Discussion: Using VPNs is becoming more and more inconvenient and it is only going to get worse

As time goes by it is becoming more and more annoying to use vpns to browse the internet. Using them for streaming services is a big no-no already. And while you are using one you will be flooded with captchas. everywhere. non-stop.

Oh, and don’t ever think about creating an account or accessing one in any service or social network through one, because you will be treated as the most dangerous hacker on the planet and they will be block you out.

This is becoming more and more ridiculous by the day. I think it is not crazy to predict that in the coming months and years all vpns will become almost unusable, and most games, websites and apps will block them.

I am sure that with the desire to make money of many of the vendors and the large amount of money invested by companies into vpns, solutions will be found, such as the use private IPs instead of shared ones. But at the moment it is a pain in the ass, and only going to get worse.

What do you think? Is this something you are concerned about?

Note that this post only refers to vendors that employ shared ips, not self hosted ones. Those shouldn’t have any of these issues (at least as long as they do not start to block all non-residential IPs).

Until your last paragraph I was about to say just make your own VPN.

I presume having a dedicated I.P. for my VPN provider fixes all of this?

I’ve found that running the VPN on my router instead of my device helps with things like captchas (I see less of them)

Not sure why though

The thing is, the way vpns are currently used is not what they were intended for. They were meant to give secure access to an internal LAN, via a secured protocol on a specific open port in the firewall, minimizing attack surface. This was before modern daemon/server applications were available to initiate the connection from the inside, remotely. It’s still more secure than relying on a cloud account to open the connection for you anyway.

The modern “road warrior” setup just happens to be an added feature of VPNs, which allow the logged in user to function as a local client on the LAN fully, including accessing the WAN. Most OpenVPN implementations are set up without access to peers or local subnets, basically rerouting all outbound traffic that passes through, out onto the WAN and thus the internet. This is of course via shared IPs, unless you pay a premium for your own dedicated IP.

Because VPNs seem to give the allusion of anonymity on the net, people use them for shady things. And like any VPS or web host provider who has an abundance of shady clients, IPs start getting tagged, and since it’s publicly available to determine who owns an IP block, the easiest way is to tag the whole block for these providers. Just like you would make your home PC more secure if you, say, have a little brother who is likely to try to get on your PC while you’re gone, than if you live alone.

The VPN boom hit big because “we secure yor CYBERZ AND HIDE YOU FROM GOVERNMENTZ.” The only real valid use for it though is establishing a secure connection when using untrusted internet connection. If youre not careful though, even that isn’t 100% with certificate pinning.

One thing about humans though is they love their anonymity. They talk their shit and do their unethical and secret tasks under the guise of anonymity. As long as they think they’re anonymous, many suddenly lose their morals and safeguards.

As more people sign up and fall for the marketing of VPNs, the more saturated these IP blocks become and the more shady things happen, and the more attention is drawn to them. Aside from the secure connection to cloud server, you’re no more anonymous than using your home ISP. In fact, it’s another layer of trust. I trust my ISP’s infrastructure over a high volume cloud server any day.

But it’s common knowledge that using a VPN has the added benefit of establishing the origination point from the server, for WAN connections. And if that server is located in a country or region other than the one you live in, you could gain access to region-specific features or offerings. But a combination of market protection (preventing, say, India from accessing the US market directly and paying less due to currency conversion) or region-locked content, these big companies are part self-protective, and government-pressured to mitigate any circumvention. If Netflix was well aware that people in India are able to access content that is restricted in their country (sometimes it’s money… Licensing fees per region differ, as do licensing conditions and regulations), they could be held liable for licensing violations under negligence. So, as with any “life hack” that becomes too popular, when it becomes the norm, it usually gets fixed or stopped.

So, yes, the use of VPNs for exploiting and circumventing protections is pretty much dead, or on its last leg. Those in the know, with the ability to obtain an IP under the radar and host their own VPN server that gets past DPI (deep packet inspection) firewalls undetected, can still take advantage of these things. For the general population though, their life hack days are gone or limited at best.

Thank you for all your answers. For the time being I will try hosting my own vpn to have a dedicated IP (maybe chain two vpns to hide my real ip from the hosting provider?)

This is a step backwards towards privacy but it should solve all of these problems.

maybe i just get lucky, or maybe it’s my VPN provider, but I never have any VPN-related issues except for circumventing geo-blocked Netflix. I can access Netflix problem-free if the VPN server I am connected to is in my home country. The VPN doesn’t interfere. However, setting it to a foreign server leads netflix to stop playing every 10-15mins. I can just reload the page, I just don’t do it often in case it could lead to having my account blocked.

I use a shared VPN because I live in China. I don’t have any of these issues. Don’t use a big name VPN that advertises itself as a way to get around IP blocks for Netflix etc they just painted big targets on their backs. Or just don’t use a VPN.

VPNs can keep changing th IPs. Who cares about social networks? One is better without them. Streaming sites? Who cares? Use bittorrent.

Omg is like we were exchanging thoughts straight from the brain…it’s been nothing but a nuisance ever since the first day I came across it and I always wondered if I was the only one that felt this way. Cuz I’m always hearing talking about their VPNs; it had me thinking, if I was a doing something wrong…and I see the phones are lowering the security standards in sites or apps that are not playing nice with VPNs and led me to think that maybe VPNs aren’t really the answer to cybersecurity vulnerability.

I may start looking into hosting my own VPN. But I am concerned about being able to create one secure enough and the privacy implications of using a non shared ip.

I completely agree with you and I think that is the correct answer. However, every now and then I might want to access some Facebook page or some discord group, and those are the main websites where I would want to have a VPN active. If all websites were like duckduckgo or protonmail I wouldn’t even bother using a VPN.

Are you using a powerful (CPU) router to run the VPN or just a standard-type router?

The Great Firewall still knows where you’ve been.

You can aid some privacy by using your own recursive DNS, Unbound is a good solution.

You could split tunnel to access those specific sites (and only them) on a non-vpn’d connection, and do all the rest of your daily browsing and services through your vpn connection.

Been paying my utility bills and using my bank website with a VPN for years. Captchas? Suck it up.

One that is designed to run a VPN, so fairly powerful CPU

That doesn’t change a thing, if he rents a VPS and uses it as his VPN unless he pays for that VPS with gift cards or crypto it’s not private at all you may as well just not use a VPN.

Handing your data to a VPN provider isnt especially private either. If you really want to go down that rabbit hole then its Tor.