I have been thinking about getting a VPN for some time, but always get confused when reading about it. I have a few questions which I would love to get some answers to. E.g. which provider should I get, what are the rules and what are your experiences?
Obviously linux support is essential, but what kind of support is possible? E.g. do all providers have cli-support or will they mostly have a gui of some sort? Currently, I don’t prefer either, but I might set up a headless server and then it would be nice with cli.
Which provider should I choose? I have been looking at mulvad, ExpressVPN and some of my friends use NordVPN, but I have no clue of which is better, worse or if they are all the same.
Some of the VPNs don’t care about using the connection access to region locked services as Netflix and hulu or even torrenting. It makes me believe some of them are more secure since less personal information is stored?
If I get a VPN, would I end up with a dynamic IP? Currently my internet provider gives me a dynamic IP, which is cool I guess, but would I be able to connect my server to the VPN and then connect to the server from another network through the VPN? Not sure if this makes any sense.
1). All the providers I use have CLI… Some have gui, depends on the provider.
2). I use PIA like 90% of the time… Also Nord quite a bit.
3). Depending on your provider there will be specific servers to connect to if you’re gonna be peer-sharing, etc. A VPN isn’t a magic “anonymous” deal… It’s a step, but there’s a lot of other means to ID you online. No log policy is vital… Hence my choice in PIA/Nord.
4). It doesn’t… You and whoever else has logged into that specific server get whatever IP address the server has (there are hundreds of servers to choose from from any one vendor). As soon as you disconnect, to you may or may not ever get that specific IP address again. Your traffic passes through their servers… Hence the importance of no logs. Being supremely dynamic, no… You can’t access your server through the IP address it’s using when logged into a VPN. There are probably hundreds of other people also using that up address.
5). Don’t log into the same server repeated. While on a VPN, realize that your aren’t invisible, youre just a little less easy to ID. They’re handy, just realize you’re essentially trusting some company 5000 miles away with potentially the same data you don’t trust your ISP with…
I’m very happy with AirVPN. They support P2P, you can even open ports. You can generate OpenVPN profiles for many different devices, including routers. It’s very easy to use and I’m sure other providers also do it well. But in the end you should read all you can from each provider so you can compare yourself, for your particular needs.
I’ve been rocking Private Internet Access since 2015 on both Linux and Windows. The Linux applications is exactly the same as the Windows application. My speeds on it have been awesome, support is pretty good, the have a very good blog and forums. They also offer PPTP/L2TP/SOCKS and I’ve had no issues getting access to Netflix. Prime Video is a different story. Lol.
I have VPS server in Hostwinds and just installed my own VPN on it. It costs me around $6 per month with 1 TB limit. Installing open VPN is really simple with scripts like openvpn-install and you can use this server to host more services on it (www, mail server, etc.).
I use seedboxes.cc for a seedbox provider and they include VPN connections with their plans. If you’re in the market for a seedbox or just want to sail the open seas I recommend looking into them. They just provide an OVPN file and I add that to gnome.
To get an overview, you can take a look at https://thatoneprivacysite.net. I’m currently using IVPN. But it depends on what you want to do with a VPN access.
If I get a VPN, would I end up with a dynamic IP?
Usually you get a static IP that you share with other users. However, this has the disadvantage that some IPs are blocked by various providers because someone has done something wrong (spam, DDoS, etc.).
Thanks for the insight I actually tried PIA about two years ago and their linux support was almost non-existant. Currently, I have been looking at expressvpn since they also offer router software to have all connections being on the vpn, which seems like a pretty nice option. Not sure how it will work irl though.
What’s the point of such VPN? Unless you’re rotating your IPs you’re as identifiable as connecting to the internet from home - no there’s no tracking protection. Prevention of ISP eavesdropping?
It’s safer to use in public Wi-Fi networks, prevention of ISP eavesdropping (as you said) and maybe it will allow me to watch Netflix series not available in my country, but I haven’t tasted it yet.
I actually tried PIA about two years ago and their linux support was almost non-existant. Currently, I have been looking at expressvpn since they also offer router software to have all connections being on the vpn, which seems like a pretty nice option. Not sure how it will work irl though.
I’ll check it out. Thanks.