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What VPN are you using?

I use Proton. But I continue to run into more and more websites and services that detect my VPN and refuse my connection, or just run literally 40 captchas in a row until I just give up.

I use Proton because it has a "suite" of products under a single subscription, but that benefit is losing it's allure as some of their products are pretty shitty from a user experience perspective, their customer support is atrocious, and they don't seem to pay any attention to what their users actually want.

Does anyone track known VPN servers? Is there a specific provider that causes less problems? Does anyone test different VPNs for detection?

Thinking about cancelling my subscription and moving to Mullvad.

Broken ,

Proton and Mullvad are the only 2 I'd trust. I suspect that they get similar results.

Proton has gotten a lot better since launch, but it's always a moving target with these things. I really only have issues with some store sites that just don't load with a VPN, which only tells me I don't want to shop there.

Andromxda ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

IVPN and AirVPN are also very trustworthy and pretty popular in the privacy community

x86x87 ,

There are only 2 VPN providers that are worth using IMHO: Proton and Mullvad. All the other VPNs are of questionable quality or their practices make you wonder if you should use them at all (eg logging and keeping logs)

Unfortunately there are websites that try to detect vpns and block you. Fuck those websites. Don't encourage them by giving them eyeballs or money.

Imprint9816 ,

What don't you like about IVPN? Audited, open source, great reputation. I don't even use them but seems odd to count them out.

Scolding0513 ,

yeah ivpn is recommended too, i think he just forget. i think they do the same thing as mullvad? like you can pay with monero and no email

ivpn mullvad and proton seem to be the golden three. I'd throw in OVPN too though

helenslunch OP , (edited )
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

I try not to but those websites comprise most of the internet at this point. Unfortunately people also use VPNs to do nefarious shit, so it's not always malicious (though it obviously mostly is).

harsh3466 ,

That’s what I do. If a website blocks me because of my vpn, fuck em. I don’t waste my time. What business of theirs is it if I’m using a vpn.

jfr ,

Can also recommend AirVPN.

Andromxda ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Also IVPN and AirVPN

Andromxda ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Unfortunately there are websites that try to detect vpns and block you. Fuck those websites. Don’t encourage them by giving them eyeballs or money.

It's mostly CDNs like Cloudflare and Akamai that are notorious for blocking VPN and Tor users. Fuck CDNs, they destroy privacy and centralize the internet.

hperrin ,

There’s always the option of renting a low cost VM in the cloud and running your own VPN. They will probably monitor your traffic though.

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Kinda pointless

hperrin ,

Depends what you’re using a VPN for. If you’re using it for privacy, yeah, it wouldn’t help. If you’re using it for geo locked content, it works great. Or for privacy from specifically your ISP.

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

If you’re using it for privacy, yeah, it wouldn’t help

...he posted in c/privacy

hperrin , (edited )

If you’re trusting any other VPN provider, then you’re already willing to trust someone. What’s the difference between trusting Proton and trusting Digital Ocean?

If you’re only visiting HTTPS sites then your ISP already can’t snoop your traffic. A VPN gives you very little added privacy.

No matter what you use, you’re really only protecting yourself from your own ISP.

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

If you’re trusting any other VPN provider, then you’re already willing to trust someone

It's not an issue of trust but of obfuscation. You're sharing IPs with other users

A VPN gives you very little added privacy.

Wrong.

No matter what you use, you’re really only protecting yourself from your own ISP.

Wrong again. You're protecting yourself from having your traffic logged by the sites you visit. Every modern website is collecting this information and selling it to data brokers.

hperrin ,

You think that using a VPN is protecting you from the website you’re connecting to logging that traffic?

No. The website sees the traffic. The only thing they don’t see is your home IP address. That’s not even a useful piece of information for tracking someone. Home IP addresses are usually dynamic.

Websites track you through cookies and etags, and VPNs do not block those. If they did, you wouldn’t be able to log into any websites, and you would always be redownloading JS, CSS, and fonts you’ve already downloaded.

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

You think that using a VPN is protecting you from the website you’re connecting to logging that traffic?

It is logging the traffic. It just prevents it from collecting my personal information in that log and sharing it with all of their data mining buddies.

The only thing they don’t see is your home IP address. That’s not even a useful piece of information for tracking someone.

I don't even know how to respond to that, other than of course it is...

Websites track you through cookies and etags, and VPNs do not block those.

You assume that I'm not also blocking those things.

If they did, you wouldn’t be able to log into any websites

Do you not understand the difference between first and third-party cookies?

hperrin , (edited )

What personal information do you think the VPN is blocking? Like, exactly. Precisely what information do you believe the VPN prevents a website from seeing about you?

I understand the difference between first and third party cookies. You said you were trying to prevent the website from tracking you. A website’s cookie for its own domain is first party. If you block that cookie, it’s harder for them to track you, and also you can’t log in.

Your IP address is not very useful for tracking you.

  • Residential IP addresses change often.
  • They’re usually shared by a family or organization through NAT.
  • You will often have different IP addresses throughout the day as you switch between WiFi and cell data.
  • Your different devices may or may not share an IP address.

The major ad trackers use cookies and etags to track you. They don’t use your IP address.

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Do you not understand how a VPN works? It prevents them from collecting your IP address.

hperrin ,

Then we agree that’s the only advantage. So your original reply is wrong. A cloud VM running self hosted VPN protects you exactly as much as a commercial VPN with regard to the website you’re connecting to.

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

A cloud VM running self hosted VPN protects you exactly as much as a commercial VPN with regard to the website you’re connecting to.

No. You're wrong once again. If you fire up a VPS and you're assigned an IP, that's still your IP, even if it's running on a remote server. It belongs to you and only you. It is a personal identifier.

hperrin ,

So just make a snapshot, and every time you want a new IP, create a new VM from the snapshot. Or if there’s an option in your cloud provider, just request a new IP.

Whenever you connect to a VPN, you use the same IP address the whole session. You have to reconnect to a different node whenever you want a new IP.

But I feel like you’re just being contrarian here. Your objections aren’t rooted in any sort of actual concern over privacy, and I don’t think you really understand the systems you’re using. In other words, you’re just being paranoid.

If you want true privacy, use Tor.

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Whenever you connect to a VPN, you use the same IP address the whole session. You have to reconnect to a different node whenever you want a new IP.

When you connect to a Proton or Mullvad server, you're sharing that IP with thousands of other people. We've already been over this. It's privacy through obscurity.

Your objections aren’t rooted in any sort of actual concern over privacy

Okay so it sounds like you don't understand how VPNs work and aren't willing to learn, and because of that you aren't capable of engaging in good faith, so I'll let you be on your way.

hperrin , (edited )

I’ve been a web and network engineer for 15 years, and I run a VPN on my own production cluster, but sure man, I don’t understand VPNs.

Again, you do not understand how trackers work. Trackers don’t use your IP address. And unless Google changed it since I worked there, I can guarantee that.

Prove to me that you block etags, cookies, localStorage, and service workers. Prove to me that every request you make spoofs a new user agent string. Prove to me that when you run JS, it obfuscates your screen dimensions and hardware availability. Prove to me that it obfuscates your font list and the available vendor prefixes. Prove to me that your browser adds artificial jitter to your real time clock, cause you can be tracked through that. Hell, you can be tracked through your latency, so prove to me you add random latency to your fetch calls. Prove to me you block media queries, because you can be tracked through CSS.

You are paranoid, and you don’t even understand what to be paranoid about.

hperrin ,

Also, please prove to me that you are blocking etags, because that is bonkers.

firefly ,
@firefly@neon.nightbulb.net avatar

@hperrin

VPN + Tor = incognitopottamus

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    hperrin ,

    You think that using a VPN is protecting you from the website you’re connecting to logging that traffic?

    No. The website sees the traffic. The only thing they don’t see is your home IP address. That’s not even a useful piece of information for tracking someone. Home IP addresses are usually dynamic.

    Websites track you through cookies and etags, and VPNs do not block those. If they did, you wouldn’t be able to log into any websites, and you would always be redownloading JS, CSS, and fonts you’ve already downloaded.

    (Copied for convenience, since your comment is duplicated.)

    Eol ,

    I don't think there is one. Nord has dedicated IPs you can buy and use so that it's always "your IP" but I'm not sure if they actually solve the blocks and captcha issues.

    helenslunch OP ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    That sounds like it would defeat the purpose of the VPN almost entirely.

    refalo ,

    Some only use a VPN for geoblocks, like to watch the Netflix content of another country... and in that case I think it makes more sense.

    Eol ,

    wHaT aRe U uSiNg ur VPN fOr? /S

    x86x87 ,

    Nord is one of the worst VPNs I have used. Would not recommend

    Rai ,

    What problems do you have with it? I’ve been using it for years without issues, so I’m genuinely curious. At first it couldn’t handle gigabit speeds but now I can get 90+MB/s from other countries.

    lemmyreader ,

    Depends on use case and the country. I use Mullvad and Riseup VPN and something private (and Tor). Sometimes when a site has Mullvad in Europe blocked, it works when I try one of their servers outside of Europe. In my experience Mullvad is awesome, and you can try it for one month. And Mullvad, the no nonsense VPN provider, has had the same prize since years! (And no discounts like Proton trying to get you sign up for a year or more trying to keep you with Proton).

    greywolf0x1 ,

    how did you get a riseup vpn account?

    lemmyreader ,

    No need to have an account.
    https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=riseup

    totikom ,

    Geph were not mentioned yet. It will likely not solve the problem mentioned by OP, but it is VERY censorship resistant.

    user224 , (edited )
    @user224@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    ProtonVPN free (paid is still too expensive for me) and Mullvad.

    I find that Mullvad is usually blocked more.

    For the past 3 or 4 years I was just on ProtonVPN free tier. For past 15 days I am using Mullvad. I really like that you can choose some custom ports for WireGuard, and also the multihop.
    What is unfortunate is that I can't generate separate credentials for OpenVPN, like with ProtonVPN. It just uses account ID.

    I have also tried IVPN for a week. Nicer UI, but a bit more expensive, sort of. They have variable pricing based on subscription length, and that just makes me dislike them enough to stick with Mullvad. €5/month whether it's 1 month, 6 months, a year or longer.
    I don't remember what specifically it was, but I know I also preferred the Mullvad's ToS over IVPN, although both are fine.

    I also thought of AirVPN because of port forwarding, but for privacy I'll stick to Mullvad.

    What surprised me with Mullvad was the payment processing speed. It only took 4 days from me dropping the envelope with money into mail collection box in Slovakia to me getting the time added. Considering that shipping to Sweden is "3-5 days", they must have just processed that basically immediately.
    But perhaps I was just lucky. I'll see the next time.

    greywolf0x1 ,

    this is the life i deserve, not the one i have

    pineapplelover ,

    Proton, sometimes you might need to connect to a random server like something in Philippines for example, then you won't get captcha. If I encounter a site that flags my server then I do that.

    bloodfart ,

    Mullvad air and proton. Several computers and infrastructure thingys I have access too in addition to a handful of vpses. Nebula for overlay networking.

    RmDebArc_5 ,
    @RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Not really answering your question, but there is this open source extensions that automatically solves captchas locally

    classic ,

    The irony of this lol

    helenslunch OP ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    The fact that this even exists is hilarious. Not to mention that it's actually a "featured" extension in the Chrome Web Store. Google is actively promoting a product that defeats their own product.

    Have you used it? Does it work?

    RmDebArc_5 ,
    @RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works avatar

    It worked well enough, but since I haven’t used it in a while I can’t say how it holds up

    FutileRecipe ,

    when humans were asked to solve distorted text CAPTCHAs, they were able to solve them in 9 to 15 seconds...and were only able to get the answer correctly 50-84% of the time....bots taking the same texts were able to answer the same tests in less than a second, and they were able to do it more accurately — 99.8% accurately, specifically.

    https://www.pcmag.com/news/bots-better-at-solving-captchas-than-humans

    telep ,

    unfortunately the blocking of servers is a perpetual battle that plauges almost any publicly listed proxy (vpns, tor, etc). the only way I have found around it is using lesser known/blocked VPNs or residential proxies. both of which probably have subpar data privacy policies, if they even follow them at all.

    althought it likely won't help your captcha troubles, I would like to give a huge +1 to mullvad. have been a happy customer for years. in compsrison to proton as a company they have a much more direct/benifitial effect on the web & furthuring users privacy online in my eyes.

    sasquash ,

    try to connect to newer servers. solves these kind of issues often but ofc not always.

    helenslunch OP ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    How do you know which ones are "new"? I've tried to switch servers but there are literally hundreds and I can't try them all.

    sasquash ,

    by its name. the higher the number the newer the server.

    helenslunch OP ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    I see, thanks for the tip!

    refalo ,

    Isn't this just a cat-and-mouse or whack-a-mole situation? If the people who create these block lists can also see the new IPs just by having that service, they can also add them to block lists.

    sasquash ,

    yes. I guess there is no other way then adding new severs and changing IP's regularly.

    Imprint9816 ,

    Mullvad, IVPN, Proton, AirVPN, or Windscribe are all fine. Depending on how much stock you put into audits the first three are probably a tier above for privacy.

    devfuuu , (edited )

    Been using mullvad for at least 3 years, no major problems so far.

    Currently I'm not using it so much and my subscription ended 2 months ago, so I'm using the free version of proton which is good enough for the basics of using public wifi.

    exu ,
    @exu@feditown.com avatar

    AirVPN, but only for its port forwarding to sail the high seas.

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