VPN Consolidation

[topt]

Some interesting "news" and a vaguely amusing blog from someone at Windscribe - so yes as he admits perhaps biased.

 

https://blog.windscribe.com/is-privacy-even-real-in-the-vpn-world/

 

Nord users may want to take note - or not.......

[MJCM]

I bet that NordVpn, at one point in time, will release approx the same kind of blog ????

 

My 3 year subscription with NORD is ending in June, but will not renew. I find them slower then some other VPN (incl Windscribe)

[dddave]

I changed from "PureVPN" to "Surfshark" more than a year ago.   Very happy, never an issue, very quick to connect.

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

I wonder how many of these VPN service providers are ultimately owned or controlled by intelligence services in the same manner that Crypto AG was for many years.

[The Hammer2021]

4 minutes ago, Etaoin Shrdlu said:

I wonder how many of these VPN service providers are ultimately owned or controlled by intelligence services in the same manner that Crypto AG was for many years.

If so they will be flooded with irrelevant banality

[KhunBENQ]

Funny that he wrongly associates the Netherlands with the five eyes alliance.

And then proudly announces that his company is registered in Canada and pays tax there (a core five eyes country).

What a laughing stock.
 

[GrandPapillon]

10 minutes ago, Etaoin Shrdlu said:

I wonder how many of these VPN service providers are ultimately owned or controlled by intelligence services in the same manner that Crypto AG was for many years.

very likely I would say,

 

The FBI was very active on the DarkNet, that's how they catch the criminals

 

Using a VPN to watch HBO and surf porn sites, that's fine, but what else would you need one?

 

most users don't have a clue why they use one in the first place ????

[topt]

18 minutes ago, KhunBENQ said:

And then proudly announces that his company is registered in Canada and pays tax there (a core five eyes country).

Below the link I gave were some previous articles - I agree the article not exactly 100% balanced but I took it for the general industry information which I find quite interesting.

https://blog.windscribe.com/consolidation-of-the-vpn-industry-spells-trouble-for-the-consumer-57e638634cf0/

In which he does say - 

Windscribe is based in Toronto, Canada — we’re telling you this because most VPN companies don’t reveal where they are actually based. Yeah, yeah, we know Canada is considered a “5 eyes” country, but if that made any difference, we’d spend the $1600 it costs to open an offshore company. 

 

 

[GrandPapillon]

the location of the parent company is actually quite irrelevant, if they get served papers by the FBI or Interpol, they would have to technically comply,

 

they can chose to ignore it, but that won't stop authorities from going to the next stage, usually suspension from "payment processors" and finally "domain name seizure" which is directly under US authorities for 99% of domain names

 

ask "bittorrent" sites if having no HQ or no official location helped them from attacks by US authorities, it didn't, and they have been a playing a game of cat and mouse for the last 10 years. You can't do that with a real business with actual revenues.

[Golden Triangle]

1 hour ago, GrandPapillon said:

most users don't have a clue why they use one in the first place ????

I have one because the country I currently live in is run by a suspect government & most people don't trust them.

[sanuk711]

Anyone with PrivateVPN--- I was just considering joining this week, when I saw this post---$2 a month, very fast speeds...so friends tell me . can put on 6 devices.

 

Interested--if Anyone with any negatives about them ??? I have only been with one VPN before and the BBC stop that one just after I joined.

 

https://privatevpn.com/prices/vpnmentor

[windscribe]

12 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

Funny that he wrongly associates the Netherlands with the five eyes alliance.

And then proudly announces that his company is registered in Canada and pays tax there (a core five eyes country).

What a laughing stock.
 

Hi,

 

Article author here. Netherlands is part of the "9 eyes" alliance, but you missed the point. It makes no difference, despite what most VPN review sites claim, and "choose" Nord/Express as "#1" and constantly mention the fact that they are NOT based in an "random integer alliance" as something that actually matters. 

 

We're based in Canada. This decision was made after engaging actual lawyers to conduct legal research before opening the company. If it made any difference, believe me, every VPN would pay the $2000 it costs to open an offshore + bank account. The sole reason to do that is to avoid taxes, which is obviously appealing when you're sending millions of dollars to the local government, the money you could have just kept and used for things. 

 

Dubai, Russia and China are not in any "eyes alliance", are you OK with VPNs based there? Probably not. A country with a mature legal system, low levels of corruption, and no laws on the books that force VPNs to log activity is the best option for a VPN, despite how many eyes the country allegedly has. Canada is such a country. 

 

Hope that clears up some things. 

[Mutt Daeng]

  

4 hours ago, windscribe said:

Hi,

 

Article author here. Netherlands is part of the "9 eyes" alliance, but you missed the point. It makes no difference, despite what most VPN review sites claim, and "choose" Nord/Express as "#1" and constantly mention the fact that they are NOT based in an "random integer alliance" as something that actually matters. 

 

We're based in Canada. This decision was made after engaging actual lawyers to conduct legal research before opening the company. If it made any difference, believe me, every VPN would pay the $2000 it costs to open an offshore + bank account. The sole reason to do that is to avoid taxes, which is obviously appealing when you're sending millions of dollars to the local government, the money you could have just kept and used for things. 

 

Dubai, Russia and China are not in any "eyes alliance", are you OK with VPNs based there? Probably not. A country with a mature legal system, low levels of corruption, and no laws on the books that force VPNs to log activity is the best option for a VPN, despite how many eyes the country allegedly has. Canada is such a country. 

 

Hope that clears up some things. 

So, am I understanding this correctly that every other vpn except windscribe is bad?

I'm a current NordVPN user.

[recom273]

17 hours ago, sanuk711 said:

Anyone with PrivateVPN--- I was just considering joining this week, when I saw this post---$2 a month, very fast speeds...so friends tell me . can put on 6 devices.

 

Interested--if Anyone with any negatives about them ??? I have only been with one VPN before and the BBC stop that one just after I joined.

 

https://privatevpn.com/prices/vpnmentor

What are you thinking about doing? 
 

Accessing BBC iplayer? I have a surfshark VPN and it is a bit touch and go, it started off well but then after a while was only able to access low quality streams, they told me to clear cookies and restart machines, I don’t like their app on my Mac. It’s a bit touch and go.

 

Out of frustration I tried a month on PIA, the next in order of cheapness - much better service, they have streaming channel that supports iplayer and ITV. It allows me to access the 1080 iplayer streams, the customer service is a bit flakey, they can’t really answer questions about breaks in service, they just give you possible combinations, their guides are quite easy to follow, if you need to turn off geo tracking, etc and you can easily change encryption and ports. No need to restart my machine.

 

I think it’s the same price, $2-ish a month - I bought a month to begin with and then took a year, spoke to them about a refund on the first month so I could get a year and they supplied an instant refund and gave me a discount on first year, i didn’t expect such efficiency. Worth a whirl. 
 

[Mutt Daeng]

22 hours ago, topt said:

Some interesting "news" and a vaguely amusing blog from someone at Windscribe - so yes as he admits perhaps biased.

 

https://blog.windscribe.com/is-privacy-even-real-in-the-vpn-world/

 

Nord users may want to take note - or not.......

Hello @topt. I'm a NordVPN user. I read the blog in your link above and your last sentence says we "may want to take note - or not". I'm interested in what you mean by that, and what action you think us NordVPNers should take. I already knew about the NordVPN "hack" and read a few other articles/blogs discussing/dismissing it. I'm not trying to bait you, just interested to hear your views. Thanks.

[topt]

6 hours ago, Mutt Daeng said:

I'm interested in what you mean by that, and what action you think us NordVPNers should take.

I just came across the information and put it out there as it showed a different, not necessarily accurate, perspective on happenings in the VPN world.

Up to individuals to assess if it has any significance to them.

 

Personally speaking the hack alone would not have been a major issue for me but questions over privacy/data would especially as not read anything before about Nord in that regard.

 

Saying that I note the blogger (and now AseanNow poster) did not specifically say that Nord do what he claimed was commonplace............ 

 

If I was a Nord user, and concerned about that aspect I would probably be trying to find some independent verification/qualification but that is not easy. If used for geo location purposes and you don't care about the data collection aspect then carry on.........

[Mutt Daeng]

13 minutes ago, topt said:

I just came across the information and put it out there as it showed a different, not necessarily accurate, perspective on happenings in the VPN world.

Up to individuals to assess if it has any significance to them.

 

Personally speaking the hack alone would not have been a major issue for me but questions over privacy/data would especially as not read anything before about Nord in that regard.

 

Saying that I note the blogger (and now AseanNow poster) did not specifically say that Nord do what he claimed was commonplace............ 

 

If I was a Nord user, and concerned about that aspect I would probably be trying to find some independent verification/qualification but that is not easy. If used for geo location purposes and you don't care about the data collection aspect then carry on.........

OK Thanks @topt

Same conclusions that I drew.

[robiw]

To watch iplayer or any other UK streaming service I use SmartDNS.  Yes its not as 'secure' as vpn but I find that the speeds are far better so the video quality is better.

 

Not saying its better or worse than a vpn but for streaming UK tv it is better for me.

 

Caveat I also use 2 x VPN's for other applications - 1 is Express which generally works really well albeit it with those 'security' caveats and one is a smallish uk company .  Will no reassess the VPN aspect, it's a minefield!!

 

[elfpattaya]

On 2/3/2022 at 3:50 PM, sanuk711 said:

Anyone with PrivateVPN--- I was just considering joining this week, when I saw this post---$2 a month, very fast speeds...so friends tell me . can put on 6 devices.

Been using them since November 2020, paid for 2 years. No real problems, but did go down for a couple of days, about a month ago, but that has now been fixed.

i use it basically for UK TV, use their dedicated server for UK. Also have access to wireguard, works very well. If you need support they are very good.

[recom273]

On 2/4/2022 at 6:35 PM, robiw said:

To watch iplayer or any other UK streaming service I use SmartDNS.  Yes its not as 'secure' as vpn but I find that the speeds are far better so the video quality is better.

 

Not saying its better or worse than a vpn but for streaming UK tv it is better for me.

 

Caveat I also use 2 x VPN's for other applications - 1 is Express which generally works really well albeit it with those 'security' caveats and one is a smallish uk company .  Will no reassess the VPN aspect, it's a minefield!!

 

How much are you paying and what kind of speeds do you manage to get from them. I don't think the video quality is dependent on speed, its the technology they employ - I notice the same thing when comparing the available streams from PIA and surfshark.

 

PIA is so erratic, one minute I think they are great, and the next time I go to use them I can't even connect to the iplayer server.

[robiw]

I have a 100Mb/s connection and I get pretty much that.  From what I understand, all it does is use make the UK server think that you are in the UK, not by creating a VPN but by simply altering the DNS - Domain Name System.  This link probably explains it a lot better than I can https://www.itproportal.com/features/what-is-smartdns-and-five-situations-where-you-may-need-it/

 

I use https://www.smartdnsproxy.com who offer a 14 days trial for free, more importantly you don't have to give them your credit card for this.  Anyway it works for me so worth a go I'm sure