Best VPN?

Thinking of setting up a VPN on my laptop.

Anyone got any good tips/tricks/suggestions?

Or did you want VPN-related tips?

Very useful re: toenails!

Although this time I feel I need more information relevant to setting up the VPN

I used to use the paid version of identity cloaker, it was good but sometimes with big events like a f1 race it would show down.

I use BlackVPN. It's expensive but I've been a loyal customer for many years now and it just works. Here's a website that covers a bunch of different VPN providers:

https://thatoneprivacysite.net/choosing-the-best-v...

The thing with VPN's is that they really only avoid geo-blocking. You shouldn't rely on them for anonymity, etc. Use Tor if you want to go darker. 

Not sure if you are worried about paying via BitCoin or PrePaid Debit card to enhance your 'anonymity'. Some even take cash via Snail Mail!

You need to look at the jurisdictions/locations from which you want to access the internet. BlackVPN is good because it has Australia as a location so it is not too laggy. I know of some people who only connect via Iceland to avoid 5 Eyes and other government data sharing agreements. 

You should (I'd say must) use OpenVPN as a client. For the love of all that is holy, do not use PPTP. L2TP/IPSec is probably good enough if you are on Windows. So depending on your technical skills I'd try the OpenVPN client first and L2TP next.

I use UnoTelly, been really good for me. No longer works to watch American Netflix but good for other uses and never gone down in two years I've used it

I have no idea what this thread is about. When I first saw it, i thought it was something to do with Visible Panty N......

So were you having a sniff on this thread?

Liberty_nz, are you saying OpenVPN is better than BlackVPN then?

Openvpn is software you run on your computer to connect to the VPN service provider/server (in my case BlackVPN) .

If we were talking about email then OpenVPN would be the equivalent of Outlook or Thunderbird. BlackVPN would be akin to Gmail or whatever email hosting service you use.

So, just to clear this up, if I was say downloading tv programs from eztv or similar and wanted to have some sort of anonymity, I should be using a VPN?

Correct

No, a VPN doesn't add anonymity, what it does is make you appear as though you're browsing from a different location and encrypts the traffic between. You're still going to be tracked through things like advertisements, usually by Google. Running in anonymous mode through a VPN helps, but running Tor through a VPN is about the best you can do. Although Tor is horrendously slow and there's also a conspiracy theory that the Five Eyes monitor Tor downloads and the second you actually download it you're on a watch list.

I think it's better to say "...and wanted to have a minimal risk of getting caught..."

VPN's don't guarantee anonymity. Can you really trust these companies to not keep logs, or not collude with Government agencies when threatened, etc? The other is that some OS's and VPN providers have vulnerabilities to leaking information (e.g. IPv6 leaks and DNS Hacking - these can be managed with proper configuration).

The real thing when it comes to piracy of copyrighted content is that the NZ law requires a copyright holder to initiate with the NZ ISP. The copyright holder or agent isn't going to have your NZ internet protocol (IP) address they are going to have a Swiss, Dutch, Ukrainian, etc address (well, most likely). You have to be careful that your NZ details aren't leaking. If you are correctly connecting through the other contry then the process and the effort required by the copyright holder is too much for them, just for a couple of TV shows. 

Basically, it's really hard to be 'anonymous' but it's easy enough to minimise your risk of getting caught on piracy/copyright infringement in NZ.

More info on the Piracy/Copyright enforcement process here:

https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/copyright-law...