Quick question about VPN's

Hey all. I've narrowed my search down to two different VPN's I want to choose from. privateinternetaccess.com and airvpn.org. But I still have a couple questions. 

1. Can I just go to a local store and buy a pre-paid gift card (mastercard) and pay for my account that way? Thus staying completely anonymous. 

2. I don't own a PFsense box yet, but I plan to pick one up in the near future. Will either VPN work well running on a pfsense box and serving my entire house? 

3. I saw were airvpn was suggested over PIA because it has the ability to forward ports. I want a VPN primarily for torrents, so how critical is having the ability to forward ports in this situation? Sorry if this is a noobish question.. networking is my weakness. 

Last question, I'm on linux mint 17...and have installed OpenVPN. Just want to make sure both will work with OpenVPN for the time being (untill I get my PFsense box). Is anyone here using either of these VPN's, and if so how has your experience with them been?

Thanks, 

-RYKnow

 

 

1. I don't see why not, but you do usually have to provide a name and address when you sign up.

2. Yes, pretty much any vpn which uses openvpn will work with pfsense. If the provider doesn't have a guide then you can usually adapt another one to suit. I have a Vpn running on my pfsense box and there's a couple of things that the guides don't mention, so if you have any trouble just jump on the forum here and I can probably help. I think I wrote something in the network four about it so maybe have a look for that.

3. Port forwarding is not critical for torrents, but check that the vpn provider allows tormenting because a lot of them don't and they will cancel your service if they receive a DMCA notice.

4. Most VPNs don't have a version of their software for Linux, but you can manually configure openvpn and it will work fine. They usually have a guide for setting it up manually on Linux.

 

 

 

 

To be honest, if the other features/pricing is basically the same between the two, I'd get the one that allows you to port forward. It might not matter now but down the road it would be nice to have, if even for something as simple as Plex media server.

Port forwarding on VPNs is not great. Most of the time they assign you a random port which changes when you reconnect, or they 'forward all ports' which means you have a unique IP and therefore traffic can be traced to you. You don't want to torrent on a VPN like that because they will be able to pass take downs and threatening letters on to you. This happened to me on vyper. I would recommend looking at a VPN service which specifically allows torrenting and which gives you a shared IP, so it's not possible for them to know which traffic belongs to which user. I'm using torguard which has been good so far, i've also heard good things about purevpn.

Based on THIS artical, it seems like Private Internet Access is pretty decent? That's the one I'm leaning towards. Looking around on their site, I also see where they do a "trade" program of sorts. I can trade a starbucks, best buy, walmart (and many more) gift cards as payment. I like how that works. There will be nothing tying my name to the account. That's pretty cool. I'll be coming here for help for sure! I'm new to PFsense, and any "hardcore" networking. I plan to start a thread on my networking project very soon. I'm going to order some stuff tonight to get me started. 

On another note... Dexter Kane, are you the same Kane as in the videos?! 

-RYknow

Nope :p

Not sure how to take that. You really aren't? 

 

*EDIT* - I see now that Quain spell's his name differently.