Newbie question: Should a US user NOT use Canadian servers?

[baysic 0]

Hello,

 

I have a very simple question, I am just starting out with a VPN. I am a US (Greater NYC area) user who is looking to be safe while using P2P as well as access certain sports etc. My question is when using the service, Canadian servers provide me with about 90% my actual speed, which is great. I am concerned that it may be unwise to use a canadian based server. Is this not warranted? I know all laws are followed based on the EU, but I have seen people suggest people in the US not use US or CA based servers. I my next best server is Netherlands with a speed of less than 50% which is brutal. Please advise.

[iwih2gk 93]

You will get lots of opinions if everyone were to answer your post with their own thoughts.  Let me share some all over the map ideas with you.  First, if you have Eddie installed on your system you can jump between servers with just a few clicks on the client.  That is nice because the session server selected can in a sense be "mission specific".  For USA citizens it puts a strain on datacenter relationships (AirVpn - Datacenter) when our users download stuff in aggregate from USA servers, and the datacenters keep getting piles of DMCA notices.  It seems to be a bit better in Canada, but the principle applies there too.  You the individual user are not going to see any DMCA notice getting to you, but note that we the Air users have lost servers in the USA because the Air relationship with datacenters was too strained.  Therefore; it would be preferrable to use Netherlands for downloading something that results in a DMCA or similar.  I know the speed degradation is "sucky" but if the file sizes are not too large you would be acting as a "team player" to all the Air members here.

 

I see this is your first post so welcome.  In this climate it  should be assumed that all vpn datacenters are being monitored from the outside (not the inside).  You should do a search here about a partition of trust and why its so important if you are doing anything that brings the "heat" after your activities.  If you are simply downloading a movie or watching sports out of your area, nobody is really going to care and a simple one hop vpn might be all you need.  I find the Canadian servers to perform extremely well for me.  They are only one hop in a 5 hop string but they work perfectly.

[foxmulder 43]

The things said above do apply even more so, as the AIR team doesn't block P2P traffic even on the USA and UK servers. Especially the US and UK datacenters can get quite edgy about too many DMCA's coming in.

 

So everyone has to take responsibilty here and avoid those locations for P2P, even at the risk of a hard speed hit. 

 

The AIR Team could just simply block that protocol on those servers, just like many other VPN services out there do, but they decided not to as it would be against their mission.  So let's keep it that way. 

[baysic 0]

Thank you for the responses. What do you mean by "hops"? Do you mean switching server connections durring use for the hour/day/activity? Or do you mean linking server connections (I don't even know if this is possible) like connecting to CA, then Netherlands, then somewhere else? Is this a practice I should partake in? Thank you again for your help!

[iwih2gk 93]

Thank you for the responses. What do you mean by "hops"? Do you mean switching server connections durring use for the hour/day/activity? Or do you mean linking server connections (I don't even know if this is possible) like connecting to CA, then Netherlands, then somewhere else? Is this a practice I should partake in? Thank you again for your help!

 

 

Hops is the number of relays you are using in your circuit (that is how I am defining it for my posts anyway).  Whether or not you should get involved beyond a simple one hop VPN would be determined by what you are doing online.  This is a hobby of sorts for some of us and we go crazy even though sometimes we don't need to.  Remember I referenced the term partition of trust above and suggested you read about it here and elsewhere.  Have you done that yet?  It will shed light on whether or not you need such a circuit.

[wakaflockaflame 5]

If all you are doing is using bittorrent simply connect to a country that does not try to identify and punish P2P users. I know for a fact in the UK you can torrent without being bothered these days if you are a residential internet user. A datacentre may want to distance itself from P2P use but they should not be bombarded with threatening letters. There used to be a law firm which did send out such letters but they were shut down by the authorities and the owner was banned from practising law. Unsurprisingly a similar firm has not popped up to replace it.

 

Most EU countries should be similarly safe, research the laws a little. I think France is one exception with strong anti-piracy laws but many are more liberal than the US.

[BetterCallSaulVPN 0]

Hops is the number of relays you are using in your circuit (that is how I am defining it for my posts anyway).  Whether or not you should get involved beyond a simple one hop VPN would be determined by what you are doing online.  This is a hobby of sorts for some of us and we go crazy even though sometimes we don't need to.  Remember I referenced the term partition of trust above and suggested you read about it here and elsewhere.  Have you done that yet?  It will shed light on whether or not you need such a circuit.

Which AIRVPN servers are more than one hop? If I want maximum security which server should I use?

[iwih2gk 93]

Sorry I have busy this weekend.  I have created my OWN relay circuits to use.  Air does not use multi hop routes.  You are allowed to use 3 servers on your account at the same time.  This means if you wanted to you could hop 3 times just using AirVpn.  You will hear lots of opinions on multi hop using the SAME VPN provider.  I don't intend to defend or debunk the notion.  I am only presenting the possibility to you.  I elected to use multiple providers, and TOR at the end because the exit node auto rotates every ~10 minutes or so.  That circuit design works great and I am using that configuration making this post.