Hey guys. I've recently become a big fan of Tek Syndicate. I've spent a lot of time going through all the various videos on youtube. Watching one of their videos the other day the talk about using a VPN and the benefits.
Just wondering which VPN do people recommend? Also, Logan specifically mentions a VPN being good to use while torrenting. Just want to know how safe I am while torrenting and using a VPN?
Thanks in advance.
-RYknow
The Tek uses and recommends Private Internet Access (PIA). A quick google search will show you a bunch of options and reviews. I used blackVPN for a while, and they seem to be pretty serious about privacy. You can generally torrent through a VPN so long as your exit point is somewhere that allows it (i.e. outside the US). So long as you configured it properly they shouldn't be able to tell you're torrenting.
use one lol
Check the privacy info on the VPN's you chose. VyperVPN, stay away. The will hand your info over to anyone who asks.
I use torguard and out of the one's I've tried they seem to be the best. They claim that it's impossible for them, even if they wanted to, to connect traffic to a certain user.
Cool, thanks for the info guys. Using a VPN, can I expect any performance changes... good or bad?
I currently have Comcast for an ISP.
-RYknow
Edit: In looking through torguard and blackVPN, I see they sell routers preconfigured with DD-WRT. I currently have a R7000 with DD-WRT running. How do I utilize my R7000 with a VPN? Sorry if this questions are lame. Networking is a weakness for me.. =[
Easiest thing to do is follow their guide for setting it up on dd-wrt, most VPN providers will have a guide for it and it should be pretty similar for all of them anyway. You don't need to set it up on your router unless you want everything to go through the VPN, you can just run it on each device.
As for performance, assuming your ISP isn't doing anything weird with your traffic then a VPN will give you lower performance than normal, how much of a difference varies depending on a lot of things. Latency will definitely increase. If you're torrenting then you need to be on a server in a country like the netherlands where they won't do anything about DMCA notices and that stuff. This will me much slower than using a server close to you, but depending on your connection speed the difference may not matter much to you.
If your ISP is doing stuff to your traffic, like throttling certain sites then a VPN may improve your speed significantly, but it will never be faster than what your connection is.
I'm in Australia and have a 24mbps down 1mbps up connection, I normally get around 15-20mbps. I have two VPN connections on my router, one which is connected to a server in the netherlands which I use for torrents, and one connected to a server in sydney which I use for everything else. My connection is kind of unreliable so it's hard to tell if the slow connection is because of the VPN or just my regular internet connection but my australian VPN gets pretty close to my usual speed, i haven't seen it go higher than 15mbps but it 's basically the same as normal. The netherlands one tends to not get that fast and I would say it averages around 5mbps, but sometimes it will do 10-15.
On a faster connection I would think you would get higher speeds, but basically the closer the server, the faster the VPN will be.
My only problem with PIA is the CEO's ties to Mt.Gox, I don't know if he was still involved with the company when all the shady stuff went down by Gox just screwed people.