A VPN is also handy for online banking. I found my bank was blocking my access based on the IP being non-UK. I told them pretty strongly how stupid this was (for people on holiday etc) and they removed that particular block, but they seem to have retained a geo-based limitation for some account features.
alioth wrote:
If I just want to get around geoblocking, I just run Squid with authentication on my server, no need for a full VPN.
Does that limit you to one home location, though? I want BBC iPlayer when I am abroad, and any Netflix licencing regime I choose wherever I am (so I might want the US Netflix selection from the UK, or the UK selection from the US.)
I use OpenVPN software on my own stuff. It’s pretty flexible and can look like normal HTTPS traffic to any content filter.
If I just want to get around geoblocking, I just run Squid with authentication on my server, no need for a full VPN.
Yes and that is exactly what happened to Onspeed (the original data compressing proxy) once it got taken over by the Costa del Sol clientele 
Peter wrote:
Indeed, but I feel sorry for anyone who sets up his business model for an anonymous proxy for “criminals” and then finds his bandwidth overwhelmed by Brit expats on the Costa Del Sol who want to watch BBC Iplayer
But things like ExpressVPN, Hola, Hotspot Shield etc are meant for iPlayer etc, are they not?
Indeed, but I feel sorry for anyone who sets up his business model for an anonymous proxy for “criminals” and then finds his bandwidth overwhelmed by Brit expats on the Costa Del Sol who want to watch BBC Iplayer 
…or getting onto BBC iPlayer when abroad or accessing Netflix content that’s only available in some regions.
Not everything is “dodgy”.
One curious thing I found out about VPNs:
Under Windoze, if you open a VPN and then open a second VPN, the second VPN runs through the first one.
Under Android, the opening of the second VPN closes the first VPN. It is possible that if the first VPN was implemented by a 3rd party VPN app, that may not happen.
The Windows behaviour can sometimes be useful, though the circumstances tend to be a bit weird. For example you may be in a hotel whose wifi blocks everything except Port 80, 443 and a couple of others (not uncommon). Then you need a Port 443 VPN – like the SoftEther one mentioned earlier. And then if you have a machine somewhere which is accessible only over PPTP, you need to run a second (PPTP) VPN to reach that. PPTP is an increasing problem nowadays due to the nonstandard protocol, anyway.
Note that my comments about VPNs in this thread concern VPNs terminating on a machine owned by you, not the sort of commercial VPN services people use for anonymous browsing of dodgy stuff which terminate in places like the Peoples’ Republic of Upper Volta
I read about this years ago but thought it stopped working.
You have to install the server part on your server.
Very cunning!
