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.

  • helenslunchOP
    8·
    1 month ago

    If you’re trusting any other VPN provider, then you’re already willing to trust someone

    It’s not an issue of trust but of obfuscation. You’re sharing IPs with other users

    A VPN gives you very little added privacy.

    Wrong.

    No matter what you use, you’re really only protecting yourself from your own ISP.

    Wrong again. You’re protecting yourself from having your traffic logged by the sites you visit. Every modern website is collecting this information and selling it to data brokers.

    • hperrin@lemmy.world
      12·
      1 month ago

      You think that using a VPN is protecting you from the website you’re connecting to logging that traffic?

      No. The website sees the traffic. The only thing they don’t see is your home IP address. That’s not even a useful piece of information for tracking someone. Home IP addresses are usually dynamic.

      Websites track you through cookies and etags, and VPNs do not block those. If they did, you wouldn’t be able to log into any websites, and you would always be redownloading JS, CSS, and fonts you’ve already downloaded.

      • helenslunchOP
        2·
        1 month ago

        You think that using a VPN is protecting you from the website you’re connecting to logging that traffic?

        It is logging the traffic. It just prevents it from collecting my personal information in that log and sharing it with all of their data mining buddies.

        The only thing they don’t see is your home IP address. That’s not even a useful piece of information for tracking someone.

        I don’t even know how to respond to that, other than of course it is…

        Websites track you through cookies and etags, and VPNs do not block those.

        You assume that I’m not also blocking those things.

        If they did, you wouldn’t be able to log into any websites

        Do you not understand the difference between first and third-party cookies?

        • hperrin@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 month ago

          What personal information do you think the VPN is blocking? Like, exactly. Precisely what information do you believe the VPN prevents a website from seeing about you?

          I understand the difference between first and third party cookies. You said you were trying to prevent the website from tracking you. A website’s cookie for its own domain is first party. If you block that cookie, it’s harder for them to track you, and also you can’t log in.

          Your IP address is not very useful for tracking you.

          • Residential IP addresses change often.
          • They’re usually shared by a family or organization through NAT.
          • You will often have different IP addresses throughout the day as you switch between WiFi and cell data.
          • Your different devices may or may not share an IP address.

          The major ad trackers use cookies and etags to track you. They don’t use your IP address.

          • helenslunchOP
            1·
            1 month ago

            Do you not understand how a VPN works? It prevents them from collecting your IP address.

            • hperrin@lemmy.world
              1·
              1 month ago

              Then we agree that’s the only advantage. So your original reply is wrong. A cloud VM running self hosted VPN protects you exactly as much as a commercial VPN with regard to the website you’re connecting to.

              • helenslunchOP
                1·
                1 month ago

                A cloud VM running self hosted VPN protects you exactly as much as a commercial VPN with regard to the website you’re connecting to.

                No. You’re wrong once again. If you fire up a VPS and you’re assigned an IP, that’s still your IP, even if it’s running on a remote server. It belongs to you and only you. It is a personal identifier.

                • hperrin@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  1 month ago

                  So just make a snapshot, and every time you want a new IP, create a new VM from the snapshot. Or if there’s an option in your cloud provider, just request a new IP.

                  Whenever you connect to a VPN, you use the same IP address the whole session. You have to reconnect to a different node whenever you want a new IP.

                  But I feel like you’re just being contrarian here. Your objections aren’t rooted in any sort of actual concern over privacy, and I don’t think you really understand the systems you’re using. In other words, you’re just being paranoid.

                  If you want true privacy, use Tor.

                  • helenslunchOP
                    1·
                    1 month ago

                    Whenever you connect to a VPN, you use the same IP address the whole session. You have to reconnect to a different node whenever you want a new IP.

                    When you connect to a Proton or Mullvad server, you’re sharing that IP with thousands of other people. We’ve already been over this. It’s privacy through obscurity.

                    Your objections aren’t rooted in any sort of actual concern over privacy

                    Okay so it sounds like you don’t understand how VPNs work and aren’t willing to learn, and because of that you aren’t capable of engaging in good faith, so I’ll let you be on your way.