Best paid for VPN?

[Lazermilk]

V8mate said:

Thats What She Said said:

V8mate said:

And it's almost certainly owned by the FBI (or Russian or Chinese equivalent).

Another reason why I went for UK firm Hidden24. My security requirements are clear, so I don't need anything even slightly suspicious.

Nope. The reverse.

Can you at least explain your train of thought about it? I asked above which one you meant and why?

[V8mate]

Lazermilk said:

V8mate said:

Thats What She Said said:

V8mate said:

And it's almost certainly owned by the FBI (or Russian or Chinese equivalent).

Another reason why I went for UK firm Hidden24. My security requirements are clear, so I don't need anything even slightly suspicious.

Nope. The reverse.

Can you at least explain your train of thought about it? I asked above which one you meant and why?

Apologies - I genuinely didn't see your reply.

Nord - no-one knows who owns it. For me, that's a short circuit to something I don't even want to think about.

With respect to my own privacy, it's mainly to keep non-governmental noses away from my connection. Lots of organisations 'watch' IP activity and then run to ISPs whinging that you're naughty. I'm just avoiding that. (and no, I don't mean pr0n)

And there are little useful additional features, e.g. posting anonymously on my work extranet and, as I mentioned earlier, a simple line fo defence when using public wifi (in a coffee shop, for example)

If I had *serious* privacy requirements, I wouldn't be paying any mass market organisation to service that need.

So I chose a UK provider to ensure I didn't have any geographical termination issues.

[ashleyman]

V8mate said:

So I chose a UK provider to ensure I didn't have any geographical termination issues.

Surely any UK provider is going to be bound by UK laws and that in itself puts you at risk if the government come asking for information?

I'd rather use an off-shore provider who isn't bound by UK law. NordVPN say thatey'le based in Panama and keep no logs which I think is pretty good.

[Denis O]

I'm using Express VPN for viewing UK stuff abroad. I was using Hide My Ass but the BBC became more and more difficult to watch via HMA so I made the change.

I understand HMA is UK based so caved in to pressure from the Beeb. EVPN is not UK based so don't give a monkies. Even so, may of their locations don't work for the BBC. There's usually at least 1 that will.

[gregs656]

I have been using NordVPN for the last few months. It represented good value.

The iPlayer can sometimes take a few different servers to get working but no problem with any of the others and the speed la have been good.

Also has a good interface.

Works for me.

[AndrewEH1]

I used to used TunnelBear but they stopped allowing P2P connections

Now using Private Internet Access (PIA) and they're much cheaper and perhaps not as dodgy hopefully

[Lazermilk]

AndrewEH1 said:

I used to used TunnelBear but they stopped allowing P2P connections

Now using Private Internet Access (PIA) and they're much cheaper and perhaps not as dodgy hopefully

I used to have a PIA sub, but found their speeds pretty bad, could have improved now though as this was some time ago.

So far Nord has been much better for speed.

[Lazermilk]

V8mate said:

Lazermilk said:

V8mate said:

Thats What She Said said:

V8mate said:

And it's almost certainly owned by the FBI (or Russian or Chinese equivalent).

Another reason why I went for UK firm Hidden24. My security requirements are clear, so I don't need anything even slightly suspicious.

Nope. The reverse.

Can you at least explain your train of thought about it? I asked above which one you meant and why?

Apologies - I genuinely didn't see your reply.

Nord - no-one knows who owns it. For me, that's a short circuit to something I don't even want to think about.

With respect to my own privacy, it's mainly to keep non-governmental noses away from my connection. Lots of organisations 'watch' IP activity and then run to ISPs whinging that you're naughty. I'm just avoiding that. (and no, I don't mean pr0n)

And there are little useful additional features, e.g. posting anonymously on my work extranet and, as I mentioned earlier, a simple line fo defence when using public wifi (in a coffee shop, for example)

If I had *serious* privacy requirements, I wouldn't be paying any mass market organisation to service that need.

So I chose a UK provider to ensure I didn't have any geographical termination issues.

Ok thanks, I wasn't aware nobody knew who owned them. I only use it for streaming anyway, so works ok for my needs.

Also thanks to whoever mentioned sky go doesn't need VPN anymore, will try that later.

[AndrewEH1]

Lazermilk said:

I used to have a PIA sub, but found their speeds pretty bad, could have improved now though as this was some time ago.

So far Nord has been much better for speed.

I've had no issues with speed so far!

[Lazermilk]

AndrewEH1 said:

Lazermilk said:

I used to have a PIA sub, but found their speeds pretty bad, could have improved now though as this was some time ago.

So far Nord has been much better for speed.

I've had no issues with speed so far!

Good to know, this was at least a year ago if not more, so probably changed since then. They were recommended when I got it though at the time.

[techguyone]

ashleyman said:

V8mate said:

So I chose a UK provider to ensure I didn't have any geographical termination issues.

Surely any UK provider is going to be bound by UK laws and that in itself puts you at risk if the government come asking for information?

I'd rather use an off-shore provider who isn't bound by UK law. NordVPN say thatey'le based in Panama and keep no logs which I think is pretty good.

This in spades.

You must be bonkers to use a VPN that's based in any of the 5, 9 or 14 eyes areas if security is your thing.

Incidentally a lot of VPN's don't allow p2p tormenting (guessing this is you 'non pr0n' ip watching squealing to the authorities thing)

Nord do dedicated p2p servers so it doesn't pee off the people who presumably DO want to watch pr0n etc

[V8mate]

techguyone said:

ashleyman said:

V8mate said:

So I chose a UK provider to ensure I didn't have any geographical termination issues.

Surely any UK provider is going to be bound by UK laws and that in itself puts you at risk if the government come asking for information?

I'd rather use an off-shore provider who isn't bound by UK law. NordVPN say thatey'le based in Panama and keep no logs which I think is pretty good.

This in spades.

You must be bonkers to use a VPN that's based in any of the 5, 9 or 14 eyes areas if security is your thing.

Incidentally a lot of VPN's don't allow p2p tormenting (guessing this is you 'non pr0n' ip watching squealing to the authorities thing)

Nord do dedicated p2p servers so it doesn't pee off the people who presumably DO want to watch pr0n etc

So you'd rather use a company you have no idea who controls than one which is bound by UK laws?

I'm not a criminal (well, not one HMG would be much interested in ) so I'll take the protection that a local firm affords me!

But, I'm cool with anyone's choice on the matter - different doesn't equal wrong etc. I was asked to explain my rationale, so I did

[eliot]

Thats What She Said said:

Hardly - see my post above. You are funnelling all your traffic to an unknown entity who can at the very least build the metadata of your source ip, destination ip and protocol. The spooks love this sort of stuff and saves them the bother of tapping into all the fibe leaving this country and the bother of sifting through that captured data and deciding on what to focus on.

Setup a vpn service and those with something to hide come to you - and in some circumstances pay you for the privilege!

[techguyone]

eliot said:

Hardly - see my post above. You are funnelling all your traffic to an unknown entity who can at the very least build the metadata of your source ip, destination ip and protocol. The spooks love this sort of stuff and saves them the bother of tapping into all the fibe leaving this country and the bother of sifting through that captured data and deciding on what to focus on.

Setup a vpn service and those with something to hide come to you - and in some circumstances pay you for the privilege!

Yes that's something being bandied around too, who knows, it might be right, a paid VPN owned by the NSA or similar, the ultimate honeypot, even TOR isn't the safe harbour it was thought to be.

I don't think though for the majority of us using VPN's that our activities, yes even pr0n browsing/torrenting are something the Security services care about, they have much bigger fish to fry.

We are probably on a list of some sort though.

[andy_s]

techguyone said:

We are probably on a list of some sort though.

Quite a long one I'd imagine...

[Stan the Bat]

Have been using Froot for a couple of years with no problems.

[ninepoint2]

techguyone said:

Yes let's stay in because. Roaming mobile & Virgin on the Go...

You're a millennial aren't you.

Don't even know what a millennial is

[techguyone]

I'll add as general knowledge that regarding speed, due to the nature of encrypting/extra routing etc, realistically you can expect a 30% ish drop in speed from your normal service. If like me you're on 100Mb+ cable, no biggie, if you're on 1960's copper wire ADSL it maybe more of an issue.

[Lacrimosa]

Using any VPN, NordVPN included, there will be some sort of a speed drop. Really depends on the speed of the server that you are connected to, so it's always good to double check the server list before paying for VPN services. Unfortunately, NordVPN lacks servers in several countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia, Slovenia etc. But for the ones they have the speed is not an issue.

[techguyone]

Lacrimosa said:

Using any VPN, NordVPN included, there will be some sort of a speed drop. Really depends on the speed of the server that you are connected to, so it's always good to double check the server list before paying for VPN services. Unfortunately, NordVPN lacks servers in several countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia, Slovenia etc. But for the ones they have the speed is not an issue.

Just checked the latest update, both Thailand & Slovenia are covered now, not Malaysia though.