I am quoting myself from another thread.I don't want to advertise but a VPN I highly recommend is this one:A VPN that's less good but was one I was previously loyal to (SurfShark is new to the market, only became known in 2019 or so) was this one:Both are extremely trustworthy. They genuinely don't fuck around, I have looked into it. They are heavily dedicated to privacy above all else.HSS has become less good at the whole 'viewing content only available to country X' thing and it has possibly got a webRTC leak (very easy to patch with a chrome extension, and webRTC doesn't leak on Android smartphones) but it's definitely what I'd recommend, aside from NordVPN (owners are shady but it's easily one of the best out there), if you have an IPv6 IP address.ExpressVPN is fantastic but expensive. If you want to literally have a VPN at all times, even while gaming and to use on the game, I'd recommend only ExpressVPN, even Nord is too slow for that. SurfShark has a whitelister that lets you whitelist the game or specific websites where you want your real IP to be interacted with while having a totally and utterly safe VPN-encrypted-tunnel connection with other programs and websites at the same time. That's why I love it.ExpressVPN also offers the 'whitelister' thing but calls it split tunneling. I do not know any other VPNs than SurfShark or ExpressVPN that offer that in such a good way.ExpressVPN is 4-5* the price of SurfShark so...PureVPN offers an almost as good thing that splits by some apps but not websites and not all apps I think. PureVPN is known to log data that they give out to law enforcement and maybe advertisers too (the latter is not confirmed). They are frauds for saying they have a 'no logs' policy but it's not their fault, they are founded in Pakistan and based out of Hong Kong. They didn't realise that Hong Kong is not an actual haven for such investigations. There were some legal loopholes that meant the country worked with the FBI to blackmail PureVPN into defying their no logs policy on some suspects of cyberstalking etc. I am not blaming the company, the problem is they are still based out of Hong Kong. If you think about it, they can and will do the same to you based on any suspicion later on, it's just not a safe bet. So, I don't consider PureVPN worth mentioning.Torguard is also good if you live in an oppressed nation as it has the stealth/camouflage mechanism but the issue with that is that Torguard is owned by a company that is based in the US. Logically, if/when anyone gets suspicious, you're going to be turned over to your nation's authorities in no time.While Hostpot Shield doesn't have the proper stealth mechanism, it works by a very rare thing called Catapult Hydra (which it, itself, helped to innovate the way to make VPN tunnels within, it's usually used for highly secure, less well-known phone carrier networks etc) and basically while your ISP can see you're using VPN, and VPN is illegal in the most significantly oppressed nations, what actually will happen is that HSS will never ever turn you in, they were founded by people who loathed Russian Tyranny, let alone Chinese or Iranian tyranny. So, 'stealth VPN' is important sure but if you're playing out the full scenario, I guarantee you SurfShark or HSS are the two who based on their record will never turn you in and SurfShark has the stealth mechanism on top of it so there's literally 0 drawback to using it, I don't even know how to say this without sounding like an advertiser but I hope someone reads this message before their nation drives them into fear of the Internet and makes a wise decision in life.Do note, purchasing it with cryptocurrency (SurfShark and Torguard both offer this) is the optimal way to go about things if you're in a hyper-oppressed nation. If in a generally oppressed nation, the usual way will work because VPN isn't illegal in most nations in and of itself and it's about picking one that will never turn you in. That's why I will say HSS even though I rank SurfShark above it overall.
VPN for people in oppressed nations
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In nations where VPN is illegal, even if they know you are using the VPN, if they struggle to actually stop you using it, they only prosecute via blackmailing the VPN to turn you over as they say it's party to your crime etc. The only nation that may hurt you truly for using VPN in and of itself is Iran, UAE will deport you at worst. These nations that outlaw VPN all don't actually mean that using VPN is illegal other than obviously North Korea which doesn't even have Internet for the populace, to begin with so that's a moot point. They mean if you use the VPN to bypass their censorship, it's illegal which requisites an element of proof on their part of what you used it for. They can and will go through your computer when they get suspicious of you, do not fuck around do your research.
This is why using only the companies of HSS and SurfShark (or maybe ExpressVPN but it's a rip-off that's the only real issue with it) is so important. They have a track record of being completely immune to prosecution but not being malicious in their software in spite of this. NordVPN is in Panama but I am telling you, there is something very strange about their origin and why they advertised so heavily so fast. Their VPN didn't 'build up' the way others did, it's like they had an end-product in midn and haven't ever tried to make it more secure or allow additional features since then (only to update aestheticas and make it more palatable to the masses), this is why I have a strong feeling they are much more willing to sell you out when the time comes even though on paper they're not doing that to people. Panama is so extreme that it would allow them to deny they are handing you over to an authority even if they are, that's how privacy-oriented Panama is (it's the extreme haven for criminals) so the British Virgin Isles which where SurfShark and ExpressVPN are based, which don't allow companies to hide when they turn you over but do allow them to refuse to be extradited or pressured legally, are the ideal type of legal haven to rely on.
HSS is owned by AnchorFree who are based in Ukraine and Russia for their technical stuff and you may drop your jaw at me recommending them but their track record is never once being forced into anything. If they ever turned someone over it was literally massive as fuck crimes where CIA, not just FBI, were involved. That is as trustworthy as it gets, period. Their nations are high-law-enforcement yet they themselves have never actually turned anyone short of brutally investigated terrorists, in. That means they have such a flawless means of privacy and dedication to their no-logs policy that they can't be touched. They have been fighitng tyranny and oppression for 14 years, they know what they're doing and are unparalleld in that sense of trustworthiness in the VPN arena.
$47.76 for 2 years seems very reasonable, though I don't really think I need a vpn it's good info in case I find myself in the market for one, thanks for the info.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
While, obviously, cheaper usually means worse it absolutely is not in this case and that's why I love SurfShark personally, that price is likely to go up over time, of course. They are getting more popular as we speak. I even would be willing to consider the idea that SurfShark is an unofficial subsidiary of ExpressVPN as they're both based out of British Virgin Isles and both have excellent funcionality and basically SurfShark is the cheaper version whereas Express is the higher-end version with slightly higher speeds and such.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
Some of the top ranked VPNs are not necessarily anywhere near the top in actual trustworthiness, they simply built good quality software.
PureVPN and IPVanish are two I would say are this.
Cyberghost is 100% serving some kind of agenda. I won't go into the proof here, it will be deemed a conspiracy theory. DO NOT purchase or trust it.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
Everyone should have a VPN in my opinion but I understand why one wouldn't bother. Even after discovering them I had a period of not using, nonetheless do I really want my ISP seeing everything? If the site isn't HTTPS and is just HTTP, your ISP literally sees everything you do on the website, is that what you want, some random technician reading your private messages?
no, you are right I like my privacy, I actually have a protonmail email account it's free but I think better privacy wise than google, have you heard of it?
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
Nothing is privacy wise better than gmail in terms of unhackability etc but that requires you to trust Google, that's all. Idk about protonmail because it's easy to trust a corrupt organisation simply for being 'not Google'. If you use Chrome, Android phone or basically anything where your gmail is attached, Google is spying on your emails even if you use another email provider, just so you know. Therefore, the most privacy to aim for is with a Gmail account. Of course, there are other options but absolutely no email provider is truly trustworthy, because emails are attached to you IRL usually (or it's a corrupt provider).
ah I didn't know that but that makes sense.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
protonmail is a good choice though, I won't deny it. It just seems pointless is all
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
https://scryptmail.com/ This would be my choice if I felt I had something to hide over email.
It's not free though, that's my point. You want full privacy, it costs.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
Torguard email would be my choice as well. Again I don't think it's free.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
I don't hate protonmail, jus tto be clear. It's a good choice but I don't quite understand why people consider gmail 'flawed', it's not flawed at all and has an airtight security system.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
If you wanted to pay some money for a truly secure Gmail experience, this is how. The page is a good introduction, you need to buy 2 physical things and basically there's a keycode linked to your account that changes ever so often, you need to even physically plug one in to sign in in the full security mode.
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@RationalMadman
That sounds great... If you really want to draw the attention of 'the authorities'!
Billions of e-mails are sent every day... perhaps the best form of hiding is to get lost in the crowd.
What is VPN?
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@Alec
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It is basically routing your network through a private server. It’s a way of “hiding” your online footprint
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
@David
@Christen
@PressF4Respect
Upon reflection, I was incorrect to talk down on NordVPN. I will make a new topic on this and go into why Nord is just as supreme as the other three and I found 2 flaws, one significant and one not, in SurfShark (not at all to do with the physical VPN) and 2 not-so-significant flaws in HSS, one of which is to do with the VPN, that I'll discuss.