So with VPNs, I have noticed that sites can easily figure out that you are using a VPN since they can just look up the IP address, see that it belongs to a VPN company, and IP range ban all the IPs belonging to the VPN.
Apparently there is nothing VPN companies can do to hide the fact that the IP address belongs to a VPN company.
Someone suggested that a VPS may be a better alternative as it is “lower profile”. Has anyone had any luck with this? I’ve been looking at VPS offerings for simple web browsing with firefox, but i keep finding very highly priced VPS. Im hoping to get something around the $2/month mark since all i need is simple web browsing.
Or does anyone have a better alternative to share? Some way to make your IP look like a normal residential IP?
I don’t think VPS can be a VPN alternative in terms of privacy and anonymity. And you say that
I have noticed that sites can easily figure out that you are using a VPN since they can just look up the IP address, see that it belongs to a VPN company, and IP range ban all the IPs belonging to the VPN.
In fact, this is the same thing for VPS IP addresses as well, when Netflix started blocking VPN IP addresses, some people tried to get VPS in US and connect Netflix via VPS, but Netflix was clever and knew what’s going on, so they blocked VPS IPs too.
I really would not take this kind of risk. My advice is that you pick a reputable VPN service.
The IP addresses used by VPNs are the same as the ones used by VPS providers. They are all classified as commercial/data center IPs. The only difference is the VPN providers are (usually) using dedicated servers instead of a VPS.
VPS suffer the same fate. I own a DigitalOcean server and whenever I forget to disconnect from the OpenVPN service I set up on it, Netflix blocks me from watching, so does Pluralsight for whatever reason.
And a VPS has a very different business model. While a VPN might advertise itself as “Unblock site X”, and to keep customers, change their IP addresses if said site decides to block them, a VPS will do no such thing.
All that said, there’s nothing stopping you from trying your luck.
Delete this if it is against the rules - I’m using time4vps standard vps, cheapest one with 1TB bandwidth (should be enough for you). Installed Centos 7 and OpenVPN, works just fine.
I’m not sure what you’re exactly going to do with the VPS. If you’re going to run a full desktop in it with Firefox and use it with remote desktop: Don’t.
Just get the cheapest VPS possible, install OpenVPN server in it and connect to it with a OpenVPN client.
? What can and does hide the IP? The last VPN company i contacted about this said they could do nothing about the fact that their IP addresses very obviously belongs to a VPN company.
Interesting, have you tried them? I mean, I’m very much willing to spend 2 bucks to find out the performance is abysmal and book it under “life lessons learned”, but if they turn out to be good, even better.
To be honest I wouldn’t even know what to expect in terms of performance on a server with 128 MB RAM, it’s been almost 2 decades since I’ve last worked on such low-end specs.
Okay, I think calling this just “VPS” is wrong. A VPS could have anything running on it. OP is talking about “VPS running VPN server as an alternative to using a commercial VPN service”.