Best VPN services?

Admin wrote:Hello there,

Well, with VPNs... if you really want something good, you're going to have to pay for it, I'm afraid.
Anyway, try Tunnelbear. It's easy to use, and you get a free amount of bandwidth every month. It's not much, but better than nothing.

Thanks a lot, King Admin, you're the best!

500 MB sounds more than enough for occasional use when I just want to access the internet as if I was somewhere else, and they have all the countries I am looking for (UK, Sweden, US and Canada), so it's just perfect.

The paid version doesn't sound so bad either, in case I really need to do some serious tunneling, I can get the plan, use it, cancel it later.

New notebook coming soon... It will be fun (at least until I sell it)!

SvenT wrote:Thanks a lot, King Admin, you're the best!

500 MB sounds more than enough for occasional use when I just want to access the internet as if I was somewhere else, and they have all the countries I am looking for (UK, Sweden, US and Canada), so it's just perfect.

The paid version doesn't sound so bad either, in case I really need to do some serious tunneling, I can get the plan, use it, cancel it later.

New notebook coming soon... It will be fun (at least until I sell it)!

SvenT wrote:
The ideal should be a VPN that we can just set up with windows (using a server domain or ip and credentials) or a virtual machine manager (same thing, just server info & credentials).

I think it would be very useful to many of us, for many things, to hide, to download pirate stuff while in countries or with ISPs that block torrents, for example, or even if you just want to watch content "exclusive to USA" or have a browsing experience as if you were in another country (sometimes I want to buy EA stuff as if I was in Canada, I need to use TeamViewer on a friend's computer, since the Brazilian Store will have Brazilian Prices and Tax, worse if I am in Europe, even if I use a Canadian Credit Card, they won't allow me to pick my country, they always use the IP)...

I know that good stuff isn't usually free neither cheap, but a few times it is. So, if any of you know of it, please share the love with us...

Such an "ideal" VPN would not survive financially for too long. Video streaming and torrenting means a lot of bandwidth (traffic) for the server. Who's going to pay for all that, without advertisement or prices ?  

Admin wrote:

SvenT wrote:Thanks a lot, King Admin, you're the best!

500 MB sounds more than enough for occasional use when I just want to access the internet as if I was somewhere else, and they have all the countries I am looking for (UK, Sweden, US and Canada), so it's just perfect.

The paid version doesn't sound so bad either, in case I really need to do some serious tunneling, I can get the plan, use it, cancel it later.

New notebook coming soon... It will be fun (at least until I sell it)!

They added Sweden too?! They only supported two countries when I last used it. (Which was many years ago ) Good to see that they are growing too.

Indeed, they are not that expensive, but if you really care about your privacy and want to do some "serious" VPN'ing, try https://www.blackvpn.com/ . I've had very good experiences with them in the past too. And they recently changed their policy: you can now connect with three (!) different devices with the same subscription! (As long as you use three different locations to connect to)

Let me know if you need any help with their VPN service.
Update 7-09-2016: I actually DO NOT recommend BlackVPN any more, after some very bad experiences with their unprofessional support department. I found out other VPN providers provide about 5 times the speeds they offer, more devices to connect at the same time and most important of all: better support. And that for the same (or even lower) price. Therefore you really want to try a VPN provider that's better than BlackVPN.

Thanks! Yes, their service looks very premium, it must be great for people who are having problems to download torrents, watch videos etc (traffic shaping etc). I will probably try their service when I fly to Canada, if I have any issue while there, or if I find myself really piss*d off one of these days with too much undesired Brazilian content in my browsing

5 or 9 Euros / month is not bad for a premium service that says they give you unlimited bandwidth, and that's trusted by the community.

For now, 500 MB from the Bear Tunnel seem enough, since I just want to use it once in a while to hide my country for shopping or other basic stuff (maybe even disable showing images/videos automatically using some add on, since browsers don't seem to have that option anymore, since the end of the 90's ha ha ha), but I am sure that many users of this Forum will find this information very useful, since there's lots of "pollution" when it comes to do a search for a VPN service and many of us can't download pirate content or even torrents of any kind because their Internet Service Providers ISPs won't let them.

Carlos wrote:

SvenT wrote:
The ideal should be a VPN that we can just set up with windows (using a server domain or ip and credentials) or a virtual machine manager (same thing, just server info & credentials).

I think it would be very useful to many of us, for many things, to hide, to download pirate stuff while in countries or with ISPs that block torrents, for example, or even if you just want to watch content "exclusive to USA" or have a browsing experience as if you were in another country (sometimes I want to buy EA stuff as if I was in Canada, I need to use TeamViewer on a friend's computer, since the Brazilian Store will have Brazilian Prices and Tax, worse if I am in Europe, even if I use a Canadian Credit Card, they won't allow me to pick my country, they always use the IP)...

I know that good stuff isn't usually free neither cheap, but a few times it is. So, if any of you know of it, please share the love with us...

Such an "ideal" VPN would not survive financially for too long. Video streaming and torrenting means a lot of bandwidth (traffic) for the server. Who's going to pay for all that, without advertisement or prices ?  

There are some good (free) VPNs, but those are meant to be used for web-surfing only. And of course for tricking the "other side" into believing that you're in a different country. One example is this here.

And yes, the thing with the IP addresses is also logical from the perspective of governments and companies: if everybody were able to simply "choose" their country, then there would hardly be any substantial tax revenue, and the "bubble" would very quickly explode. After which everything else will collapse...




The thing with the proprietary client is, in my opinion, partly because of safety/privacy reasons (simply entering an IP address and credentials in the System Control Panel under "Internet Options" might not be safest method there is); plus, there is the encryption in the better VPNs, which is often done by the proprietary software/client. Also, I think that these clients are used simply because of convenience. These clients are usually easy to use, and then you can simply enjoy the VPN service.

Yes, that's true! Thanks for the link! I thought that those Open Protocol Encrypted VPNs were good enough for personal use...

I just want something to hide my country of origin, so I don't pay the taxes you mention above when shopping, ha ha ha!

I also find it's annoying, sometimes, when sites force local content, you know? The fact I am "in Brazil" doesn't mean that I live "Brazil", it gets worse if I am travelling in Sweden, for example, and I get lots of stuff on my screen that I can barely understand

The majority of sites allow you to "change your country" and "change your language", but it's not EA's case. They always offer me the Brazil store when I am browsing here, and if I want to buy anything with my Canadian credit card (I don't have a Brazilian one), I just can't.

Honestly, anyway, if I need to do something serious that involves finantial information I might prefer to keep using the "Teamviewer Technique", but otherwise, if I want to create a fake account on Brazilian ebay (you probably know it as MercadoLibre, the Spanish language version, called MercadoLivre in Brazil) to buy my own items once in a while, for example, I need another IP

Thanks a lot for all the info, both of you guys! I bookmarked everything, and I will try them very soon on a new virtual machine I will create just for that!

In case any of you wonder, there are a couple of good apps for Android that will also do the free VPN thing (just look for the most popular ones, they are usually the best at the moment you need it). Sometimes the software won't even hurt that much, it's just that it doesn't feel as safe as just using windows ("uncle Bill" knows more about me than I even do myself, anyways) to set it up. I know they can use the data I send to them, but if I don't install a piece of their software, they won't have full control over my machine.

It's the good side of being financially "broken", bad people can't use my data to get credit for themselves, because I can't even do that for myself

SvenT wrote:5 or 9 Euros / month is not bad for a premium service that says they give you unlimited bandwidth, and that's trusted by the community.

Admin wrote:

SvenT wrote:5 or 9 Euros / month is not bad for a premium service that says they give you unlimited bandwidth, and that's trusted by the community.

You're welcome!

They do have a download/upload limit obviously, but the bandwidth is unlimited. So downloading via a VPN is always slower than downloading without one. But it's still pretty fast. (Especially if you connect to a server that's near your country)

Also keep in mind to disable things like IPv6, as some (most?) VPN's don't hide connections made via the new IPv6 protocol.

To turn off IPv6 on your PC completely: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9728869
To turn on IPv6 on your PC again:  http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9732129

Good luck!

tauseefgt90 wrote:Never use free VPN if you want all these features as free VPN can never provide all these things you will have to buy paid version. I am living in USA and using USA VPN for maximum features.

Admin wrote:

tauseefgt90 wrote:Never use free VPN if you want all these features as free VPN can never provide all these things you will have to buy paid version. I am living in USA and using USA VPN for maximum features.

With all due respect, but I'm not sure if you can trust an American VPN provider, when you want to hide your identity or do P2P "safely".

Admin wrote:Especially since American companies can be forced to hand over information about you.

behensks wrote:Opera 41.0 has a VPN setting. I tried it and it shows my IP in Texas (I'm up north). I don't know if it will work outside the US, there is no option to change countries.

behensks wrote:Thanks for the reply. Yes, I'm a little confused about just hiding an IP. What about programs like Windscribe that offer 10 GB of data? Will that be the same as Opera if you download a torrent?

TorrentFreak wrote:Note: several of the providers listed in this article are TorrentFreak sponsors.