*** VPN Thread ***

[Eddie99]

Exactly. You don’t have to use one of those if you choose. However for convenience I’m sure most people do it through the App Store.

I know you were trying to be smart there but yes you have the option to pay in cash or bitcoin as well.

Also needs to accept Monero to be a proper privacy VPN, Bitcoin is traceable. I think the only 2 VPNs that are anonymous by default with no email address and accept Monero/cash are Mullvad and IVPN.

 

[Armadillo]

“We will make further statements in July about VPN’s and other restrictions” says Liz Kendall.
God only knows what those loons will try.

Probably some combo of:

VPNs need to be rated 18+ on play store/app store
VPNs need to do age verification and log users
You are a paedo and on the side of Jimmy Savile if you use one.


At least if they go after VPNs, they can drop the charade of "think of the children" as now you are directly going after privacy tools. It won't be a surprise, VPNs have been a problem ever since the snoopers charter, but going after them because "we want to spy on you and the ISP can't log where your going" is a harder sell than "won't somebody think of the children".

 

[TrojanWhore]

I see no reason to change from Mulvad. It’s cheap and it’s a ‘proper’ VPN.

It's about 3x as much as PIA/Surfshark... not that that's necessarily a blocker if it's worth the extra.
By 'proper' I mostly meant a paid one (rather than most free tiers either having RNG locations and/or bandwidth limits).

I was thinking of paying by card but that's something worth considering... I might have a couple of LTC kicking about somewhere but would probably take ages to find the wallet (and then sync it... I know there are 'lite' wallet clients, but didn't get far with that last time around and ended up syncing the full wallet as it was less hassle).

I'm sure there will be further changes that will erode our right to privacy even more, but for now I just want to reduce the requirement to upload passport/DL to access websites/social media/gaming services as much as possible.... (I assume with how broad the scope in the legislation is, that these forums could eventually get swept up in it )

Do you need port forwarding?

That's something I hadn't thought of - I do port forward one of my machines for running game servers (although it's mostly for myself and otherwise would just be people I know, not fully public... I actually realised a few weeks ago that I didn't have the correct ports/protocols forwarded but mostly only connect to it over LAN... only noticed when I tried to play from my parents' house).

Would I need to be able to port forward the VPN endpoint, or would I be able to cope with that via split tunnelling (i.e. have the server application operate outside of the VPN)?

Thank you all for your input it's something I should have put more thought in to years ago but I honestly didn't think it'd get this bad this quickly!

 

[Noxia]

If I see correctly SS ties you in to one or two year subscriptions or charges you an extortionate fee for the ‘privilege ’ to pay monthly, no thanks. Actually I think it was their billing practices that lead to a lawsuit, though not sure how that turned out.

 

[TrojanWhore]

Yeah it was the introductory deals on 2yr (plus 2/3 free months) I was looking at... Seems worthwhile, otherwise mulvand or windscribe would be a comparable (or better) price.
If they make it difficult to quit, then I could use a single use credit card or something, but then that's just another thing to consider....

PIA is around £34 for 26 months, SS is £48 for 27...

It's entirely possible that the political climate shifts in that time to where it's either not a solution (bad), or not a consideration any more (good)... happy to punt £20-40 on that chance
If I can find some crypto knocking about that I can use for it, that's probably the better option even if I have to re-think it sooner...