Want a VPN and need some advice

[Askarus]

Hello everyone,

I finally want to get a VPN.
Could you please help me with some Questions:

1: Which one.
I've done some research.
Privateinternetaccess has the best price I've come across and seem to be pretty good.
AirVPN is more expensive but I've read some opinions in the Internet that they are far better.

Both say they don't log. PIA is in the US and AirVPN in Italy.
Does that make a difference for me (I'm from Germany). Should I take the US one because of European law?
Both have a working client for my Arch Linux.
Does anyone have experience with one of them?
Or is there a better one? Please none with "torrent" in the name. Don't want one which is mainly designed for illegal downloads

EDIT: ExpressVPN seems to be pretty good as well. But it's pretty expensive...
Also we have NordVPN.

It really sucks when every rating is completely different.
PIA seems to have the best price for what you get but I like the philosophy of AirVPN a lot more.
On the other hand I don't know how reliable it is as it operates under European law.
Need help here.
I need a Server in Germany and it should not be too expensive. Also I want a working Linux client.

2: Payment an sign in
Do I have to create a spam E-Mail address and use an anonymous payment method?
It's not that I want to use it to commit heavy crimes.
If I use my common Mail address and pay via credit card what does it make.
The VPN provider will know my identity but that's is. If one mighty instance wants to track me they jnow that my IP is connected to that provider anyways.


Thanks for your answers

 

[Mr_Loon]

Don't want one which is mainly designed for illegal downloads

OK, we know what you don't want it for, it might be helpful to know what you do want it for

 

[Fzero]

This is of interest to me too.
I was looking at this recently, strictly for use with Kodi, and looked at a few.
I got it down to considering between a couple and then down to this one;http://www.dathovpn.com
But I've never used it yet nor know anyone who has.
No logs and I liked that it was very easy to set my Country to appear from. Plus it's all done within Kodi too.
I think I get some programs denied due to location blocks, not sure, but I think I do, so have been thinking of paying for a VPN service

 

[Askarus]

OK, we know what you don't want it for, it might be helpful to know what you do want it for

Hard to answer.
Short: To feel better
Long: I want it for general use and to prevent to get tracked.
Some downloads, browsing, See youtube videos censored in Germany, etc..
I do want some sort of tracking protection.

AirVPN seems pretty nice.

This is of interest to me too.
I was looking at this recently, strictly for use with Kodi, and looked at a few.
I got it down to considering between a couple and then down to this one;http://www.dathovpn.com
But I've never used it yet nor know anyone who has.
No logs and I liked that it was very easy to set my Country to appear from. Plus it's all done within Kodi too.
I think I get some programs denied due to location blocks, not sure, but I think I do, so have been thinking of paying for a VPN service

OK, we know what you don't want it for, it might be helpful to know what you do want it for

Never seen this before but I want it for a completely different usecase.

 

[Rockthesmurf]

I have used ipredator for quite a while now (years I guess, I lose track), https://ipredator.se in terms of what is it good for, downloads vs avoiding tracking vs privacy, I have no idea, as far as I know a VPN with decent bandwidth covers all the bases. Their FAQ does explicitly state that they keep next to no information about you, will never hand it over, are running perfectly legally, etc. My home internet connection isn't exactly impressive (16MBit/sec down, 1MBit/sec up) but I can max out this connection whilst connected via the VPN. For reference, on Windows and OSX I use Viscotiy as my VPN client (cheap and hasn't caused any problems, i.e. doesn't drop connection).

Would I go as far as to recommend it? No, I simply don't have enough experience of other services, but I certainly wouldn't say anything against it.

 

[Askarus]

^
Never heard of hat one.
It doesn't show how much it costs...

 

[limxr]

I've used ivpn regularly for about a year now and it work great but is a little pricey. I do not notice a speed lag when browsing the web. They claim not to log, have servers in US and Europe, support bit torrent on non-US servers, support multiple OSes and OpenVPN client, incorporated in Gibraltar, and they are members of EFF. I monitored my connection with wireshark for a bit and could not detect any ip/dns leakage. My threat model is commercial surveillance from ISPs, insecure wifi, and website tracking and I think iVPN (or some other VPN) works great for that. If law enforcement or national security or organized crime was my threat model, I would use tor and probably tails OS.

 

[Urben]

Hello, german VPN user here.

I can recommend Perfect Privacy. It doesnt log, too.

The price range is down to 10,41€/month if you pay for two years.
I guess it is not the lowest price on the market, but you gain access to 39 servers in 23 countrys. Three of them in germany. It should also be suitable for highspeed internet.

If you dont trust them to not save your pay-metadata, use bitcoin or paysafecards to pay. If you dont care it has numerous other methods like paypal.

The company is running in Switzerland, so you dont have to worry about european laws at all.

I use it myself because I know some admins indirectly and trust them. I also never had problems with them and their service. They even release news about new exploits in general VPN usage and how to fix it, finding them often on their own. If you have a question, you can use their forum. You should get an answer in under 24h. Another feature is the possibility to tunnel your connection through up to four VPN servers. But I never tried that yet.

Check out the website, it has alot more informations than this post. Good luck!

EDIT: Never, I mean never, choose a US service. There are enough laws which render their promises useless. I just say National security letter. Same goes with UK services. And after Snowden I dont actually trust EU countrys to save their companys from the US influence.

Oh forgot to mention, their VPN software runs under Linux, but also Windows, iOS, Apple and Android.

 

[Wally]

You're more likely to be tracked if you use a VPN as the traffic going out is still visible.

Seriously though, there's really no point investing in something to make you feel "Secure" online, infact you'd be more of a target if you use a VPN as they can still see traffic going in and out.

Use a good ad-block client such as uBlock to prevent tracking cookies from being downloaded (As you'll still get those with a VPN and they'll obviously still work if you disconnect from the VPN) and you should be good to go.

 

[Askarus]

Sounds nice but 10€ per month for 2 Years.
It's out of my price range.

AirVPN sounds nice actually.

AirVPN is an enthusiast-led operation, formed from a collective of privacy-rights activists, hackers and two lawyers in 2010. One of its stated missions is to deliver technical tools aimed to enhance and exercise the fundamental Right to Privacy, as reserved in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 12; and the European Convention of Human Rights, art. 8. It started as a free service and now has a commercial side to maintain the project.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/review/s...tool-for-hiding-your-location-online-3606128/

You're more likely to be tracked if you use a VPN as the traffic going out is still visible.

Seriously though, there's really no point investing in something to make you feel "Secure" online, infact you'd be more of a target if you use a VPN as they can still see traffic going in and out.

Use a good ad-block client such as uBlock to prevent tracking cookies from being downloaded (As you'll still get those with a VPN and they'll obviously still work if you disconnect from the VPN) and you should be good to go.

And here's the other side.
I'm aware of that and really don't know which way to go here.

 

[Urben]

You're more likely to be tracked if you use a VPN as the traffic going out is still visible.

Yes but as long the user is not spamming his personal data everywhere nobody but the VPN provider knows who that IP is.

 

[Urben]

Someone dropped a huge comparison table of multiple VPN providers.

 

[Askarus]

Someone dropped a huge comparison table of multiple VPN providers.

Thanks a lot.
That's a great list.
Cloudnymous looks nice.

 

[levi]

Yes but as long the user is not spamming his personal data everywhere nobody but the VPN provider knows who that IP is.

True, unless he has the google auth cookies (other tracking cookies exist). Then any site he visits will tell google his identity - less details like name and address for the time being, but it only takes one mistake to associate that cookie with an address.

It seems to me that sorting out your cookies is more important than hiding your IP address, if you want to limit your exposure to the Yanks. But I guess there are reasons to hide your outgoing local traffic, if you don't trust your local spooks to not be sharing everything with the Americans, for example. But again you must sort out your cookies for anything to be effective in making it harder for foreign spooks to build a coherent identity for you.