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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.

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.)

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