š„š„ thatās not bad at all!
TopCashBack still doing 97% cashback on that too, win win!
So now Iām testing both Surfshark & Nord.
I may as well use what I have.
So far Surfshark is doing what it previously has done for some time, the kill switch works but every now and again you need to turn off the WiFi and back on again for it to reconnect. This surely is a bug.
Nord seems to be working well so far, Iād say there must have been a reason why I stopped using Nord as being logged out is a fairly new issue for me, so it canāt be that but could have possibly been the 5 connections at one time limitā¦š¤Æ , but so far so good. The real test will be testing via Nvidia Shield & Firestick tomorrow night, see how everything plays streaming wise.
Interested to hear how you rate Nord then Mark compared against any other VPN youāve tried seeing as itās your go to?
@JAC said in Which product is the best for VPN?:
Interested to hear how you rate Nord then Mark compared against any other VPN youāve tried seeing as itās your go to?
Iāve tried most of the VPNās out there, and none of them come even close to what Nord has to offer. The cheaper ones have obvious drawbacks such as either selling your data to a third party, or being so slow that itās virtually unusable.
Nord has the distinct advantage in the sense that it has the most servers available to connect to, offers double VPN, plus the ability to use a VPN and still be connected to the TOR network.
There are also very well written additional features such as secure file sharing between VPN endpoints - for example, I can send a file from my desktop pc to my mobile phone through that same secured channel, and itās instant. They have even made this specific feature completely free, and open source, meaning that anyone can view the code and contribute to it.
On the flip side, Nord is expensive - as are some of the add-ons - for example, the password manager, which in my view is overpriced when you can use BitWarden on a paid plan for $10 per year. The final showpiece is the ability for Nord to scour the dark web looking for data about you that could have been leaked.
Their latest offering is a service that even removes this leaked data. Very cheap as itās an introductory offer and I may get this to check it out.
@phenomlab said in Which product is the best for VPN?:
The final showpiece is the ability for Nord to scour the dark web looking for data about you that could have been leaked.
This is a good feature, itās one that came in handy really when a forum was attacked.
I think realistically Nord & Surfshark are both up there for me. I have subs with them Iāve been testing them back and forth and overall Nord has been the best as you may expect, although Surfshark isnāt that far behind, maybe not so surprising either considering they are effectively under the same umbrella.
Iād say Nord does the basics well - Auto connect works well, it doesnāt fail to connect sometimes like Surfshark does.
I think this is more to do with the kill switch on Surfshark, as it will always connect once you have turned your WiFi off and on again.
Youāre welcome to use my Surfshark to test Mark, I actually get faster speeds than Nord sometimes, thatās why they are donāt fall too short behind in the comparison reviews.
For example:
Image credit: cybernews.com
@JAC said in Which product is the best for VPN?:
Youāre welcome to use my Surfshark to test Mark
Anytime pal
Howās your experience with Nord now? Still experiencing issues?
@JAC yes, funny you should mention that. For a while, it was bad. And I mean, badā¦
Constant disconnects, crashes, etc. I seriously started looking at alternatives.
Then after what seemed like multiple updates, itās now solid.
@phenomlab strangely enough Iāve 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.
Itās 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 itās working for you again though Mark.
@JAC In my experience, it can be somewhat flaky - Iāve had instances where the VPN disconnects for no apparent reason, and I canāt reconnect until I change the protocol.
@phenomlab agreed mate.
Iām back with Proton now.
@JAC is that for everything, or just the PC etc?
@JAC I had another issue with Nord again yesterday evening in the sense that it dropped connection and wouldnāt reconnect. I had to kill the app on my phone and relaunch it to get it working again!
Not a great experience.
@phenomlab not good mate, I wonāt be extending when mine runs out unfortunately, itās certainly changed for the worse.
I donāt have any complaints so far with Proton again, I think itās going to be a slow process, itās something Iām paying monthly for instead now so if major red flags crop up then I can exit swiftly .
@phenomlab everything yes pal.
Yet to try it on PC, will do this tomorrow and let you know how it gets on.
@JAC yes, I have to admit Iām having second thoughts also. I have a while to go before the next renewal but I donāt think Iām going to be extending unless things improve.
@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 wouldnāt 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 timeā¦ Instead of buying a VPNā¦ 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.
@crazycells this is certainly worth looking at, and a great suggestion - thanks. For people like ourselves, itās probably easy, but for those looking for something simple, itās probably outside of their reach owing to setup and maintenance complexity.
However, I will certainly have a look at this for myself. Itās 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!
@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, itās probably easy, but for those looking for something simple, itās probably outside of their reach owing to setup and maintenance complexity.
However, I will certainly have a look at this for myself. Itās 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 whileā¦ 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 monthsā¦ and then will probably be very cheapā¦
I think this should be enough, because it is for one person only anywaysā¦ what do you think?
@crazycells Iād certainly say it was enough, and your point around the free tier for AWS is also hugely beneficial. Performance for one user isnāt too important - the free tier model is restricted to t1.micro
instances from memory, so one cpu and 1Gb RAM.
However, itās ideal for testing purposes at least, and if you already run a VPS, you could easily use some of the compute power for that.
@phenomlab indeed, however I also know you was put off by Proton when you tried it.
Iāve 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.