So I’ve been using TetherMe for about a decade, and it’s been wonderful. But the catch has been that in order to mask the hotspot use (at least on Verizon), you have to use a VPN. You either have to pay for a VPN, which offsets the savings of having a cheaper mobile plan, or use a free VPN which tends to have slower speeds, less privacy, and is often plagued with Captcha’s and blocking.
But I recently found a way to avoid ALL of the downsides of VPN masking: NordVPN’s MeshNet
It’s a fairly new feature from NordVPN, but basically it allows you to use your home computer as a VPN server for free. You don’t need a paid subscription. It takes about 10 seconds to set up in the NordVPN Mac/Windows app. And despite TetherMe being fairly finicky with VPNs, MeshNet works perfectly. From a website’s perspective, all your traffic comes from your home WiFi, which means no Captcha’s and no streaming issues. From your carrier’s perspective, it looks like all your hotspot traffic comes from the phone.
The only catch is you’re limited by your home internet’s upload speeds. So if you have Comcast you’re SOL — even their highest tier plans tend to have just 14mbps upload. But if you have Verizon or virtually any non-Comcast fiber internet, you can get 500mbps+ speeds and lower pings than many paid VPNs for free.
I know there have always been ways to use home computers as VPN servers, but NordVPN’s MeshNet makes it much much simpler to set up. And I haven’t seen anyone here mention it before. MeshNet also uses the superior WireGuard-based NordLynx protocol compared to most DIY VPNs that tend to use OpenVPN protocol.
Using Nord definitely doesn’t protect your privacy
FYI there are a bunch of projects that make it VERY simple to setup a home VPN such as pivpn. I would stay away from NordVPN XD
Or you can just run iOS SOCKS5 Server on your iPhone to hide you’re hotspot data… don’t need any extra equipment or TetherMe.
Try 1.1.1.1. I always used it when I had tetherme and it got me through a whole semester of covid college using only my phone’s hotspot
I have switched from tetherme to PairVPN for free and without jailbreak my phone.
My asus router works for a vpn server and I’ve been using that.
What happens if you don’t use any obfuscafion? Does Verizon get pissed or smth?
Just host a wireguard server at home and setup port forwarding on your router. You don’t need Nord for this.
I just purchased a month of NordVPN is it really that bad?
Does this work with dynamic ips? I have comcast. I’m new to this whole networking stuff, I have a rpi 3+ (I think), I just want to set up a vpn so I can access my home pc files from school.
If you want to avoid port forwarding, Tailscale is also a great option.
Really? why stay away I purchased a month of NordVPN the other day
No, PairVPN sets up a local VPN server on the phone, and the tethered device is the client. MeshNet uses a home computer as the server and the phone as the client, so it’s treated no different than a standard paid VPN.
Unfortunately there is no way to use an iPhone as the host server with MeshNet. Idk if it’s an App Store restriction or if it’s iOS. I think it’s probably the latter because PairVPN requires that the app be in the foreground the entire time.
I wonder if it would be possible to use the same ingenious technique as Riley Testut’s Clip app, which runs a silent audio file in the background to keep Clip open. If anyone knows Riley’s Reddit username, please tag him. He’s the guy behind Clip, Delta, and AltStore.
Isn’t this basically what PairVPN does, but without all the setup and $10 Pythonista app?
Can you explain how to use it like tetherme?
do you even know what the point of using nord is here? it’s not to protect your info and you aren’t using their vpn servers
They’ve had multiple data breaches and took months to disclose the hacks. While “no account credentials were stolen”, having a breached server for months and then taking a few more months to disclose it turns a lot of people off. ProtonVPN or Mullvad are the best options in my opinion.
Use mullvad, nord is just so fucking shit man
it does. you just need a dynamic dns setup. i personally just use cloudflare for dns since i have bought my own domain name, with a docker container which automatically updates my dns on cloudflare with my personal api keys (it’s actually super easy)