Why do you guys use outline"vpn" ? as i am trying to learn more about it, but found it is connected to google somehow on its privacy page

VPN
1

pro. open source, pretty much all platform.
con. google product. just SOCKS proxy not really a VPN

Please help me understand it better,
I mean we use VPN to protect ourselves, but then choose a google product. I do use gmail and google drive, but when it comes it VPN, Aren’t we supposed to pick others?

2

As a user in China, it’s quite effective for circumventing the Great Firewall most of the time. I’m also an ExpressVPN subscriber and literally within the last week, their services have become unusable in China due to new blocks.

I spent hours trying to connect to Express servers here and gave up. Within ten minutes I set up a new Outline server for myself, installed the app on my devices, and was back to browsing normally again. If nothing else, it’s a great backup in countries with heightened censorship.

3

It’s more difficult to block compared to other protocols like Wireguard or OpenVPN, all the data travels through your own server so there’s nothing sent to Google aside from diagnostic data from the client app.

4

Hello there. I wonder if you’ve got luck in any VPS provider that is capable of watching Disney+ and maybe Netflix.

I have some good friends living in China, and I’ve been running a Outline server for them to circumvent the great firewall for a few years. Recently, I’d like to share my Disney+ subscription with them, but most streaming sites can detect my DO droplet, hence blocking the access.

I’d like to know if you have had similar problem, if so, how you solved it. I’d also like to know what is your current VPS provider and your experience with it. DM is also fine if you don’t want to mention any provider publicly.

5

Hmm, interesting. I use Netflix quite often, and I find that Outline is actually detected less frequently than when I’ve used Express to stream. I don’t have Disney+ so I don’t have any experience with that service, though.

I’ve actually had servers on DO, AWS, and Google here in China before. Overall, I think DO is best as it is the easiest to set up. Google worked decently but it was getting prohibitively expensive and of course, pretty much anything Google-related is likely to get blocked with time. AWS was ok but I ran into some issues and I’m a novice when it comes to networking and server admin, so I was out of my league.

Right now I’m just running a DO server in San Francisco I find that works quite well for Netflix US. I do also have my servers set up with “floating IPs” on a domain though (now called reserved IPs in DO). Maybe try that? (Would require you to buy a domain if you don’t already have one, but might be worth it.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/outlinevpn/wiki/index/floating_ips/

6

Hey, I really appreciate the detailed reply. I’ll look into the reserved IP option.

I’ve been running my SanFran DO server for about 2-3 years and never got any luck accessing Netflix with it thru the entire time. Let alone it seems that Disney+ has even stricter restrictions tho.

7

https://www.reddit.com/r/outlinevpn/wiki/index/floating\_ips/

I just got used outline with DO because of this thread. I’m in China as well. Does anyone know how I can increase the speed? I’m trying to stream movies off a website and I notice it needs to buffer once and a while. I also remember reading somewhere that the SF server is optimized for china. Is that true?

8

The DO droplet I’ve been running for my friends in China is in SF. It has satisfying speed for me, including streaming 4K from YT.

You may either have bad luck with your particular DO droplet, or slow/congested international connection from your ISP, which many China’s ISP’s are infamous for.

9

It’s how DigitalOcean calls their VPS servers.