Battle Private Internet Access vs CyberGhost

Shran

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The two VPNs I know and trust are PIA and CG. CG costs a bit (quite a bit...) more than PIA, but I'm not concerned about price, at least not for the purpose of this battle.

I'm currently having some issues with PIA, specifically the Kill Switch feature. I noticed that after installing PIA, even if I disabled the kill switch, I would periodically not be able to access the internet, unless I reactivated PIA. Twice however, I couldn't even connect the VPN... because PIA had disabled all internet access, including itself (it did this by disabling DCHP in my network settings and clearing my DNS settings - I am assuming this is how the Kill Switch feature works.)
Also, my speed when using PIA varies anywhere from 10 Mbps to 50 Mbps - my actual connection is 100 Mbps. Yes, I know that VPNs will cause a reduction in speed - but 10 Mbps out of a 100 connection?

CG has consistently kept much higher speeds IF I connect to the Miami servers - in fact with CG (on the Miami servers) I rarely get less than 50 Mbps - most times I get 60 or higher. However, sometimes CG will not connect to the VPN server - it just sits there saying "connecting" continuously unless I exit CG completely and attempt to connect again. The other servers for CG, well those are a different story, as those are usually around 10-20 Mbps. I'm not sure why the Miami servers are so much faster (no, I am not physically located closer to those servers... I am actually located closer to the Atlanta servers, which, oddly enough, are extremely slow).

PIA has the advantage that I can control what kind of encryption is used (Private Internet Access | VPN Encryption) where with CG I just have to be satisfied with whatever encryption they are using.

What are your thoughts?
 
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SHvFl

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Pia is great but has one of the worse applications i have ever used. Try Airvpn, they have a trial.
 
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Warrior

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@ Shran
PIA -- The issue is Rubyw.exe the windows ruby interpreter it connects out many times a day checking for the fastest sever connections , It gets stopped by your firewall because it creates many temp files to connect out, each time it runs it creates and new temp connection. the temp connection's been blocked will drop the PIA speeds and can disconnect the VPN .
this issue affects many third party firewalls as well as windows firewall. its a long known issue with PIA,
and the main reason I stopped using it.
This issue has been reported to PIA many times

Fix 1 ( turn off firewall ) NOT ADVISED


Fix 2 ( Try out other firewalls ) I found none that I was happy with and fixed the issue ( apart form comodo that did work with some major tweaking, but I don't like comodo )

Fix 3 ( Wait for PIA to fix the issue Which they have not done Because Rubyw.exe is a main part of PIA and how the designed it to work,


Fix 4 ( Use some thing else Cyber-ghost VPN Gate ) I use PureVPN where I can use AES-128 or AES-256 encryption.

And I did manage with some effort to get a refund from PIA,
 
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Atlas147

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I have been using Cyberghost for sometime now and have no issues with it. Connection is always fine and I have experienced slower speeds but not too bad because I connect to Netherlands servers. Speaking of internet kill switch, cyberghost has it's own internet kill switch too although it is not mentioned if your connection drops all internet connection will automatically be blocked until you take action to either reconnect or disconnect your connection with the VPN severs. However one of the cons is that cyberghost is indeed quite pricey compared to the other services out there.
 
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Shran

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CG includes a NAT Firewall based on their servers, PureVPN does not include one, but you can add it on for $60/year - which might or might not really be necessary. I mean, if you have a router + a software firewall on your system, do you really need that?

I'm not sure what Handshake CG uses to verify that I'm really connected to a CG server rather than a fake - assuming they do use one - but I will try to contact their support team and update you all here when I get an answer.

Thanks for the input guys, keep it coming ;)
 

Warrior

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Sep 2, 2014
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If you have a router + a software firewall u should be fine
The NAT Firewall based on CG servers is more to protect the servers than you,
 

Shran

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Yes, I have a firewall which closes all my ports & rejects all incoming connections, so it isn't necessary per-say. Now when I use the public WiFi at my library, I have no idea what kind of router security they use...
 

Shran

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Update: When using CG just now, MT would not load - the connection would time out... when not using CG, it loads just fine :confused:

EDIT: MT works when connected to the Miami server - but ONLY the Miami server :confused:
 
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SHvFl

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Update: When using CG just now, MT would not load - the connection would time out... when not using CG, it loads just fine :confused:

EDIT: MT works when connected to the Miami server - but ONLY the Miami server :confused:
They might do ip bans here and the rest of the servers ip's are banned if it's not a network issue. You can thank others users spamming the site from them.
 
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Exterminator

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Yeah, that's a good thought. @Jack or @exterminator20 can you confirm is this is why MT does not work on some CG servers?
IP's are banned by staff and the Xenforo also has a built in Spam trigger which also flags certain IP's that are known sources for spam.
There is also a spam cleaner on the site also which deletes everything for the spammer.
Personally I thought CG was very slow and I had similar problems with connections however I cannot remember if any of these were here on MT.
I can say on ZenMate servers I have never had a problem accessing this site from whatever server I use.
Whether this is due to a banned IP/Spam here a CG problem I couldn't say for sure.
 
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Shran

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IP's are banned by staff and the Xenforo also has a built in Spam trigger which also flags certain IP's that are known sources for spam.
There is also a spam cleaner on the site also which deletes everything for the spammer.
Personally I thought CG was very slow and I had similar problems with connections however I cannot remember if any of these were here on MT.
I can say on ZenMate servers I have never had a problem accessing this site from whatever server I use.
Whether this is a banned IP problem or a CG problem I couldn't say for sure

Thanks :) I'm honestly having similar problems accessing other sites - multiple websites that I've gone to have asked me to complete a captcha before entering because "unusual traffic has been detected from my network" ...
 

Exterminator

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Thanks :) I'm honestly having similar problems accessing other sites - multiple websites that I've gone to have asked me to complete a captcha before entering because "unusual traffic has been detected from my network" ...
I would say then that those server IP's are flagged as a known spam source.
 
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