Thinking of getting a VPN, any thoughts ?

[Elochai]

So I was looking into a VPN as added protection on the net along with being able to access some media that can't be viewed here in Canada due to copyright laws. EG: some films on Netflix for the USA are not on the Canada one yet.

I can get around that with a proxy but proxies seem slow, and don't add as much protection and options as a VPN does.

By defualt my ISP (Rogers) blocks VPN tunneling by the cable modem router. Even if you buy the router it's disabled in a secret admin area. They try to trick customers into thinking the account they got for it is the main admin account and that the options you see are all of them.

The main reason for this is in my opinion is that rogers like to spy on people internet usage. One thing I really hated about having to go back with them after being with Bell for so long. Wish I had the hookups here for my old internet. Make a long story short, rogers injects there own search page if you miss type a domain, they inject warning messages for bandwidth usage on pages you are viewing. And they have messed with my router settings one day while I was at work.

So I can see why they block VPN as they wouldn't be getting any of that data as it be encoded and tunneled. I already cracked the VPN disabled area and re-enabled it. I also found a VPN for a good price with good reviews. I wont say who unless its ok to do so. I know NFO don't sell VPN's but you never know, someday they may.

My question is:

Is anyone here using a VPN and if so how do you find it for everyday usage ?

[Elochai]

Update on this, I went with the low end version of the VPN offerd by the company I was looking at before jumping the gun for the best they offer. They got custom software thats really nice with a ton of options for people who just want to use the VPN on a computer or two in there house or at work.

The low end is very very fast, I really don't notice any low speeds with any of my normal sites. However I did notice that Steam online games (I only tried Killing Floor and Left 4 Dead 2) are a problem. I asked about this before buying and was told that gaming wouldn't be a problem for speed. I believe that speeds are fine. So where the issue ?

Well I can't find any servers or connect to my own as my side can't see them. I believe this is because of how it handles data going to and from the server to the game client. I am guessing the tunneling of that information is confussing for the packets when trying to send back to the VPN IP yet the packet header gets tunneled to my PC and the info is now wrong.

That sound right to anyone ? or maybe the VPN blocks steam ports even tho I was told all ports are opened on VPN's so people won't have any issues.

[Edge100x]

We can't really help you with a VPN provided by another company -- you'd have to contact them with your concerns.

I do know that a number of customers run OpenVPN on VDSes here and it works fine across the board.

[Elochai]

We can't really help you with a VPN provided by another company -- you'd have to contact them with your concerns.

I do know that a number of customers run OpenVPN on VDSes here and it works fine across the board.

Oh no this is just a discussion I started to get some feedback on VPN's as I'm not used to it. I understand you can't help me fix any issues.

I was just wondering what others think about VPN's and if what I'm seeing with trying to connect to gaming servers is normal due to packet data and tunneling for any VPN.

[Elochai]

Ok figure it out. I got to use IPsec protocol for online gaming as the PPTP and L2TP seem to be blocked for me.

So VPN so far is a great little tool to have if anyone wondering