Here's one bang on subject for example. The company that won the bid to formalise digital IDs donating directly to the party members responsible for choosing in favour of them. 6 states are trying to link porn sites to a digital driving licence. So porn habits and identity are linked for example.
Mullvad are absolutely the GOAT for most people so that's fair.
If you need port forwarding or other fringe uses then not so much but you can't go wrong with how well they stick by their guns and by who they choose to associate with.
The top right feature the last remaining indies who for better or worse are the last remaining folks holding onto any kind of standards. Corporate VPNs use tons of marketing tracking, affiliate marketing, and skewer the discussion to suit their profits over all else.
Kape for example have been on a buying spree over the past few years so now all those VPNs tout whatever line is set from above.
Nah some VPNs allow you to rent a "residential" I.P which is shared by 5-15 people tops. They're rarely caught up or get flagged. This was in 2021 however so can't comment on the effectiveness rn
I'm the author of the map and I'll get those updates on there now, the Mozilla node was actually hidden (as I need to update the corp info) and there's other corrections I'm making now.
If you have any other suggestions I'm more than happy to look into them and start getting them updated. This has been a passion project of my own for the past few years so I'm really grateful for any other feedback.
Yeah I made the original map and the updated version, updating the suggestions from the thread now so if you have any by all means let me know and I'll add them.
Was based there 4 years so got very familiar with the VPN scene over there so if you have any questions let me know! I found for gaming for example you can't beat local VPNs for latency. No western operation can compete with that.
Affiliate campaigns! So basically you'll see in review articles for everything a link with a ton of fluff and tracking in it.
Say you want a new pair of headphones. You'll probably do something like this.
1. Search Google & look for forum/reddit threads talking about specific brands.
2. Look for those brands for further reviews, feedback, and price comparisons.
3. You will come across a review that has links to the "best price".
4. By clicking that link if you purchase that product then, or within 15-30 days (depends on the affiliate agreement) the affiliate will earn commission.
That's why big corps work with media companies. They make hundreds of thousands per month via affiliate commissions alone.
This induces a large amount of biases as media sites always recommend their affiliates over non-affiliates.
It depends on what you're doing but the ones in green to the top right are independents but IVACY recently have suffered an issue. If you have issues with the corporate owners you can avoid them by seeing who the parent is and who they own.
"SentinelLabs researchers have discovered that a Chinese APT group known as Bronze Starlight has been signing off malware with a valid certificate. This certificate is used by Ivacy VPN, and the hackers' target is the gambling industry in Southeast Asia."
I used to find it worked here and there for me (Shanghai Telecom, 4/5G was OK. Home didn't work). Shadowsocks worked well for me but then got janky - ended up using a local VPN for gaming and Windscribe for general browsing. For 3 sweet months I could run a AWS node and relay through that with awesome speeds but then that broke too. Ended up just with a residential IP and that solved everything til I left.
There is of course times like when the Two Sessions are in order and nothing worked.
An update to the 2022 VPN affiliate relationship map. A handy reference for who is owned by who - including their status or whether they're actually part of a bigger corporation.
All the best to them. I was involved with a few Vice projects in 2011-2014 and it was honestly leadership that let them down. They have great talent but it's not easy in this day and age to run any kind of content site.