I tried doing it with ExpressVPN but quickly got frustrated by how many sites and services wanted to see if I am human or not. CAPTCHA after CAPTCHA like they wanted to discourage you from using a VPN.
How is anyone able to tolerate it 24/7?
For general web browsing no. For wifi networks that are not mine yes. For any activity in a another country yes.
I dont think it’s worth it for general web usage though.
edit for the sub conversation going on below this I am talking about privacy not anonymity here for the sake of arguement. A VPN does provide privacy it does not provide complete anonymity which is not what OP was asking about and is a completely different topic.
It’s not about wanting to discourage you using a VPN it’s about protecting the site, if you use a VPN there’s nothing about your requests to that site that distinguishes you from someone with bad intentions (DDoS for example)
With your normal home IP they’ll trust you until it gets flagged for doing something malicious so no recaptcha until you send 1000 requests a minute
With a VPN they can’t trust you from the get go, otherwise incoming DDoS from mr anonymous mask man with a python script and double keyboard setup can throw thousands of requests at a site by connecting to your VPN
Think of it this way, if I wanted to DDoS a site, if I did it on my home IP 123.45.67.xx I’d throw requests at it and soon they’d then not like requests from my home IP because they can’t trust me, so I have to use recaptcha
With the VPN, they already can’t trust you, so you have to solve a recaptcha
Hope that explains it a little - also no I don’t always use a VPN there’s not much point
I don’t use any commercial vpns. Instead I have a vpn server at home through which all my mobile traffic is routed. It also passes through a firewall for additional security and ad-blocking.
I use Mullvad 24/7 on my computer and phone and this rarely happens to me. Reddit does block me when I’m using Firefox on both computer and phone but the app works perfectly fine (albeit sometimes quite slow). Other than that, I don’t really have any problems.
Well, for me it’s a problem of a different kind: my VPN server IP is added to the AWS security group which controls the access to the servers we use at work.
Changing it every time it changes on the provider’s side because of NAT… I’m just lazy.
Static IP is just not the way I want to do it. And I have been having this VPN installed on my VPS for nearly 6 years already, why would I think of another solution if I already have one.
So, I have it connected for nearly the whole working day.
I’ve used NordVPN and now proton vpn 24/7 on my phone at all times never ever do I stop unless a service I need to use is broken with a vpn.
Why? Dunno, I just do.
I use a VPN 24/7 and the only times I get that is when I use Google (which I rarely do).
Don’t care about captchas, most of the times it takes a few seconds to go through. Stolen information and system “fingerprinting” you can never get back. What I do online is for me to know not my ISP, Government and next-door neighbor.
You can have it both ways. Want the full freedom, turn off the VPN. Want privacy, deal with the shortfalls of other websites putting up walls.
Of course it depends on the website. I rarely run into walls. But that’s because the website in question might not need them or have safeguards to verify my identity or warn me of an unknown IP.
If it’s a website you frequently visit. Whitelist it if possible or turn off the VPN.
I don’t trust my ISP and while many of the websites I visit have 0 use for my IP, why take the chance?
But I whitelist or turn it off when I need to.
TLDR: I rarely run into issues.
I use it only to pretend that I live somewhere else to some websites/apps
I use VPN only for speed boosting purposes or region locked content
I do because I use it to for streaming and if I don’t I have to clear browser cache all the time, I’ve not noticed any differences with anything.
vpns are snake oil mostly
I have my own server in my home that I have set up a wire guard on. My phone is always connected to that vpn. This is because I have protections like my own DNS server, ad guard home, DNS over https, and it protects 'e if I ever do use a public IP address.
I would not always stay connected to a VPN if it wasn’t my own VPN.
Not 24/7. I get annoyed with the Captchas as well.
My vpn service advertises a dedicated IP so you don’t have to do captchas. I haven’t tried it though
It’s not that they want to discourage you from using a VPN. It’s because from their perspective, they have a concerning number of requests coming from a single IP - which you now share. Some of these may be flagged as suspicious and some may even be outright malicious, and yours get caught in the net.
Without VPN your traffic egressing from your home connection and associated IP is normal enough for sites to figure out that you are a human.
Yes of course, but we use in the network level, not the OS level. You can use NanoPI R2S or any other Pihole devices to set up stealth proxies like v2ray, and you can always be under a protective network. Additionally, you can setup adguard home, and it will help you to block all kinds of tracking and advertisement, keeping your home network secured and clean.
I have tried like 6-8 VPNs and many of those IP addresses are blocked on sites I use. Including Mullvad. IDK how anyone works around that issue?