patrick.net

I use IPVanish and like it. It's known to be one of the faster services.

I was using PIA for years. They have documented court cases where they've proved they don't log. But last year during their transition to wireguard(a protocol with known security flaws), they borked their DNS servers, and never told anyone. Finally after several months I was advised to use Cloudflare. So I dropped them when the renewal notice came up and went with Express vpn.
Based on features my first choice was actually Nord, their feature set is AWESOME! But after reading about how they withheld information about their hack from subscribers, that killed their chances. Express doesn't have as many servers as PIA, but they do have a good variety of protocol's to choose from, and their servers run on RAM, something I think is unique to them so far. Their DNS to get around streaming blocks looks good, but once you go deeper, and see that it has to be used without the VPN, it's pretty much pointless. But they are considerably faster than PIA, even their Romanian server, so that's been nice. The other thing to watch out for is don't let them auto-select the best protocol, because it will use anything in their list, including some VERY insecure ones.

"That One Privacy Guy" is the place to start.

Sadly, he's taken down his spreadsheet and his page now links to "Security Detectives", but his spreadsheet can still be found at:

https://www.safetydetectives.com/best-vpns/#detailed

Only the paranoid survive
- Andy Grove
By the time I was twenty, I had lived through a Hungarian Fascist dictatorship, German military occupation, the Nazis' "Final Solution," the siege of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army, a period of chaotic democracy in the years immediately after the war, a variety of repressive Communist regimes, and a popular uprising that was put down at gunpoint... [where] many young people were killed; countless others were interned. Some two hundred thousand Hungarians escaped to the West. I was one of them.

NordVPN for me. Reliable and fast.

EBGuy says

Only the paranoid survive

I think deception is better in all honesty. They (anyone/government) can get any information they want either way. Unless you're doing illicit activities or dealing in sensitive material, I'm not certain the purpose of a VPN. I don't think it's a negative to use one, just a cost and a minor pain to use certain sites. I did use PIA based off of Nutt's recommendation a couple years back.

I make a habit to search something silly like unicorn penis on an almost daily basis. You can find some funny fucked up shit. Any data anyone has on me is so fucked up it would actually be comical to see. I also don't do anything illegal and use fraud protected credit cards online. So I cut the VPN out.

One of my previous work tasks was to find owners of buildings. I'll find you, let's just put it that way if I have any info on you. Name, phone number, email, address, etc. Trusts are the hardest to get to, but I've done it.

You can certainly make it more difficult for people to collect information about you.

I also like the idea of adding false information to your dossier.

Patrick says

I also like the idea of adding false information to your dossier.

Worked for Christopher Steele.

For those who may not know, a VPN is to hide your traffic from your ISP. It's not effective for anything else. This wasn't the case back in the days of http, but it is now. But considering the amount of data your ISP collects on you, I'd say it's well worth the investment. Express is the most I've ever spent, and still just under $100 for the year.

But if your ISP knows who you are, you already fucked up.

@WookieMan, anytime you want to try, Patrick has my email.

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

Sadly, he's taken down his spreadsheet and his page now links to "Security Detectives", but his spreadsheet can still be found at:

https://www.safetydetectives.com/best-vpns/#detailed

Good info, but I'm not able to use Express with almost all of my streaming apps. Maybe that's due to using it with openVpn, but seems like a super common setup they should support.

NuttBoxer says

For those who may not know, a VPN is to hide your traffic from your ISP. It's not effective for anything else. This wasn't the case back in the days of http, but it is now.

Look, the only thing the ISP can collect on you is what sites you connect to, but that's it. If you go to Amazon - they can't tell if you're looking for baby bottles or ben-wa balls however Amazon can, and they can share that information with any number of other sites.

Essentially, you need to get used to using what is called incognito mode, private mode, or private mode with your web browser, and only log into a site when you actually need to do it. When you close the window, all the crap that is used to track you is deleted and when you next connect, they have no information you - although they can go through the trouble of tracing the IP address and a bunch of crap that can fairly easily track your browser but rarely do.

What really needs to be done, is that web browsers need to be retired, point to point communication must be easier for "normal users", and you have to strip power from corporations. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc will READILY sell your information and collecting it, is trivial. If people actually understood how much information is collected on them by these companies, there would be a revolt. They collect any and all information, and it's pretty much permanent. You now really do have a permanent record.

NuttBoxer says

For those who may not know, a VPN is to hide your traffic from your ISP. It's not effective for anything else. This wasn't the case back in the days of http, but it is now. But considering the amount of data your ISP collects on you, I'd say it's well worth the investment. Express is the most I've ever spent, and still just under $100 for the year.

But if your ISP knows who you are, you already fucked up.

@WookieMan, anytime you want to try, Patrick has my email.

I'm assuming your ISP would know this info through DNS requests - but would using a different DNS server resolve this?

Using a different DNS server would help, but the ISP could still snoop on your DNS requests, which are not encrypted.

If you use "New Private Window With Tor" in the Brave browser, then I think your ISP cannot see your request at all (except that you made some encrypted request to a Tor server). But it's very slow.

richwicks says

Look, the only thing the ISP can collect on you is what sites you connect to, but that's it. If you go to Amazon - they can't tell if you're looking for baby bottles or ben-wa balls however Amazon can, and they can share that information with any number of other sites.

And I don't want them to have even that. ISP's are too powerful already, and do a lot of manipulative things with the "service" they sell. And you didn't really touch on how meta-data can be used to infer more information. And I can't use Amazon, they won't grant me an account because they can't identify me.

Patrick says

Using a different DNS server would help, but the ISP could still snoop on your DNS requests, which are not encrypted.

I stopped using my ISP's DNS when I noticed they were re-directly my Tor relay to return a no-hit. My router is configured to use DNS strict and secure. I don't think that last would stop DNS snooping, but I think it helps. All devices in my house are forced over VPN with killswitch enabled.

Actually there is one other reason to use a VPN. If you're old school and still torrent like I do, you have to use a dns server you trust, through a vpn, and encrypt your p2p stream end-to-end. Otherwise you will get notices from your ISP. They've gotten really good at sniffing that traffic.

WookieMan says

I make a habit to search something silly like unicorn penis on an almost daily basis.

Pervert.

Hide in plain sight. Remember, anything you say or do can be used against you. Don't do anything you might be ashamed of. If somebody asks me why I post anonymously on patnet or browse unicorn penis'es (I don't needto learn how to spell the plural) online I'll have to ask them how they know, and then tell them it is none of their business.

I'm sure I should not think about it, but aren't unicorn fans into the horn?

I'm not going to search it. EWW!

NuttBoxer says

richwicks says

Look, the only thing the ISP can collect on you is what sites you connect to, but that's it. If you go to Amazon - they can't tell if you're looking for baby bottles or ben-wa balls however Amazon can, and they can share that information with any number of other sites.

And I don't want them to have even that. ISP's are too powerful already, and do a lot of manipulative things with the "service" they sell. And you didn't really touch on how meta-data can be used to infer more information. And I can't use Amazon, they won't grant me an account because they can't identify me.

Not being able to use Amazon is a feature, not a bug.

Another nice thing about VPNs is that in addition to blocking ISP snooping, they block the site you visit from knowing your home IP address.

I got protonvpn. It’s very easy to use.

Fortwaynemobile says

I got protonvpn. It’s very easy to use.

They use google products.

just_passing_through says

Fortwaynemobile says

I got protonvpn. It’s very easy to use.

They use google products.

Shit that sucks, what’s better? I’ll switch.

Maybe the Proton VPN doesn't use any Google products.

I was disappointed in Protonmail when I saw that they do use the Google recaptcha, giving Google tons of info about you, which is the opposite of the very idea of a private secure email service.

Patrick says

I was disappointed in Protonmail when I saw that they do use the Google recaptcha, giving Google tons of info about you, which is the opposite of the very idea of a private secure email service.

To be fair, I've never once hit their recaptcha service, and I've been using them for a few years. I always use their onion address, maybe that's why?

I'm currently searching for a VPN service. I've bought (but not installed) a Gl.inet GL-Mt1300 which I'm going to stick between my cable modem and main router. I'll have one LAN port going to my main router and the other will connect to a different subnet on which all of my smart devices are connected (Ring, Echo, FireTV, Roku, etc...). My computers will all be behind my main router.

I'm already on Protonmail and ProtonDrive and have been using the free ProtonVPN which is very fast and I have no complaints.

However ProtonVPN does not yet support Wireguard which provides 4x speed that OpenVPN does. If I'm going to have all of my streaming devices on a VPN I'm expecting that I'll need to use Wireguard.

The Gi.iNet router comes preinstalled with the Fireguard client but the only VPN provider that I've seen that supports Fireguard is Mullvad.

Does anyone have any experience with Mullvad? They don't offer a trial period.