Question Connectivity problems after installing/uninstalling a VPN when you have more than two installed on your PC ?

[Newb888]

I've had this happen to me countless of times (and others too) especially when trying a new VPN client on my Windows PC. This goes as far back to my Windows 7 days.

Often I can't reconnect to the internet anymore after installing a new VPN while one is presently installed (but not active). This happens usually when I'm trying out a new VPN as a trial. Sometimes, I can' t connect after installing the new VPN client as well.

I prefer not to uninstall my current (other) VPN client because sometimes that creates issues itself like lack of connectivity after reinstalling.

Unfortunately, many VPN providers don't have a VPN file application/registry cleaner where it's client specific and removes all remints of the installation process it's VPN client created. Typically, third party uninstaller applications like Revo Uninstaller often don't work either to return everything back to where they once were. The only [working] solution I found is a fresh new Windows reinstallation as not even System Restore brings things back.

Does anyone have any tips/suggestions on how to avoid the issues I've experienced, besides not installing a VPN client?

 

[bill001g]

Seems many of the vpn providers are scum. This is even more true of some of the free ones that installed mining software or inject ads into the browser.

This exact problem and having to reinstall windows to get rid of even very well known companies vpn software has lead me to only run vpn on my router. What I suspect will work just as well is to use one of the public openvpn clients. That way like a router you manually configure the setting instead of running some unknown installer from the VPN provider. Sometime you have to look in the unix install instructions to get some of the settings. This will likely somewhat limit the choice of vpn providers but in a way it makes me suspect the company even more if they do not provide the settings you need to use a public client.

 

[Newb888]

Seems many of the vpn providers are scum. This is even more true of some of the free ones that installed mining software or inject ads into the browser.

This exact problem and having to reinstall windows to get rid of even very well known companies vpn software has lead me to only run vpn on my router. What I suspect will work just as well is to use one of the public openvpn clients. That way like a router you manually configure the setting instead of running some unknown installer from the VPN provider. Sometime you have to look in the unix install instructions to get some of the settings. This will likely somewhat limit the choice of vpn providers but in a way it makes me suspect the company even more if they do not provide the settings you need to use a public client.

Indeed. Unfortunately, from my experience OpenVPN clients can be restrictive in the sense that you're limited to one data centre. Each time you wish to change it, you need to reconfigure your settings.

In my case, I'm using NordVPN. I prefer their desktop client because it actually allows me to change to specific data centres . This is crucial for my needs because financial institutions and other sites tend to block VPN access . The more obscure data centre (less common IP address) used, the better the odds. I can just try each data centre without having to configure the router.

The other limitation with a OpenVPN and configuring it within you router is most ISP provided routers do not have a VPN client configuration. Buying your own can be pricey if you don't want to give up speed and a router needs hardware encryption not to suffer any speed hits. That's why I prefer to use the VPN client.

For general browsing, a browser extension from the VPN provider typically suffices. Sadly, VPN provider's mobile clients are rather basic too and except for changing the protocols such as Wireguard, Nordlyns, UDP, etc one typically can only choose a location and that's all. Users don't have a choice which data centre the app chooses other than location eg. Seattle, London, etc.

Nord used to allow their users to choose a specific data location within a city via app, but they removed that functionality. I suspect it's because they really don't have as many working servers/data centres they claim.

 

[bill001g]

That is the price you pay for fancy clients that try to make things easy on you. They have all kinds of nasty bugs that prevent the client from uninstalling or sometime affecting performance even when the vpn is disabled.

I guess you decide which you dislike least. I tend to put up with the manual configuration issues rather than some windows update conflicting with the vpn and I have to reinstall windows again.

Using a router as a vpn is not real expensive, asus and tplink routers all have fairly powerful clients and the asus ones you can load merlin on are even better. You are correct about the performance issue. You need to use wireguard which helps to some extent or you need to use the small number of asus routers that support AES encryption acceleration. It will still limit your traffic to say 250mbps on openvpn but it is better than the 30mbps you get from most routers. Letting traffic bypass the vpn that does not need vpn access helps a bit with this. This would mostly be a concern from someone who is downloading via a vpn not running normal traffic.

The only real solution is to use a small dual nic pc as a vpn box. It is the only way you get the ability to run really fast vpn encryption without having to deal with the buggy vpn clients.

Note it depends on why you are using a vpn. If it is to say hide you actual location because say you want to use netflix or you need to hide your IP from some idiot gamer kiddies your best option is to use a hosted VPN. Since these are in effect private vpn servers you are not blocked since they come back to the same ip blocks google and amamzon use for private web servers. Your IP address seldom changes with this which can be good or bad depending on why you are using the vpn.

 

[Newb888]

Thanks @bill001g

Tell me more about a hosted VPN? I know financial institution would prefer I use a static IP address so a hosted VPN sounds intriguing. My uses for VPNs are rather mundane, mostly torrents and streaming geo-locked content. When abroad, I'd like to connect to "familiar" server so I don't have any issue with my bank locking me out.

I suppose I should assume there's no "universal" VPN cleaner/network restore application for a PC that one can download aside maybe a very enhanced disk image application that can restore a specific part of an image eg. installed NordVPN which is similar to Windows System Restore but more powerful? System Restore doesn't always restore things back to the way they were before any changes were made. And if I want to restore long into the future, any application I have installed since then will also be affected.

Additionally (should anyone search for NordVPN and find this post) NordVPN has a few memory hog startup files which automatically boot up at Windows start even though you choose not to have the application auto-start.

In contrast, say, Windscribe. It only has one: Windscribe.exe which can easily disabled or toggled to manual or disabled in Windows Services.

 

[bill001g]

VPN has just infested the search engines like virus. So many companies paying to get listed all you get is garbage so called "ranking" sites when you search. Even when you search for things like hosted vpn which is different all you get is garbage.

Mostly I have see this as a option when I was looking at companies that provide servers for other purposes such as minecraft or other game servers. It been a while so I forget. The only one I played with was from amazon but after the free trial and them no longer offering the cheap plan I have not looked at it in a couple years.

Wish I could provide more help or even a example but the advertising has buried good data. These are not actually anything fancy they are purely companies that are renting out virtual servers where you buy certain amounts of cpu/memory/bandwidth. Most come preloaded with a basic linux image but there are some that have the vpn preconfigured.....they also preconfigure web servers or windows servers if you pay extra.