VPN Services

man tbh i keep hearing everyone praise WireGuard for being lightweight and easy on battery, but my own experience has been sorta mixed. i've been running it on a Pixel 7 for a couple months now, mostly for streaming when i'm out and about, and ngl the battery drain seems noticeable compared to just using IKEv2 or even leaving it off. like, i can watch maybe an hour less of video before needing a charge. i'm not even keeping it on 24/7, just when i'm on public wifi or trying to catch smth geo-blocked. maybe it's the specific app implementation? i've tried a few different VPN services that offer WireGuard, and they all seem to hit the battery harder than expected. i see people posting speed tests all the time, which are great, but who's actually tracking the battery stats over a week? i feel like that's the real cost nobody talks about. so yeah, just throwing this out there. anyone else actually checked their battery usage after a long session with WireGuard active? or is the 'lightweight' thing more about data overhead and not actual power draw? idk, maybe my setup is just weird.

ok so i posted about vpn stuff before but now im actually losing it. i switched from just using vpn apps on my phone and pc to trying to set one up on my router, thought it'd be better for all my devices and maybe more reliable. but man it's been a total nightmare. router vpn is wayyy more annoying to set up, takes ages to fix anything, and now my internet speed is all over the place. the app was simple at least, yeah it could kill battery but it usually worked. now im getting random drops, some things just refuse to connect, streaming is laggy as hell. is this just me or are router vpns always kinda sus? thinking maybe i should scrap this and go back to the app but ppl say that's worse for privacy or multiple devices. tbh i need some actual advice or someone who's dealt with this mess before. anyone have tips? or know a vpn that works ok on a router without making my wifi useless?

Hey guys, so I've been trying to set up this dedicated IP VPN for a while now. Thought it'd be cool for my streaming and torrenting, ya know? But man, I keep running into issues. The IP doesn't seem to stick even after I restart my router, or it works for like 5 minutes then switches back to shared IPs. Like what the hell? I paid extra for this thing and it's basically useless right now. Tried switching servers, rebooting, even reinstalling the app, nothing helps. I swear I read somewhere that dedicated IPs are supposed to be kinda solid for privacy and consistent access, but mine is just flaky. Anyone here had similar probs? Or am I missing some secret config or setting? Also, what's the deal with protocols? I tried OpenVPN and WireGuard but no luck. I'm thinking maybe it's on their end but I don't know. Any tips, tricks, or maybe a different provider I should try? I just wanna get this thing working so I can do my streaming without getting blocked or flagged. Frustrated rn, help me out if you got any ideas or had similar issues.

been testing these 3 lately for streaming, torrenting and privacy. nordvpn is solid on geo-unblocking and speed tests are decent, but I worry about their logs. expressvpn still feels premium, fast and great for privacy, but pricier. surfshark is cheap, good for multiple devices and handles streaming well but sometimes slower on speed tests. wondering if anyone has recent data on protocols like WireGuard or IKEv2 for these 3? also curious if anyone tried self-hosted VPNs as a comparison, tbh.

Anyone here tested VPNs specifically for torrenting rn? I've been using a few popular ones and always worried about the no-log policies. Some say they're legit but I've seen cases where VPNs still kept logs under pressure or claims weren't actually true. Like, how do u really know if a VPN's no-log is just marketing? I need one that's proven to hold up in court if needed, not just claims. Also, speed and P2P support matter since torrenting can slow down a lot depending on the server. So, if u guys know of any VPNs with a solid no-log track record that actually hold up in legal cases,. Just tired of trusting VPNs blindly rn, been burned before.

yo everyone keeps going on about self-hosted wireguard on some cheap vps like 3 bucks a month. privacy first blah blah. so i threw up a hetzner box, followed some guides, got it working. it's fast, no doubt. my wireguard tunnel hits like 650 mbps download. but the bill for data? lol. blew through my 20tb a month in like 2 weeks cuz i forgot to route all my desktop traffic. including a big client sync. that "cheap" vps ended up costing me like 40 extra bucks that month. not so cheap anymore. the worst part is support. when my ip got flagged by netflix and i couldn't stream? i was on my own. no rotating residential ips, no obfuscated servers. just me and a blocked ip. for torrents whatever but you're still a single point of failure with that vps and if you don't know sysadmin stuff good luck fixing leaks. a yearly vpn sub costs like 5 bucks a month and they handle all that stuff. sometimes paying for the managed service is smarter, ymmv.

Everyone is hyping free VPNs as the miracle solution, but imo they come with a ton of hidden baggage. I've tested a few popular free ones and honestly, the speed is trash. You get what you pay for, right? But what's worse is the data selling. Yeah, most of these free services either log your activity or sell your data to third parties. It's like paying with your privacy instead of money. I've seen some even insert ads or inject tracking cookies into your browser. That's not free at all. The funny part is a lot of folks still recommend them, probably cuz they're cheap or free and they don't know better. But if you actually value your privacy or want reliable speed for streaming or torrenting, you gotta look elsewhere. So question is, do you really think these free VPNs are worth the hassle or is it just a quick bandaid that'll bite you later?

Man, remember when VPNs were a pain to set up and proxies just kinda sorta worked for basic stuff? Now we got all these options and it's like a trip down memory lane with a side of analytics. Back in the day, proxies were cheap and easy but their privacy? Yeah, kinda sketchy, especially when your IP was exposed in like 30 seconds. VPNs on the other hand, were pricey but offered legit encryption and privacy - think 256-bit AES, OpenVPN protocols, and logs policies you could actually trust. Now fast forward, the numbers tell the story, VPNs can hit speeds of 600 Mbps+ on a good day, while proxies still struggle past 200 Mbps and often leak data or get blocked by streaming services. Honestly, if you wanna stream Netflix US from Europe w/o buffering, VPNs are still king. Proxies? Mostly good for quick geo changes or bypassing some simple firewalls. I mean, I've run speed tests where VPNs beat proxies by 3x in latency and stability, and their privacy guarantees are miles apart. Still, proxies are cheaper, easier, but ymmv on security. So, when do you even pick a proxy over a VPN anymore? Gotta be quick, local access, some torrenting, or just messing around with minimal privacy risks. Or are we all just paying for VPNs now because the numbers don't lie? Would love to see some fresh stats on that.

Honestly, im so sick of providers saying 'zero logs' but ya gotta look at the fine print. That court case against a pretty popular one proved they keep connection timestamps for like months. For torrenting that's not good enough. Im only checking out two now, Mullvad and iVPN. Their setups are way more clear, and they even take cash mail-in if you're super paranoid. The speeds aren't the fastest ever imo but at least your ISP isn't getting letters or whatever.

been digging into VPNs lately and noticed some advertise they've been audited by third parties but others don't mention it at all. like, who actually got audited and who just claims to be private? i read some stuff about ProtonVPN and Mullvad being transparent with audits but Nord and Express seem to dodge that talk. honestly, i just wanna know if those audits mean anything or if it's just marketing hype. if anyone has info on real audits or can link to legit reports, that'd be dope. also, do audits really mean their privacy claims are legit or just a badge they throw around? trying to figure out who's actually serious about privacy atm. thanks in advance for any info or personal experiences!

Man remember when WireGuard first popped up on mobile and everyone was like 'oh cool, lightweight, fast but what about battery drain?' Back then, testing showed some pretty wide variances. I ran a few tests myself and saw on older phones, using WireGuard for an hour could chew up about 10-15% battery which was kinda wild compared to OpenVPN's 20-25%. But that was a few firmware updates ago. Now, with the latest versions, it seems like the battery hit is much less, probably around 5-8% tops for the same duration. The protocol's lean design really helps here, especially with modern phones that are better at power management. I think the key is how the app handles keep-alive pings and data encryption in the background. It's kinda nostalgic seeing how far we've come like, remember the early days when even a slight increase in power use felt like a victory? YMMV, but it's crazy how optimized WireGuard has gotten, especially on mobile. Anyone else still noticing weird battery drain with newer updates or is it pretty much nailed now?

Man I'm so frustrated right now. Just did a speed test with my VPN on, using the kill switch feature cause I read it's supposed to block all leaks if VPN drops. Well guess what? VPN just disconnected in the middle of streaming and my IP got exposed. No warning, no warning at all. I thought the kill switch was supposed to stop that? It's like it just. failed. Now I'm worried about privacy and getting banned from streaming sites. Tried a different protocol, same thing. Anyone else experience this? Do I just need a better VPN or is this a common bug? I'm losing patience here, it's supposed to protect me but it's doing the opposite.

Tried out NordVPN's double hop thing for like 2 weeks. Running tests on a gigabit line here in the US. Just a single VPN to Atlanta, got like 650 Mbps down and ping around 45ms. Then I did the double hop US to Canada and it was bad, speed dropped to like 110 Mbps and ping shot up to 180ms. Latency is a pain, obviously. Is it overkill for most people? yeah. I used it a few times for torrents and to log into some sketchy email accounts I don't trust. The speed hit is real, watching 4k is pretty much borderline. But if you're doing something where you really don't want any single point of failure with the VPN maybe it's worth the slowdown. My take: 99% of the time it's not needed, but knowing how much it slows you down helps to decide

yo just had some privacy worries so thought id post my setup. i went with openvpn on a raspberry pi, mostly to keep my data kinda private and not trust those big vpn companies with everything. tbh self-hosted vpns like this are great if you wanna control your own tunnel and dodge leaks. i used pivpn to set it up quick but you gotta watch out for a couple things. first disable any apps that might leak or fix dns leaks, use dnscrypt-proxy or at least cloudflare dns. also i kept the default udp but tested tcp for streaming too cause it can be more stable. privacy-wise no logs no selling your data but remember your internet stuff is only as safe as your own network security. if you're torrenting or trying to stream geo-blocked things this way you can route only some traffic through the vpn so the rest stays fast. oh and getting a static ip from your isp helps avoid ip leaks and keeps things more private imo. honestly a diy vpn on a pi is cheap works well lets you stay in control and skip the shady stuff big providers do, just gotta keep an eye on your configs and update regularly

So I just renewed my dedicated ip with nordvpn and saw a few threads asking about deals for this stuff. btw dedicated ips usually aren't part of the usual sales, you gotta check the vpn sites for a specific add-on page. they often hide it in your account dashboard after you subscribe. mine was 70 bucks for the year which is about what I paid last time but they had a banner on my account page offering like 20% off if you pay for two years upfront. ymmv obviously. if you're looking at dedicated ips for the first time, the use case really matters. I run a small biz and need steady access to banking sites that flag shared vpn ips as suspicious right away. a dedicated ip fixes that. it's also kinda if you're hosting a server or doing remote work where your ip gets whitelisted. otherwise it's kinda overkill just for streaming netflix or casual torrenting lol. pricing models are all over the place tho. surfshark charges monthly per device which can add up quick, while providers like ovpn.com have it in higher tier plans. overall I'd say if you actually need one for work, skip the usual black friday hype and check out the provider's business or add-on sections. that's where the real discounts sometimes pop up not in the normal consumer ads.

man remember when picking a vpn was simple? just grab one with no logs and decent speed. now it's like studying for a law degree tbh. been checking out vpn stuff lately comparing to how it was. like nordvpn used to be the privacy king but now i see they're in panama which is fine. but then theres expressvpn in the british virgin islands, sounds fancy but also sketchy with the whole five eyes thing. i used to think jurisdiction didnt matter at all, just get the fastest cheapest one. but now its way more messy with all these alliances and legal junk. how do you all choose? do you even care about where its based or just go for speed? just thinking about the old days lol. sometimes i miss when vpns were just for hiding your ip not all this legal strategy game.

yo so I've been messing around with wireguard on my android and iPhone lately. honestly, was kinda worried about battery life cuz I read some horror stories but here's the deal. ran a test with my old pixel 4a and an iPhone 12. had wireguard connected nonstop for 3 hours while doing normal stuff - browsing, streaming, social media. on android, battery dipped from 100 to 87%, and on iPhone, it was from 100 down to 83%. not perfect but not bad either. what's interesting is the speeds. on android, I was getting around 55 Mbps down, 10 Mbps up. on iPhone, about 50 Mbps down, 9 up. both devices using the same server, same protocol, just wireguard. so yeah, it's faster than openvpn or IKEv2 I tried before. I even tested it on a 5G connection, and it held up well. honestly, I was kinda expecting way worse battery drain but this was pretty manageable. only downside is that on the most recent update, I noticed some quick battery drops when the screen was off but it stabilized after I toggled it off/on. still, if u wanna go with wireguard for mobile, u might wanna keep an eye on battery stats for ur specific device but overall, I'm pretty impressed with the speed & battery impact. kinda surprised it's this light tbh

So I posted about VPNs and Netflix before, but I gotta question the hype around certain ones. Everyone keeps pushing these top-rated VPNs claiming they work flawlessly with Netflix, but I've tried a handful myself and it's a mess. Some get blocked, some are slow as hell, and others just never work on certain regions. Like, I read a bunch of reviews saying VPN X is the holy grail, but when I tested it, it was crawling or straight up blocked after a week. No way I'm gonna rely on just one VPN for streaming if it's this flaky. I also noticed that a lot of the "Netflix-friendly" VPNs are pushing speed tests and claiming

Been testing VPNs for streaming lately and man, some are just trash for Netflix. ExpressVPN is still king for smooth streams, no buffer, no errors. NordVPN used to be decent but lately their US servers give you the gray screen of death more often. CyberGhost? Meh, unreliable. Surfshark? Good price but inconsistent. Honestly, you gotta pick a premium one that keeps up with Netflix's VPN block game. If you're just jumping into this, don't waste time with free or cheap VPNs, they'll break your flow and waste your time. Pick one that's proven, pay if you gotta, but don't settle for half-assed. ymmv but in my experience, stick with the knowns and test their US/UK servers first. Hope that quick overview helps some of you get unblocked faster.

ngl I was convinced it was impossible but just tested expressvpn tokyo and bam full us disney+ library. tbh I bought a month on black friday (they had like 3 months free) and figured it'd be geo-blocked too. my process: 1) clear browser cache 2) connect to LA server 3) open incognito 4) login to disneyplus.com (us site). works with star wars shows and everything. anyone else seeing this? thought all the big vpns were detected now.