Seeking VPN recommendations

In the wake of the new metadata laws, I am refocussing on privacy.

Beyond using private browsing sessions, I am now looking for a VPN.

I am an iinet customer and looking for recommendations/experiences. I would appreciate a why alongside any recommendations.

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If you make a few generalisations, VPNs don’t differ much from one another. Any differences in encryption/connection protocol are fairly minor in terms of securing your privacy, so with that in mind head over to TorrenFreak’s list and take your pick.

Thanks. I have looked through it before.

So many options…

Yeah, there are a couple there. Pick one, check out how simple its setup options are, whether it works on the Apple TV, etc, and go from there.

The only one that I’ve heard of is proxy.sh, TBH.

Just remember that VPN’s are not a guarantee and here is a good quick overview of VPN’s?

Just thought might be a good read for some here. :slight_smile:

With data retention laws coming into affect tomorrow, which VPN provider are people going with and how did you decide?
Additionally, what exit points are you choosing for maximum privacy? NZ, Sweden?

Whilst I’ve previously used WiTopia, I’m keen to seek the advice of fellow AppleTalkers.t

I was planning on sorting this out, but for some reason thought this came into effect next year. Can’t be stuffed dealing with it at the moment and not keen on losing speed either due to it.

We currently use Private Internet Access for my small business and it’s generally been good, although sometimes the DNS is slower than my ISP DNS. Setup was very easy on iOS and OSX and Windows 7, 8 & 10.

RE Exit points: Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) work well but if you want somewhere overseas then I’ve found Hong Kong is quick. The US is variable but generally ok and the UK is a bit slow. Other than trying the other locations just to see how well they work I haven’t spent enough time using them to express an opinion about their average performance.

Before that we were using IPVanish and whilst it worked well I found setup to be more difficult and complicated.

I can’t comment about any of the other providers.

Another plus one of Private Internet Access, setup is straightforward and if you choose the yearly option plan brings price down a fair bit.
Tried their support the other day and received an accurate and quick response so pretty happy with them.

I’m experimenting with TunnelBear that works on iOS too. It’s a quirky interface but I like it!

I’ve got the Tunnelbear for if I am doing anything I really don’t want anyone else looking at, but because its not AppleTV friendly, I find I don’t get a lot of use out of it. I’ve also been using the free version of hotspot shield which is fairly effective but you are always in San Jose. You cannot do torrents with Tunnelbear, for those who want to take that path. I have to decide if I am going to renew, come December, or just drop back to the free + tweet for extra.

I did a bit of looking around at VPN’s last year and ended up choosing VPN.ac https://vpn.ac

They were getting some good reviews

and there was a 30% (Lifetime) discount offered as well so I signed up with them. It brought the cost down to $40USD a year. I have been using them for almost a year now and they have been very good. They have also responded to my queries quickly (usually within 12-24 hours) too.

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In addition to VPN, you all might want to consider ProtonMail for your email. Its very secure, and you have to log in twice, (two layers to get through) which I find a bit annoying, but if security is really important to you, its worth the effort. Its free at the moment, no adverts, and best of all, it works.

Its not something you’ll be using for your mates to send inane jokes to, the data storage is limited… but still…

I have to plead ignorance on this; I still don’t understand what it is the government is capturing here or the purpose for which they’re doing this. Is it a counter terrorism measure (i.e. security theatre) or is it to stop us downloading Game of Thrones?

Well, at first it was about piracy, and then it was about terrorism, and then it was about piracy and terrorism. Now, I think they may have lost sight of what they expected, which is why providers are in such a shambles over trying to do whats right. Because they still don’t know what that is. How can they, when the government hasnt a clue, either.

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If people don’t want to go down the path of using VPNs and secure email providers then at the very least one should avoid using the ISP provided email address (a free web based email provider would be better) and stop using the ISPs DNS (a free DNS like googles would be an improvement over doing nothing).

What does using another DNS do for you?

If you use an offshore based DNS (say open DNS or Google) then your search speed will be a bit slower but your DNS metadata won’t be retained because the DNS server (and any logs it keeps) aren’t in Australia. Similarly if you use an offshore hosted email provider then less metadata information will be retained about you when you check your emails in comparison to using your ISP’s email service.

But your IP address doesn’t change even when using alternative DNS does it? Isn’t that the thing they’re using to tie traffic to a particular computer?

There is some debate around whether the regulations require just your ip to be kept as metadata or whether IP addresses of sites that you visit are also required to be kept.

If it’s the second option then using an offshore DNS will reduce the metadata kept, if it’s the first option then you’re correct and it doesn’t matter.