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  • Safing.io portmaster with SPN. It's better than any of the other recommendations so far.

    • I didn't see anything about not keeping logs (please correct me if I just missed it). Also, they don't have any built-in DNS protection, and it's expensive at $8.34usd/month.

      It's an interesting idea to stratify your VPN and force individual apps to bind to their own tunnels, but seems like a lot of extra setup for little payoff, and if you can't be certain they're not keeping logs, there's little benefit to having multiple VPN connections vs one.

      Please, feel free to correct me if I've misunderstood something.

      • They do have built in DNS protection, it's just not DNS servers controlled by them. You can pick presets from AdGuard, Cloudflare, etc. Or, use your own.

        Regarding logging, I'm not sure I understand entirely how it's relevant to a service such as SPN. Have you used Tor and wondered if the nodes are logging? SPN is also an onion router. So, the exit node will not know your origin, even if they are logging. Of course, we could go down rabbit holes about speculative traffic correlation and/or timing attacks, but that's a separate discussion. A large portion of the SPN network is also community operated nodes.

        SPN nodes can also be run by anyone without needing a large investment of staked cryptocurrency, unlike another onion router Lokinet. This lowers the barrier to entry for a more diverse number of community contributed nodes to SPN.

        These aren't necessarily multiple VPN connections. Instead, every network request is sprayed across the SPN network based upon your desired number of hops and other settings. This means one app might see you as being in Iceland while another in Australia, etc. It bounces every connection around the network. If someone were trying to track you, it'd make it just a little more difficult than a static location connection with a traditional VPN.

        Hope this helps and you give it a try.

        • How is network speed? Even with a multihop VPN, each hop degrades the speed. If it's operating like the Tor network, I would expect that it would experience the same kind of speed degradation.

          And speaking of multihop, I wonder what extra benefit you'd get from a service like SPN and a VPN that offers multihop...?

          Not trying to piss on your suggestion, just trying to scrutinize the benefits.

          • Also, if you're worried about logging, you could set up a bulletproof, anon VPS you paid for in cash/crypto from a host who doesn't KYC. Then, set it as a community node, and then configure Portmaster to only accept your SPN entry node as your own VPS. That way, you can know that when you enter the SPN it's through a VPS you've ensured isn't tied to your identity, doesn't log, and is your starting point before being routed through other random locations.

          • SPN has a maximum of 3 hops (same as Tor), unlike Proton, IVPN, Nord, etc that do a dual-VPN, multihop, whatever you want to call it, with only 2 hops.

            I've added 2 additional hops via hardware network infra through VPN chaining and I still achieve upwards of 150mbps down on a 1gbps connection with a total of 5 hops. So, I feel the speed achieved considering so many hops is pretty amazing. Of course, depending on the locations routed, may have high ms ping.

            Even if you just purchase 1 month, the worst case scenario is you've lost $8. The best case scenario is you've found your new fav open-source Linux network manager with an onion router like me.

82 comments