Comment by eek2121 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eek2121 | Hacker News Reader

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This was a dumb study, and if they'd asked the VPN providers, I'm sure someone would tell them why.

All the VPN providers I've used let you select the endpoint from a dropdown menu. I'm not using a VPN to make it appear I'm in Russia, I'm using it as one of many tools to help further my browsing privacy.

My endpoint is one of 2 major cities that are close to me. Could I pick some random 3rd world country? Sure! That isn't the goal. The goal is to prevent my mostly static IP address from being tied to sites I use every day.

EDIT:

Small point of clarification:

All the VPN providers I use have custom or 3rd party software that allows you to select a location for the VPN. All of the VPN providers I've used also select the location with the lowest ping times as a default. I suspect most folks are just sticking with the defaults. I certainly haven't strayed outside the US/EU for any of my attempts. I have occasionally selected an EU location for specific sites not available in the US, where I live, but beyond that?

That's great for you. But some people need to pick a specific country. People in different countries often get different prices for things like airline tickets or online subscriptions. Maybe you need to appear from a particular country to access certain media.

I mostly use it to avoid exposing my IP address too, but if I knew my VPN was comfortable with a little light fraud, I'd be concerned about what else they're comfortable with.

NordVPN calls out when a location is virtual, so unless ipinfo is claiming they have virtual locations that are not labelled as such, they are at least transparent about it. They did document the physical server locations of their virtual locations at launch, but I'm not sure if there's a live doc for new locations. https://nordvpn.com/blog/new-nordvpn-virtual-servers/

All the ones I use pick one for you, it is up for you to change it, and you play a fat rate per month or year regardless of what you pick.

That may be your use case, but it by no means it's reflective of anyone else's. I live in a country that actively blocks and limits your connectivity to (ordinarily) public websites. Choosing an exit point that's in a different country is very relevant and important.

You are in the minority. Most folks that subscribe to VPNs are folks in the US, Canada, EU, and other "First World" countries. (I had a source a while back for something completely unrelated, however I didn't save it)

I'm not discounting you at ALL, I'm simply stating that the majority of traffic originate from these countries. Most of these folks just want to hide their IP address for various reasons. Privacy, Piracy, etc. Most don't care if it's in the next largest city, they just don't want it to appear to come from them.

Folks in countries like yours will likely pick endpoints to bypass the government. Folks up to nefarious stuff like cracking web sites, social media influencing, etc. will likely pick the target country more carefully. Anyone else? Whatever is the default.

I recognize this is a hard concept to understand for folks on this site, but the average joe signing up for a VPN doesn't even remotely understand what they are doing and why. They were pitched an idea as a way to solve privacy issues, block ads, etc. and they signed up for it. The software suggested a low latency link, and they went with the default.

The ads for a lot of VPN providers literally use scare tactics to sell the masses on the idea.

Last time I checked the UK was considered a first world country.

Edit: I commented earlier that I never considered myself part of the market that VPN companies hawk their services to. I've been living in the UK for 5 years now and the number of sites that have become unavailable to me are material and concerning for what their abolishment means for free speech. I'm as square as they come, if I feel this strongly you bet others do too.

> I recognize this is a hard concept to understand for folks on this site, but the average joe signing up for a VPN doesn't even remotely understand what they are doing and why.

Really this is the answer to half of the comments on this thread.

> I recognize this is a hard concept to understand for folks on this site, but the average joe signing up for a VPN doesn't even remotely understand what they are doing and why.

So what? This article isn’t for them and this isn’t a major news site for the general public, it’s a site for people who want or need to know how things work.

Re: random countries, sometimes with PIA the Panama exit has a crazily low ping time (I'm physically in California). I wonder what leads to it? Hawaii I can understand, there's a cable landing not far from my physical location, but Panama is a mystery to me.

If you look at the list in the PIA menu, you'll see Panama has the "geo-located region" icon, which means that it's a virtual one and isn't in Panama.

TIL, thanks!

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