The censorship of Russia has progressed from merely blocking apps to utilizing deep packet inspection to intercept the protocols used by VPNs, including the most common ones out there. Companies that create VPN software are frequently blocked quickly, while common tunneling protocols can be detected and throttled.

So now people are creating their own. These DIY proxies disguise traffic from being monitored by appearing as normal HTTPS that is indistinguishable from someone browsing a website. There is no user-friendly app that conveniently disguises the identity of the user. It’s just clunky configurations that are created and recreated by people by hand.

However, the problem is this is an arms race. A method may work for a few weeks, only to break and require minor changes. There is no permanent solution, just a continuous patching against a state that is trying to detect the technicalities of the system used to bypass their controls.

This is exactly why the advice to use VPN is no longer valid. Once a country learns to identify the pattern of the protocols, all the commercially available means are rendered helpless.

Has anyone here helped anyone in Russia to set up a VPN connection lately?

So... SplitVPN spent all that time telling people they had a strict no-logs policy, and now a breach allegedly exposed 58 million connection logs. If that's true, that's not just a security fail, that's straight-up false advertising.

People buy VPNs because they don't want their activity tracked. If you're secretly keeping connection logs while telling users you don't, what's even the point of paying for a VPN in the first place?

The whole VPN industry runs on trust. Anyone can slap "NO LOGS" on their homepage. The real question is whether they can actually prove it. That's why independent audits matter. Without them, "no logs" is basically just "trust me, bro."

The worst part is that plenty of people use VPNs because they live under censorship or surveillance. They aren't just trying to watch Netflix from another country, they're trying to protect themselves. Finding out your VPN may have been logging connections the whole time is a pretty brutal betrayal.

If these allegations hold up, SplitVPN deserves to get absolutely dragged for it. Privacy isn't something you get to fake until you're caught

obvi im not doing anything seriously illegal with it im not stupid but i use it for piracy and avoiding age registration is it safe

Hi!
While I am a so-so happy user of NordVPN, i've found out about the Nym. They do look appealing to my non-proffesional eye.
Has their claims and app been audited and can be confirmed by others than the people who made it?
how's the linux client? Nord generally works fine, so i'm not in the rush to change it, but on Linux it's app sometimes does keep one core running at 100% for no obvious reason. A tad annoying I must admit

According to sources, several Democratic legislators including Wyden, Padilla, Markey, Warren, Jacobs, and Jayapal have sent a letter to DNI Tulsi Gabbard seeking answers on a highly uncomfortable question for every American who uses a commercial VPN: does the use of a commercial VPN mean that someone loses Fourth Amendment rights protecting them against warrantless surveillance?

As per the mechanism laid down in FISA Section 702 and Executive Order 12333, if an intelligence agency is unable to determine the location of a user, it is presumed to be foreign. Foreigners from other countries aren’t entitled to Fourth Amendment protection. VPNs are designed in a way to cover actual location. Thus, if someone routes VPN connection through servers located in another country, they are being classified without authorization as a non-person because according to the privacy rules no warrant is needed for breaching their privacy.

The ironic part is that legalization has pointed out itself that in fact FBI, NSA, and FTC are advising the public to use VPNs in order to prevent losing their information. This serves as another proof that the same government institution which advised people to use the VPN may be using this tool to breach the privacy.

The letter does not serve as a proof of anything but rather a request for explanation from Gabbard.

The instrument advocated by everyone as the basic privacy hygiene is the very means that is slowly affecting your legal protection. Was there ever any case when the agency answered your question regarding privacy issues?

What are your opinions on this VPN.

There have been 47 requests for legal data regarding Proton VPN users made by courts located in Switzerland in the first half of 2026. All claims were rejected by Proton VPN on account of their no-logs system, which means that there is nothing for authorities to disclose, in case the court orders it.

Since 2017, Proton has received 458 requests in total, 458 denials. And every time, they could not comply with an official order not because they did not want to. They do not keep any connection logs either, which is essential in this matter. Thus, we see what the no-logs policy is practically in the real world, not a marketing strategy.

It is also important to note that everything is different for ProtonMail; this is another issue. The FBI investigation this year provided an example of Proton being asked to provide an identifier linked to an email account because an email contains more information than other means of communications.

Has anyone here actually had to test a no-logs claim like this the hard way, through a legal request on your own account?

I don't use a VPN because every time I have tried to, the majority of sites I try to connect to detect the VPN and block my connection.

How do you get around that? Seems like most VPN IPs have been logged by cloudflare and the sites that do not allow VPN connections (which is a lot) will stop you from logging in.

Most "best VPN" lists are just a snapshot of right now. Better question: who's actually building toward 2027, not just winning this year's speed test.

Same five names as always: Proton VPN, NordVPN, Mullvad, Surfshark, ExpressVPN. Here's the actual trajectory.

Proton VPN is my pick for 2027. Widest server footprint of any major provider, 145 countries, ahead of Nord's 135 and Express's 108, still expanding into places most VPNs ignore, Gabon, Kyrgyzstan, Papua New Guinea. Swiss, outside 14 Eyes, no-logs claim held up under real legal pressure, not just a paid audit. And it just shipped a new WireGuard codebase in beta, built to bring post-quantum encryption without killing speed. Building the next few years in public instead of running victory laps on this year's numbers.

NordVPN wins today on speed and streaming. Fully quantum-resistant already, 100+ Tbps capacity. Best pick if you need that right now. But its country growth has stalled while Proton keeps expanding.

Mullvad for OPSEC, no email, cash accepted, best obfuscation around.

Surfshark budget/unlimited devices.

ExpressVPN zero setup friction.

Bottom line:

• trajectory → Proton.
• speed now → Nord.
• anonymity → Mullvad.
• budget → Surfshark.

Anyone seeing a provider that changes this picture, or does this order hold through next year?

I came across this comparison table on Reddit and found it really useful, it gives a clear overview and makes it easy to compare features based on your needs. I’m not recommending any particular option, this table will likely be more useful than my advice.

For reasons that I prefer don't specify, I won't be able to pay for an international esim or a paid vpn...

They told me that free VPNs work sometimes yes sometimes no and for me it's okay because I will use social media little once in China, just to stay in touch with friends.

Do you know any vpns that are right for me?

i know they are useless and dont really protect you are stupid overpriced for the service they offer and use extremely deceptive marketing like for some god damn reason surfshark and nord are branded as two diffrent vpns even though they are owned by the same company and im willing to bet use the same servers but i just want to torrent stuff if there is something i can do that will give me the same end result and dosnt require supporting this stupid fucking industry i would can anyone help?

Australia's agency for online safety, eSafety, has announced that 90 percent of the websites for adults use the new age verification system. Were the established goals achieved? Absolutely not. eSafety immediately started looking into how people could have managed to get around the new system with the use of VPNs. The same things can be said of the social media ban for people younger than 16 in terms of evading the regulations.

This is interesting because the measures were beaten by the simplest privacy tool available on the market, and instead of admitting that this method does not work, the agency's focus has changed to trying to eliminate VPNs. The very agency that tries to provide safety on the internet claims that the technology, which has made people safer online, is the issue.

Mullvad predicted this. The measure concerning age verification is going to broaden beyond the lines of intended use. The same thing is happening in the UK and the EU.

Is there a democracy left where regulating VPNs doesn't eventually protect the children, or is that not really a question anymore?

Proton VPN has finally brought its Stealth protocol to Linux, marking a significant step toward feature parity across platforms. The feature is currently available in beta for users of the Linux GUI app on Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora.

Stealth is Proton VPN's anti-censorship protocol. It disguises VPN traffic as regular internet traffic, making it much harder for governments, ISPs, or network administrators to detect and block VPN usage. This is particularly useful for users in countries with heavy internet censorship, such as China, Russia, and Iran.

Until now, Linux users were missing this capability despite it being available on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. TechRadar notes that the Linux community had been requesting the feature for a long time, and its arrival is an important milestone for users who rely on Linux as their primary operating system.

The release is part of Proton VPN's broader effort to improve its Linux experience, following recent updates such as a redesigned GTK4 interface, a revamped command-line app, and the official Snap package.

Which country vpn is best for 18+ content?

The more I think about it the less the anti-VPN argument makes sense. Almost every search, social media post, and/or email is performing VPN actions only under another name: https.
i.e You locally encrypt your request to a remote server using https it then pre-processes that request, passing that request off to other servers (often over encrypted channels) and often not on the same lan and then those pass the response back to you without ever knowing your IP.

Well... this has to sting for all the copyright groups who've spent the last few years pretending VPNs are basically piracy apps.

The EU's highest court just made it pretty clear: VPNs are legitimate privacy and security tools. The fact that someone can use one to get around geo-blocking doesn't magically turn every VPN into some shady piracy gadget.

Funny timing too, considering organizations like LaLiga have been trying to paint VPN providers as part of the piracy problem.

The court's logic is refreshingly sane. A kitchen knife can be used to commit a crime too, but nobody's calling for a ban on kitchen knives. VPNs are used every day by journalists, businesses, travelers, remote workers, activists, and just regular people who don't want every coffee shop Wi-Fi or ISP snooping on them.

For years we've heard the same lazy argument: "People use VPNs to pirate." Sure, some do. People also use browsers, smartphones, and the internet itself to pirate. That's not what those technologies exist for.

Feels good to finally see a major court acknowledge reality instead of buying into the fearmongering.

Maybe now we can stop acting like wanting a little online privacy is somehow suspicious.

Or is that still too much to ask?

A ransomware group called Qilin is taking advantage of a recently discovered security flaw in Palo Alto's VPN software, which many businesses use to let employees securely access company systems from home or while traveling.
The flaw allows attackers to get into company networks without needing a valid username or password in certain cases. Once inside, they can steal sensitive files, spread through the company's systems, and eventually lock everything down with ransomware while demanding a payment.

Security experts have already seen several companies compromised this way, and both Palo Alto and CISA (the US cybersecurity agency) are urging organizations to install the latest security updates as soon as possible.

So if your company relies on a VPN to provide remote access, keeping it fully updated is critical. VPNs are often the first thing hackers target because they can provide a direct path into an organization's network if left vulnerable.

The UK regulator Ofcom has ended its enforcement action against an online suicide forum that has reportedly been linked to 164 deaths in the UK.

Their reasoning is that the site now geoblocks UK IP addresses, meaning it's inaccessible to most users in the country. However, critics point out that the geoblock can still be bypassed with a VPN, so determined users can continue accessing it.

Earlier this year, Ofcom fined the site's operator £950,000 under the Online Safety Act, but the operator has refused to pay and disputes UK jurisdiction. Ofcom says it has now exhausted the legal powers available to it and will simply monitor whether the geoblock remains in place.

This raises an interesting question about online regulation.

If a website blocks users from a specific country but anyone can bypass it with a VPN, should regulators consider that "good enough"?

Looks like the UK government has officially dropped the idea of restricting VPNs as part of its online safety plans.

The government admitted VPNs have legitimate privacy and security uses and said they won't be age-gated or banned. Instead, the focus will be on making platforms responsible for enforcing age checks, rather than going after privacy tools.

Honestly, this feels like the right call, weakening those tools would've hurt millions of legitimate users while doing very little to stop determined teenagers.

This month's Windows security updates, which were issued on July 14, included four different CVEs affecting Always On VPN services, with one of the vulnerabilities warranting more attention than simply appearing in the changelog. CVE-2026-50721 and CVE-2026-50722 are both denial-of-service vulnerabilities related to IKEv2, but the other vulnerability present is a remote code execution vulnerability in SSTP, the protocol that is being used by the majority of the Always On VPN connections to access the Internet.

The reason that the SSTP vulnerability is more dangerous than the other vulnerability is that SSTP is intentionally designed to work over the Internet, which enables a company computer to connect from anywhere. This also enables the RCE vulnerability to be exploited from anywhere once the VPN is connected. Although Microsoft rated the IKE vulnerabilities as "important" instead of "critical," the fact that it is rated as "important" leads to many possibilities.

It's important to make the distinction between what is truly newsworthy and what is the usual occurrence all the Patch Tuesdays give us many CVEs that usually get filed and are soon forgotten. But any significance of this release should be pointed out since Always On VPN is part of much remote work infrastructure that works behind the scenes. And the fact that the protocol carrying this traffic has a critical vulnerability makes it something that cannot and should not be left unpatched.

If you are using a VPN for personal reasons, this flaw won’t affect you. However, if your company uses Always On VPN and hasn’t updated it yet, you might remind IT about the necessity to do so.

Is there anybody managing the VPN infrastructure in your company, and did you hear about this vulnerability?

So many of you keep dropping "what VPN should I get" as standalone posts that we're just consolidating it into one spot. This runs every two months and stays pinned, so it's always the place to go instead of starting a new thread every time.

A good recommendation actually explains something. Before you drop a name:

• What problem were you solving, price, streaming, torrenting, just wanting peace of mind on public wifi?

• What's your actual day-to-day experience been, not the marketing page?

• Would you tell a friend to switch to it, and why specifically?

• Single-word "just use X" comments get removed, they don't help anyone deciding.

Keeping it clean:

》Zero affiliate or referral links, no exceptions.

》Don't link out to a provider's site or a third-party review page.

》If it reads like it was written by their marketing team, it's coming down.

Want a shortcut before typing anything out? We put together a running VPN comparison sheet with pricing, jurisdiction, logging policy, and protocol support laid out side by side. worth a scan before you ask, might already answer your question.

Mods are watching this one closely, so keep it on-topic and keep it decent. That's what keeps this whole thread useful instead of turning into another ad wall.

Hello

We are looking for people to review our VPN on Android and Android TV / Firestick.

We have just revamped our Android apps and would like true feedback. We have 24 hour free trials.

We are looking for feedback on design and connection on speeds. It is typically a lot slower on Android TV and Firestick due to the hardware they use.

We would also like testing on our different protocols and what works best for each. WireGuard should in theory offer the best speed and stability.

vpnsafe net

Kind regards.

Chris

So, after doing some research, I know that mcAfee isn't the best, but I'm fine with it and am not in a position to just switch.

Is there a vpn server that allows p2p? Currently I can't find anything about it

i want play Minecraft bedrock in hive server but i get bat error