Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Trustworthy Proxy Services?
gusoline writes "Since I'm now living in Brazil (originally from the U.S.), I'm looking for a reliable, trustworthy proxy service I can use to both access services I've used for a long time (Pandora, Netflix, etc.) and services I want to try out (Spotify). Since I'm not looking for illegal downloads or to hide what I'm doing, I'm less concerned about anonymity than I am about region restrictions, reliability, latency, and security of passwords and traffic through their network. I'm OK paying for services that deliver what I want (including the Proxy service itself). Any suggestions from the Slashdot crowd?"
works well. even with wow or other games. has lots of choices. paid, free options.
Read radical news here
Setup an AWS EC2 and Squid, lock it down and enjoy your own private proxy.
1) Buy cheap US VPS
2) Set it up yourself so you know exactly what is being logged
3) Profit.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Get yourself a server in the US and install your own proxy... Won't cost you more than $100/month.
HotSpot Shield.
Build your own. EC2 + whatever VPN or proxy service you want.
Take a look at TunnelBear. I out about it via Twitter and it's fantastic. Has UK and US proxies. You can have a free account with 500MB of data, which increases to 1500MB if you tweet at them or if you pay 5 bucks a month you get unlimited. Supports Mac and Windows too. I highly recommend it!
You can setup an Amazon EC2 instance that will serve your purposes well.
Welcome to the 21st century, where corporations are allowed to globalize -- but not people!
Depending on your preference, create a Linux or Windows machine on AWS in a US presence, and then do your work from there.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Works for Netflix, Hulu and a bunch of other services.
I use a Linux instance on linode.com as a seedbox. It doesn't take much time to log on and create one, with the disk populated by the OS of choice. Then toss on your torrent software of choice, as well as your proxy software you like.
I live in Brazil and contracted http://www.expressvpn.com/ yesterday.
It works for me for Pandora and Netflix on iPhone, and their technical support team answered me in less than 1 hour.
http://www.witopia.net/
Pick your country and protocol. Works with the BBC, Hulu, Vimeo, Pandora, Netflix, probably just about everything else. Of course, you have to pick a US proxy for Hulu, a British proxy for the BBC, etc.
Pirating stuff is more convenient than going through conventional, legitimate routes. If there's a movie I want to watch, NetFlix doesn't have it streaming then I'm going to pirate it and delete it.
No proxy stays online for long - if they do that alone is suspicious. Google 'proxy' and you will find thousands of alternatives.
Speaking as someone who's also in Brazil, and having only my own ISP as a reference, I'd say you'll probably have a hard time. While connection speeds inside the country are good to great, international connections suck. I guess the international backbone pipes just aren't fat enough.
So you might want to have a dry run before making any long term commitments.
Welcome to the 21st century where corporations are allowed to globalize -- but people are not. Incorporate yourself and then you can circumvent any silly rules and do whatever you want.
I'm biased because I'm the senior systems engineer at Anonymizer, but I recommend us.
Anonymizer Universal is an IPSEC/L2TP VPN, support for Windows, Mac OS X and iOS (we don't support Android, but it works. We don't supply instructions because Android is a moving target).
Total Net Shield is SSH tunneling+Apache proxy. Supports anything with an SSH client.
Take your pick. In either case we don't log traffic.
Traffic egress is from the U.S. and your IP address changes every day.
Full control of what's logged and what's going on, if you use less than 200GB you can get away with paying less than $20/month for their entry level VPS, you'll get your own IP address so it's very unlikely to get blacklisted (as that seems common with a lot of the more popular proxy/VPN providers). You'll need to setup everything yourself, but you get a lot more control, you essentially have your own server to play about with and it's not much more expensive than move VPN providers.
Before I setup my linode I was using overplay.net who were okay, but they were often quite slow and I did have issues with blacklisting on certain sites and every so often the server I was using would go down.
I find it charming he thinks there is a difference between what he wants to do and illegal downloads.
I'm a happy customer of overplay.net. For US$ 9.95 you get access to VPN servers in 48 countries, with multiple servers in many cases.
I can't say how secure my data is with them but it works reasonably well with OpenVPN and mostly fast as well.
http://www.giganews.com/vyprvpn/ I use this when I want to, and they have VPN POPs in europe, southeast asia, and the us. Works great.
You can't do it from there, 'nuff said.
If I'm at a hotspot, hotel, or somewhere where I need to bypass content filtering I use Patriot Internet. $25/year, decent speed. Traffic exits from New Hampshire.
If I'm doing torrents or filesharing sites, I use BTGuard. $90/year, decent speed. Traffic exits from Canada, Germany, or the Netherlands.
One of the cheapest VPS'es I have ever seen: http://www.santrex.net/vps-hosting.php#us
Used it once for 1 month for a school thing and it worked fine, bandwidth is sometimes not the promised 100mbit, but still more than 60 (and sometimes it was more, around 300).
Make sure you get the Xens. I had openVZ first but had to change as it suffered from other people overloading the node.
Does setting this header with a browser plugin no longer work to access these sites?
Check out http://www.tunnelr.com./ Tunnelr uses Open VPN or SSH tunnels. It is lean and efficient. I use our and it works well.
Give up the american shit and be happy you're out of this hell hole of a country. Other Brazilians don't need the shit, so why do you? Shit, I'll trade places with you and you can have all of my shit and my netflix and Pandora One subscription.
I've had very good luck with Tunnel Bear for both US and UK localization. http://www.tunnelbear.com/ The were featured in Lifehacker.
All I say is by way of discourse, nothing by way of advice
Hi; Just a note, I tried to do the same to bypass an overzealous IT policy using an IronKey (which includes free lifetime proxy with their key). It seemed rather slow and I did note that their proxies are in Canada, which prevents the US of Pandora. On the plus side, I can place bets in the UK.
I've had good luck with StrongVPN. I connect to it with OpenVPN from a gateway running pfSense, which allows me to select the route to use (VPN or direct) based on either the internal and external IPs. At around $10/month, it's quite cost-effective.
I use HideMyAss vpn, it works, and it is cheap. email me at theflatline@gmail.com if you need details.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
I use StrongVPN (http://www.strongvpn.com). It is a pay to use service, but the prices are very reasonable with varying packages based on your needs. There are several tunneling methods available, and you can change your egress point on the fly based on where you are trying to connect to for best latency. I travel for business frequently, and cycle between egress points on the east and west coast as well as in Europe depending on what I need to get to. Your IP address will update every time you reconnect to reflect your current proxy location, there's no bandwidth cap and the service is completely transparent to any applications you may need.
I've been using VpnPop.com's OpenVPN service for about 6 months now. A good distribution of endpoints, very fast bandwidth, and low prices. Right now I'm registered for the 0.5 Mb/s full-duplex at $3-some a month, but I'm often able to get speeds of up to around 2MB/s (yes, B).
Try http://www.unblock-us.com it's only $5/month and you just change your DNS settings to get it to work, it works with all the major services. I've been using it in Australia for the last 6 months without any problems.
1. Get a linode (or other VPS).
2. Set up OpenVPN,
3. compress traffic
4. ????
5. PROFIT
http://unblock-us.com/
If I remember correctly, you have to use their DNSs, they will route you to their proxy servers when you query netflix or any other.
Strong VPN. Great service, fast VPNs, lots of VPN options, and streams just about anything everywhere. Punches through the Great Firewall of China (here in Shanghai and elsewhere throughout China) with ease. Pretty cheap, too - worth it to get my fix of Pandora, Hulu, and Netflix!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
get a shell somewhere in the US (get a virtual machine, whatever you can). if you can ssh to the box:
ssh -D 8080 someuser@someserver.com
then setup your machine to use a "SOCKS proxy on localhost:8080".
and voila, simplest proxy EVAR!
Or, @ least it used to be, and I mean LOADED with highly anonymous/transparent level ones... times must have changed since I was into such games!
APK
with their laws, as long as you're not trying to screw them, they could care less what you do.
and from what I understand they don't give much of a damn about the FBI either.
https://www.relakks.com/faq/legal/
will now have its address block(s) added to the blacklists of Hulu, Netflix et al
I mean, seriously, how many times will the "tech savvy" users of this site fall for ruses like this?
As if anyone who reads Slashdot wouldn't be able to find out;
Please ... just stop.
I suggest looking here instead https://www.goldenfrog.com/vyprvpn
Unless you want to buy a giganews subscription just to get VPN access.
Since I'm not looking for illegal downloads or to hide what I'm doing...
Let me guess...you think the Littlest Mermaid's cleavage is pornographic and you just want this information for a friend. (Snicker)
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Having tried many (and set up several VPSs) there's one I can strongly recommend:
http://www.bolehvpn.net/
Very fast, cheap and gives you many options you can switch between at will. I'm in no way associated with them, just a happy customer. :-) If there's a better option out there I'd love to hear about it!
Don't worry, with that kind of "can't do attitude", you are at no risk of getting any Android customers anyway, or Linux customers for that matter, or their families and relatives. Who wants to do business with a company that's obviously staffed by pointy-haired clones?
Currently working overseas, needed a very similar service. Witopia was recommended by a colleague - I've been extremely happy with their service. They give you an OpenVPN download for Windows - but if you de-compress it and copy out the config files, the same configs and keys can be plugged into OpenVPN for Linux - and it runs all day every day. They currently have 76 choices for VPN servers - in all major countries.
I recommend getting a Whatbox. Their most expensive plan costs $18 per month and you're allowed to do pretty much anything you want with it. They even have instructions in their wiki on how to set it up as a proxy.
Hi, you may want to have a look at this "Comparative test of Internet Anonymizers".
Quoting: We have been publishing and updating a comparative test of VPN services in German since 2009 which points out which VPN services log their users‘ IP addresses and which do not. Due to the current interest I am providing an English version of the short summary of the results (last updated: 02/06/2011).
http://www.daten-speicherung.de/index.php/comparative-test-of-internet-anonymizers/
Cocoon is a proxy that is trustworthy, fast, and has some slick extra features. Http://GetCocoon.com
You are trying to circumvent copyright protections that enforce region restrictions
... if you're into VPN to Germany, and have your Proxy there:
www.ssp-europe.eu
Ironically, proxies were recently used to attack my desktop and one of my programs got crashed. Someone retaliating against me for a friend of mine spamming them with my server address without my permission.
Use all the proxies you want but since they're ripe targets for being abused don't be surprised if you wind up getting blocked.
Open proxies are a nightmare for security conscious people, precisely for the same reason they are attractive both to freedom fighting patriots and asshole hackers alike.
If you can use it to dodge oppression, a hacker can use it to dodge responsibility.
get a dedicated server and have someone recognized set it up for your needs. I live in Argentina, and ALL my browsing goes through one of my dedicated servers, which I've configured myself of course.
Buanzo Consulting - 15 Years of GNU/Linux experience, for you.
I live in Canada, and I used to have a cheap US-Based shared hosting package ($5/mo) and it included SSH access. I would use it as a SOCKS proxy, and it worked great.
I use Astrill (http://www.astrill.com). Their client software is a tiny bit lame, but you get exit points in many countries, multiplatform support including smartphones, OpenSSL support to punch through firewalls. No data caps. Fast enough for high-def video from the BBC, for example. 5-10 USD/month, depending on how long you sign up for. And they swear they never log anything. I've been very happy with them.
I've used Foxyproxy over in Chile for about a year now with no issues.
http://getfoxyproxy.org/
I used to use witopia.net, good company and snappy service. There's also alwaysvpn, but they charge for bandwidth quotas. However their VPN service operates on layer-2 if you need that (as compared to witopia on layer-3).
Nowadays I use rent a cheap server on burst.net and run my own openvpn server. For $6 a month, it's a bargain, plus I can generate as many client certificates as I want for any number of devices. Works well enough for my needs. Video streaming works on some days better than others, but I suppose that's due to distance.
My 2 cents.
This is not what you asked for specifically, but FYI Netflix works just fine in Brazil, as of last month. I use my PS3 with a cable internet/tv provider.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
I travel a lot and can identify with this problem. Sometimes a page is not available and there has been times where I'm scratching my head trying to figure out why on earth someone would block it. Different countries have different goals so we can always get around the problem by trying different routes but I didn't want the hassle of having to switch providers. I'd imagine too it would be useful for anyone wanting to provide such a service where to locate it.
So the useful info here is, which countries have the best net neutrality laws and privacy laws?
According to https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Network_neutrality#Law_in_Chile Chile is the best place for that, followed by Japan. See the article and compare to lowendbox.com providers that you can find.
Many suggestions cite English language countries. Things might be better on hosting in a country with a language different to the source traffic.
There is also the question of security and privacy. Is the ISP a guy in a bedroom hosting off a laptop and WiFi or is it straight onto a transatlantic backbone connection with no ISP - how big is the pipe we are connecting to so we are connecting through less points of risk. This aspect I found harder to figure out. Can anyone comment here? Certainly a VPS is quite secure, but how secure is the actual machine doing the hosting? What happens if that is compromised? I tried some VPS hosting in Turkey and within 5mins ssh being brute forced. That's another question.
Also we have to think, where are we connecting from? We want a short path to this for hosting. Thus, because you are in Brazil I recommend a (reputable?) VPS in Chile because it's close and they recognise the value of speech there and it's Spanish not Portuguese. However, if you find this doesn't work for you then I suggest having a look at the transatlantic cables and going off the next hop from there.
-j
A blog I run for the wealth
As someone who lives outside the us, we are many thtat have years of experience now regarding getting access to the content we want, even just to be able to pay for it(itunes). Have tried many VPN services but they are not always good and sometimes blocked after a while. So we are now thinking about getting a VPS too. I just don't know which one to choose but I see prices like 10-15 dollars now.
Example: https://www.kazila.com/ ( can't say if they are any good).
I use pingbuster. It's made for gaming but it lets me watch netflix no problem.
Do you trust your government about communication privacy and not the Brazilian one?
The international backbone connectivity in Chile is NOT fast. Far from it, in fact.
Plus, in spite of the law you cite, ISPs throttle like crazy in Chile. I have a 6 mbps connection with Movistar and get 10-20 kbps for Skype!! (Yes, that's KILO there). Utterly unusable. Which is the idea, apparently. They also brutally throttle everything torrent related, Megaupload, Rapidshare, and tons of other things.
Customer service denies throttling Skype, of course. They do admit to throttling torrents and file sharing sites, though. Like many Chilean laws, this one contains enough loopholes to make it ineffective -- ISPs just have to claim that their service would be degraded by not throttling. And since they oversell their bandwidth epically, the claim is always true.
You could use VyprVPN through Giganews. Added bonus its part of the Diamond Usenet Plan ~35/mo.