Bitches, spec VPN

[Thompy]

I just signed up for Netflix again. I thought £5.99 would be worth it just to see what the catalogue is like now and I'm sure I'll find something to watch if it's still shite. Which it is.

I had a quick search and I've looked into things like Unblock US and VyprVPN, but thought I'd find out what people suggest in the year 2013. I'd much prefer not to pay, obviously, but more so because I can actually live without Netflix if getting the US stuff is costly/faffy. I don't mind a few pounds a month.

Suggestions?

[Joose]

I use VyperVPN for exactly that purpose and found it to be excellent. They have a little desktop app that sits in your toolbar, making setting it up, connecting, disconnecting and swapping between servers about as easy as you could hope for. It's nice and fast, easily up to streaming in HD, and on the few occasions the server fell over I just switched to a different server via the app. Took seconds, and really doesn't happen very often. Like "maybe twice in a year" not often.

It's also a handy way of unlocking things you bought on steam early when they are out in the states before here. Technically it's against the TOS, but there is no evidence that they actually give a shit as long as you don't use it to buy things cheap or anything like that.

The downside is that VyperVPN isn't all that cheap. If it wasn't for the fact that I get it through my gigs news subscription I would maybe shop around a bit.

I've tried Unblock US and found it to be useless for streaming. From what I understand of how it works it doesn't make sense to me that it would be slower than a VPN, but it would rarely start a video on Netflix, and when it did it buffered like crazy. HD didn't get a look in. I know other people who do use it though, so ymmv. I believe they do a free trial, so you can find out yourself.

The trick I've found to Netflix is this: if you go in looking for something specific you will have a low success rate. If you go in just browsing you will have a high success rate. I've never failed to find *something* to watch. It's still a lot better for tv than it is film though.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I used vpnuk in the past, Iirc it wasn't too bad, and was a fair bit cheaper than vypr.

[Thompy]

Well thanks guys but this is all academic now. Having browsed the US catalogue I think things that have been said about it are grossly overestimated. Hyperbolic statements like "pretty much everything" don't ring true at all.

Browsing alphabetically through the comedy films I got to C and most of them I hadn't heard of, a good chunk are lesser grade Hollywood movies, with only a few I'd want to watch. Even though watching two films a month would be worth the money compared to Sky Box Office I need to psychological impact of having more choice. TV shows are considerably better, but only because of the number of hours you get, and they're hardly ever near being up to date.

The last thing that put me off was that, although it's a bad idea to search for specific titles, as part of testing the range of the catalogue I searched for 10 of my DVDs, all good well known or classic films - Air horse One, Gladiator, Annie Hall, Leon, The Bridge on the River Kwai etc - and not one was available. I also searched for some I really need to watch like Gangs or New York, The Aviator, and just more that came to my head, and nope. I find it off putting to know that if I get a craving for a specific old film there's barely a chance of it being there.

I know some will criticise me as the number of quality hours per cost is tremendous, it's just seems like you want to watch a film and go to browse blind have to get lucky with actually being in the mood to watch what they have.

Er, rant?

[tandino]

In the latest round of our right to browse whatever the fuck we want on the internet (see all "johnny Vaughn" browsing habits resulting in being on some government list (not that one), eztv.it being essentially locked out) I have decided that now would be a good time for a VPN to become part of my life. Ideally it'd be based somewhere not privy to GCHQ or NSA spying like Mainland Europe, The arctic circle or somewhere. Any thoughts? What do you Barons use?

[Joose]

Still on VyperVPN myself, still excellent, still rather costly if you don't already pay for Giganews.

[ProfHawking]

I don't think there is much on netflix you cant just sweep anyway. And sweeping is easier, faster and more flexible.

GigaNews + SickBeard + SABnzb + XBMC (+ a fat media server) = Prof's awesome automated makeshift multiroom media machine.

[Joose]

I don't think there is much on netflix you cant just sweep anyway. And sweeping is easier, faster and more flexible.

GigaNews + SickBeard + SABnzb + XBMC (+ a fat media server) = Prof's awesome automated makeshift multiroom media machine.

I've got basically the same setup myself, but for the stuff that is on Netflix:

1) Its not easier. Once the Sickbeard setup is working its almost as easy, except for those annoying occasions when someone uploads something with the wrong name, or its actually got hard-coded Swedish subtitles, or for some fucking reason episode 12 of the series you are watching is just nowhere to be found on any floors anywhere...

2) Im watching Breaking Bad right now. I went from "I want to watch Breaking Bad" to "I am watching Breaking Bad" in the time it took to open a webpage and press the Breaking Bad button. If I had never watched it before it would only have been lengthened by the time it would take to type "Breaking Bad" into the search bar. Even with the fastest internets availabile in the UK (which I have) Netflix is faster than sweeping.

3) I'll give you flexible.

[ProfHawking]

Hmm, ok I'll admit that my statements there were a bit overenthusiastic.

It does take a bit of geeky faff to get everything set up and a bit of a slap now and again if it gets something wrong, and you are right, streaming will be quicker.

But then again, not by much. For example, I was at a party this weekend talking to someone. They mentioned a good tv show, I liked the sound of it. from my phone I queue it up, and by the time I got home all three series are available to watch. If I wanted to I could have watched the first episode within 5 mins.

The flexibility is the key though, more important than the other two for me. Being able to watch media on any of my tvs/phones/tablets anywhere in the world, pick up programs where i left off, etc.

[Joose]

The flexibility is the key though, more important than the other two for me. Being able to watch media on any of my tvs/phones/tablets anywhere in the world, pick up programs where i left off, etc.

Oh, I thought you meant flexibility in what you can chose to watch. In that case I won't give you flexible either, as I can do all of the things you have just said with Netflix

[ProfHawking]

That goes without saying though doesn't it? Netflix and other things are limited by what stuff they can licence. Certainly not as wide as what can be swept.

Anywhoo, I'm gonna bow out. Netflix is not for me but everyone can make their own choice!

[spoodie]

Back to VPNs, which are becoming more and more important these days.
I'm currently on Relakks, which works fine and comes out at Sweden, which is a country with generally good privacy protection I believe. But once my sub on that has ended I'll be going with Private Internet Access, who're supposed to be very good.

If you just want to watch US Netflix, etc. you'd probably be better off with using DNS hacks. Such as Unblock-US (mouthly fee) or Hola (free), but I couldn't get that free one working.

Personally I'd much rather pay a small fee for content than deal with the hassle of downloading it myself. Assuming it's available. If not and I really want to see it I've got my VPN and a compu-broom for sweeping up those megabytes.

[Joose]

Unblock-US is supposed to be very good, ive heard a lot of people saying nice things about it. Not me though, as when I tried it everything streamed slow as arse for no obvious reason. YMMV.

[spoodie]

Unblock-US is supposed to be very good, ive heard a lot of people saying nice things about it. Not me though, as when I tried it everything streamed slow as arse for no obvious reason. YMMV.

That probably wasn't the fault of Unblock-US, but I'm not 100% sure. Seems more likely to be a temporary problem with the streaming service or your ISP.

[tandino]

Back to VPNs, which are becoming more and more important these days.
I'm currently on Relakks, which works fine and comes out at Sweden, which is a country with generally good privacy protection I believe. But once my sub on that has ended I'll be going with Private Internet Access, who're supposed to be very good.

If you just want to watch US Netflix, etc. you'd probably be better off with using DNS hacks. Such as Unblock-US (mouthly fee) or Hola (free), but I couldn't get that free one working.

Personally I'd much rather pay a small fee for content than deal with the hassle of downloading it myself. Assuming it's available. If not and I really want to see it I've got my VPN and a compu-broom for sweeping up those megabytes.

I tried Faceless.me last night - they offer a free trial limited to 2gb, but got literally nowhere with it so binned it off. Open VPN also failed to impress (insofar as it didn't appear to do anything at all). I do on occasion have some weird network issues owing to VMWare adapters and hamachi though, so these could be system issues.

I think I'll give Private Internet Access a go for a month and see how I get on. Cheers bitches!

[Joose]

That probably wasn't the fault of Unblock-US, but I'm not 100% sure. Seems more likely to be a temporary problem with the streaming service or your ISP.

I would have thought the same, except removing the unblock-us stuff made the problem go away. Putting it back on made it come back again. Using VPN at exactly the same time produced no problems at all. *shrug*

Like I say, whatever it was that caused problems for me there are loads of people I have heard have great success with it, so don't let the fact it failed for me put you off.

[spoodie]

Could be some kind of crafting throttling going on somewhere. Anyway there's a free trial for anyone that wants to try. Personally I've more than enough viewing with vanilla.

[Joose]

Personally I've more than enough viewing with vanilla.

This is increasingly the case here actually. Pretty much only turn the VPN on for our Star Trek TNG retro viewings now.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Anyone know anything of SlickVPN.com? Seems my Linux distro supplier offers it for just over £3 a month

[spoodie]

Just noticed a strange thing while running speedtest.net. Without VPN I get the expected 60Mbps download on Virgin cable, with VPN (Private Internet Access) I get around 100Mbps download. The ping is slightly increased with VPN on, which I'd expect, but I certainly wouldn't expect more bandwidth over VPN. At best I'd expect slightly less. Upload speed is about the same.

Has anyone noticed anything like this?

Nevermind, it only seems to work with some hosts in London, which is where my VPN is coming out. Perhaps the test nodes are on the same network. Certainly some things are generally slower over this VPN.