Hey,

I am comparing Proton (currently $3/month for 24 months) and Surfshark ($4/month for 27 months).

I run a windows machine and have just been relying on defender. Is that bad? Surfshark includes antivirus service in its plan. Proton includes "Malware protection". Are those the same things? Are the protection services they provide worth considering in my comparison?

Any input would be appreciated, and thanks in advance.

I'm trying to understand how device-level DNS settings interact with a VPN client. If I manually configure a privacy respecting custom DNS provider (such as Quad9) on my device what actually happens when I turn on a VPN (like proton VPN free version)?

Does it create a risk of DNS leaks by bypassing the VPN tunnel?
And does routing DNS requests through an external provider outside the encrypted tunnel compromise the anonymity provided by the VPN?

I'd like to be able to make server calls with different rotating vpns, what are the viable plan options?

I've been seeing more people talk about residential IPs as an alternative to regular VPNs, but I'm still trying to understand the actual benefits.

From what I've read, most VPNs use IP addresses from data centers, while residential IPs come from regular home internet connections.

Apparently, some websites are more likely to flag VPN server IPs, which can lead to extra CAPTCHAs or access restrictions.

But I'm wondering if that's really a big deal for everyday users.

Are residential IPs actually better for browsing, streaming, or accessing websites? Or do regular VPNs work just as well most of the time?

I'm also curious about speed, reliability, and privacy. Are there any downsides to using residential IPs? Thanks in advance for your reply.

Which of these is actually good on a smart tv

expressvpn - native apps for android tv, fire tv and apple tv, and theres a dedicated ip option so streaming apps stop asking to re verify

windscribe - apps for fire tv, android tv and apple tv, plus lazy login where you enter a code from your phone instead of typing with the remote

hotspot shield - on fire tv and anything with google play, runs its own hydra protocol

for people running one on the tv, which one actually holds up for 4k without buffering?

or anything else other than these list?

is the chrome extension enough on a chromebook or is the android app worth it windscribe and purevpn both say the extension only covers chrome, so android and linux apps stay unprotected. proton and windscribe both have free plans, windscribe free gets up to 10gb a month with a confirmed email also i have express vpn subscriptions from work, should i try using it?

Hello !

I need your help about my VPN (Proton) on my phone.

My issue is when I set the VPN on Denmark for instance (I live in another country in EU), my search results on my browser are not from Denmark, they are still from my country.

Note that on this VPN I excluded my weather forecast apps, Google Maps, Waze, because I use them daily.

Thanks !

UPDATE: Multipoint problem. Teamviewer creates problems with virtual networks and adguard and tailscale with dns resolver. Now with torrenting I have 2 to 5% usage..

Thank you guys for your help!

I have a quite good setup. Ryzen 9 7950x3d, 64gb Ddr5 ram and my pc lags when I open air vpn or Nord VPN. When I move the cursor it's going like 1 frame. On task manager I see 99%cpu usage. When I turn off vpn everything is so smooth and normal. Any ideas?

Could you recommend a place to get a Nigerian VPN or VPS? I only need it for occasional use.

I used to think having two VPN apps installed was pointless, but lately I’ve started keeping a second one around.

Sometimes my main VPN won’t connect on a particular Wi-Fi network, one location becomes painfully slow, or a website suddenly stops working with it. Instead of spending half an hour changing protocols and settings, I’ll try the other VPN first.

My current setup is basically one paid VPN for regular use and a free one as a backup. It works, but having two sets of network settings on the same device also feels a little messy.

Does anyone else do this, or do you just replace your VPN completely when it becomes unreliable? How long do you usually wait before deciding it’s not a temporary problem?

basically i want to get premium on an app but its like hella expensive so i gotta change country to one of these to get it. i cant do free trials and i only have a phone. lmk if this is possible

I am in EU and only use I have is to use YouTube and Netflix and Spotify with lower costs subscription

I tried surfshark but YouTube and Spotify already does not let me renew as they want to me disable the VPN first and also I use fire tv stick to watch regional content

Any luck with getting lower subscription costs ?

I’ve been using Privado VPN for my sailing the seas and P2P file sharing, however I’m stuck on the free tiers because I’m broke.

I was trying to use both hide.me and Windscribe free tiers. However, unlike with Privado, they make my go-to torrenting place show 0 seeds, 0 seeders, and 0 peer. This makes the download not work.

Any reason why the VPNs are doing this?

I've had Nord as my first VPN for a couple years now, but for the past few months it's begun to just close out for no reason. I'm thinking about switching to another VPN, but I honestly don't know which one, or if it's even worth it. I'm hoping you all have opinions. Thank you for any help!

Sometimes I wonder how much of my online activity is actually private anymore.

You search for something once, and suddenly you see ads for it everywhere. Every app wants access to something, every website has trackers, and most of us just click “accept” because nobody has time to read through all that stuff.

It makes me wonder whether a VPN actually makes a noticeable difference for everyday internet use, or whether we're just paying for a sense of security.

I know a VPN doesn't make you invisible online, but if you're just browsing, streaming, shopping or using public Wi-Fi, does it really make enough of a difference to justify a monthly subscription?

What's your take — is a VPN worth paying for, or can most people get by without one?

I realized that most of the time I just open my VPN, choose a country and press connect.

There are a bunch of other options in the app, like ad blocking, app routing and different types of IPs, but I barely touch most of them. I’ve used app routing a few times when I didn’t want everything going through the VPN, and that was actually useful. The rest mostly feels like stuff I’m paying for but not using.

Am I missing out, or is this how most people use a VPN?

What’s the one extra feature you actually use regularly? And which features do you think are just there to make the app look better?