Question Looking for new VPN

[cool09]

I read some articles about VPNs and I read that Proton and CyberGhost VPNs and have especially good download speeds when used with Wireguard and are cheaper than NordVPN, Surfshark, AIRVPN, etc. I bought Mozilla VPN last month and it's not hiding my IP address. I looked my IP address up online and it told me "You can be detected. Buy a VPN now".
I read Wireguard's website and I'm still pretty much in the dark. I don't know how much configuration it's going to take to use Wireguard with a VPN. I don't want something that's going to take forever to configurate.
I use Windows Defender, Windows 10 and Firefox.

 

[turtletarget111]

I personally use a custom installation of hardened Firefox with DuckDuckGo as my search engine and Mullvad VPN. I've tried TunnelBear, Cyberghost, and Nord VPN, with little success in reaching a level of privacy and security I am satisfied with. The truth is that most of these VPN companies lie to you and legitimately log your data, and would happily hand it over to the authorities if involved in an investigation. Even Nord VPN, a company based in Panama, has trackers installed in its app to see what its users are up to, and I find that completely despicable. Not to mention the horrible service I received while using it. That being said, Mullvad is a little slower compared to others in my experience. If you want the fastest speeds, then you might want to go with Nord VPN instead. However, I'm willing to trade some performance for more reliable service.

All of this is to say that Mullvad VPN is far and away the best I've ever used. The app doesn't randomly log me out, and the service is both stable and reliable. And unlike most VPN companies, they legitimately do not log data. As a matter of fact, they had police enter their offices to seize user data for an investigation, and came back with nothing. They also encourage you to pay with private means like bitcoin or mailing cash to their offices. They do not even require an email. I would love it if I was getting paid for this, but I have used many VPN services in the past, and Mullvad is just far and away the best.

 

[USAFRet]

I read some articles about VPNs and

A lot of those are written by the VPN companies.

What are you looking for in a VPN? What will it do for you?

 

[bill001g]

This depends on what level you are trying to protect yourself from. If it run to the level a government agency can be involved not many vpn services can protect you. The government can just tell ISP to block the traffic from a vpn provider that will not comply so they in effect blackmail the vpn company to give up their customers or go out of business.
The other is various levels of copyright violations. Some companies like nintedo spend lot on lawyers where netflix just pretends it cares since you can not watch netflix on some vpn but it works on one of the largest nordvpn.

In general you get what you pay for. Both wiregaurd and openvpn are easy to configure. You can be lazy and use the included vpn app but sometimes these have other things in them. Some of the so called free ones used to run bitcoin miners. Best to install one the open source version of wireguard. Most better vpn services have details on how to configure this. Some have a small config file you can load into the open source version. Best if you learn the basics on how to configure this yourself.

Way to many vpn clients get installed and can't easily be uninstalled or reinstalled. Sometimes it is the vpn company but microsoft and their automated patches mess this up too.

 

[bill001g]

As a important added comment the vast majority of so called "best" vpn lists are faked. They are many times just paid advertisements or outright fake web sites paid by the vpn company itself. Even very large sites have these fake articles.

In addition there is no way to actually know anything about the true performance. These sites did not test from your house using your ISP. Since the actual performance is going to depend on the path your traffic takes between your ISP and the VPN data center you likely are going to have to test a few yourself.

 

[cool09]

A lot of those are written by the VPN companies.

As a important added comment the vast majority of so called "best" vpn lists are faked. They are many times just paid advertisements or outright fake web sites paid by the vpn company itself. Even very large sites have these fake articles.

I went to a few sites that listed and compared the best VPNs in 2024 and they were very detailed. The sites seemed honest and weren't biased at all towards any VPN (and I got the vibe that they weren't written by ad companies). I also went to a forum and there was a lot of discussion from people using all of these VPNs mentioned above. And some of these VPNs don't allow port-forwarding.

Best to install one the open source version of wireguard

I have to research that. I don't know what "open source" means. Are "scripts" or "code" involved in "open source" software? I don't know what I'm doing if I have to write code or scripts and I don't want to put tons of effort into installing a VPN.

Mozilla VPN gives me good download speeds but my IP is still detectable.

Thanks for all the good info!!!!

 

[USAFRet]

I went to a few sites that listed and compared the best VPNs in 2024 and they were very detailed. The sites seemed honest and weren't biased at all towards any VPN (and I got the vibe that they weren't written by ad companies). I also went to a forum and there was a lot of discussion from people using all of these VPNs mentioned above. And some of these VPNs don't allow port-forwarding.

PureVPN
NordVPN

8 popular VPN scams (and how to avoid them) in 2024

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have been increasing in popularity in recent years, with millions of people relying on them to improve online privacy and

www.purevpn.com

9 most popular VPN Scams in 2024

Familiarize yourself with the worst VPN scams, learn how to tell genuine VPN providers from fake ones, and how to protect yourself.

nordvpn.com

These could have been written by the same person (or AI)


"The VPN seems new, and you’ve never heard of it, yet millions are already reporting how amazing it is. Most of the time, it’s the VPN company itself trying to shamelessly promote its fishy business by publishing fake reviews and testimonials. It will abuse the Google Play Store or Apple App Store, social media, Reddit, and comments sections to trick you."

"If you find a relatively new VPN that you have not heard about before and notice countless glowing reviews and testimonials on app stores, social media, or the VPN website itself, do not fall for it. These VPN reviews and testimonials are usually fake and published by the VPN provider itself in an effort to promote their supposedly excellent service."

 

[lantis3]

None of the VPN providers will let you do port forwarding, and what do you want to achieve?

The commercial VPN providers usually only create a secure encrypted tunnel between customer (you) and one of their VPN servers in different places. The only benefit using VPN on the market is hide your activities ( legal or illegal )on the internet and also provide an exit point of your choice.

All VPN providers usually use either OpenVPN or Wireguard with their own modification.

The only way you can do port forwarding is if you can control both local and remote sites' machines and run VPN software yourself, however.

Open source only means their programming codes of the (VPN) software are available for everybody's inspection (see if there are bugs or security issues). Unless you are a programmer/developer, hardly anyone has to read or write the codes.

If you use commercial VPN, in most cases you have nothing to configure, you probably only want to choose exit point of your choice.

Source codes for you to check if you are interested

https://github.com/OpenVPN

https://github.com/WireGuard

I don't subscribe any VPN, so don't ask me which one is the best.

---

If OP only wants remote access to home devices while away from home, Tailscale and ZeroTier are two good VPN options, once connection is established, no port forwarding required. Tailscale is faster (based on Wireguard)

 

[bill001g]

You are not going to get both random IP addresses and so called port forwarding.

The reason you can't be tracked via ip on a vpn is you share the IP with other people. This means they are running NAT and it is not really possible to do port forwarding. Some VPN services allow you to have a fixed IP to yourself which in effect is all ports forwarded. Using a fixed IP is really something different than your common use of VPN. It would be more used to hide the real IP of a server you re running or maybe if you do not have a fixed IP. It does not prevent tracking and would be much easier to track since all traffic is going to a single user where when you share a IP address logging would have to be done at a session/packet level.

 

[cool09]

None of the VPN providers will let you do port forwarding, and what do you want to achieve?

To tell you the truth, a couple things happened to me which helped me make my mind up to get a VPN (but I'm really not sure if it's the answer to my problems):

1. Google has blocked me from searching Adult Content and torrent downloads online. (The last time I checked searching Adult Content was not illegal in USA. It's a freedom.) I got a Google webpage saying "Suspicious Activity is coming from your Computer. Read our "Terms and Conditions". I read the Terms and it said, "You are using our service and we have the right to block you". (I'm not sure if it said anything about taking legal action. Surely, I don't want to be fined or imprisoned.) I know torrenting in USA is not legal but I've been downloading music bootlegs and other music the past 20 years - I've been willing to take that risk. (Besides, I have OCD and other problems very, very badly and I can't stop - it's one of the only things I enjoy in my life.)

2. Some guy from Europe (his email address ended with ***.de) hacked my Outlook email password and sent me some threatening emails saying, "I hacked your email using viruses and I have been following your online activity searching nasty Adult Content and if you don't send me 1,000,000 quid I am going to make this public. Have a nice day. Don't bother replying to me." His next email said the same thing and went on "If you don't send me 1500 quid within the next 48 hrs I'm going to make your activity public". I tried to reply to him and I was blocked. (FYI: I don't search child pornography - I find that totally repulsive.) I contacted Microsoft about these threats and got no reply. Then I followed Microsoft's Tips for hacked accounts: I changed my password and I scanned my PC for threats and found none. (I don't know if a VPN can stop hacking or not - someone told me it can't.)

So, I'm going to find another VPN and like I said I don't know if it will solve these problems. I was thinking of switching to a different Search Engine, too, but I'm not sure if that will make a difference, either.

You can make any comments you want to make. I am who I am and I can't change.

 

[USAFRet]

You do realize that #2 was a total fake, right?
There was no "hack".

#1 was also a fake.
That did not come from Google.

 

[lantis3]

You do realize that #2 was a total fake, right?
There was no "hack".

#1 was also a fake.
That did not come from Google.

100% agree. Any can send same letter to OP with email spam bot. Google warning probably not from Google either.

VPN does hide your activities to a degree, however.

 

[ronb1955]

I thought VPN's were pretty much a thing of the past