Best VPN provider (In your opinion)? (Strictly no referral allowed)

xiaofan

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I think you are confusing the protocols a bit. Synology VPN is not open to public protocol, it is their proprietary protocol. You can setup it with few clicks on RT2600ac and download the relevant apps. It is possible that Synology NAS has support for the same, I don't know as I don't own Synology NAS. But this protocol works in China with no issues, but you won't find this protocol at any of your flawed blogs etc. This is DIY solution.

I am not sure where you are talking your resources from but please change the blogs you are using as they are all flawed or heavily affiliated with marketings profits.

Tip if you have a 12VPN "proxy" connection running (as one blogger from your posts complain about it being more proxy than VPN), then you can always run proxifier.com on top of 12VPN, it will redirect all traffic including from all the apps (voip etc) to 12VPN proxy service.

Actually I use a variety of sources, some blog, Reddit, some of my own experiences or the experiences of a few friends in China. If you know better blogs, let me know.

But you are right that Synology VPN might work.
https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/c...amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_num_comments

And they are saying it is not working very well as the speed is slow so one of the recommendation is, you guess, Astrill. :s13:

And you are right, I do not have enough first hand experiences myself.

I only know two sure working ways in China -- mobile data roaming (tested in June 2017, Dec 2017 and Dec 2018) and company VPN (tested in June 2017 and Dec 2017). Then I tried a few free VPNs and SS providers in China during my Dec 2018 trip. They are not consistent.

I am going to test purevpn paid, Astrill free Android version and Windscribe free version this time (trip tomorrow). I will test a few free SS/V2Ray providers as well, including my own basic SS/V2Ray server on the Google Cloud VPS.
 
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xiaofan

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The other thing is that GFW has improved a lot and those used to work very well become not working or not working well. So there is no sure working solution now, including the Synology thingy.

https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/1/post/125290
The above question got no answer from other users.

One of the recent development is the blocking of SS. The other new development is that you may get cut if you consume a lot of data, which affects even users using legitimate business VPN. Probably this is just temporary.

China is way more advanced than the middle East regimes in technology.

Among the traditional VPN vendors, ExpressVPN seems to still be the best in China based on my limit sample size (a few friends in China and a few reports in a Facebook group). NordVPN is apparently not working well.
 
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mac_oasis

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Can anyone recommend a reliable smart dns provider to access US content for Apple TV 4?
I have saw a couple like unlocator, unotelly etc but would prefer those test and proven by fellow hardwarezone forumers
 

xiaofan

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purevpn is not good in terms of speed.

5590233386.png


Astrill free version SG server
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stiwipl

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The other thing is that GFW has improved a lot and those used to work very well become not working or not working well. So there is no sure working solution now, including the Synology thingy.

https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/1/post/125290
The above question got no answer from other users.

One of the recent development is the blocking of SS. The other new development is that you may get cut if you consume a lot of data, which affects even users using legitimate business VPN. Probably this is just temporary.

China is way more advanced than the middle East regimes in technology.

Among the traditional VPN vendors, ExpressVPN seems to still be the best in China based on my limit sample size (a few friends in China and a few reports in a Facebook group). NordVPN is apparently not working well.

If you dig a bit deeper you will find Reddit comments from the past 30 days saying that Synology VPN is working very well in China. The post from Synology forum is a bit hard to judge, as the OP doesn't say anything about the protocol. Synology support many VPN servers but only one of them is their SSL VPN. Being in DXB and having Synology VPN server in Poland (so not a great location, pretty far) I am getting speeds of 30+ Mbps down and up. I can stream Netflix 4k easily. We are talking about the latency of 150ms... I am sure that the latency between Singapore and China should be much lower, so better speeds could be expected. When I am in Poland and connect to my VPN Synology server via LTE (so being in the same country), I get speeds of 50Mbps down/up. So the Synology protocol itself is not slow, however depending on the location and route, the speed will differ obviously.

Also, based on the comments, it is hard to say on which hardware do these people setup Synology VPN. If they are doing this on some older Synology NAS with slow CPU, they won't get great speeds. My reference is RT2600ac which has quad-core @ 1.7 GHz CPU, although it is entirely possible, that similarly to OpenVPN, only one CPU is being used by the VPN server...
 

xiaofan

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If you dig a bit deeper you will find Reddit comments from the past 30 days saying that Synology VPN is working very well in China. The post from Synology forum is a bit hard to judge, as the OP doesn't say anything about the protocol. Synology support many VPN servers but only one of them is their SSL VPN. Being in DXB and having Synology VPN server in Poland (so not a great location, pretty far) I am getting speeds of 30+ Mbps down and up. I can stream Netflix 4k easily. We are talking about the latency of 150ms... I am sure that the latency between Singapore and China should be much lower, so better speeds could be expected. When I am in Poland and connect to my VPN Synology server via LTE (so being in the same country), I get speeds of 50Mbps down/up. So the Synology protocol itself is not slow, however depending on the location and route, the speed will differ obviously.

Also, based on the comments, it is hard to say on which hardware do these people setup Synology VPN. If they are doing this on some older Synology NAS with slow CPU, they won't get great speeds. My reference is RT2600ac which has quad-core @ 1.7 GHz CPU, although it is entirely possible, that similarly to OpenVPN, only one CPU is being used by the VPN server...

Thanks for sharing the the first hand experiences. This can give the fellow forum members one more option. I know there are quite some Synology NAS users here (but not Synology RT2600AC).
 

xiaofan

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Just landed in Xiamen airport. Good news is that purevpn Openvpn configuration works. But then the speed is rather slow. Good enough for Facebook posting though.

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jenny887

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PureVPN. The fastest VPN I have tried by far. No speed drops, always got maximum speed. You can try other VPN service but if you want good speed, then go with PureVPN (price: $1.32/month for 5 years + 1 year free!).
 

xiaofan

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PureVPN. The fastest VPN I have tried by far. No speed drops, always got maximum speed. You can try other VPN service but if you want good speed, then go with PureVPN (price: $1.32/month for 5 years + 1 year free!).

Haha, purevpn, sure got maximum speed drops. If you want good speed, try other VPN. :s22:

Jokes aside, please post speed test data to back up your claim.

But at least it works for me now in China. The app does not work. But the manual openvpn configuration works (using HK server udp connection ).
 
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imacbie

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Haha, purevpn, sure got maximum speed drops. If you want good speed, try other VPN. :s22:

Jokes aside, please post speed test data to back up your claim.

But at least it works for me now in China. The app does not work. But the manual openvpn configuration works (using HK server udp connection ).
bro no joke.. purevpn has improved alot
 

xiaofan

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bro no joke.. purevpn has improved alot

I just paid for one year subscription at U$11.88. For the price I paid I think it is okay.

My No 1 problem is that the advertised three China servers (to go into China) do not work. Customer service is pretty good to acknowledge this and help me on manual configuration with two alternative servers. They are working sometimes but the speed is too slow to be useful.

Then the VPN speed is pretty slow even in Singapore (SG server, US server, UK server). The HK server is okay.

Lastly the iOS app is pretty bad.
 
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imacbie

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I just paid for one year subscription at U$11.88. For the price I paid I think it is okay.

My No 1 problem is that the advertised three China servers (to go into China) do not work. Customer service is pretty good to acknowledge this and help me on manual configuration with two alternative servers. They are working sometimes but the speed is too slow to be useful.

Then the VPN speed is pretty slow even in Singapore (SG server, US server, UK server). The HK server is okay.

Lastly the iOS app is pretty bad.

For China access
I think no point getting all these cheap cheap ones. They'll never be consistent I trust.
But I must say I'm quite surprise they work for two lock stuffs
 

Pathfinder

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I just paid for one year subscription at U$11.88. For the price I paid I think it is okay.

My No 1 problem is that the advertised three China servers (to go into China) do not work. Customer service is pretty good to acknowledge this and help me on manual configuration with two alternative servers. They are working sometimes but the speed is too slow to be useful.

Then the VPN speed is pretty slow even in Singapore (SG server, US server, UK server). The HK server is okay.

Lastly the iOS app is pretty bad.
I have purevpn lifetime, I really can't be bother to use it.

Sent from Samsung SM-N975F using GAGT
 

xiaofan

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For China access
I think no point getting all these cheap cheap ones. They'll never be consistent I trust.
But I must say I'm quite surprise they work for two lock stuffs

I agree — to unblock Chinese contents better we need to pay for dedicated VPNs like Transocks, SpeedIn or similar.

Actually because of the low cost and bad names in the past, my expectation towards purevpn was low from the start. You can say it exceeds my expectations now that it works in China.

Going to test more of purevpn to see if there are more good stuff come out of the subscription.
 

xiaofan

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For Singapore contents, SingTel Cast is not blocked in China. Just tested working without VPN. This is in line with the report here.

Singtel TV Go, Starhub Go and Toggle are blocked.
 
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xiaofan

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Test results in China (Fijian province), China Mobile 100Mbps Fibre, wireless

1) purevpn openvpn configuration works.
Update: the app is also work now with HK server.

5592700505.png


2) My simple V2Ray SG server on Google VPS works pretty well.
3617983851.png


3) Windscribe free version does not work. It is reported the paid version can work in China.

4) Astrill explicitly mentioned that the free Android version does not support China. They are confident that Astrill VPN will work in China but you need to pay, no free 7days trial in China, unlike other places.

5) 几鸡机场SSR provider free tier works.
https://ji-bn.pw/

3618000568.png


6) Free VPN xiaoming VPN and Wang VPN are working and pretty fast (only for testing purposes, not recommend to use on phone, probably can be used for TV boxes with not important account)

7) Some free-ss.site SS servers are also working.
3618012681.png
 
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stiwipl

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For Singapore contents, SingTel Cast is not blocked in China. Just tested working without VPN. This is in line with the report here.

Singtel TV Go and Toggle are blocked.

Check the app BVPN, they allow 30mins free on selected servers. Check if it works and how well.

If you want to test Synology SSL VPN, PM me.
 

xiaofan

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Check the app BVPN, they allow 30mins free on selected servers. Check if it works and how well.

If you want to test Synology SSL VPN, PM me.

Tested BVPN free and both SingTel TV Go and Toggle do not work.

Tested two free SS servers in Singapore and both do not work for either SingTel TV Go and Toggle.

I can not connect to purevpn SG server so I can not test it.
 
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