VPN router

[Nick Kaufman]

I am already using a vpn service. However, for redundancy, I am thinking of setting up a computer that will serve as a vpn router from home abroad.

After some research, I had my eye set up on this refurbished HP from Amazon.

View: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q1DL6LV/?coliid=I157S2KADTF9D5&colid=2G2DW1OS5NTCJ&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

The way I was thinking about this setup was running it in a windows environment and just setting up OPENVPN or something.

However, today, I was browsing through my vpn provider's webpage and I found that they are selling specialized VPN routers: Like this:

https://privaterouter.com/product/intel-celeron-2-8ghz-4gb-openwrt-docker/

Or this:

https://privaterouter.com/product/intel-celeron-2-3-ghz-6gb-ddr4-128gb-ssd-openwrt-docker-router/

It seems to me that the ready made solutions have worse hardware and they have a steeper learning curve if I want to understand everything that they offer. OTOH, they save me from the hustle or setting up things myself and they would be easier to get things going.

There might be other tradeoffs, but I can't see them. Which way should I go?

PS. I am assuming that all machines can be converted to lowly home office computers after their VPN duties are done.

 

[candylandriots]

I have a VPN router from ExpressVPN, and it works really great. I had to flash the firmware myself, but I think now you get it already done from them.

It costs like $200 for the router (last I checked) and $100 for a year of their service, which I also find excellent. I can send you a free month if you're interested (full disclosure, I'd get one too).

I'm able to watch all the American TV I want in Germany. On the very rare cases where one of the services have figured out I'm using a VPN, I can either find a different US city myself, or get in touch with ExpressVPN for a suggestion, while their engineers work on recalibrating whatever city I was previously using. And as I've mentioned in a few other places, the number of cities in the US basically is a backdoor NFL Sunday Ticket too, if that's of interest.

 

[Nick Kaufman]

I have a VPN router from ExpressVPN, and it works really great. I had to flash the firmware myself, but I think now you get it already done from them.

It costs like $200 for the router (last I checked) and $100 for a year of their service, which I also find excellent. I can send you a free month if you're interested (full disclosure, I'd get one too).

Thank you, I appreciate the offer. I don't use the vpn service to watcht v though and I am happy with my current provider.

Just to make sure i understand. You are paying for a residential IP service that gives you an IP that doesn't look like a VPN IP, but like a regular ISP one and on top of that you have a VPN router set up in your US home that provides a backup VPN IP. Am I reading it right?

 

[AlNipper49]

What are you using the VPN service for?

It doesn't really matter what the IP looks like unless you are looking to bypass regional blocks. The VPN does a few things for residential users (business users have additional use cases). They provide anonymity, you can provide an additional level of security to the transport of packets * and, because the rest of the world will see your traffic come out the VPN side they can be used to effectively change where it looks like you are browsing from.

The negatives are that they add complexity to the environment, will introduce more latency (the feeling of 'quick'), can throttle your overall bandwidth. A growing negative is that a lot of service providers are also starting to block IPs from known anonymity/vpn services.

* (rationalization for this isn't a ton if you are mostly just browsing the web - most things are https)

 

[candylandriots]

Thank you, I appreciate the offer. I don't use the vpn service to watcht v though and I am happy with my current provider.

Just to make sure i understand. You are paying for a residential IP service that gives you an IP that doesn't look like a VPN IP, but like a regular ISP one and on top of that you have a VPN router set up in your US home that provides a backup VPN IP. Am I reading it right?

Yes, that's right. I have the normal German router that feeds into this "dumb" Linksys router, which only gets internet connectivity from the German router connected to the internet. So I use the German router for most stuff and the Linksys router for watching TV, basically.

 

[Nick Kaufman]

What are you using the VPN service for?

It doesn't really matter what the IP looks like unless you are looking to bypass regional blocks. The VPN does a few things for residential users (business users have additional use cases). They provide anonymity, you can provide an additional level of security to the transport of packets * and, because the rest of the world will see your traffic come out the VPN side they can be used to effectively change where it looks like you are browsing from.

The negatives are that they add complexity to the environment, will introduce more latency (the feeling of 'quick'), can throttle your overall bandwidth. A growing negative is that a lot of service providers are also starting to block IPs from known anonymity/vpn services.

* (rationalization for this isn't a ton if you are mostly just browsing the web - most things are https)

Most folks use a VPN to protect themselves when they download torrents or to circumvent a geolocation block so that they can access content from another country. For example, thanks to my Greek vpn, I can watch soccer highlights from the Greek league which aren't available if you have a US IP. Sometimes, like you say, a service will block all IP addresses that seem to come from a VPN service.If you are abroad. However, if you are abroad and you have set up a home computer to act as a VPN server, you can browse the internet with a US IP and it's highly unlikely you 'll be geoblocked.

Latency is an issue with VPNs. Recently my provider introduced a protocol called Wireguard. I literally have about a week's worth of experience using it, but latency and speeds seem greatly improved. If feels almost like using your regular ISP.

 

[Nick Kaufman]

Yes, that's right. I have the normal German router that feeds into this "dumb" Linksys router, which only gets internet connectivity from the German router connected to the internet. So I use the German router for most stuff and the Linksys router for watching TV, basically.

Ok, but the router you got from ExpressVPN is is located at your German home, not your American one. That's different and I am not sure how it works, although it looks a benefit in speeds and ease of access.

 

[tonyandpals]

I use mine to set my location to Australia and watch the latest episodes of Bluey. Isn't that the main purpose for these things

 

[candylandriots]

Ok, but the router you got from ExpressVPN is is located at your German home, not your American one. That's different and I am not sure how it works, although it looks a benefit in speeds and ease of access.

Yes, that's right. They sit right next to one another.

 

[AlNipper49]

Most folks use a VPN to protect themselves when they download torrents or to circumvent a geolocation block so that they can access content from another country. For example, thanks to my Greek vpn, I can watch soccer highlights from the Greek league which aren't available if you have a US IP. Sometimes, like you say, a service will block all IP addresses that seem to come from a VPN service.If you are abroad. However, if you are abroad and you have set up a home computer to act as a VPN server, you can browse the internet with a US IP and it's highly unlikely you 'll be geoblocked.

Latency is an issue with VPNs. Recently my provider introduced a protocol called Wireguard. I literally have about a week's worth of experience using it, but latency and speeds seem greatly improved. If feels almost like using your regular ISP.

Those are certainly all good reasons. But for bit torrent you theoretically would/could be running that on your pc. So the only thing you need an actual router for is to skip geo-location for media. I presume you use your TVs for this?