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Thread: VPN Routers

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    Default VPN Routers

    Hi guys

    I’m toying with the idea of going down the vpn router line.

    I’ve got a zenmate premium account but that restricts the hell out of my speed. Do any of you guys on here have a vpn router if so can you give me some advice about best models etc.
    Also what vpn you are using with it that doesn’t restrict your speeds?

    Thanks in advance



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    DF Super Moderator piggzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    Asus routers for me are great.
    Be warned though using VPN at router level will lose you quite a bit a speed. This isnt down to the VPN provider but down to the very good encryption that is being used so it requires a LOT of cpu power to handle it.
    As a result you need to spend a lot of pennies to reduce how much speed you lose.
    My £100 router loses me pretty much 50% which is a lot so you get the picture of what you need to spend etc

    Using VPN on the PC instead of router loses less speed (more like 10%) as generally your PC has a lot more power than a router but then every device in the house has to be configured as opposed to just setting up a router.

    Mine is the Asus RT-AC68U or DSL-AC68U if you need built in modem.

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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    Quote Originally Posted by piggzy View Post
    Asus routers for me are great.
    Be warned though using VPN at router level will lose you quite a bit a speed. This isnt down to the VPN provider but down to the very good encryption that is being used so it requires a LOT of cpu power to handle it.
    As a result you need to spend a lot of pennies to reduce how much speed you lose.
    My £100 router loses me pretty much 50% which is a lot so you get the picture of what you need to spend etc

    Using VPN on the PC instead of router loses less speed (more like 10%) as generally your PC has a lot more power than a router but then every device in the house has to be configured as opposed to just setting up a router.

    Mine is the Asus RT-AC68U or DSL-AC68U if you need built in modem.
    Thanks piggzy

    I have a vpn I put on my phone for a while and hadn’t used it for a while stuck it on last night and did a few speed tests.


    Top 2 results are with it on
    Third one is with it off and that’s me sat in the same place etc.


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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    WTF Is that VPN at router or device ???

    That is piss poor.

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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    That’s me using a vpn on my phone wireless


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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    I assume you mean you are using it on your phone and setting the VPN up on your phone. In that case, yes it really can be that bad. ARM processors in mobile even in flagship phones are not really powerful enough to handle the encryption. You would be better of either setting up the VPN on the router itself or if not possible connect the mobile via a PC (setup a wifi hotspot on the PC) and let the PC handle the VPN

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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    Quote Originally Posted by piggzy View Post
    I assume you mean you are using it on your phone and setting the VPN up on your phone. In that case, yes it really can be that bad. ARM processors in mobile even in flagship phones are not really powerful enough to handle the encryption. You would be better of either setting up the VPN on the router itself or if not possible connect the mobile via a PC (setup a wifi hotspot on the PC) and let the PC handle the VPN
    Could I use my hp microserver to handle my vpn then theoretically?


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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    I would assume so. Not sure how powerful they are but to give you an example . My home Rig is a corei7 3.5ghz not current models this one is about 4 years old off the top of my head.
    If I run my VPN through that PC my speed is about 60MB down (normally 80MB is my full speed on BT fibre) so I lose about 25% this way.
    If I run it through my average powered router (RT-AC68U) I lose about 50% speed but you have the advantage of everything in your house now being behind the VPN.

    In windows 10 you just choose the internet connection and say you want to share it then I believe it shows up as a hotspot. Might be a bit more to it than that, trying to remember.

    I think member EvilSatan has a lot more knowledge on this subject.

    2 Thanks given to piggzy

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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    Quote Originally Posted by piggzy View Post
    I would assume so. Not sure how powerful they are but to give you an example . My home Rig is a corei7 3.5ghz not current models this one is about 4 years old off the top of my head.
    If I run my VPN through that PC my speed is about 60MB down (normally 80MB is my full speed on BT fibre) so I lose about 25% this way.
    If I run it through my average powered router (RT-AC68U) I lose about 50% speed but you have the advantage of everything in your house now being behind the VPN.

    In windows 10 you just choose the internet connection and say you want to share it then I believe it shows up as a hotspot. Might be a bit more to it than that, trying to remember.

    I think member EvilSatan has a lot more knowledge on this subject.
    I’ll look into it then

    I’ve also started reading up on routers too


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    Thanks to jaygo

    piggzy (18th November 2017)  


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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    Quote Originally Posted by jaygo View Post
    I’ll look into it then

    I’ve also started reading up on routers too


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    Not cheap sadly, well not for one that is powerful. It is the best way though to easily and hassle free cover the whole house. I recommend Asus. :-) Good luck.

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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    I’ve already got a watch list on eBay so will be trying to blag a bargain


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    Thanks to jaygo

    piggzy (18th November 2017)  


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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    If you have old PC's lying around and aren't bothered about the electric bill I would recommend to look into pfsense.

    Add a 2nd NIC to the pc, download the pfsense CD and install, now you have a router with serious CPU power.

    I remember setting one up on a server that had a P4 based Xeon CPU years ago and this could handle 100Mb (up and downstream) of VPN without breaking a sweat while also running a few other CPU intensive add-ons.

    Thanks to Over Carl

    piggzy (18th November 2017)  


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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    Quote Originally Posted by Over Carl View Post
    If you have old PC's lying around and aren't bothered about the electric bill I would recommend to look into pfsense.

    Add a 2nd NIC to the pc, download the pfsense CD and install, now you have a router with serious CPU power.

    I remember setting one up on a server that had a P4 based Xeon CPU years ago and this could handle 100Mb (up and downstream) of VPN without breaking a sweat while also running a few other CPU intensive add-ons.
    Had forgot all about pfsense. That is really good. I was using this on an old PC which died which caused me to buy the Asus router... Totally forgot lol
    Off topic but set the crypto currency of your choice to mine when CPU is below 5% load. When nobody is home you can earn some crypto pmsl

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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    I run PFsense as a VM here in a VMware cluster and just change the default gateway for anything that needs a VPN, it worked well!

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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    Quote Originally Posted by reverend View Post
    I run PFsense as a VM here in a VMware cluster and just change the default gateway for anything that needs a VPN, it worked well!
    Does that not cane the PC it is running on ??? I remember my setup was hammered in a none VM setup although it was very dated hardware that was fit for the bin to be fair ...

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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    Quote Originally Posted by reverend View Post
    I run PFsense as a VM here in a VMware cluster and just change the default gateway for anything that needs a VPN, it worked well!
    It's been a few years since I used to be working on them on a regular basis for work, and various upgrades have happened since then...... However I'm thinking of getting into IPTV, and for this I was thinking VPN could be handy.

    I'm thinking to see if there is any method to force traffic for certain MAC addresses through VPN and leave normal traffic alone.

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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    Quote Originally Posted by piggzy View Post
    Does that not cane the PC it is running on ??? I remember my setup was hammered in a none VM setup although it was very dated hardware that was fit for the bin to be fair ...
    I haven't used the latest releases, but from what I remember a P4 is easily enough for 100Mb (up and down) with VPN and various other additional CPU intensive packages. Last time I had a quick experiment about 9 months ago, I used a C2D based laptop (and docking station to plug in 2nd NIC). Barely tickled the resources.

    Thanks to Over Carl

    piggzy (18th November 2017)  


  18. #18
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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    Here's the last month - the Mrs uses it everyday to watch IPTV via Perfect Player on the Firestick:

    pfsesne.png

    That's just got 1 vCPU on a 2GHz Xeon E5 2650.

    You can see the CPU spike today where it threw it's toys out the pram.

    I use a Windows DHCP Server with reservations for everything and anything I want to go via the PFsense box I just change the default router and DNS server in the reservation and it's job done.

    Somethings wrong with the Pfsense vm at the minute though as it won't update, just trying to figure it out, it gets half way through then barfs :/

    Our fibre tops out at 35/6 so it's not mega but the VM has no resource issues for streaming multiple IPTV streams (at the weekend there are usually two going at once)

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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    I tried adding a VPN to my router a couple of months back and found that streaming services (Netflix, Amazon Prime and IPlayer) were blocked. Tried with NordVPN, StrongVPN and another I can't remember and although they say it's not an issue, my experience was far from that. They do offer a 30 day money back guarantee, so you won't lose anything, but I gave up on the router based VPN (ASUS AC66U). Didn't really test the speed difference, so can't comment on that.

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    DF Super Moderator Rick Sanchez's Avatar
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    Default Re: VPN Routers

    I've pretty much all but stopped using my VPN router due to the huge speed lost. Opted for PIA VPN software for now and server uses SSL for everything. Lost too much speed.

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