free tier for AWS is also hugely beneficial. Performance for one user isn’t too important - the free tier model is restricted to t1.micro instances from memory, so one cpu and 1Gb RAM.

However, it’s ideal for testing purposes at least, and if you already run a VPS, you could easily use some of the compute power for that.

[JAC]

@phenomlab indeed, however I also know you was put off by Proton when you tried it.

I’ve installed mainly on mobile, but so far so good, the whole Proton Plus suite is running well (Mail,VPN, Drive & password manager) which is in beta.

[phenomlab]

@JAC yes, I wasn’t keen on Proton when I tried it. It seemed to be very slow and over subscribed.

[JAC]

@phenomlab they offer a free tier too, maybe this was the issue?

However VPN plus servers are only available to Paying customers.

I’m paying monthly now so I’m going to see how it plays out, but like I say so far so good.

[phenomlab]

@JAC said in Which product is the best for VPN?:

they offer a free tier too, maybe this was the issue?

No, I purchased the full product - and then asked for a refund after testing it and realising performance was very poor. The free product is restricted to 2 countries (one of which is Japan), which isn’t of any use to me.