* VPN Thread *

Rainmaker · 14 Aug 2017 at 15:21

Lither said:
I'm on a 50/10 BT connection and looking for a VPN to get around geo restrictions streaming services like Hulu, which VPN (IPVanish, ExpressVPN, NordVPN, PIA or VyprVPN) would you recommend with good speeds?

AirVPN or vpn.ac all day long. I can max 200mbps easily.

Steve_bullockuk · 14 Aug 2017 at 16:30

Rainmaker said:
AirVPN or vpn.ac all day long. I can max 200mbps easily.

Have you any experience with AirVPN and pfSense at all?

Rainmaker · 14 Aug 2017 at 19:00

Steve_bullockuk said:
Have you any experience with AirVPN and pfSense at all?

Here you go.

Yes, I run pfSense also but I tend to keep VPN connections on a per-device basis atm. I have had it set up and working in the past, however. Follow the guide and ask any questions in the thread. The AirVPN forum is very welcoming and helpful to noobs, and has many highly technically capable members posting. It's a very good VPN.

Steve_bullockuk · 14 Aug 2017 at 20:52

Thanks. Signed up for a month trial to compare against PIA and I have setup pfSense with "Nashira" and haven't been impressed with the performance compared to the London PIA server so far. Can you recommend an alternative server?

Rainmaker · 16 Aug 2017 at 19:54

Steve_bullockuk said:
Thanks. Signed up for a month trial to compare against PIA and I have setup pfSense with "Nashira" and haven't been impressed with the performance compared to the London PIA server so far. Can you recommend an alternative server?

It depends on your location and server loading. Check their status page. What hardware are you running pfSense on? AirVPN have no trouble giving me 200Mbps+ and there are many users on the real time stats page pulling 500Mbps+ day in day out. If your hardware isn't beefy, with high single core speed and AES-NI then your pfSense box will not give you good VPN throughput. OpenVPN is very heavy on overheads due to the layers of encryption and packet authentication.

Swiftz · 16 Aug 2017 at 22:31

Rainmaker said:
It depends on your location and server loading. Check their status page. What hardware are you running pfSense on? AirVPN have no trouble giving me 200Mbps+ and there are many users on the real time stats page pulling 500Mbps+ day in day out. If your hardware isn't beefy, with high single core speed and AES-NI then your pfSense box will not give you good VPN throughput. OpenVPN is very heavy on overheads due to the layers of encryption and packet authentication.

I'm using AirVPN via OpenVPN app on Android and imported the US.ovpn file but there is no option to connect to the fastest US server?

Rainmaker · 16 Aug 2017 at 22:55

Swiftz said:
I'm using AirVPN via OpenVPN app on Android and imported the US.ovpn file but there is no option to connect to the fastest US server?

If it's the generic US file it should redirect you to a good server, but it's not perfect. You can go to the config generator on Air's site and make your own OVPN files, with whatever server(s) and option(s) you like. I have no experience of US servers, but if you're connecting from the UK (especially from an ISP with crap peering) then that would explain the high latency slow throughput results, especially on something as moderately low powered as a phone.

Steve_bullockuk · 17 Aug 2017 at 13:21

Rainmaker said:
It depends on your location and server loading. Check their status page. What hardware are you running pfSense on? AirVPN have no trouble giving me 200Mbps+ and there are many users on the real time stats page pulling 500Mbps+ day in day out. If your hardware isn't beefy, with high single core speed and AES-NI then your pfSense box will not give you good VPN throughput. OpenVPN is very heavy on overheads due to the layers of encryption and packet authentication.

I run a Netgate SG-2200 which has had no issues maxing out my connection with PIA. I'll probably stick with PIA but was open to trying a different service.

Rainmaker · 17 Aug 2017 at 13:42

Steve_bullockuk said:
I run a Netgate SG-2200 which has had no issues maxing out my connection with PIA. I'll probably stick with PIA but was open to trying a different service.

That Atom should certainly give you decent enough performance and it has AES-NI too. Are you using any custom OVPN directives? It'd be worth you posting a quick note in the Air forum's pfSense thread just to make sure you haven't missed something. I get great speeds from them - as do many others - so it has to be something simple. Are you definitely using a UDP config? Port? I find port 53 works well as it bypasses most ISP DPI in cases where you can't use stunnel.

Steve_bullockuk · 17 Aug 2017 at 14:05

Rainmaker said:
That Atom should certainly give you decent enough performance and it has AES-NI too. Are you using any custom OVPN directives? It'd be worth you posting a quick note in the Air forum's pfSense thread just to make sure you haven't missed something. I get great speeds from them - as do many others - so it has to be something simple. Are you definitely using a UDP config? Port? I find port 53 works well as it bypasses most ISP DPI in cases where you can't use stunnel.

I am using UDP 443 as recommended in OVPN file i got from them. I'll take a browse in their forums and see what comes up.

JammieR · 6 Sep 2017 at 09:21

Swiftz said:
I'm using AirVPN via OpenVPN app on Android and imported the US.ovpn file but there is no option to connect to the fastest US server?

There is an option to connect with the fastest server available in US or any where in the world.
I am currently in singapore and using a reliable Singapore vpn serivce to stream kodi and popcorn time.
It gives me the option to connect with the fastest US server.

Clairvoyant · 9 Sep 2017 at 20:56

My TigerVPN randomly disconnects, or just will not connect. All I get from them is it must be my ISP and a poor connection.

djimty · 17 Sep 2017 at 20:31

New to VPN's so I thought I would ask here, looking for a VPN for torrenting..what do you guys recommend? I hear Nordvpn is the bees knees.

Avalon · 18 Sep 2017 at 01:16

Clairvoyant said:
My TigerVPN randomly disconnects, or just will not connect. All I get from them is it must be my ISP and a poor connection.

I use Tiger, Pure, PIA, Nord and a few others I seem to be given for various reasons. I used to get occasional disconnects in Windows, but since moving to a docker VM I've had zero issues for weeks at a time.

gemlover · 19 Sep 2017 at 09:33

I use PureVPN. It cheap and working perfectly fine with Sydney server. They recently launched their advanced features named antivirus/antimalware, ips/ids, content/web filtering, app blocker.

Steveocee · 19 Sep 2017 at 16:27

Clairvoyant said:
My TigerVPN randomly disconnects, or just will not connect. All I get from them is it must be my ISP and a poor connection.

My tiger tunnels drop every night between midnight and 2am. That said they have published they are doing a lot of maintenance at the moment improving things. Through the day they are fine though.

Clairvoyant · 19 Sep 2017 at 23:11

I think I'm going to have to either go back to PIA, or find another VPN. I'm just getting fed up of tiger now.

Avalon · 20 Sep 2017 at 10:49

Clairvoyant said:
I think I'm going to have to either go back to PIA, or find another VPN. I'm just getting fed up of tiger now.

How exactly have you set it up? It's odd that you have issues yet others don't, myself included. Perhaps the issue is config related?

Clairvoyant · 20 Sep 2017 at 23:09

Avalon said:
How exactly have you set it up? It's odd that you have issues yet others don't, myself included. Perhaps the issue is config related?

Using the app.

Avalon · 21 Sep 2017 at 02:04

Clairvoyant said:
Using the app.

As vague answers go, that's pretty vague. What end point and have you tried others? Are you using the latest build? Have you tried another provider/setting up the connection yourself using OpenVPN or the built in windows client? Does it always happen at the same time/a pattern exist?

The app tends to be OK at best for mobile devices and gave up running it on my laptop ages ago.

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