On: Warp – Mobile VPN

[eximius]

I mean, for DIY you only need one because you're only one user. Pick a VPS host with a data center near you... done.

[obahareth → eximius]

For me, VPS hosts with data centers near me isn't a thing, but CloudFlare has edge locations near me.

[eximius → obahareth]

Color me curious. Where is that? And by what definition of near? There isn't even an AWS AZ near you? A t2.micro is literally free and is bigger than the one I'm running mine on (which I'm paying for, so maybe I should swap... though, I don't think AWS has AZs closer than my current $1/mo host).

[fulafel → eximius]

The t2.micro is only free for a year, no? After that it's expensive vs normal providers, like aws stuff generally.

[auslander → eximius]

DIY has benefit of trust, but disadvantage of unique to you IP address. With 3rd party VPN you share the IP with many, much like hiding in the crowd.

I was lucky to find small paid VPN provider, that doesn't do marketing, pay for referral and stuff, and I'm sticking to it.

[jedberg → eximius]

It's only near you when you're at home though. This works around the world.

[eximius → jedberg]

maybe works better. But I used mine hosted in the US while I was traveling abroad in the UAE. Worked fine. I often saw better service with it turned on.

[eeeeeeeeeeeee → eximius]

Probably all depends. I tried to use my west coast US VPN in Australia and it was atrocious. I had to deploy to AWS Sydney instead.

[broknbottle → jedberg]

wouldn't be that difficult to write a script that checks geoip and launches a VPS in the region closest to your current devices public address. You could even create an iOS shortcut to allow you to do it from your iPhone

[wmf → broknbottle]

Classic HN comment. I predict that Warp will fail just as hard as Dropbox.

[manigandham → broknbottle]

Several billion-dollar businesses have been built doing things that "wouldn't be that difficult".

In this case, I agree that a single VPS is usually enough for most but never underestimate the market power of making things simpler and faster.

[Sammi → broknbottle]

What's the chance that there are a lot of unknown unknowns that you are not counting on?

I'd say that even the known unknown that ips and networks change routinely should make it a headache to maintain.

[mr_toad → broknbottle]

Not sure how hard it would be to install WireGuard fully unattended, I tried it with OpenVPN months ago and still haven’t completed it.

Once you get your script to work, you’d have to wait minutes for the VPN to spin up in a new region.

[chrisbroadfoot → mr_toad]

WireGuard is much easier to get configured than OpenVPN.

Check out algo: https://github.com/trailofbits/algo

I think you could bake your configuration into a custom image, so it would be fast to get a VM started (about 30 secs on GCE, not sure about EC2).

If you use stopped instances, it's even faster.

(I work at GCP so know more about GCE than EC2)

[3xblah → broknbottle]

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9736710

(Not implying anything, just providing a discussion point.)

[eeeeeeeeeeeee → eximius]

If you’re traveling a lot, which is often the use case for a VPN, this immediately becomes annoying.

[alex_duf → eeeeeeeeeeeee]

or a feature

[dwighttk → eximius]

sometimes people move around

[eximius → dwighttk]

I mean, I guess. But not often. If you are flying around the world, then sure, this is probably better. But if you're like the vast majority of people, then you will be in the same city most of the year.

Even if you change residences, you'll typically be in the same state. Even if you change states, you can just set it up again in, what, super conservatively, under an hour (you've already done it once so fewer missteps).