Am heading to Europe plane and boat and will be mainly in Portugal. I surf safe safe in the US but would like a recommendation for a free/reasonable VPN during the trip. No gaming use just for looking up touristy stuff etc. Thank you all!
I switched from protonvpn to Mullvad last year and it’s great. It’s not only cheaper, but much more reliable and much less blocked than proton. Interfaces (desktop and mobile) are also much better.
Prepaid 5 euros per month, any number of months, for 5 devices. iOS includes DNS ad/tracking blockers (mostly uses easylist) so it also blocks a fair bit of cruft for all apps.
I see that OpenVPN offers up to three concurrent users on their CloudConnexa™ service for free.)
If you’re technically inclined, you may want to set up your own VPN for free by piggybacking on your existing (home) internet connection. Years ago I downloaded OpenVPN and set it up on a FreeNAS server.
Nowadays many personal routers have VPN servers pre-installed and all you have to do is configure one (or more) of them (and your clients).
For example, my TP-Link AX55 router supports four different protocols:
- OpenVPN
- PPTP
- WireGuard
- L2TP/IPSec
Another happy Mullvad VPN user here.
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I use ProtonVPN nearly 99.9% of the time. I looked at Mullvad and noticed that they said that they would shutdown their service IF they were forced by either law or law enforcement or intelligence organizations to “spy” on their users. The EU is moving toward just that. Switzerland is not in the EU. P-VPN does not collect data either, no log in nor anything else and needs only to comply with their country’s laws, not EU laws. As for blocking, I worked with P-VPN when my USA bank initially blocked VPN access based on their theory that if my address said I lived in Seattle, and my incoming IP address was NY, it must not be me, and it must be an intruder. I no longer have these issues. I do not know what tech support did but I do not have. I also know that these folks make their source code open to anyone to review, which I did not see on Mullvad. Yes, it costs more than Mullvad but if cost was a real consideration, using a
“free VPN " while just in Europe should also be an option. Lastly, Mullvad has a”tool” to check to see if you have any DNS leaks. I NEVER rely on tools that come from the provider. There are independent DNS leak testing sites and Independent IP checking sites that one should use to double check your VPN provider. And if one is only planning to use a VPN in Europe on their phone but not when back in the USA, think again. I do NOT see any change in vulnerability just because you are stateside. BTW, if stateside is where you spend 99% off the time, check out the VPN provider “Netshade.” I used him for a long long time. I made the switch to ProtonVPN when my actual vulnerability envelope got bigger and did not want to use a VPN provider REQUIRED to obey an NSA warrant.
That sounds like a crazy policy even without VPNs. I log into my various bank accounts every evening in order to make sure no unexpected transactions appeared. I do this from hotel rooms when I’m on vacation, which may be very far from my home.
Yes, it was a very crazy policy. Some senior nerd thought this up and convinced management that blocking static IP nodes was the next level of security and that everyone was going to do it. I DIRECTLY asked the President of the bank if she was blocking VPNs, and she said no. When I explained the new policy to her in very simple terms, I think a light bulb went on. ProtonVPN people also called her and explained their side of the story. I do not believe the policy was dropped. I think they added a layer of “frequency” to it: IE how many times a second (?) is there a query from the same IP node. ProtonVPN also added to their structure a “frequency ping” IP timeout, I think, but my guess is that they had already had this included, just not as far down their chain as out may be now. I gleamed this from a [written] conversation I had with tech support
The President does admit that they do block any IP nodes from countries that are on the USA trade restriction list including North Korea, Iran, Cuba, now Russia, and others.