VPN advice needed (May 2014)

[Manuel]

My Astrill subscription will run out in ten days and I've experienced nothing but constant drop-outs and ridiculously low data connection speeds, so I am looking for greener pastures.

 

I did some searching on Google and found mainly blatantly biased/bogus reviews, probably posted by the VPN companies themselves, so hopefully you guys can tell me what you are using and how well it performs at this point in time. Thanks!

[xuexiansheng]

This is a relatively recent article (3/15/2014), might be useful:

 

Who takes your anonymity seriously?

[zhouhaochen]

Astril was very good two years ago, they have good customer service, but it seems that the government started targeting them and as a result the connections are not good anymore. Bascially any VPN service that gets very popular in China the censors will attack and slow down.

[abcdefg]

Nobody will pry the name of my (excellent) VPN from my cold, dead lips. It's a secret I will carry to the grave.

[Manuel]

abcdefg, thanks for posting such useful info

[abcdefg]

Sorry Manuel. This topic has a long history of being controversial every time it comes up, and the discussions usually generate more heat than light.

[Simon_CH]

I use Astrill as well Manuel and can agree with your assessment. A few tips tho: change server frequently between continents depending on time, use Stealth-VPN for more stable connections, but more difficult to connect... 

 

Other than that I'm also interested in other people's experience. 

[Manuel]

Changing servers appears to work but only momentarily, and overall reliability has degraded steadily. The cool thing about Astrill was of course OpenWeb, because it allowed users to switch tunnelling on/off on the fly, and to use proxy switchers inside Firefox to allow selective URL tunneling.

 

There are so many similar VPN services whose effectiveness is constantly changing that in practice it is impossible to make "the right choice", in fact, the right choice today will almost certainly not be the right choice next month, let alone next year, and that's the reason why yearly subscriptions are cheaper. Additionally, as abcdefg implied, popular VPN services are usually the ones in the censors' cross-hairs, so the best route available to us is to switch providers every now and then, which is possible if you buy a short-term package. Isn't it great that marriage law does not apply to VPNs?

 

I just bought 1 month of this: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com, it's the first one listed on the link provided by xuexiansheng above. I just couldn't be asked to look through all of them. According to the the description, it guarantees the anonymity of their users (we'll just have to take their word for that). Unfortunately this VPN can only be set to tunnel all or nothing, unlike Astrill, so if anyone knows of something as flexible as Astrill (but working!) please post it here.

[leonguyen52]

What's about Hotspod Shield?

[Manuel]

I think the glorious days of Hotspotshield are long gone. Plus it only works worked with web browsers, if I remember correctly.

[ChTTay]

I bought stealth mode thing from Astrill... It was worse with that on. Don't recommend it.

As abcdefg said, most people don't want to say who their VPN is. There is another thread just like this where loads of people replied without recommending anything.

I would just pick one from the link that xuexiansheng's gave. Loads of choose from.

[Saxondale]

VyprVPN hands down.  They manage their own servers, write their own software for Android, iPhone, Mac, Windows and now you can use their own DNS settings for extra privacy.  It's the only VPN company i've come across that takes privacy seriously and generally has great speeds.  

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2155293/vypervpn-review-secure-internet-with-an-international-flair.html

 

http://www.stugon.com/2014/05/vyprvpn-review-best-in-class-vpn-with-stunning-features/

[Manuel]

I hear you thrice12, have long have you been with them?

[Saxondale]

Since last January.  I currently have a pro account, slightly more expensive, but i can use it simultaneously on my 3 devices and it gives me access to a new protocol that's designed for places like China.

[Manuel]

I might give them a try. I tried Private Internet Access, recommended at one of the links provided above, and I can say with confidence that it is rubbish, at least in China. It may be great in Europe and America to hide your tracks but here in China the connection keeps dropping and it is just as slow as Astrill if not slower, so save yourself the trouble.

[Manuel]

Are there any VPN services that allow you to set up filters so that only certain traffic gets tunnelled? I don't want China-based web content to go through the VPN when I could be accessing it much faster directly.

[icebear]

@#16 - this is a feature that works well with Astrill.

[Manuel]

Hmmm, Astrill has been fantastic for the last 4 day. Very reliable connection and steady download speeds via one of their US servers.

 

When I first signed up for their service it worked great during the 7-day trial period. I was getting download speeds above 1Mbps at times. Once they secured my payment speeds dropped to about 200Kbps. Now, as my account expiry date edges closer (two days left), speeds and reliability are up again, even with OpenWeb. I can't help to wonder whether there is some crafty trickery going on behind the scenes.

[ChTTay]

I can't access that vyprVPN site from China.

I got Astrill to give me a 3 day trial recently as i used to use them then let it expire. I wanted to see if it worked well in China at the moment.

It worked a bit but not well. Often after 5-10 minutes i'd need to switch countries and some countries offered no connectivity whatsoever. When it worked it worked but there was no consistency.

[gato]

I am having trouble accessing vyprvpn from China also. I had to use VPN to download their software.

Thrice, are you sure it's good for China?