Does VPN country MATTER? How to choose country?

[molndans 0]

I started using VPN/proxies when I realised what the NSA was doing and when the hunt for file sharers was on.
Location: Europe, have lived in multiple countries.

So my thinking has been that for VPN location:

—  Not the same legislation as you live in. I.e. if you live in France, don't use a VPN in France.
—  A country that is not in NATO is better than a country in NATO.
—  A country geographically close is better than a country on a different continent for performance reasons.
—  Some countries are under more scrutiny than others - for example Germany, UK. USA is toxic, steer clear.
—  Some countries are notorious for hackers and blacklisted here and there... I.e. Romania, Ukraine, Russia. Choose somewhere else.

Or am I wasting my time? Is it irrelevant? If so, why?

What is your reasoning when you choose country to connect to?

Edited ... by molndans

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

44 minutes ago, molndans said:

—  A country that is not in NATO is better than a country in NATO.

How does that have to do with anything VPN? You think they will send swarms of soldiers your way because you've downloaded House of the Dragon? It's a military alliance, you know…
 

44 minutes ago, molndans said:

—  Some countries are under more scrutiny than others - for example Germany, UK. USA is toxic, steer clear.

Germany isn't toxic at all. We don't have a data retention law in violation of EU legislation like France or Italy. Any server you can connect to with AirVPN is safe in that regard, and AirVPN rejected adding servers in such countries on multiple occasions, and even withdrew flags because of legistation change to the disadvantage of AirVPN in the past.
 

44 minutes ago, molndans said:

Or am I wasting my time? Is it irrelevant? If so, why?

I wouldn't say it's completely irrelevant – your other points are some of the regularly quoted recommendations – but VPN usage should be done use case-oriented. Two examples:
For torrents, throughput is everything, so using a server in the same or a neighbor country can be a good starting point. I'd opt for the neighbor country first: That way, different legislations come into play as well.
If your use case is getting through geolocation blocks, then trying a server in the country to which the content is limited is best. And so on, and so on.
 

44 minutes ago, molndans said:

What is your reasoning when you choose country to connect to?

When torrenting, Kitalpha (CH) maxes out my connection. I determined this by a more or less simple technical detail. Added bonus: Not the same legislation, not even EU one.
When watching certain Japanese media, I connect to the US because there is noticeably much more content available and licensed there than you can find in any EU country.

[molndans 0]

On 6/17/2023 at 6:04 PM, OpenSourcerer said:

How does that have to do with anything VPN? You think they will send swarms of soldiers your way because you've downloaded House of the Dragon? It's a military alliance, you know…
 
Germany isn't toxic at all. We don't have a data retention law in violation of EU legislation like France or Italy. Any server you can connect to with AirVPN is safe in that regard, and AirVPN rejected adding servers in such countries on multiple occasions, and even withdrew flags because of legistation change to the disadvantage of AirVPN in the past.
 
I wouldn't say it's completely irrelevant – your other points are some of the regularly quoted recommendations – but VPN usage should be done use case-oriented. Two examples:
For torrents, throughput is everything, so using a server in the same or a neighbor country can be a good starting point. I'd opt for the neighbor country first: That way, different legislations come into play as well.
If your use case is getting through geolocation blocks, then trying a server in the country to which the content is limited is best. And so on, and so on.
 
When torrenting, Kitalpha (CH) maxes out my connection. I determined this by a more or less simple technical detail. Added bonus: Not the same legislation, not even EU one.
When watching certain Japanese media, I connect to the US because there is noticeably much more content available and licensed there than you can find in any EU country.

Thanks for the detailed response!
Sorry, I meant that the US is toxic, not Germany!  (DE is occupied though, but that's a different discussion!)

I am getting good performance from all of the Nordic countries, since that's where I am.

I guess I'm just trying to protect my privacy so I don't blow my career somehow, by having my politically incorrect views leaked. I think they stopped caring about pirating now, so it's probably not super important to protect against that... BUT better safe than sorry!

 

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

20 hours ago, molndans said:

DE is occupied though, but that's a different discussion!

Are you looking at the 20th century in your calendar by chance, the year of 1923 or something?

I also reread your sentence, and indeed. You wrote "Germany, UK. USA" – with a full stop between them, so you didn't actually write that it's toxic.

[space5 2]

Which country should I choose for bittorrent?

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

On 6/21/2023 at 12:38 PM, space5 said:

Which country should I choose for bittorrent?

v

On 6/17/2023 at 6:04 PM, OpenSourcerer said:

For torrents, throughput is everything, so using a server in the same or a neighbor country can be a good starting point. I'd opt for the neighbor country first: That way, different legislations come into play as well.

^

[space5 2]

@OpenSourcerer
If the content I'm downloading is made in the neighboring country, would airvpn not face more pressure?
For torrent, I usually use a country where censorship is minimal. Throughput was not an issue, but I didn't try to maximie throughput.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

19 hours ago, space5 said:

If the content I'm downloading is made in the neighboring country, would airvpn not face more pressure?
For torrent, I usually use a country where censorship is minimal. Throughput was not an issue, but I didn't try to maximie throughput.

I prefer you not using the word "censorship"; that word is used over-extensively, and for increasingly wrong reasons. You should instead really aim at maximizing throughput.
Try the same or a neighbor country, different servers in there, different ports, switch between TCP/UDP and especially OpenVPN/Wireguard, things like these.

[win8 7]

On 6/19/2023 at 4:45 PM, OpenSourcerer said:

Are you looking at the 20th century in your calendar by chance, the year of 1923 or something?

I also reread your sentence, and indeed. You wrote "Germany, UK. USA" – with a full stop between them, so you didn't actually write that it's toxic.

Ofc Germany is OCCUPIED country ...

No formal peace treaty , NO constitution as demanded by in your GG, Letter of chancellery , WW II debt until ? (WW I yes ONE was paid in full year 2000 !!, Gold deposits in US, UK, exterritorial bases (or why do you think ex defenser Minister had to go to RAMSTEIN= US territory) and so on ...

[space5 2]

4 hours ago, OpenSourcerer said:

I prefer you not using the word "censorship"; that word is used over-extensively, and for increasingly wrong reasons.

By censorship, I indirectly mean how blindly people obey authority. Regions where people obey authority less are better for bittorrents. For example, if you use a VPN server in china, you may get DMCA letters for using bittorrent. Censorship is anything that blocks free flow of information. Censorship is not a (good) way to address evil behaviors.

Another example is using a japan VPN server for downloading japanese contents on bittorrent network. That's not going to fly very well because japanese government claims ownership on people who come in contact with japanese contents. I don't want to burden my VPN provider with additional pressure. At some point, the VPN provider may give up resistance.

I don't know which regions are free enough, so I tend to pick a region where people are least likely to obey authority blindly. Censorship index is one measure of how blindly people obey authority.

The current server I'm using has enough throughput. I don't need maximum throughput because, most of the time, the bottleneck is not VPN server throughput.

Something that works at all is a lot faster than something that doesn't exist. If VPN gives up resistance, there is no point in throughput.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

I understand your points, but all servers you can connect to adhere to the standards AirVPN set in regards to legislation, functionality and performance. You have absolutely nothing to worry about on this front yourself; use the best server for your use case.

[space5 2]

On 6/23/2023 at 11:20 PM, win8 said:

Ofc Germany is OCCUPIED country ...

I think earth is occupied by governments that oppress people? Many people blindly follow orders even when governments order them to kill other people (in other countries).
Nowadays, in some regions, there are even no-knock police raids which are basically police assassinations. No-knock raids are execution without trials. In no-knock raids, heavily armed police officers pick the locks on doors, sneak into an activist's room, and quietly shoot bullets into the activist's head with a silenced pistol while the activist is sleeping on a bed.

If there are pets in the house, the police officers kill the pets with silenced pistols because there is really no consequence for killing pets. When they are seen killing humans, there are at least some consequences like losing jobs. In no-knock raids, there is no police officer caught in action. If you are a police officer, the consequence for murdering someone for resisting orders from police officers is losing a job even if the orders were outright evil. Police officers have legal immunity to murders.

People should really follow their conscience instead of blindly following government orders.

I think it's better to live with a society-wide crime organization that has no authority than to live with one that people think has (legal) authority. Authority and obedience are mental illnesses.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

… you have some pretty extreme points of view. Please keep to the thread topic of whether VPN country choice matters.

[space5 2]

21 hours ago, OpenSourcerer said:

… you have some pretty extreme points of view. Please keep to the thread topic of whether VPN country choice matters.

The choice of VPN country matters because of people's belief in authority and most people's blind obedience to authority. Until most people stop believing in authority, expect things to get worse.

VPN addresses the symptoms of obedience a bit. If you want things to change, know that VPN doesn't have any power to change things.

If VPN works around censorship, then it's people's turn to absorb censored knowledge and stop believing in authority. Using VPN to watch netflix is really a colossal waste of human potential.

I advocate seeing the big picture. VPN's purpose in the grand scheme of things is to enable people to acquire censored knowledge necessary for freedom, but if people waste their time, VPNs don't do much good.

BitTorrent is pivotal in disseminating real knowledge. Odysee.com became an important source for real knowledge. If you see the big picture, you know what to protect and what to ignore and how to counter authorities.

For knowledge, odysee.com, bittorrent, and library genesis are infinitely more important than netflix and porn and games. AirVPN should aim to protect access to those resources which are vital for freedom.

If you know what to prioritize and protect in draconian times that may come to us in the future, then the choice of VPN country becomes clearer.