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.
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.
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.
hulu, pandora, netflix, amazon mp3 download all block HSS IP's
the above is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of the little voices in my head
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.
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 $20/month for their entry level VPS, you'll get your own IP address so it's very unlikely to get blacklisted (as that seems common with a lot of the more popular proxy/VPN providers). You'll need to setup everything yourself, but you get a lot more control, you essentially have your own server to play about with and it's not much more expensive than move VPN providers.
Before I setup my linode I was using overplay.net who were okay, but they were often quite slow and I did have issues with blacklisting on certain sites and every so often the server I was using would go down.
I'm a happy customer of overplay.net. For US$ 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.
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.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
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
You don't want to use a specialized service provider. If service providers like Netflix decide to go searching for and blocking proxies, services like unblock-us.com are going to be easy to find - a handful of IP addresses and tons of traffic. Your lone IP address coming from your VPS with a normal amount of traffic is going to be a lot harder - if not impossible - to find and block.
Best case scenario, going with a specialized provider is an arms race in which you'll be paying both sides to arm themselves - all for potentially more downtime than a DIY solution.
nothing in united states of america can be safe when its about privacy.
Read radical news here
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.
It's probably not illegal in Brazil, but it is illegal in the US. Then again, he sounds like a US citizen, so US computer service theft laws apply to him everywhere ;-)
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'd be interested in what a lawyer has to say on it. Seems to me he will probably be violating terms of service, but would it really be illegal?
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).
Torrenting usually involves redistribution, though.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
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!
I suggest looking here instead https://www.goldenfrog.com/vyprvpn
Unless you want to buy a giganews subscription just to get VPN access.
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/
It's this kind of thinking that will make movie studios bankrupt. Otherwise law abiding people are copying stuff because IP laws have been terribly abused. If movie copyrights were around 10 years and penalties for copying were in line with petty shoplifting, a lot of us would be turning violators in. Is it really constructive at this point to pick on people who are trying to be honest by using an authorized service when they could just hit Pirate Bay?
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
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.
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
Wrong. It's official: Netflix has landed in Brazil.
http://www.netflix.com.br/
The PS3 + hdtv combination works just fine, thank you.
Next time you comment or give out advice, don't talk out of your ass. Instead, check your facts.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Officially supporting Linux would consume far more resources than revenue it would generate. It's math. I'm sorry you feel that way, but we are running a business, not a charity.
I personally would love to be able to support Linux. Distrowatch will sell you CD's for over 4000 versions of Linux. Are you kidding me? We provide services to consumers. The goal is to make this something that's approachable for your grandma. If you're a programmer or system administrator, then great. The necessary info is in the .mobileconfig and all the instructions are on various web sites. But if you're not, then what do you suggest we do? Even if we chose one, or a few distributions then we'd have trolls like you pounding down our doors because we support Elbow Linux but not Spring Chicken Linux when they're almost exactly the same, except in the most important way.
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
Do you trust your government about communication privacy and not the Brazilian one?