Talk:Comparison of VPN services

Problems with the article

This article has some very basic problems: Wikipedia relies on reliable, third-party sources for information. This list, however, is built entirely on original research, using first-party sources to substantiate claims. Furthermore, it seems to little more than a derivative of this list, just converted to Wikipedia formatting. Eik Corell (talk) 02:30, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I guess I could address the OR problem by inserting references to reviews done by sites like TechRadar and PC World. About the article being a fork of the list on That One Privacy Site, I fail to see the problem. Could you elaborate on that?--Stempelquist (talk) 03:08, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Inserting some third-party sources, while an improvement, still would not address problems like original research determining what is good or bad on the list,

e.g being in the 14 eyes instead of the five. There is at least one reputable source -- A report by Reporters Without Borders' from 2014, but even that is used to synthesize a conclusion; that being in the countries it lists is a bad thing on the list, which then brings us back to the a new aspect of the sourcing problem: That the article is now stating fact instead of reporting on the claims of independent third-party sources. About the forking issue, the problem with this is that simply converting internet content like articles or lists turns Wikipedia into a simple mirror service, which it is not. Eik Corell (talk) 19:22, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I have to point out that I have not simply converted the chart. Although I have used it as inspiration, I have manually updated and sourced the information, split it up into smaller sections, inserted explanatory notes and removed and added various columns. Also, I have only included "notable" services (services that have their own Wikipedia article). I don't quite understand why secondary or third-party sources are preferable to primary sources in the case of, for instance, the Warrant canary column where I have referred directly to the warrant canaries. The same goes for the Technical features section. Wouldn't the best way to verify if a service supports a particular feature be to read their own list of supported features? Isn't that what the secondary or third-party sources would do anyway? Maybe you're right about the Fourteen Eyes and Enemy of the Internet columns. However, I'd say that at least the Technical features and Availability sections aren't controversial in the same way. Do you know where I can seek information about how to properly write a comparison article? There are a lot of them on here, maybe you know of one that is good? All the ones I've found are like this one.--Stempelquist (talk) 20:23, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Article fails to distinguish between private and commercial public VPN's

The article seems to be focusing only on comparing publicly accessible VPNs for which you pay a subscription to a commercial VPN service in order to use but fails to make that clear. Since a VPN can be setup on a completely private network, either by a business or an individual, not all VPNs are commercial services that require paying a subscription fee. --Notcharliechaplin (talk) 16:12, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

I noticed that. I was trying to find out the significance of NordVPN in advertising for some packaged openwrt systems. It is representative of a fairly common phenomenon, where a sub-culture adopts a term that relates to a particular technology, and uses it as though it only applied to a niche use of the technology. In this case, VPN, as a name for a simulation, by encryption, of a private network where typically both ends are private, has been hijacked for networks where a VPN is used to access a gateway that then breaks out into the public network, and which is used to obfuscate the source of the original request. I'd expected the openwrt sales pitches to have listed the VPN protocols used, not the identity obfuscation service. -- David Woolley (talk) 23:40, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

These are proxying services- not traditional VPNs

By any real definition, these are services that claim privacy by passing a customer's traffic to them encrypted and then forwarded to the intended destination- this is the definition of a proxy. Instead of A to B you are going from A to C to B.

While their implemention may use a Virtual Private Network to connect A to C, the C to B is not via a VPN. ALL YOU'VE DONE IS INTRODUCE AND TRUST A MIDDLEMAN to make it appear as if your traffic originates from the VPN(proxy) provider. VPN just describes a piece of a implementation and does not offer inherent security or privacy. If anything, you're left reading comparison pages to determine which is the least risky... which is not educational. The only educational thing about this article is me saying this. Jawz101 (talk) 16:15, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Tunnelbear does allow Torrenting and P2P traffic

Although they don't have an official statement on their website about this, from personal experience I can say torrenting works just fine with Tunnelbear. Also, this comment suggests that they don't publish a statement on purpose, even though they do allow it: https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/8aqzv3/i_have_been_downloading_torrents_with_tunnelbear/e0zs1sz/ This article probably says they don't allow it since they used to block torrenting but don't anymore. How can I provide a source for this change if they specifically don't put a statement about it on their website? Douira100 (talk) 17:44, 8 September 2019 (UTC)