Encrypt all the things!

Along with Nokluia

I'm running it on Digital Oceans' $5 a month machine (the cheapest they do). They bill by the hour, so you can spin one up and try it.

https://m.do.co/c/7c66f41fdfde

That's $10 credit to try it out!

Grab OVPN-AS here

https://openvpn.net/index.php/access-server/download-openvpn-as-sw.html

Do not get the community version. The AS includes 2 user license.

Cheers, looks like there are plenty of guides on how to set it up. Will give it a try this weekend.

Do those boxes give you root / access to network confinguration

you have full root on the box, pick your flavour of linux to install. I also have ssh keys that it auto-installs for me.

You can have a reserved IP (extra cost), comes with 1 static for free, can do IPv6 (free, but if you don't do at start, you need to reboot).

They also have lots of different data centers around the world. I have a server in SFO (vpn) and NYC (www). Both run Ubuntu.

Tbh, I'm very happy with DO and will keep using them. Earlier in this thread you'll see a speedtest I did breaking 700Mbit/s which is fine for me. They also go all the way up to like 20 cpu boxes.

just use another VPN client to connect to PIA.

TunnelBlick for OSX
OpenVPN for Windows

PIA even give you guides on how to set them up

Is Tunnelblick free to use? I have no idea what that is...

Getting annoyed at the BBC blocking iPlayer out here...

Just had a quick look, looks great...

BBC block a load of VPNs from iPlayer. Pia doesn't work for instance.

Is Tunnelblick free to use? I have no idea what that is...

It's German for 'tunnel vision'. :)

The software is, you would still need a VPN provider.

@aggi that's a reason to spin up your own virtual server with VPN. They are highly unlikely to block one specific IP

I can get it to work about 50% of the time... I've already got PIA, will this TunnelBlick improve things?

It all seems pretty simple.

Set up the droplet,
Download the file using wget
Install
Set the password
Go to the webpage to set it up.

Sadly the last step doesn't work, I get

This site can’t be reached

46.100.34.174 refused to connect.
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

Not sure if there is something extra I need to be doing to start the service or what.

ah yes there is a gotcha and that's due to the Digital Ocean setup.

/usr/local/openvpn_as/bin/ovpn-init

run that command, and when it asks which ip/ports to bind to make sure you select ALL. I think it's option 0

nope. the problem is PIA being blocked by iPlayer

The problem with the free vpns is they have many users coming through one IP address. Iplayer spots and blocks this (as does Netflix US). They have managed to block some company networks using this algo as they also have many users coming through a single IP address. A paid vpn which gives you a fixed and unique IP address should solve the block.

Can't remember where but I did read a good article about it recently as I'm trying to get access to US Netflix again.

Perhaps, but it's easier to block the whole ranges allocated to the VPN service provider rather than single IPs.

Thats one reason you want to be careful using OVH. A lot of VPN providers use virtual hosts from them, so odds are good that OVH will just get blanket blocked from Netflix etc..

Cheers, that did it (the one to select is 1 from options 1,2,3 It's the only one without a yes/no answer). Should probably have tried changing those options rather than diving in to editing stuff and cursing my inability to use Vim.

Speed seems good. Was getting 6.4MB/s on my main laptop which was the same as unencrypted (not sure why I wasn't getting full speed, either Virgin or newsgroup server). PIA was getting 2MB/s

Only getting half that speed on my server. I suspect it may be due to the crappy processor although it only shows usage at 20%. Will have to look further into that.

For those wondering about iplayer though I get a message that I'm not in the UK so no use there.

Good overall though and really quick to set up once you know how. Cheers

So.. make sure to get the OPVN file from the server. There's a bunch of flags it sets in that file. Copy those and make sure openvpn client is actually running them. The biggest one is the buffer settings. The defaults are terrible, but AS server tries to push new settings. Some clients will ignore that and hence shit speeds.

Depends on which client you are using of course.

I wouldn't be surprised if iPlayer are just blanket banning Amazon/Google/DigitalOcean/OVH/Linode etc... There's 0 reason a virtual host should be streaming video.

Im not a fan of tunnelblick at all, its a proper pain if you have multiple VPNs. viscocity is great

When I was saying my server there I meant my home one, not the VPN server. A bit confusing.

I'm using the Windows client that downloads automatically when you go to the page. Works fine on my Windows laptop, works but slower on my Windows server which is possibly due to the processor https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Turion+II+Neo+N40L+Dual-Core Will have a look at other settings though.

oh if you are using Windows, the client will auto-accept the details from OpenVPN-AS and set them right. It's possible CPU/RAM ?

I'm running it on a ESXi VM with 2 cores + 1Gb of ram off a 2011 MBP i5 .. so probably a bit overkill and a lot faster than a Turion II

That's my guess. The laptop is an i7 and it barely registers on the processor. It's not too much of an issue, that PC does all of its downloads automatically in the background so the slow speed won't affect me much.

Trying out Mullvad VPN on my phone. Seems speedy enough for for browsing. I'm using the OpenVPN app which reconnects on wake, which is nice seeing as you have to manually reconnect if you just use it via settings.