Need VPN advice

[Bushwack44]

I'm shopping for a VPN and would like to know if its more important the VPN has more servers or more IP addresses?

Narrowed my choice to...

- NordVPN (3,500 servers, 2,000 IP addresses)
- Private Internet Access (3,200 servers, 10,500 IP addresses)
- VyprVPN (700 servers, 200,000 IP addresses).

Cost is secondary. All three have good reviews from multiple sites (doesn't seem like they are paid reviews). Just don't know what matters more - IP addresses or servers. Thanks.

[aarik]

IP addresses.

you should not care about how many servers they have as long as you connect quickly and achieve the advertised speeds.

Ip addresses is what you point the VPN to to connect. Therefore it is IP addresses that will get blocked or restricted. Having more makes it harder to block, control and filter.

[Fizz]

What's the problem you're looking to solve with a VPN?

[Bushwack44]

What's the problem you're looking to solve with a VPN?

No problem. Just being more cautious protecting my ID. I've been seeing more pop-ups lately trying to ID who/where I am.

[Fizz]

No problem. Just being more cautious protecting my ID. I've been seeing more pop-ups lately trying to ID who/where I am.

10 years in IT and much of it in Network Operations/Info Sec.

You need to understand what VPNs can and cannot do.

VPN tunnels encrypt traffic between two points, so that intermediaries can't interpret the data meaningfully. Observers that intercept or are part of the communication path of the encrypted connection basically see garbled data. However, they can see that A) Data is traversing B) where it's coming from and where it's going to.

It's generally only useful for privacy purposes, for hiding information from networks you don't trust. For example, you log into public wifi, and you don't want the wifi provider to be able to determine what websites you're viewing (by connection networks or DNS requests, etc.). Or maybe you use your personal laptop at work, but you don't want your work network administrators to know what you're doing during your lunch break. In these scenarios VPNs are the right solution.

Online banking, is already encrypted (even if you use public wifi). Your ISP can see your account connecting to your bank's website based on DNS request and source/destination networks. However, that can't see your username/password, bank balances, etc. So, your ISP knows when, where and how much you send/receive data, but they don't know what the data is if it's encrypted by other means.

A website like calguns, is NOT encrypted (it really ought to be there's no reason for it not to, it's free and easy and won't affect search indexing). What this means is that if you view a thread, the content of that thread is visible to your ISP and other observers/intermediaries. The same goes for PMs, if you read a PM, it's transmitted to your browser across the internet in plaintext. An observer in the communication path could compromise your PMs, know what posts you're viewing and intercept your MD5 hashed password from the site.

However, a VPN doesn't help much with calguns. If you setup a VPN, your ISP wouldn't be able to tell that you visited calguns or intercept threads/PMs, etc. However, after the traffic leaves your VPN provider's network, everything is again exposed to every intermediary network so all the networks/observers between your VPN and Calguns is visible.

You may get popups that target you based on your IP or ads that say, "San Diego Auto Insurance rates" (or whatever your city). This COULD be identified by your IP. For example. You can somewhat reasonably figure out what REGION an ISP IP address belongs to, but really it's an educated GUESS. It's very easy for anyone to know what ISP an IP belongs to and an approximate region.


What's more likely is that the targeting is based on cookies or other information, that VPNs won't help with (because it's information pulled from your browser directly). Another possibility is you have malware/adware or other compromise of your system that's causing you to be targeted for certain things. A VPN won't help you here either because the root issue is present before you're even online.

Really, most VPNs don't solve any real privacy concerns. Unless you have a specific need to hide information (for example, you do a lot of illegal file sharing, or you don't want your ISP or others to know who/what you visit), or you need to remotely connect a network securely to access resources like you were physically on that network, VPNs don't accomplish much.

TL;DR - there's a good chance a VPN is useless for you. There are MANY ways a VPN can be implemented as well that offer different privacy/security implications.

[Robotron2k84]

You can browse Calguns in SSL-only. Start here:

https://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/

What Calguns does not do is to properly REDIRECT you to SSL upon each request.

Note that in SSL mode YouTube video links break. That's a VBulletin plugin problem that could easily be addressed.

I was going to make a snarky comment that for ten years in IT/Security and didn't know adding an "s" to http requests make them secure.

[Bushwack44]

Thanks for the information/tutorial but....you have no recommendation? I think it's obvious there is no fail safe method of retaining full privacy.

Similar to having a firearm by my bed in case someone comes and want to do me harm (I won't without a fight). I don't need to make it easy not using a VPN for someone to ID me.

10 years in IT and much of it in Network Operations/Info Sec.

You need to understand what VPNs can and cannot do.

VPN tunnels encrypt traffic between two points, so that intermediaries can't interpret the data meaningfully. Observers that intercept or are part of the communication path of the encrypted connection basically see garbled data. However, they can see that A) Data is traversing B) where it's coming from and where it's going to.

It's generally only useful for privacy purposes, for hiding information from networks you don't trust. For example, you log into public wifi, and you don't want the wifi provider to be able to determine what websites you're viewing (by connection networks or DNS requests, etc.). Or maybe you use your personal laptop at work, but you don't want your work network administrators to know what you're doing during your lunch break. In these scenarios VPNs are the right solution.

Online banking, is already encrypted (even if you use public wifi). Your ISP can see your account connecting to your bank's website based on DNS request and source/destination networks. However, that can't see your username/password, bank balances, etc. So, your ISP knows when, where and how much you send/receive data, but they don't know what the data is if it's encrypted by other means.

A website like calguns, is NOT encrypted (it really ought to be there's no reason for it not to, it's free and easy and won't affect search indexing). What this means is that if you view a thread, the content of that thread is visible to your ISP and other observers/intermediaries. The same goes for PMs, if you read a PM, it's transmitted to your browser across the internet in plaintext. An observer in the communication path could compromise your PMs, know what posts you're viewing and intercept your MD5 hashed password from the site.

However, a VPN doesn't help much with calguns. If you setup a VPN, your ISP wouldn't be able to tell that you visited calguns or intercept threads/PMs, etc. However, after the traffic leaves your VPN provider's network, everything is again exposed to every intermediary network so all the networks/observers between your VPN and Calguns is visible.

You may get popups that target you based on your IP or ads that say, "San Diego Auto Insurance rates" (or whatever your city). This COULD be identified by your IP. For example. You can somewhat reasonably figure out what REGION an ISP IP address belongs to, but really it's an educated GUESS. It's very easy for anyone to know what ISP an IP belongs to and an approximate region.


What's more likely is that the targeting is based on cookies or other information, that VPNs won't help with (because it's information pulled from your browser directly). Another possibility is you have malware/adware or other compromise of your system that's causing you to be targeted for certain things. A VPN won't help you here either because the root issue is present before you're even online.

Really, most VPNs don't solve any real privacy concerns. Unless you have a specific need to hide information (for example, you do a lot of illegal file sharing, or you don't want your ISP or others to know who/what you visit), or you need to remotely connect a network securely to access resources like you were physically on that network, VPNs don't accomplish much.

TL;DR - there's a good chance a VPN is useless for you. There are MANY ways a VPN can be implemented as well that offer different privacy/security implications.

[Robotron2k84]

The NSA runs hacking ops from EU nets and Asia nets, too. What makes you think that a VPN solves any privacy issues? TOR, maybe, but a VPN is only useful for a single hop / get around network controls. Any requests you make back out to the internet across a tunnel are just spacially displaced, not hidden.

[nine mil thrill]

i use PIA and am very happy with it. i use it when i am watching movies using KODI. very simple to use . inexpensive.

[Fizz]

You can browse Calguns in SSL-only. Start here:

https://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/

What Calguns does not do is to properly REDIRECT you to SSL upon each request.

Note that in SSL mode YouTube video links break. That's a VBulletin plugin problem that could easily be addressed.

I was going to make a snarky comment that for ten years in IT/Security and didn't know adding an "s" to http requests make them secure.

I was already off the deep end in tech speak, but you're correct that calguns does have apache configured for TLS as an option, but it's not required and that's a problem that effectively makes it useless. Not to mention not all of the content is delivered over HTTPS (but this is probably external media etc. that isn't inherently compromising).

If you ever follow a link or search result that takes you to the non SSL version of a forum page and continue from that link forward, the encryption is broken and the requested page and subsequent pages are broken. It's ludicrous to expect the users to pay attention to this.

Adding an "s" doesn't do anything natively. The firewall needs to allow it and apache needs to be configured to handle it.

[Fizz]

Thanks for the information/tutorial but....you have no recommendation? I think it's obvious there is no fail safe method of retaining full privacy.

Similar to having a firearm by my bed in case someone comes and want to do me harm (I won't without a fight). I don't need to make it easy not using a VPN for someone to ID me.

It's not at all easy to ID you based on an IP address alone and the encryption aspects, for reasons listed, don't do much.

I think the VPN is likely unnecessary cost and complication to your life.

[Abu Riyah]

i use PIA and am very happy with it. i use it when i am watching movies using KODI. very simple to use . inexpensive.

+1 for PIA. I've been using it for about 3 years and I'm very happy with it. It works on all my devices and my connections are very fast. I've used it in about 10 countries, probably about 20 states, and even on airplanes.

I've used Vypr and a few others over the years and PIA is by far the best I've ever used. Nord seems to get good reviews too, but I've never used them. I don't think you will be disappointed with PIA.

[NorCalNative]

10 years in IT and much of it in Network Operations/Info Sec.



You need to understand what VPNs can and cannot do.



VPN tunnels encrypt traffic between two points, so that intermediaries can't interpret the data meaningfully. Observers that intercept or are part of the communication path of the encrypted connection basically see garbled data. However, they can see that A) Data is traversing B) where it's coming from and where it's going to.



It's generally only useful for privacy purposes, for hiding information from networks you don't trust. For example, you log into public wifi, and you don't want the wifi provider to be able to determine what websites you're viewing (by connection networks or DNS requests, etc.). Or maybe you use your personal laptop at work, but you don't want your work network administrators to know what you're doing during your lunch break. In these scenarios VPNs are the right solution.



Online banking, is already encrypted (even if you use public wifi). Your ISP can see your account connecting to your bank's website based on DNS request and source/destination networks. However, that can't see your username/password, bank balances, etc. So, your ISP knows when, where and how much you send/receive data, but they don't know what the data is if it's encrypted by other means.



A website like calguns, is NOT encrypted (it really ought to be there's no reason for it not to, it's free and easy and won't affect search indexing). What this means is that if you view a thread, the content of that thread is visible to your ISP and other observers/intermediaries. The same goes for PMs, if you read a PM, it's transmitted to your browser across the internet in plaintext. An observer in the communication path could compromise your PMs, know what posts you're viewing and intercept your MD5 hashed password from the site.



However, a VPN doesn't help much with calguns. If you setup a VPN, your ISP wouldn't be able to tell that you visited calguns or intercept threads/PMs, etc. However, after the traffic leaves your VPN provider's network, everything is again exposed to every intermediary network so all the networks/observers between your VPN and Calguns is visible.



You may get popups that target you based on your IP or ads that say, "San Diego Auto Insurance rates" (or whatever your city). This COULD be identified by your IP. For example. You can somewhat reasonably figure out what REGION an ISP IP address belongs to, but really it's an educated GUESS. It's very easy for anyone to know what ISP an IP belongs to and an approximate region.





What's more likely is that the targeting is based on cookies or other information, that VPNs won't help with (because it's information pulled from your browser directly). Another possibility is you have malware/adware or other compromise of your system that's causing you to be targeted for certain things. A VPN won't help you here either because the root issue is present before you're even online.



Really, most VPNs don't solve any real privacy concerns. Unless you have a specific need to hide information (for example, you do a lot of illegal file sharing, or you don't want your ISP or others to know who/what you visit), or you need to remotely connect a network securely to access resources like you were physically on that network, VPNs don't accomplish much.



TL;DR - there's a good chance a VPN is useless for you. There are MANY ways a VPN can be implemented as well that offer different privacy/security implications.

Thank you. This is helpful to me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bushwack44]

+1 for PIA. I've been using it for about 3 years and I'm very happy with it. It works on all my devices and my connections are very fast. I've used it in about 10 countries, probably about 20 states, and even on airplanes.

I've used Vypr and a few others over the years and PIA is by far the best I've ever used. Nord seems to get good reviews too, but I've never used them. I don't think you will be disappointed with PIA.

I decided to go with NordVPN ($99 for 3 years). I've used it quite a bit (for only the past few hours) and have no complaints. Using Spectrum (as my ISP), I average 60-62Mbps download and 5.5Mbps upload. I've tried several servers throughout the USA using NordVPN and I'm averaging 40-50 Mbps download and 5Mbps upload. Can't really feel the difference.

[ac398]

I decided to go with NordVPN ($99 for 3 years). I've used it quite a bit (for only the past few hours) and have no complaints. Using Spectrum (as my ISP), I average 60-62Mbps download and 5.5Mbps upload. I've tried several servers throughout the USA using NordVPN and I'm averaging 40-50 Mbps download and 5Mbps upload. Can't really feel the difference.

Those speeds are pretty good. For $99 for 3 years I may need to reconsider my airvpn subscription. My speeds are comparable but im paying 60 a year.
Edit: nvmd they dont offer remote port forwarding