Linux Mint Forums

Well, I tried a couple of different vpn applications recently. I have come to the conclusion that I'm not going to use them. I'm happy with my home network security, having freshly installed LM 19, and am using ufw to effectively deny all inbound traffic while allowing my two machines ssh access to each other. My machines have never been compromised, and I'm not going down paranoid alley.

Of the two I tried, Purevpn and ExpressVPN, I had the best luck with ExpressVPN. The support team at PureVPN told me that they were having issues with Mint 19, which I took as an excuse to use in order to minimize support. ExpressVPN worked the best, although there were issues with their dns servers.

Hope everyone has a good and relaxing weekend.

Tom

I am using a firewall, but a firewall won't hide your IP address.

I am using PIA, which works great. The application is very easy to install, and has additional features such as ability to block ads, trackers, etc at the flick of a switch. I also like the ability to switch to a different server/country to bypass geo-blocks/censorship, for example YouTube.

I am using a firewall, but a firewall won't hide your IP address.

ipv6 is detected by "whatismyipaddress' even though I have NordVPN turned on.
so, I disabled IPv6

I used to have PureVPN but their support is less than enthusiastic, so I deserted the farm, and went with NordVPN... much better and it always works.

I turn VPN on/off depending on what I am doing, as for being paranoid?
nope, I choose my fights and go from there.

Have an interesting picture about speeds with VPN enabled.
PureVPN was costing me speed, look at this with NordVPN, it is actually faster than my local ISP allows which is the 2nd of the two shown here. the top line is when I turned VPN on.

i have used both PIA (private internet access) and nordVPN on windows and linux and both are really good. nord is a bit more faff to get setup if openVPN isnt already installed and you are using one of the ubuntu flavours.
on xubuntu i had to install the gnome control panel and then the gnome control panel openVPN addon type thing to get nord working. everything else that i tried didnt work (though i know nothing about linux so...)

but PIA has an excellent client for linux (and windows etc). they are also well priced.

my main reason for subbing to a VPN though is if i need to use public wifi on my phone. most decent VPN services offer an android client.

and i personally would not call it paranoia. helps stop advertising and other annoying dubious internet practices which are not malicious, but are very much just an invasion if privacy. even if you have nothing to hide.

perfectly legal for me to watch TV but doesnt mean i want everyone and their dog looking through the window taking notes on what i like to watch. so i close the curtains.

OK, I sprung for the one year subscription to PIA VPN. It was extremely easy to setup and launch. It just works.

Now I'm thinking of flashing my Linksys EA6350 router using the DD-WRT file I found on the DD-WRT website (linksys-ea63500-webflash.bin.

Just a bit apprehensive. I've flashed the firmware with Linksys's firmware, and don't really want to turn my router into a brick. Will probably wait until Wednesday afternoon (GMT -5). It's currently 13:32 AM and I'm a bit tired.

Why flash the firmware? I think that with the DD-WRT firmware, I can set the router up to connect to the PIA network and thus use a VPN for all devices in the house that connect to the router.

I've got some pretty heavy duty passwords on both the home and guest network, and will keep an eye on the logs.

Who else has done this and was it successful for you?

I have been using PIA for the past year on various devices and love it.

I tried installing it on my Asus RT-AC68U router and ran into several issues:

1. It appears to be a lot slower than PIA running on my computers since the processing power of routers is not as great as computers. My speed tests showed it was a LOT slower.

2. More importantly, there are some sites that do not work with a VPN -- mostly banks and credit cards. This presented a problem for me since it's easy to temporarily disable PIA on my computer and a real bother to do it on the router.

bertradio wrote: ⤴Wed Jul 25, 2018 9:35 am I have been using PIA for the past year on various devices and love it.

I tried installing it on my Asus RT-AC68U router and ran into several issues:

1. It appears to be a lot slower than PIA running on my computers since the processing power of routers is not as great as computers. My speed tests showed it was a LOT slower.

2. More importantly, there are some sites that do not work with a VPN -- mostly banks and credit cards. This presented a problem for me since it's easy to temporarily disable PIA on my computer and a real bother to do it on the router.

Do you have Access to a 2nd router? Use the first one unsecured, and use your Asus RT-AC68U router always on VPN? that way you would only need to switch to the opposite WiFi signal, and not have to be reprogramming to VPN or no-VPN

To play devil's advocate with flashing a commercial router with ddWRT, openWRT or whatever for the purpose on running a vpn client. This is assuming your router is flash-able.

- Commercial routers have limited processor power and cannot encrypt/decrypt the data stream nearly as fast as a pc/laptop or even a phone. Expect to be disappointed with performance. Wireguard looks to resolve this but is still beta.

- Steaming services like to block vpn ip addresses so services like netflix might not work for you. So if your tv is connected to your router that is running a vpn client, no netfilx for you!

- Running a vpn client on a flashed router using the command line will not auto-reconnect or select the best vpn server automatically like vpn gui's will. At least not without extra configurations/scripts.

- You're in charge of the routers firewall, so a network-lock/kill-switch is up to you, be repaired to become an expert.

That's about all I can think of, but I think it's still worth flashing your router for the better security and added features, but perhaps not for a vpn client.

Instead of flashing a router, maybe you could try using a Raspberry Pi as a vpn router?

I am using Linux app of PureVPN on Linux Mint 19 and it works fine here. Did you use their app or manual settings? I reached out to them for manual settings but they helped me setup their Linux app on Mint.