[PLUG-TALK] VPN anyone?

[John Jason Jordan]

On Fri, 14 Feb 2020 14:01:07 -0500
Tomas Kuchta <tomas.kuchta.lists at gmail.com> dijo:

>I will stay away from recommending VPN - though PIA or Mulvad are
>considered one of the best in terms of privacy - that is what you are
>looking for correct?

Yes, really just privacy.

>Other (primary) purpose of VPNs is to connect/extend private networks
>over the internet. Think of it like going to cafe/conference/Hawaii and
>connecting to your network at home, like being at home. So, that you
>could access your files on NAS, browse interwebs from there, etc.

I never travel, so that is irrelevant to me.

>As about what you do and what to expect - there is currently no way you
>could get whole network (understand VPN on your router) running at
>1Gb/s. I guess, that you should realistically expect 50-100Mb/s in
>ideal situation.

I got better than that from PIA, and at the moment I am using
FastestVPN, which is giving me up to 300Mbps. After much trial and
error I have concluded that 300Mbps is probably the best I can get. But
it's usable, so I don't mind.

I kind of like FastestVPN over PIA. PIA has its own little GUI app, but
it doesn't allow you to select which of their many servers you are
going to connect to. FastestVPN uses the built-in Linux network
manager, and you can set up as many of their 60+ servers as you want.
It took me hours to figure out how to do it, but now that it's done I
like it. The weird thing is that speedtest.net gives me about the same
speed for all of the servers that I set up, but on most of them I
found that web browsing was slower than the second coming. I mean, just
accessing any web site would often fail due to timeout. I had to try
half a dozen of their servers before I got one that works well. And
it's in the Netherlands - their servers in the US were awful.

>To use your 1Gb/s ISP link you will most likely need to separate VPN
>and not VPN traffic either by setting up VPN on client PCs or by
>network separation using Vlans or by connecting through VPN proxy
>when/where you need it.

That might be a way to get better speeds, but it sounds like a lot of
work. Originally I just assumed that I would connect to the VPN and
life would continue as before. Then I ran into the speed issue, and
almost gave up. But now I realize that 300Mbps is really fast enough,
and I don't need to be connected to the VPN 24/7. If I need faster
speed for something (like downloading a distro ISO) I can just turn it
off for a while.

I still have the problem with Gmail. Today I was blocked three times,
and had to go through all the hoops to get reconnected. At the same
time my gmx.com mail seems to have no problem with accessing mail from
constantly changing IP addresses. My current plan of attack is to set
up a new gmx.com account and set Gmail to automatically forward
everything to it.

>I hope this gives you some ideas what/why/how you could do to improve
>your privacy where it matters to you without losing the benefits of
>1Gb/s internet connection.

You have given me some good ideas. And it has been a learning
experience. :)