Recommended VPN

[torturedsole]

15 hours ago, i84teen said:

Oh yeah ok, who sells these routers flashed with ExpressVPN app? Are you referring to "flashrouters", or are there others selling these pre-flashed routers? I cannot find these sellers?

All over the place on Amazon, eBay and flashrouters.com who are obviously endorsed by ExpressVPN as the link is lifted from here: https://www.expressvpn.com/vpn-software/vpn-router

 

https://www.flashrouters.com/linksys-wrt3200acm-ddwrt-router-expressvpn?a_aid=12345

 

Basically, you hand over your money and your ExpressVPN login details and they do two minutes work loading the app for invariably £100+ over the cost of the router.  I don't blame them for the business opportunity, just that it doesn't need a professional to install / flash the router.  

 

 

[JackedUpAndgoodToGo]

I hope this helps. I lived in China. Our business used several VPN's:

 

1. Express

2. Nord

3. Surfshark

4. Pandapow

5. Ivacy

 

And others......

 

I liked OpenVPN. I used my subscription for (insert VPN company here) to get servers from the one of those companies (they have a special page for China--Surfshark, & Nord) in which they provide dedicated servers for China because it is so difficult to get pass the great firewall and the local sensors on Ip providers (both automated and manned) who scan packets. Then you can also bypass the "bloatware" of the VPN engines that take up a great deal of system resources and have extended load times. 

 

For me Surfshark or Nord and OpenVPN.

 

For my phone I preferred PandPow because of shadowsocks.

 

Hope this helps.

[RocketDog]

12 hours ago, torturedsole said:

All over the place on Amazon, eBay and flashrouters.com who are obviously endorsed by ExpressVPN as the link is lifted from here: https://www.expressvpn.com/vpn-software/vpn-router

 

https://www.flashrouters.com/linksys-wrt3200acm-ddwrt-router-expressvpn?a_aid=12345

 

Basically, you hand over your money and your ExpressVPN login details and they do two minutes work loading the app for invariably £100+ over the cost of the router.  I don't blame them for the business opportunity, just that it doesn't need a professional to install / flash the router.  

 

 

I can't disagree with you because I just bought one of the routers recommended by ExpressVPN, bought it on Lazada for the same price as in America.

 

Please carefully look for their flagship store on Lazada before ordering. I actually called ExpressVPN to verify the store. 

Then download the image and follow directions on the ExpressVPN website to install and configure it. I greatly prefer Asus routers and have had several at different locations over the years. I think I paid $175 for mine on Lazada. It's been wonderful and I'm very pleased with the range and speed. Admittedly, the router from my CAT ISP is slightly faster, as all VPN 's have overhead, and connecting from here to America takes some time too. Still, more than acceptable. 

 

If you have questions the staff is knowledgeable and will always helped me. I've personally been online with them for hours at a time over the last few years. They always solved the problem. 

 

That said if you're more comfortable paying for it just order one from ExpressVPN and plug it in. They do charge a premium, but it's slight. Of course you will pay for shipping to Los. 

 

For me, ExpressVPN is the best available. YMMV. Just my opinion. 

[RocketDog]

On 6/10/2020 at 8:05 PM, unblocktheplanet said:

Had Private Internet Access for six years now (coup-dependent). Servers everywhere, always reliable, inexpensive.

The acid test for me is using ptp file sharing. If a VPN doesn't protect for this, then it's not really private, and therefore useless to me. I demand privacy above all else. 

When I first vetted VPN candidates they all failed that test, but that's over 7 years ago and I've been happy with ExpressVPN and haven't looked any further since. 

 

Since I pay about $110/yr for the premium service I get, I have to believe services less expensive are getting their revenue in ways that are unsatisfactory to me. 

In general you get what you pay for, like everything else in life. Cheap is cheap for a reason. 

Caveat emptor. 

[DUS]

Does anyone have first hand experience with Torguard VPN?

 

[i84teen]

2 hours ago, DUS said:

Does anyone have first hand experience with Torguard VPN?

 

yes sir.

[torturedsole]

10 hours ago, RocketDog said:

When I first vetted VPN candidates they all failed that test, but that's over 7 years ago and I've been happy with ExpressVPN and haven't looked any further since.

Same here.  ExpressVPN was my first paid for VPN service about 5/6 years ago and never looked back.  

 

Since I decided that I'd prefer to continue the ExpressVPN love affair long-term then the flashed router was a natural progression and I do like it, a lot. And if I'm on my travels then the ExpressVPN app on my iPhone performs equally as well.  

 

 

[DUS]

On 6/12/2020 at 7:34 PM, i84teen said:

yes sir.

 

What is your experience with Torguard? How stable are the connections? What about the speed of international connections to Europe / US with the VPN on? What about geo-locked content whilst using Torguard´s "public servers", i.e. without the dedicated IP add-on they offer? 

 

Also, when I looked at some youtube videos it looked to me as this is not a VPN that is really first choice for "plug and pray" newbies to using a VPN. How do you rate its usability? Is it difficult to set up? Certainly didn´t look as easy as PureVPN and lots of the other "mainstream" VPN services where you (at least could just) click on connect and the job´s done.

 

Thank you for sharing your view on these questions.

[i84teen]

3 hours ago, DUS said:

 

What is your experience with Torguard?

Thank you for sharing your view on these questions.

Used TG on and off for about 5 years and overall, I feel they are a very stable and reliable vpn service not to mention one of the fastest I have used, as fast or faster than ExpressVPN but much more affordable in terms of cost and options available. I just conducted some speed tests using torguard wireguard from BKK to Toronto, NY, NL, and UK and all speeds in excess of 400/500Mbps to Europe and approx. 450Mbps to CAN/USA servers. My ISP provides 500/500 fiber service.

 

Their residential IP’s are fit for purpose performing flawlessly for circumventing geo-blocked streaming services. Their desktop apps are simple to setup and use with great support section including setup guides and also a user forum. They offer IKEv2 and wireguard now.

Being headquartered in Florida they fall under 5 Eyes but I could care less about that.

PureVPN had some good features but WAY TOO SLOOOOWWW when I tested it. U should try TG, its VERY affordable with a 50% discount for any/all subscriptions. You won't be disappointed.

 

Speedtest by Ookla
 Server: Jump Networks Ltd - London (id = 24640)
 ISP: Digital Ocean
 Latency:   194.18 ms   (0.13 ms jitter)
 Download:   533.42 Mbps (data used: 772.1 MB)                               
  Upload:   249.65 Mbps (data used: 406.0 MB)                               
  Packet Loss:     0.0%
 Result URL: https://www.speedtest.net/result/c/a303823c-06f6-43df-80e5-4384a16c19f8

 

 

 

[balo]

NORDVPN is reliable and fast, highly recommended. And not too expensive, I'm on a 3 year plan. 

 

[Eindhoven]

On 6/11/2020 at 11:28 AM, tifino said:

I am in tune with @luckyluke about how good the free Hola vpn is...  so far the 'only' glitch was when I tried to add it to Firefox; but Hola requires at least ver60.*** of Firefox - and my elder Windows only allows upgrades upto ver57 

 

back to enjoying on Chrome... 

 

Why not upgrade your "older Windows"? It costs nothing.

[johng]

Make your own VPN server 100% you control every aspect

https://www.pivpn.io/

 

 

[Susco]

4 minutes ago, johng said:

Make your own VPN server 100% you control every aspect

https://www.pivpn.io/

 

 

 

So for a one time payment of $35 you can make a vpn with a server in South Africa, as that is what the OP needs, or any other country in the world for that matter?

[johng]

2 minutes ago, Susco said:

So for a one time payment of $35 you can make a vpn with a server in South Africa

No,  unless you have a friend in SA who is willing to  insert the PIVPN server  into their network..but if you do then there would be no ongoing fees..unless you wanted to help them out with their internet costs.

or in other words you might have a residence in SA (or where ever)  with internet connection  and want to connect to that residence while you are "away from home" then running a VPN server at that residence would allow you to connect for no monthly fee.

[Susco]

3 minutes ago, johng said:

No,  unless you have a friend in SA who is willing to  insert the PIVPN server  into their network..but if you do then there would be no ongoing fees..unless you wanted to help them out with their internet costs.

or in other words you might have a residence in SA (or where ever)  with internet connection  and want to connect to that residence while you are "away from home" then running a VPN server at that residence would allow you to connect for no monthly fee.

That is also what I understood and was aware of, and why I asked the question, as I didn't really understood why you bothered to post something that is completely off topic to the subject at hand

[johng]

4 minutes ago, Susco said:

something that is completely off topic to the subject at hand

How can discussion of VPN servers be "off topic"  in the thread "Recommended VPN"

@Alphim may well have a residence or family in SA that could use the solution I suggested.

[DUS]

On 6/18/2020 at 6:13 PM, i84teen said:

Used TG on and off for about 5 years and overall, I feel they are a very stable and reliable vpn service not to mention one of the fastest I have used, as fast or faster than ExpressVPN but much more affordable in terms of cost and options available. I just conducted some speed tests using torguard wireguard from BKK to Toronto, NY, NL, and UK and all speeds in excess of 400/500Mbps to Europe and approx. 450Mbps to CAN/USA servers. My ISP provides 500/500 fiber service.

 

Their residential IP’s are fit for purpose performing flawlessly for circumventing geo-blocked streaming services. Their desktop apps are simple to setup and use with great support section including setup guides and also a user forum. They offer IKEv2 and wireguard now.

Being headquartered in Florida they fall under 5 Eyes but I could care less about that.

PureVPN had some good features but WAY TOO SLOOOOWWW when I tested it. U should try TG, its VERY affordable with a 50% discount for any/all subscriptions. You won't be disappointed.

 

Speedtest by Ookla
 Server: Jump Networks Ltd - London (id = 24640)
 ISP: Digital Ocean
 Latency:   194.18 ms   (0.13 ms jitter)
 Download:   533.42 Mbps (data used: 772.1 MB)                               
  Upload:   249.65 Mbps (data used: 406.0 MB)                               
  Packet Loss:     0.0%
 Result URL: https://www.speedtest.net/result/c/a303823c-06f6-43df-80e5-4384a16c19f8

 

 

 

 

That´s impressive! So, when you ran these tests you connected to their Thailand VPN server and then established connections to servers in those other countries or did you connect to US VPN servers (etc) and then ran speed tests connecting to servers in those respective countries?

 

I signed up with them over the weekend. Still facing major problems with them though. The big issue for now is speed. The loss of speed when connected to any of their servers is (very often) quite dramatic. If I am extremely lucky, my connection gets reduced by only 65% but the vast majority of speed tests show a loss of > 90% which is of course unacceptable. Have been playing around with different servers, ports and protocols etc but to no avail. Have raised a ticket and will see what their support will say.

 

 

[DUS]

50 minutes ago, DUS said:

 

The loss of speed when connected to any of their servers is (very often) quite dramatic. If I am extremely lucky, my connection gets reduced by only 65% but the vast majority of speed tests show a loss of > 90% which is of course unacceptable. Have been playing around with different servers, ports and protocols etc but to no avail. Have raised a ticket and will see what their support will say.

 

 

 Quick update: changed the DNS to Cloudflare and the speeds improved a lot, even though the best speed result I got was connected to their Singapore VPN which yielded 141 / 87 Mbps (dl / ul). My line is 300/100 and without VPN I got 284 / 97. The other results using speedtest.net (multithread) and always using "CAT Company Ltd Bangkok" as the server looked like this:

 

Connected to Thai VPN server: 91 / 80

Connected to London VPN server:  107 / 50

Connected to Los Angeles VPN server:  27 / 40

Connected to San Francisco VPN server:  24 / 28

Connected to New York VPN server: 62 / 38

Connected to Munich VPN server: 42/ 40

Connected to Frankfurt VPN server: 88 / 45

Connected to Tokyo VPN server:  51 / 34

Connected to Paris VPN server:  134 / 20

 

Will check if I can improve these results by playing around in the settings. 

 

[Such a Hairy Guy]

On 6/7/2020 at 9:35 PM, ignis said:

Never use one and watch a lot of TV from all over the place.... so try 1st without.... 

 

Also Opera Browser has a built in VPN

Opera is a Proxy, not a VPN. 

 

"Opera VPN was mentioned as one of the five worst VPNs on the market, alongside Hola VPN, VPN Gate, Betternet, and SurfEasy VPN."

 

As per : https://vpnpro.com/vpn-reviews/opera-vpn-review/

 

Opera used to be my main browser until it was bought by Chinese and since then security is fallen off.

[Alphim]

On 6/20/2020 at 2:08 PM, johng said:

How can discussion of VPN servers be "off topic"  in the thread "Recommended VPN"

@Alphim may well have a residence or family in SA that could use the solution I suggested.

Thank you, Alphim lives in South Africa