this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
82 points (90.2% liked)

Privacy

31789 readers
186 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I use Proton. But I continue to run into more and more websites and services that detect my VPN and refuse my connection, or just run literally 40 captchas in a row until I just give up.

I use Proton because it has a "suite" of products under a single subscription, but that benefit is losing it's allure as some of their products are pretty shitty from a user experience perspective, their customer support is atrocious, and they don't seem to pay any attention to what their users actually want.

Does anyone track known VPN servers? Is there a specific provider that causes less problems? Does anyone test different VPNs for detection?

Thinking about cancelling my subscription and moving to Mullvad.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 46 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Mullvad, haven't had any issues with it. If a site refuses my connection I just change servers until it works, even found a few that work on reddit

[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago (6 children)

There are only 2 VPN providers that are worth using IMHO: Proton and Mullvad. All the other VPNs are of questionable quality or their practices make you wonder if you should use them at all (eg logging and keeping logs)

Unfortunately there are websites that try to detect vpns and block you. Fuck those websites. Don't encourage them by giving them eyeballs or money.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

What don't you like about IVPN? Audited, open source, great reputation. I don't even use them but seems odd to count them out.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

yeah ivpn is recommended too, i think he just forget. i think they do the same thing as mullvad? like you can pay with monero and no email

ivpn mullvad and proton seem to be the golden three. I'd throw in OVPN too though

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

Can also recommend AirVPN.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Unfortunately there are websites that try to detect vpns and block you. Fuck those websites. Don’t encourage them by giving them eyeballs or money.

It's mostly CDNs like Cloudflare and Akamai that are notorious for blocking VPN and Tor users. Fuck CDNs, they destroy privacy and centralize the internet.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

That’s what I do. If a website blocks me because of my vpn, fuck em. I don’t waste my time. What business of theirs is it if I’m using a vpn.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Mullvad, it has ipv6 and way better linux support than proton

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

No port forwarding though :(

I used to use Mullvad but after they disabled port forwarding I switched over to Proton.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

AirVPN has port forwarding

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

I used to be a Mullvad customer but switched to Proton because I use all the products on their suite. It makes financial sense to me.

Mullvad, however, has the best VPN experience ever. Faster, more stable and way less Captchas (though I'm not sure that's good?). Plus, I love their bullshit free pricing. It's 5 euros a month regardless if you buy 1 month or 2 years. Can't recommend it enough, even though I'm no longer a customer.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] refalo 14 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Nice try FBI.

But seriously... if everyone knew about better options, I think they would already be blocked too :)

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Proton and Mullvad are the only 2 I'd trust. I suspect that they get similar results.

Proton has gotten a lot better since launch, but it's always a moving target with these things. I really only have issues with some store sites that just don't load with a VPN, which only tells me I don't want to shop there.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Nice try fed, won't narrow me down that easily

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

ProtonVPN free (paid is still too expensive for me) and Mullvad.

I find that Mullvad is usually blocked more.

For the past 3 or 4 years I was just on ProtonVPN free tier. For past 15 days I am using Mullvad. I really like that you can choose some custom ports for WireGuard, and also the multihop.
What is unfortunate is that I can't generate separate credentials for OpenVPN, like with ProtonVPN. It just uses account ID.

I have also tried IVPN for a week. Nicer UI, but a bit more expensive, sort of. They have variable pricing based on subscription length, and that just makes me dislike them enough to stick with Mullvad. €5/month whether it's 1 month, 6 months, a year or longer.
I don't remember what specifically it was, but I know I also preferred the Mullvad's ToS over IVPN, although both are fine.

I also thought of AirVPN because of port forwarding, but for privacy I'll stick to Mullvad.

What surprised me with Mullvad was the payment processing speed. It only took 4 days from me dropping the envelope with money into mail collection box in Slovakia to me getting the time added. Considering that shipping to Sweden is "3-5 days", they must have just processed that basically immediately.
But perhaps I was just lucky. I'll see the next time.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Mullvad, IVPN, Proton, AirVPN, or Windscribe are all fine. Depending on how much stock you put into audits the first three are probably a tier above for privacy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Not really answering your question, but there is this open source extensions that automatically solves captchas locally

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

when humans were asked to solve distorted text CAPTCHAs, they were able to solve them in 9 to 15 seconds...and were only able to get the answer correctly 50-84% of the time....bots taking the same texts were able to answer the same tests in less than a second, and they were able to do it more accurately — 99.8% accurately, specifically.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/bots-better-at-solving-captchas-than-humans

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

The irony of this lol

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

VPNs are not meant for privacy. The concept is clunky, as is the concept of our internet.

Tor or I2P are made for privacy, but the interactions with the clearnet have the same problems, you need a legal entity hosting the server, IPs are known and can be blocked etc.

Hosting your own VPN does not anonymize you anymore but is very unlikely to get blocked.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Been using mullvad for at least 3 years, no major problems so far.

Currently I'm not using it so much and my subscription ended 2 months ago, so I'm using the free version of proton which is good enough for the basics of using public wifi.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Windscribe...had it for a few years now and seems fine. I'll probably look into proton or mulvad when my subscription runs out, but I'd re-up if I find another subscription deal.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] notnotmike 4 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Apparently unpopular but I use Mozilla VPN

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

unfortunately the blocking of servers is a perpetual battle that plauges almost any publicly listed proxy (vpns, tor, etc). the only way I have found around it is using lesser known/blocked VPNs or residential proxies. both of which probably have subpar data privacy policies, if they even follow them at all.

althought it likely won't help your captcha troubles, I would like to give a huge +1 to mullvad. have been a happy customer for years. in compsrison to proton as a company they have a much more direct/benifitial effect on the web & furthuring users privacy online in my eyes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (5 children)

I've been using Nord VPN for years. Maybe someone can educate me on why it's not good but I've had zero issues with it and it allows me to do everything I need to for a great price.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›