[TOXIC WASTE] ---

[OmniNegro 155]

You know, there was a time not too long ago that I was suggesting people join Air purely because they do not play the bullshit games of other VPNs. It turns out I was wrong. Rather than directly accuse every other VPN on Earth of all manner of nonsense, they leave that to the rabid shills here.

 

And you guys are doing a fantastic job dragging the name of AirVPN through the mud as you toss out opinions as facts.

 

There was exactly one other VPN I never saw doing this. And you guys are ragging on them in this very thread.

 

Perhaps some of you need to read the AirVPN Mission Statement.

"AirVPN team will work at the best of its abilities to:

• Deliver technical tools aimed to enhance and exercise the fundamental Right to Privacy (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 12; ECHR art. 8)
• Deliver a service capable to provide a strong anonymity layer in order to exercise the Right to Remain Anonymous (*), which has been widely recognized as a key to freedom of speech
• Preserve and respect Net Neutrality and end-to-end principle
• Oppose with technical tools any Net Neutrality and/or end-to-end principle violation in the most possible transparent way
• Circumvent censorship and any other barrier to seek, receive and impart information and ideas without interference and regardless of frontiers (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 19; ECHR art. 10)
• Support when possible a range of projects and NGOs whose aim is compatible with AirVPN mission statement"
• Shill out other VPNs because we have lame users to do that so we can pretend to be blameless.

Notice one that does not belong? I sure hope so.

 

Lets take a look at some cherry picked highlights of this thread.

 

 

To hell with Russia. They forced PIA to have to make and distribute new keys to every single client. You do not have to like PIA to know what a dick move this is.

 

 

To hell with Russia. They forced PIA to have to make and distribute new keys to every single client. You do not have to like PIA to know what a dick move this is.

 

no, PIA should have known better than to have servers in Russia

 

 

 

Well seems I was wrong, they affect datacenters too apparently and VPN providers. Also Perfect Privacy don't necessarily have to have agreed with logging, the law only wants log data on Russian citizens and gives a rats ass about people from Germany or Britain, if they don't know about Perfect Privacy they got no reason to take their servers.

All they have to do is plant a single citizen in Russia using their server to make it perfectly legal to seize the server and screw everyone. Once a nation goes this far off the deep end, it is hardly surprising they would go a bit further to latch onto data from other nations citizens. If not nothing else, they could sell the data to Google or some other information broker.

 

 

 

 

 

Tbh, there is a chance either of them is lying or both, however personally I'm inclined to believe PIA are the ones lying due to some experiences I've had with them.

 

Doesn't matter, if you ask me. Trust in both the RuNet providers and PIA is already broken. The best you can still do is operating a rerouting server to watch local TV or something.

 

I don't know how your trust in PIA is broken. Since they actually have court documents as proof to back up their no logging, while AirVPN doesn't. You people have to remember that PIA has 3k+ servers compared to the 130 servers AirVPN has. I really don't think a single location in Russia is going to make them go broke, when they still have servers in AU. Bandwidth costs a lot more there then in Russia. It's pretty clear that for a mod, zhang888 really doesn't know the situation in Russia. They are asking providers and companies to give up encryption keys and that effects non-russian citizens. I actually liked AirVPN, but it seems they are turning into cryptostorm by spreading bullshit about other providers with no proof to back anything up. I really don't see how they can allow a mod to destroy the AirVPN name like that.

 

Falsely accusing AirVPN of spreading BS will get you nowhere.  Or, can you point me to where AirVPN staff have said anything about PIA?  What a moderator did do is retell a story of a personal nature.  Perhaps you'd also like to call him a liar?

 

 

 

I don't know how your trust in PIA is broken

 

Ah, right. I never trusted them in the first place, so if nothing's there, nothing can break.

 

>Since they actually have court documents as proof to back up their no logging

 

I will acknowledge your statement and believe it if those documents are publically viewable. So far I've not seen any of them, neither on their website nor on Reddit reporting about it nor in any news articles.

 

It's pretty clear that for a mod, zhang888 really doesn't know the situation in Russia

 

zhang is a special case, he is not an employee of Air.

 

So here we have it. I pointed out how much of a dick move it was for Russia to do this, and was told that Russia is not to blame, PIA was.. (I know you changed your mind about what your choice of words meant, but you never attempted to change your words at all.)

 

I then attempted to show that regardless of their claims, all Russia had to do to sieze any server in Russia is plant one citizen on that server, and suddenly it is exactly what their law was made for. And I heard crickets for this. No-one cares one bit.

 

Then one of the people in this "special" shill only topic decided to point out that falsely accusing AirVPN is a bad thing. M'kay Mister Mackey...

 

And finally, when it was pointed out that Zhang, whom I actually like was the cause of all this fuss, it was instantly pointed out that Zhang is not actually an AirVPN employee, so I am back to seeing a thread of shills so AirVPN can pretend not to be running a lair of shills to attack their pathetic competitors.

 

I am left wondering if I should just leave now since it is clear that my thoughts of AirVPN being above this juvenile bullshit are effectively destroyed. I like AirVPN. Please do not destroy them by being idiots. Goodbye. I am unsubscribing from this topic.

[Guest]

You know, there was a time not too long ago that I was suggesting people join Air purely because they do not play the bullshit games of other VPNs. It turns out I was wrong. Rather than directly accuse every other VPN on Earth of all manner of nonsense, they leave that to the rabid shills here.

 

Was way too much to quote so I'm just cutting most of it, but I've seen the articles about PIA being asked for logs and they gave the FBI I believe it was what they had which however was only the basic stuff like who is connected right now and maybe some usernames on the people connected which is forcebly generated to keep identification very hard in this case. However my trust with PIA was not their logging policy it was their support and the fact when I used their servers I kept getting error messages about the ciphers I wanted to use and that the remote server could not agree with it and other cases, You are right that Russia is kind of a basket case but they wouldn't need to plant any they aren't exactly obligated to show what they got to the public so they can easily just seize a server if they want to although I rarely hear of it being done it is not like it doesn't happen.

[go558a83nk 362]

You know, there was a time not too long ago that I was suggesting people join Air purely because they do not play the bullshit games of other VPNs. It turns out I was wrong. Rather than directly accuse every other VPN on Earth of all manner of nonsense, they leave that to the rabid shills here.

 

And you guys are doing a fantastic job dragging the name of AirVPN through the mud as you toss out opinions as facts.

 

There was exactly one other VPN I never saw doing this. And you guys are ragging on them in this very thread.

I used to be a PIA customer and am quite familiar with their forums. This place is kind and peaceful compared to the PIA forums. The PIA "shills" on their forums were/are maniacal and utterly hateful. I'm quite taken aback that you imply PIA never did "this".

 

I'm also really surprised that you're defending PIA. In my mind this situation PIA is/was in is like the old saying "fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me."

[OmniNegro 155]

 

You know, there was a time not too long ago that I was suggesting people join Air purely because they do not play the bullshit games of other VPNs. It turns out I was wrong. Rather than directly accuse every other VPN on Earth of all manner of nonsense, they leave that to the rabid shills here.

 

Was way too much to quote so I'm just cutting most of it, but I've seen the articles about PIA being asked for logs and they gave the FBI I believe it was what they had which however was only the basic stuff like who is connected right now and maybe some usernames on the people connected which is forcebly generated to keep identification very hard in this case. However my trust with PIA was not their logging policy it was their support and the fact when I used their servers I kept getting error messages about the ciphers I wanted to use and that the remote server could not agree with it and other cases, You are right that Russia is kind of a basket case but they wouldn't need to plant any they aren't exactly obligated to show what they got to the public so they can easily just seize a server if they want to although I rarely hear of it being done it is not like it doesn't happen.

 

Proof they gave up anything besides a blanket "we log nothing" reply?

 

 

You know, there was a time not too long ago that I was suggesting people join Air purely because they do not play the bullshit games of other VPNs. It turns out I was wrong. Rather than directly accuse every other VPN on Earth of all manner of nonsense, they leave that to the rabid shills here.

 

And you guys are doing a fantastic job dragging the name of AirVPN through the mud as you toss out opinions as facts.

 

There was exactly one other VPN I never saw doing this. And you guys are ragging on them in this very thread.

I used to be a PIA customer and am quite familiar with their forums. This place is kind and peaceful compared to the PIA forums. The PIA "shills" on their forums were/are maniacal and utterly hateful. I'm quite taken aback that you imply PIA never did "this".

 

I'm also really surprised that you're defending PIA. In my mind this situation PIA is/was in is like the old saying "fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me."

They got rid of the biggest shill there. It sure as hell took them long enough, but the jerk known as "robert_lazar" is gone forever. And I never said PIA did not have stupid shills on the forums. I only pointed out that I expected better from AirVPN.

[OmniNegro 155]

 

Proof they gave up anything besides a blanket "we log nothing" reply?

“A subpoena was sent to London Trust Media and the only information they could provide is that the cluster of IP addresses being used was from the east coast of the United States,” the FBI’s complaint reads.

 

https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-providers-no-logging-claims-tested-in-fbi-case-160312/ 

 

That is what I found, if you read the article yeah they told them that they do not log, but if you do NOT have anything saying who is connected RIGHT now the servers wouldn't work, I thought you'd understand that and fact is when they got that subpoena being an American company they HAD to handover what they had, which was probably just connected right now logs which is in realtime and once someone disconnects theres no evidence they ever were connected but that doesn't mean they didn't give what they had, even if what they had was practically nothing.

Really? You are going this lame way? Fine. I am not interested in arguing with you or anyone else. I simply do not care for the petty drama.

[Guest]

 

 

Proof they gave up anything besides a blanket "we log nothing" reply?

“A subpoena was sent to London Trust Media and the only information they could provide is that the cluster of IP addresses being used was from the east coast of the United States,” the FBI’s complaint reads.

 

https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-providers-no-logging-claims-tested-in-fbi-case-160312/ 

 

That is what I found, if you read the article yeah they told them that they do not log, but if you do NOT have anything saying who is connected RIGHT now the servers wouldn't work, I thought you'd understand that and fact is when they got that subpoena being an American company they HAD to handover what they had, which was probably just connected right now logs which is in realtime and once someone disconnects theres no evidence they ever were connected but that doesn't mean they didn't give what they had, even if what they had was practically nothing.

Really? You are going this lame way? Fine. I am not interested in arguing with you or anyone else. I simply do not care for the petty drama.

 

What way and who is arguing?

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

they leave that to the rabid shills here

 

Thank you for calling me a shill.

Since you want us to work with facts, may I suggest you first say that you also are a long-time PIA user? Thank you very much! Now we can proceed discussing.

[OmniNegro 155]

 

they leave that to the rabid shills here

Thank you for calling me a shill.

Since you want us to work with facts, may I suggest you first say that you also are a long-time PIA user? Thank you very much! Now we can proceed discussing.

Yes. I have used the FORUMS of PIA for years. And I still do. Does this mean my opinions are less valid than yours? What is next, you say that you do not like Linux users, and I need to declare that I use Linux so you can nit-pick that as well? How could it even begin to matter? I never asked you who you work for, what religious institution(s) you attend, or how many times you use Google in a day. See, these are things you ask to isolate a person. You want me isolated in a corner, and this reminds me of every oppressive group in history.

 

Divide and conquer. No. Not working. See, I have never once mentioned that I used PIA. And I never even tried to defend them. You imply that is what I am doing, but you can quote anything you want. And that is all you quote.

 

I called no-one in particular a shill. I could, but I am not interested in a fight.

 

But I fail to see a discussion here. This thread devolved into gossip. If only the forums would stop telling me everytime a post is made here. I already "unfollowed" the thread. What else must I do?

 

You clearly do not want me here. So can you assist me in getting out of this nonsense? You can return to your hate session all the quicker that way. (I do not think it is a hate session, but Orwell tends to bring people to realize the way their words can be taken out of context.)

[LZ1 672]

Hello !

 

It's a little weird to say perhaps & it's not due to looking to take sides, but I just wanted to mention that I at least have often found your posts both interesting and useful, OP.

 

In case you were tempted to think that everyone uniformly hates or dislikes you and/or your content, leading you to not be welcome here

 

Just a "for the record", sort of thing, so that you know that's not the case.

 

I also already made my thoughts clear in thread 1, so there's no need for me to repeat them here.

 

Have a good day

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

Yes. I have used the FORUMS of PIA for years. And I still do. Does this mean my opinions are less valid than yours? What is next, you say that you do not like Linux users, and I need to declare that I use Linux so you can nit-pick that as well? How could it even begin to matter? I never asked you who you work for, what religious institution(s) you attend, or how many times you use Google in a day. See, these are things you ask to isolate a person. You want me isolated in a corner, and this reminds me of every oppressive group in history.

 

No, they're not less valid than mine. And I didn't start by saying I didn't like PIA users, I merely said, I initially didn't trust PIA as a VPN provider (also means, over time it didn't change for me). See? It's the good old subjective opinion.

Zhang made this educated guess because he obviously didn't believe PIA's story. You should blame him for not believing PIA. I never trusted PIA in the first place.

Your reaction to a few of the posts after that seem to heavily defend PIA, so I said, "you should mention you use their services". Maybe it was written too personal, but my initial intention was to just add another fact to the discussion, because I felt you are answering with a certain feeling in your words, like, we falsely accuse PIA of lying, and you as a long-time user (knowing more about PIA for sure) feel the need to correct us all.

 

See, I have never once mentioned that I used PIA

 

Question regarding AirVPN's "Your IP":

 

And what makes you say "PIA Staff are closely monitoring this thread"? I use PIA, but I am certainly not staff. I am just a loudmouth on the Internet.

 

My formatting. It was 1.5 months ago.

Also, it's funny you called yourself a loudmouth back then, even if it's meant self-ironic for sure.

 

You can return to your hate session all the quicker that way. (I do not think it is a hate session, but Orwell tends to bring people to realize the way their words can be taken out of context.)

 

"I don't trust PIA" != "I hate PIA".

 

Please notice, to write this post I used my own opinion with a few facts to disprove a few of your statements. If you are still thinking I'm on a hate trip trying to bash you out of here, no! It was your reaction to my freely expressed distrust that woke the demon in you, if I may say so; no offense!

[OmniNegro 155]

Well rather than quote a wall of text, let me just say I am sorry @giganerd. I have not used PIA in years, and with good reason. I love AirVPN. As a VPN, they are the best I have used by far. And the PIA forums are a trainwreck beyond compare.

 

Did I get defensive? Yes. Did I say things I should not have? Yes. But allow me to explain.

 

While reading the PIA forums for the last few years, I have encountered an unbelievable number of competitors that come in, spam their service or talk about things that are outright fiction to make PIA look bad. And to be frank, PIA does not need any help looking bad. They are so terrible at PR that they cannot look worse. But right or wrong, I feel the need to be the advocate of the hopelessly lost.

 

In that time I have seen numerous competitors of PIA do this. AirVPN never once did anything like this. You know those "VPN review" places that are probably the literal origin of all shills? As far as I can see, only PIA and AirVPN abstained from smearing mud on each other and the numerous other VPNs.

 

For a while, the USD to EUR exchange rate alone kept me from trying AirVPN. But this year I finally tried it, and have not looked back. And for the record, PIA offered me a free subscription, and for two years in a row I have turned them down. (That is right, I ran for a year without a VPN purely because I could not afford AirVPN, and PIA really was that bad.)

 

But back to the story... I have been fighting a prolonged battle with a few people on the PIA forums. To be frank again, it has taught me some really bad habits. And I unfortunately have yet to unlearn those bad habits.

 

I started getting upset when I saw the blame for what Russia did being shifted off of Russia and onto PIA. Was it their fault? Not in my opinion. Do I believe it? Not one bit. I think that before the law passed, they pulled out entirely and dressed up a token server to be seized at best. They still have not fixed their configs after changing certificates from what I read, but I have no means to check.

 

So please accept my apologies. I would do this in the thread in question, but I think it is best I stay out of there. And thanks to Staff for pulling my head out of my rear. (And that thread.)

[LZ1 672]

Let's all celebrate with some Vodka! Russia's one true contribution to the world

However that PIA logo with the family on bikes will continue to make me cringe.

Meanwhile, our Italian chefs at Air can cook us a nice meal, maybe with an ein berliner, yum.

We'll meet up at your ranch, Omni. But I want to try lasso Mr.giggles first, lol.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

And for the record, PIA offered me a free subscription, and for two years in a row I have turned them down. (That is right, I ran for a year without a VPN purely because I could not afford AirVPN, and PIA really was that bad.)

 

Oh, I didn't know this..

 

So please accept my apologies.

 

Yes, I see a bit clearer now. Accept my apologies for counterattacking you, too. Thanks for clearing things up.

 

Let's all celebrate with some Vodka! Russia's one true contribution to the world

 

I am Russian, and I confirm this. We also contributed a guy called Kalashnikow who happened to be born a few car minutes from the place my father was born... buuut that's another thing.

[Guest]

[OmniNegro 155]

@giganerd One little correction, the post you quoted is dated 31 May 2015 - 05:21 PM.

 

So that makes it closer to 1.5 years than 1.5 months. (Not that it matters, but I have to correct things if possible.) *Edit* I am slow... 14 months. Was the decimal place the error and you mean 15 months?

 

But either way, I was incorrect in what I said. I do not use PIA, and did not at that time. I should have said "I use the PIA forums, but am certainly not staff." However since the topic is locked, I cannot correct it.

 

I would offer a toast "To Russia" and hope they get back on track and respect the privacy of the people, but I fear good Vodka is not made in America. You either have to settle for cheap swill, or buy imported Vodka. So instead, I will toast with Coffee. (Drink what you want.)

[LZ1 672]

Did PIA offer you that free stuff because you announced you were leaving? Or is it just common for them to do this.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

So that makes it closer to 1.5 years than 1.5 months. (Not that it matters, but I have to correct things if possible.) *Edit* I am slow... 14 months. Was the decimal place the error and you mean 15 months?

 

Nah, I meant 1.5 months, but I've been having problems reading dates and times recently.. oh god, is the tense even right?

[OmniNegro 155]

Do not beat yourself up over it. We understand nonetheless.

[OmniNegro 155]

Did PIA offer you that free stuff because you announced you were leaving? Or is it just common for them to do this.

Honestly I have no idea what their purpose was. I spent a terrible amount of time there helping users figure things out. Perhaps they thought that the VPN was the reason I did that.

 

At one point, while explaining to a user how to configure OpenVPN, I was asked how something worked. I replied that I remembered it working in one way, but I could not check to see because my subscription had ran out. Later that day, I got a PM offering me free service. At that point, I took them up on it. Since then I have always declined.

[LZ1 672]

Do not beat yourself up over it. We understand nonetheless.

I concur. Numbers are hard things, when, presumeably like OmniNegro, you have to keep an eye on a flurry of numbers... Mbit/s...Thread views.... Number of adoring fans, etc. etc. Ah, life is hard sometimes isn't it! *LeSigh*

[LZ1 672]

 

Did PIA offer you that free stuff because you announced you were leaving? Or is it just common for them to do this.

Honestly I have no idea what their purpose was. I spent a terrible amount of time there helping users figure things out. Perhaps they thought that the VPN was the reason I did that.

 

At one point, while explaining to a user how to configure OpenVPN, I was asked how something worked. I replied that I remembered it working in one way, but I could not check to see because my subscription had ran out. Later that day, I got a PM offering me free service. At that point, I took them up on it. Since then I have always declined.

That's quite cool ! Although it's funny to think that some of their greatest help didn't actually come from a member then, haha. People in Texas are such rebels aren't they?! No wonder you got that independence movement going strong still!

[OmniNegro 155]

 

 

Did PIA offer you that free stuff because you announced you were leaving? Or is it just common for them to do this.

Honestly I have no idea what their purpose was. I spent a terrible amount of time there helping users figure things out. Perhaps they thought that the VPN was the reason I did that.

 

At one point, while explaining to a user how to configure OpenVPN, I was asked how something worked. I replied that I remembered it working in one way, but I could not check to see because my subscription had ran out. Later that day, I got a PM offering me free service. At that point, I took them up on it. Since then I have always declined.

That's quite cool ! Although it's funny to think that some of their greatest help didn't actually come from a member then, haha. People in Texas are such rebels aren't they?! No wonder you got that independence movement going strong still!

I doubt Texans are really more rebellious than any other people on this Earth. We do however tend to be loudmouthed and opinionated. But I never left the USA, and only once left Texas, so I am not fit to judge the rest of the world.

[cm0s 118]

LOVE the AK-47 survival kit

 

cheerz

[OmniNegro 155]

Sorry to hear of your loss cm0s.

 

I do not think you have done any real harm. If anything, your technical posts are quite worth reading. And you are every bit as welcomed to your opinions as any of us. (Even when we may disagree for whatever reason.)

 

I agree that comparing AirVPN to other VPNs is a wasted effort. I tried several, and found only horrors of technical idiocy. Once I found AirVPN, I have not even thought to look for any other VPN. And I suspect no-one would once they peruse the options a bit. Hell, the ability to generate custom OpenVPN configs via a menu is amazing at the least. And the integrated DDNS setup makes connectivity a breeze for even those of us who do not understand such things.

 

But I am preaching to the quire here. You guys already know how great this service is.

[LZ1 672]

Well I like me some preachin', cowboy