First off, sorry if this has been asked a million times in this community already, but the only post I found on this topic when I searched was over two years old.

I’ve been using PIA vpn for the past two years, but my subscription is ending soon and I was thinking about switching providers. I’m a fairly basic vpn user so I’m not overly concerned about advanced features and bells and whistles. I have a limited budget to work with, and I run Fedora os. Does anyone have any recommendations on what vpn I should be using?

I’ve seen Mullvad mentioned frequently, but it’s a touch expensive compared to others. I’ve heard some good things about Proton vpn too, but I know there was a controversy with their CEO not long ago. I’ve also just read something about IVPN and they look good, but I’d like opinions from more sources. I’m open too all other suggestions as well. Thanks for any and all thoughts!

  • idriss@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    8 hours ago

    I ended up self hosting my own in a privacy-friendly low-cost VPS after trying everything in some censorship heavy locations (SuperVPN, NordVPN, Mullvad, Surfshark, Frog{something}VPN …) & rotating the address from time to time (I using a domain name so I don’t have to change all the clients). My private one uses whatever new obfs protocol pops up and some other things to make fingerprinting very hard. Combining this with residential proxies & TOR+private bridges for browsing works like a charm EVERYWHERE.

    Commercial VPNs all fail because they use standard protocols and are very easy to fingerprint if you try enough.

    • FireIced@lemmy.super.ynh.frEnglish
      2·
      4 hours ago

      Must be expensive to use residential proxies, nah? If I can ask, what’s your host?

      Unless you’re not doing anything illegal and just using some friends’ IP and stuff

      • idriss@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        4 hours ago

        Regarding residential proxy, it will be okay, 1usd per GB in packetstream.

        For VPS, I use AlexHost as they dont require id, plus crypto payments (I wish I could use something else, capsul.org is overpriced and much lower quality)

          • idriss@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            3 hours ago

            I meant AlexHost, if you find something with similar specs and pricing I would love to jump to it. AlexHost treats customer like garbage. Plus, only use shared instances, dedicated instances are terrible (terrible internet speed and host performance) check TrustPilot.

              • idriss@lemm.eeEnglish
                1·
                1 hour ago

                Thanks for sharing!

                From an initial look it seems like a reseller, I guess it will require identification + has some restrictions. I run some trading bots so that’s out for sure.

                • FireIced@lemmy.super.ynh.frEnglish
                  1·
                  1 hour ago

                  yup but they told me some of their servers was theirs

                  The thing that I like is that they resell hetzner for crypto, at a very small extra, which I haven’t seen elsewhere