Best VPN

[bad company]

Mrs BC and I travel a lot, we’re currently in the USA. We need a good secure VPN. We’ve been using ExpressVPN which seems to work well enough. The renewal just came in at $99.50 which seems very steep.

What’s everyone else using?

[UVB-76]

I'm using Nordvpn. Works flawlessly in Cambodia and England but didn't work in Egypt. May have been some settings but WiFi and cellular didn't like it.

[Robotron70]

Surfshark, something silly like £2 a month.

[RizzoTheRat]

PureVPN works well for me on the PC, and the chrome plug in makes it very easy to use. However it doesn't seem to work properly on our Chromecast with Google TV so have subscribed to Nord which works but I miss the ease of use of the plug in.

[dmsims]

RizzoTheRat said:

PureVPN works well for me on the PC, and the chrome plug in makes it very easy to use. However it doesn't seem to work properly on our Chromecast with Google TV so have subscribed to Nord which works but I miss the ease of use of the plug in.

Nord has a Chrome plugin

[Spoke]

Been using CyberGhost for years and always been happy with it.

[RizzoTheRat]

dmsims said:

Nord has a Chrome plugin

Ooo, hadn't found that, thanks.

[dhutch]

Been out of the loop five six years, but used a Tunnel Bear while based in and out of India.

[bad company]

Spoke said:

Been using CyberGhost for years and always been happy with it.

I tried that last year but it didn’t work well on my iPhone. Seemed to clash when using data on my 3 mobile account.

[colin79666]

Mullvad. You get what you pay for - reliable, no logging, no personal details, BTC payment if you want and seem to be really onto of their security even to the extent of having 3rd party audits done.

With a VPN you are totally trusting that the VPN server you connect to is going to do what they say it will and not log it, pass details to some other party or just plain spy on you. It isn't worth a small saving to go with one of the more shady operators IMO.

Another option is do it yourself. If your home broadband is decent and you can follow a few semi-technical guides something like a Raspberry Pi with OpenVPN or Wireguard makes a great VPN server. Perhaps an option for your next trip.

Edited by colin79666 on Tuesday 21st December 20:24

[stevesingo]

Depending on what you want it for, it may not be worth it and possibly even counter productive.

https://medium.com/tebs-lab/do-vpns-actually-prote...

[bad company]

stevesingo said:

Depending on what you want it for, it may not be worth it and possibly even counter productive.

https://medium.com/tebs-lab/do-vpns-actually-prote...

Interesting piece that. One thing I do like VPN for is to watch UK football while in the USA, the BBC seems to block content unless I fool it into thinking I’m in the UK.

[smack]

colin79666 said:

Another option is do it yourself. If your home broadband is decent and you can follow a few semi-technical guides something like a Raspberry Pi with OpenVPN or Wireguard makes a great VPN server. Perhaps an option for your next trip.

This is what I have running, which works pretty well. I have Wireguard setup (better throughput, no hassle getting certs on stuff) on my home router and a backup setup on a Pi Zero, which was setup if I needed to reconfigure things so I had a backdoor into my router. I end up when travelling connect up a travel router in the hotel room so I have an extension of my home network, allowing me to watch VoD content without the problems of blocking of commercial VPN services. As I run DNS filtering at home, anything on the VPN avoids local ads or google wanting to change to Spanish and give local results. And VoIP services don't get blocked, and I can run WiFi calling on my mobile so don't have to worry bad compressed voice quality or if a long business call is going to go over my daily allowance and start to cost silly money.
For the last F1 race using an Apple TV hooked up to the nice big TV in my hotel room, I had better quality with Chanel 4 streaming, than ESPN on my hotel offered, plus in a language I could understand, connected 5,000 miles away from home

Only problems I have had was the Pi Zero not booting and locking up after a power cut at home, so had to run all my VPN sessions through the router which does hammer it a bit. I only have around 6.5Mb upload, but I can stream everything fine, but that is dependent as always on the internet connection you are on. If the connection is throttled to 1 or 2 Mb, it is going to be a bit annoying for any streaming. I haven't been blocked anywhere, but unless I am blocked at a country level, I can just hop on a different wifi connection, all McD/KFC/Starbucks etc which are everywhere these days have free wifi and I can reconfigure my VPN's using port numbers that are likely to be open through firewalls.

Another option is running a VPN within AWS/Azure etc, which gives you the option of having a VPN to other countries, but if you are paying for a VM it can ad up especially if you are hammering it for streaming - checking my Pi I had 55Gb of VPN traffic just for watching TV for just short of 3 weeks whilst travelling.

[hyphen]

colin79666 said:

Mullvad. You get what you pay for - reliable, no logging, no personal details, BTC payment if you want and seem to be really onto of their security even to the extent of having 3rd party audits done.

With a VPN you are totally trusting that the VPN server you connect to is going to do what they say it will and not log it, pass details to some other party or just plain spy on you. It isn't worth a small saving to go with one of the more shady operators IMO.

Another option is do it yourself. If your home broadband is decent and you can follow a few semi-technical guides something like a Raspberry Pi with OpenVPN or Wireguard makes a great VPN server. Perhaps an option for your next trip.

Edited by colin79666 on Tuesday 21st December 20:24

Mozilla VPN is Mullvad rebranded, so consider supporting Mozilla as its important Firefox continues to compete with the commercial companies.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/products/vpn/

[bad company]

smack said:

This is what I have running, which works pretty well. I have Wireguard setup (better throughput, no hassle getting certs on stuff) on my home router and a backup setup on a Pi Zero, which was setup if I needed to reconfigure things so I had a backdoor into my router. I end up when travelling connect up a travel router in the hotel room so I have an extension of my home network, allowing me to watch VoD content without the problems of blocking of commercial VPN services. As I run DNS filtering at home, anything on the VPN avoids local ads or google wanting to change to Spanish and give local results. And VoIP services don't get blocked, and I can run WiFi calling on my mobile so don't have to worry bad compressed voice quality or if a long business call is going to go over my daily allowance and start to cost silly money.
For the last F1 race using an Apple TV hooked up to the nice big TV in my hotel room, I had better quality with Chanel 4 streaming, than ESPN on my hotel offered, plus in a language I could understand, connected 5,000 miles away from home

Only problems I have had was the Pi Zero not booting and locking up after a power cut at home, so had to run all my VPN sessions through the router which does hammer it a bit. I only have around 6.5Mb upload, but I can stream everything fine, but that is dependent as always on the internet connection you are on. If the connection is throttled to 1 or 2 Mb, it is going to be a bit annoying for any streaming. I haven't been blocked anywhere, but unless I am blocked at a country level, I can just hop on a different wifi connection, all McD/KFC/Starbucks etc which are everywhere these days have free wifi and I can reconfigure my VPN's using port numbers that are likely to be open through firewalls.

Another option is running a VPN within AWS/Azure etc, which gives you the option of having a VPN to other countries, but if you are paying for a VM it can ad up especially if you are hammering it for streaming - checking my Pi I had 55Gb of VPN traffic just for watching TV for just short of 3 weeks whilst travelling.

Sounds great but probably beyond my technical ability,

[bad company]

hyphen said:

Mozilla VPN is Mullvad rebranded, so consider supporting Mozilla as its important Firefox continues to compete with the commercial companies.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/products/vpn/

Have you used it, is it any good?

[hyphen]

bad company said:

Have you used it, is it any good?

Yes, and yes.

Monthly paymenta available with no contract so you can cancel anytime. Also has a 30 day money back guarantee on sign up (if you buy direct rather from their site) so use 30 days and if don't like, won't cost you a thing.

Reviews do say it doesn't unblock uk telly though, so if that's what you are after, try and cancel if the case
https://www.techradar.com/uk/reviews/mozilla-vpn

Edited by hyphen on Thursday 23 December 14:25

[bad company]

hyphen said:

bad company said:

Have you used it, is it any good?

Yes, and yes.

Monthly payment with no contract so you can cancel anytime. Also has a 30 day money back guarantee on sign up, so use 30 days and of don't like, won't cost you a thing.

Thanks. I’ll give that a try when my Express contract expires next month.

[andy_s]

bad company said:

smack said:

This is what I have running, which works pretty well. I have Wireguard setup (better throughput, no hassle getting certs on stuff) on my home router and a backup setup on a Pi Zero, which was setup if I needed to reconfigure things so I had a backdoor into my router. I end up when travelling connect up a travel router in the hotel room so I have an extension of my home network, allowing me to watch VoD content without the problems of blocking of commercial VPN services. As I run DNS filtering at home, anything on the VPN avoids local ads or google wanting to change to Spanish and give local results. And VoIP services don't get blocked, and I can run WiFi calling on my mobile so don't have to worry bad compressed voice quality or if a long business call is going to go over my daily allowance and start to cost silly money.
For the last F1 race using an Apple TV hooked up to the nice big TV in my hotel room, I had better quality with Chanel 4 streaming, than ESPN on my hotel offered, plus in a language I could understand, connected 5,000 miles away from home

Only problems I have had was the Pi Zero not booting and locking up after a power cut at home, so had to run all my VPN sessions through the router which does hammer it a bit. I only have around 6.5Mb upload, but I can stream everything fine, but that is dependent as always on the internet connection you are on. If the connection is throttled to 1 or 2 Mb, it is going to be a bit annoying for any streaming. I haven't been blocked anywhere, but unless I am blocked at a country level, I can just hop on a different wifi connection, all McD/KFC/Starbucks etc which are everywhere these days have free wifi and I can reconfigure my VPN's using port numbers that are likely to be open through firewalls.

Another option is running a VPN within AWS/Azure etc, which gives you the option of having a VPN to other countries, but if you are paying for a VM it can ad up especially if you are hammering it for streaming - checking my Pi I had 55Gb of VPN traffic just for watching TV for just short of 3 weeks whilst travelling.

Sounds great but probably beyond my technical ability,

I looked at going down the rabbit hole as per the above, but it baffled me tbh.

I bought a gizmo which you plug into your home router and then can access your wifi from anywhere, the IP being your home address [or a 'cloud' address if you prefer] - it's changed a bit now and I'm not sure whether it still works the same way though [https://www.homingsystems.com/#pricingAPP - last item maybe]. It was a handy way for me to bypass restrictions on the wifi network I was on while abroad that didn't like VPNs.

[bad company]

andy_s said:

I looked at going down the rabbit hole as per the above, but it baffled me tbh.

I bought a gizmo which you plug into your home router and then can access your wifi from anywhere, the IP being your home address [or a 'cloud' address if you prefer] - it's changed a bit now and I'm not sure whether it still works the same way though [https://www.homingsystems.com/#pricingAPP - last item maybe]. It was a handy way for me to bypass restrictions on the wifi network I was on while abroad that didn't like VPNs.

That’s also interesting.

https://www.homingsystems.com/