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Can Anybody Recommend a Great VPN?

Tajhad said:
I don’t understand when a company says “ up to 6 devices” and others say “unlimited”. Is this to be taken literally. Or only different devices in different locations? I alone have 4 devices ( 5 if I count the Apple TV). Others in the household have a number of devices. We certainly go over 6 devices, Probably more like a total of 15. Can anyone clarify ?
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I contacted ProtonVPN to ask what was meant by “Up to 10 Devices”. They replied

Kindly note that we do not limit the number of installations of the ProtonVPN application. We only limit the number of multiple simultaneous connections according to the Plan that you subscribe to.
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—edit—

One other thing that seemed pertinent to your family’s usage.

If you are interested in sharing your account with other people, please note that you'd need to provide them the accounts' username and password, so they can log in to the ProtonVPN apps by using the same account and have access to the paid features.
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I’ve not ever heard of location based restriction. I’m sure all 10 simultaneous connections can be from the same or different locations.
 
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bogdanw said:
Engadget - "NordVPN review: A bit too overhyped for the price" October 2, 2023
https://www.engadget.com/nordvpn-review-a-bit-too-overhyped-for-the-price-163100341.html
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There are major issues with NordVPN, that also includes poor support for MacOS, and lack of stability.

Price is a different issue, while the listed retail price is too high, NordVPN offer discounts, coupons and special deals everywhere all the time. No one needs to pay NordVPN listed retail price.
 
I made a shift away from VPNs and started using residential proxies. The reason was that I felt VPNs sometimes affected my browsing speed, and not all websites were accessible due to VPN blocks. With a residential proxy, it's like you're using a regular home IP, so there's a lesser chance of getting blocked by websites.

I grabbed a proxy from proxys.io and set it up on my Mozilla browser. Since then, I've not had issues accessing different domains. Might consider this as an alternative.
 
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bad_robot said:
I made a shift away from VPNs and started using residential proxies. The reason was that I felt VPNs sometimes affected my browsing speed, and not all websites were accessible due to VPN blocks. With a residential proxy, it's like you're using a regular home IP, so there's a lesser chance of getting blocked by websites.
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I've never looked into those. How do they get all those residential IPs? I saw one site advertise "55M+ ethically-sourced IPs". Does your traffic actually go through homes that have those IPs?
 
svenmany said:
I've never looked into those. How do they get all those residential IPs? I saw one site advertise "55M+ ethically-sourced IPs". Does your traffic actually go through homes that have those IPs?
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It's an IP tied up, in most cases, to a mobile phone with an internet connection, and your traffic goes through it. They are unused and very safe, granting you access to all kinds of sites.
 
bad_robot said:
It's an IP tied up, in most cases, to a mobile phone with an internet connection, and your traffic goes through it. They are unused and very safe, granting you access to all kinds of sites.
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It seemed strange to me that these services could have so many unused IP addresses available. I found this 2019 article on ieee.org. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8835239. A relevant quote from it

Our research employed an infiltration framework, including our clients for RESIP services and the servers they visited, to detect 6 million RESIP IPs across 230+ countries and 52K+ ISPs. The observed addresses were analyzed and the hosts behind them were further fingerprinted using a new profiling system. Our effort led to several surprising findings about the RESIP services unknown before. Surprisingly, despite the providers' claim that the proxy hosts are willingly joined, many proxies run on likely compromised hosts including IoT devices.
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It's probably worth giving the article a full read before using such a service as an alternative to a VPN.
 
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svenmany said:
It seemed strange to me that these services could have so many unused IP addresses available. I found this 2019 article on ieee.org. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8835239. A relevant quote from it



It's probably worth giving the article a full read before using such a service as an alternative to a VPN.
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I found one other thing to be cautious about with respect to residential proxies (in case anyone here is considering that an alternative to a VPN)

https://www.anura.io/blog/what-are-residential-proxies?an_mtexaud=an_meta_exaud2223bbitdj50f4aj

and a relevant quote:

Some residential proxy service providers (not all, but some) will offer consumers a “free” proxy service app for their home computer, phone, or other devices that will give them access to a proxy network. When the consumer downloads the app, it installs software that allows the proxy service provider remote access to their network or computer so they can route other customers’ traffic through the consumer’s network.

Whether the consumer realizes that they’re hosting someone else’s traffic through their network (and thus, having that stranger’s activities traced back to them) varies by consumer and proxy service. Some might disclose how their residential proxy service works upfront in their sales pitch and advertising, others might bury it on some page of a “Terms of Service” agreement that 99.9% of their customers will never read, and some might neglect to mention that they’re giving others access to the consumer’s network at all.
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So, be careful to go with a reputable provider and be sure they won't be offering up your residential IP to others.
 
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Hele said:
ProtonVPN—there is no better.
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There is no port forwarding.

At least not on Mac; there's no setting in the macOS app. That's a dealbreaker for me. No split tunneling either. I'm testing out the free version and other than those issues, I really like the UI and everything else, though.
 
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svenmany said:
So, be careful to go with a reputable provider and be sure they won't be offering up your residential IP to others.
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Yes. I'd also add that many "free" VPN companies make money by selling access to their users' residential IP addresses. There are many problems with having your IP address sold for uses you do not control, especially if it is used to disguise activities such as illicit website scraping, hacking, swatting, and spamming.

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ETA (more on scraping)
books.google.com

Your Face Belongs to Us

‘A parable for our times' FINANCIAL TIMES Best Books of 2023'In a gripping — and sometimes creepy — book, Hill explores the repercussions of [facial recognition] technology and finds out who is behind it' THE TIMES Best Technology Books of 2023‘A walk down the street will not feel quite the same...
books.google.com
 
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I personally would never use a free VPN. I have been using ExpressVPN for approximately 3yrs. Works great with my Macbook Pro, iPhone 14 Pro and iPad Pro. One license (subscription) and able to install on any of your products. Zero setup issues, extremely simple. https://www.expressvpn.com/
 
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Bleeping Computer - ExpressVPN bug has been leaking some DNS requests for years
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...has-been-leaking-some-dns-requests-for-years/
"ExpressVPN has removed the split tunneling feature from the latest version of its software after finding that a bug exposed the domains users were visiting to configured DNS servers.
The bug was introduced in ExpressVPN Windows versions 12.23.1 – 12.72.0, published between May 19, 2022, and Feb. 7, 2024, and only affected those using the split tunneling feature."
 
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I really don't think there is a VPN service that doesn't have pros and cons. I have used a few VPN and all have their moments I wondered why I went with them. Presently, I am wrapping up my last year with Nord. I went with Nord because I got a great deal at the time. I could have just as easily gone with Ghost or Express or another.

You might want to look into Thor browser. I rarely use it as it can be sluggish at times but it is far more secure than other browsers for the most part.
 
NordVPN works well and the Mac app is well designed. I have never had problems connecting to any server.

That said, I'm afraid that I can't recommend NordVPN.

I've had it for two years and was automatically renewed the other day on a one-year subscription for 114 Euro.

Before that happened I saw that I could extend for two years for the same amount. Due to work and travels I wasn't quick enough to do that and so was auto-extended for one year.

I brought this to the attention of Nord customer service, but was told that the lower price is only for "initial" customers and that it cannot be used on an active subscription.

That's plainly not true. Even now, with a running subscription into its third year, I can in actual fact extend for two years for 114 Euro.

Yet the myriad of customer service people that reply to my emails simply repeat the same message over and over, that the lower price is only for initial customers. Nobody seems interested in actually taking a moment to check that what I have written is true. And since it is true, there is no reason at all why Nord should not offer an automatic extension for the lower price to loyal customers. This is the case also because Nord keeps bugging its customers with "last minute" offers for that same low price, which ultimately it won't offer in the auto-extension process.
#NordVPNsucks #avoidNordvpn
 
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Another reminder to beware of "free" VPNs!

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"The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) today said they arrested the alleged operator of 911 S5, a ten-year-old online anonymity service that was powered by what the director of the FBI called “likely the world’s largest botnet ever.” The arrest coincided with the seizure of the 911 S5 website and supporting infrastructure, which the government says turned computers running various “free VPN” products into Internet traffic relays that facilitated billions of dollars in online fraud and cybercrime."

"Leatherman said 911 S5 and Cloud Router used several “free VPN” brands to lure consumers into installing the proxy service, including MaskVPN, DewVPN, PaladinVPN, Proxygate, Shield VPN, and ShineVPN."

 
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KaliYoni said:
Another reminder to beware of "free" VPNs!

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"The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) today said they arrested the alleged operator of 911 S5, a ten-year-old online anonymity service that was powered by what the director of the FBI called “likely the world’s largest botnet ever.” The arrest coincided with the seizure of the 911 S5 website and supporting infrastructure, which the government says turned computers running various “free VPN” products into Internet traffic relays that facilitated billions of dollars in online fraud and cybercrime."

"Leatherman said 911 S5 and Cloud Router used several “free VPN” brands to lure consumers into installing the proxy service, including MaskVPN, DewVPN, PaladinVPN, Proxygate, Shield VPN, and ShineVPN."

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its no use, people will always get the free when its software. Its cheaper and more convenient than jumping hoops to use some form of payment method.
 
pullman said:
NordVPN works well and the Mac app is well designed. I have never had problems connecting to any server.

That said, I'm afraid that I can't recommend NordVPN.

I've had it for two years and was automatically renewed the other day on a one-year subscription for 114 Euro.

Before that happened I saw that I could extend for two years for the same amount. Due to work and travels I wasn't quick enough to do that and so was auto-extended for one year.

I brought this to the attention of Nord customer service, but was told that the lower price is only for "initial" customers and that it cannot be used on an active subscription.

That's plainly not true. Even now, with a running subscription into its third year, I can in actual fact extend for two years for 114 Euro.

Yet the myriad of customer service people that reply to my emails simply repeat the same message over and over, that the lower price is only for initial customers. Nobody seems interested in actually taking a moment to check that what I have written is true. And since it is true, there is no reason at all why Nord should not offer an automatic extension for the lower price to loyal customers. This is the case also because Nord keeps bugging its customers with "last minute" offers for that same low price, which ultimately it won't offer in the auto-extension process.
#NordVPNsucks #avoidNordvpn
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First, I fully appreciate your frustrations. I was a bit luckier as I did take a renewal with a discount as it was offered. Do I think NordVPN (and other businesses) could be better when dealing with customers, - absolutely. I would be curious if people using other VPN services had challenges as well.
 
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