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[TheRealTMA]

I've previously used NordVPN and it didn't work with some of the on-demand streaming services offered by commercial Australian TV stations (e.g. 10 play, from memory). It did work with iView though, which is the main one I use.

Interesting. We've recently uses Torguard (both standard and static IP address) and IPVanish from UK and Italy and they worked. Sometimes one has to play with the port and connection type.

Friends had a problem with Nord accessing RAI (Italy) from Australia and eventually Nord told them use use different city and different ports. Some streaming services actively monitor and check for oft used IPs and then block them so it can be a bit of a whack a mole.

Post automatically merged: Oct 6, 2020

Hi Mattg,

Yes, it will work if you connect to an Australian VPN region. However, this week we will be adding Australian channels in the auto-channel list. This means you can connect to any VPN region and it will automatically unblock those stations

Have a play with it. We have extended the trial for 3 days so users can really put it through its paces and see what makes Oeck different.

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.

Peter, do you know if your VPN overcomes the blocking in Italy as above?

 

[Oeck]

Friends had a problem with Nord accessing RAI (Italy) from Australia and eventually Nord told them use use different city and different ports. Some streaming services actively monitor and check for oft used IPs and then block them so it can be a bit of a whack a mole.

Hi TheRealTMA,

This is true. Streaming services actively block entire IP ranges of non-residential IP addresses. We figured we didn't want to spend all of our time chasing IPs and having the service go down for our customers, so we made arrangements to set up residential IPs for our proxy network. This makes it a lot harder to get blocked over and over again.

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.

 

[Oeck]

Interesting. We've recently uses Torguard (both standard and static IP address) and IPVanish from UK and Italy and they worked. Sometimes one has to play with the port and connection type.

Friends had a problem with Nord accessing RAI (Italy) from Australia and eventually Nord told them use use different city and different ports. Some streaming services actively monitor and check for oft used IPs and then block them so it can be a bit of a whack a mole.

Post automatically merged: Oct 6, 2020

Peter, do you know if your VPN overcomes the blocking in Italy as above?

Hi TheRealTMA,

We don't have VPN servers in Italy but we do have a residential proxy network there. If you tell me which Italian streaming service you want unblocked ( please provide the link ) I will take a look tonight and see if we can unblock it. If we can then great, it has just become an automatic channel.

EDIT: RaiPlay, Molto più di quanto immagini Is that the one?

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Hi TheRealTMA,

We don't have VPN servers in Italy but we do have a residential proxy network there. If you tell me which Italian streaming service you want unblocked ( please provide the link ) I will take a look tonight and see if we can unblock it. If we can then great, it has just become an automatic channel.

EDIT: RaiPlay, Molto più di quanto immagini Is that the one?

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.

Peter,

RAI TV streaming. They are currently using ExpressVPN.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Oeck I ran it past the China based FT group and not a one interested in trialling - seems there was a bit of scepticism and concern about security - good luck though.

On the topic of streaming Australian content when in Shina via VPN I have had very mixed success with Express in China - just would not work for Foxtel

 

[RooFlyer]

Excellent, I will give it a go.

And so I am.

Two ticks - it worked without problems with my UTAS OneDrive (ie Microsoft) service that has problems on Nord and it also allows the CommBank iPhone app to log on without problems - again, unlike Nord.

I raised a technical ticket which was replied to promptly and successfully.

I lost about 10% in speed when logged on (Telstra NBN FTTN business connection) which is about the same loss as with as my Nord connection. It was the same for all devices - iPhone, and 2 Win10 devices. Strangely, the speed of synching in my OneDrive connection was about 30% slower than if using Nord (this was over home office wi-fi).

If you aspire to the numpty unsophisticated market (like me) you might consider having some (i) 'What's this?' mouse-over info boxes during the set-up. Having to choose between AES-128-CBC or AES-256-GCM encryption and some other technical choices during initial set-up is off-putting for those of us who don't them.

I would fall into the category of being a marginal VPN user, and as I already have Nord AND am stuck in Oz for the foreseeable future, I won't be extending the trial. but will revisit when I start travelling again.

 

[Oeck]

Peter,

RAI TV streaming. They are currently using ExpressVPN.

Hi TheRealTMA,

Thanks for that. We are going to unblock it tonight. It should be available in a few days. If you have any other channel requests just let me know and we will add them to the list.

Oeck I ran it past the China based FT group and not a one interested in trialling - seems there was a bit of scepticism and concern about security - good luck though.

Hi @Cruiser Elite,

Thanks for doing that! I understand their concerns as it is based in Hong Kong and they would not trust it. That's okay. We are moving to Singapore soon and the only thing that will change is the jurisdiction. It will still function exactly as it does now, and that literally means no logs, no hard drives, no storage.

On the topic of streaming Australian content when in Shina via VPN I have had very mixed success with Express in China - just would not work for Foxtel

When you get a chance try Oeck with Obfuscation enabled ( it will be ready by the time you go to China again ). You should have success with it as we successfully bypassed their firewall.

I lost about 10% in speed when logged on (Telstra NBN FTTN business connection) which is about the same loss as with as my Nord connection. It was the same for all devices - iPhone, and 2 Win10 devices. Strangely, the speed of synching in my OneDrive connection was about 30% slower than if using Nord (this was over home office wi-fi).

Hi @RooFlyer,

The 10% speed loss it normal. However the 30% drio when syncing with OneDrive is very strange. If you submit a ticket we can take a look into this.

If you aspire to the numpty unsophisticated market (like me) you might consider having some (i) 'What's this?' mouse-over info boxes during the set-up. Having to choose between AES-128-CBC or AES-256-GCM encryption and some other technical choices during initial set-up is off-putting for those of us who don't them.

Thanks for the suggestion. We can put a little description when setting up the default profile without too much issue. It usually does not matter what you select, which is why we have default settings for it. But yes, we can absolutely add something to make it a bit easier. I'll get onto that now

I would fall into the category of being a marginal VPN user, and as I already have Nord AND am stuck in Oz for the foreseeable future, I won't be extending the trial. but will revisit when I start travelling again.

If you are using it for streaming service unblocking specifically I would go and test out all of the Netflix regions we have unblocked, as well as the other streaming services. At that point you pretty much don't need to turn the VPN off as you can be connected to Melbourne or Sydney and still access content from other countries automatically.

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.

 

[Guvner]

From my basic Speedtest run, I'm seeing approx. 15% download "speed" drop, a 50% upload drop, and a 40% ping increase when enabling the VPN (2nd test above). Based in Melbourne.
Admittedly unscientific, but indicative none the less. No big deal for streaming, not so sure about gaming though.

 

[Oeck]

From my basic Speedtest run, I'm seeing approx. 15% download "speed" drop, a 50% upload drop, and a 40% ping increase when enabling the VPN (2nd test above). Based in Melbourne.

Hi Guvner,

Your ping should not be that much higher. Our upstream provider peers with most major gaming networks. In some cases the ping to certain games is better than the ISP. You may wish to try different settings ( UDP or TCP ). Please also make sure you are testing to the same network with the VPN on and off. You can find that at speedtest.net and click on "Change Server" and select the same one for both.

Admittedly unscientific, but indicative none the less. No big deal for streaming, not so sure about gaming though.

The gaming in most cases should be equal or better than the ISP since we peer with most of the major gaming networks. But those results seem a bit strange. Please try again with different settings on your connection and see how you go.

EDIT:

Here are my results;

VPN on - Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test ( Melbourne VPN Region, AES-256-GCM, UDP - Testing to Telstra--Melbourne )
Ping: 13ms
Download: 93.23Mbps
Upload: 33.30Mbps


VPN off - Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test ( Testing to Telstra--Melbourne )
Ping: 12ms
Download: 104.36Mbps
Upload: 37.89Mbps

Please note that both tests are testing to Telstra--Melbourne. I had to manually configure that on the test without the VPN as it defaulted to Windsor first.

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.

 

[Oeck]

Peter,

RAI TV streaming.

Hi @TheRealTMA,

Just letting you know we have unblocked it and will release it upon our next network update. This is now an auto-channel, so regardless of which VPN region users connect to, RAIPlay will still work without throwing a Geo-Block error. ( But please await for us to update our network so changes take place ).

So now all I have to say is this -

Dì ai tuoi amici di controllarci dopo l'applicazione dell'aggiornamento!

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Hi @TheRealTMA,

Just letting you know we have unblocked it and will release it upon our next network update. This is now an auto-channel, so regardless of which VPN region users connect to, RAIPlay will still work without throwing a Geo-Block error.

Dì ai tuoi amici di controllarci dopo l'applicazione dell'aggiornamento!

See, we even had to learn Italian to get through this

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.

Graze molto. Siete molto gentile. Ma non dovresti usare Google Traduttore.

Ma ben fatto.

 

[Oeck]

Non è un problema! Quando diciamo che il nostro servizio è fantastico, non mentiamo! Siamo solo. Quella. Buona.

EDIT: È stato un corso accelerato di 30 secondi in italiano. Non male, eh?

Saluti,
Pietro @ Oecke.

 

[Oeck]

Hi @TheRealTMA,

Just to let you know this is now implemented and ready to go

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.

 

[throwaway59328905]

Hi Peter! I was just introduced to Oeck by privacytools.io and i had some questions:

I have a lot of services on my home networking and i need them all port forwarded, i've been looking for a service like yours for a while and i have my hopes up! My only questions are:
- How many ports in total can i port forward? (If there is a max amount can i pay for more?)
- What are the speeds?
- Wireguard support?
- Can i choose which server location i want?

Thank you in advance!

 

[Guvner]

Why would you need a VPN provider to port forward to your home services? Any decent home router will do the job.

 

[throwaway59328905]

Why would you need a VPN provider to port forward to your home services? Any decent home router will do the job.

i would need a vpn provider for my anonymity and other reasons

 

[Guvner]

OK. Must be an unusual use case you are wanting a solution for. Once the encrypted WAN tunnel connects to your router you can NAT your LAN services however you like.

 

[Oeck]

Hi Peter! I was just introduced to Oeck by privacytools.io and i had some questions:

I have a lot of services on my home networking and i need them all port forwarded, i've been looking for a service like yours for a while and i have my hopes up! My only questions are:
- How many ports in total can i port forward? (If there is a max amount can i pay for more?)
- What are the speeds?
- Wireguard support?
- Can i choose which server location i want?

Thank you in advance!

Hi @throwaway59328905,

So, I will do my best to answer your questions!

- How many ports in total can i port forward? (If there is a max amount can i pay for more?)

We give each account 10 ports. You can't pay for more, but you can always just purchase an additional account. However, we do this in a really cool way.

Normally a VPN will allocate you some ports and then it is up to you to set up your software to communicate on those ports. It is also up to you to keep track of the IP address of the server you are connected to so you can access your network. For example, you connect to server 11.11.11.11 and your issued port is 35678. You can then access it by going to 11.11.11.11:35678

If the VPN exit node changes, so does the address of accessing your network. Plus there is all of the additional work in setting up your software for port 35678.

We didn't like that way, so here is how we do it -

The image below shows the example with the username of Nick. ( Image is only showing 5 ports but there are actually 10 ).



Oeck has issued Nick ports 42170 - 42179.
Nick has set up a web server on port 80 and does not want to make it port 42179.
He creates a Device Profile ( another feature unique to Oeck ) for the web server and calls it 'website'.
Nick connects with his web server to Oeck ( any VPN region ) with the username nick-website ( creating a device profile is basically the same as creating a new user ).
Nick tells port 42179 to only do the port-forwarding on the device profile named 'website' and to leave others alone.
Nick also tells port 42179 to forward to port 80 ( he is smart, this way he gets away with not forcing the server to use port 42179 ).
Done

Now whenever Nick wants to access his website he simply goes to http://nick-website.oeck.me:42179
Regardless of which VPN exit node the 'website' is using, it will always be available by going to that address.


- What are the speeds?

These will vary, but rule of thumb is around 95% of your native speed. However, pings are generally lower for gaming networks than your ISP ( we peer with most major gaming networks ).

- Wireguard support?

Not yet. It is on the roadmap, but at the moment we have to focus all of our efforts on growing the business. Once we have breathing space we will be good to stop working on growth so much and focus on features. If you can get us customers, please do so as it will speed up this process.

- Can i choose which server location i want?
Yes, you have a choice of Melbourne, Sydney, Seattle, London and Netherlands. If you are looking to stream, we have over 30 locations which automatically unblock most major streaming services, regardless of which VPN exit-node you are using ( another feature unique to Oeck ).

Here is a video of what each device profile looks like. You can have up to 100. The video is dated, but there are 30 Netflix regions to choose from.

You can find a list of the automatic channels we unblock at Auto Channels

It may be a good idea to also have a read of our manual - Getting started

- Hope this helps!

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.

 

[throwaway59328905]

Hi @throwaway59328905,

So, I will do my best to answer your questions!

- How many ports in total can i port forward? (If there is a max amount can i pay for more?)

We give each account 10 ports. You can't pay for more, but you can always just purchase an additional account. However, we do this in a really cool way.

Normally a VPN will allocate you some ports and then it is up to you to set up your software to communicate on those ports. It is also up to you to keep track of the IP address of the server you are connected to so you can access your network. For example, you connect to server 11.11.11.11 and your issued port is 35678. You can then access it by going to 11.11.11.11:35678

If the VPN exit node changes, so does the address of accessing your network. Plus there is all of the additional work in setting up your software for port 35678.

We didn't like that way, so here is how we do it -

The image below shows the example with the username of Nick. ( Image is only showing 5 ports but there are actually 10 ).

View attachment 229783

Oeck has issued Nick ports 42170 - 42179.
Nick has set up a web server on port 80 and does not want to make it port 42179.
He creates a Device Profile ( another feature unique to Oeck ) for the web server and calls it 'website'.
Nick connects with his web server to Oeck ( any VPN region ) with the username nick-website ( creating a device profile is basically the same as creating a new user ).
Nick tells port 42179 to only do the port-forwarding on the device profile named 'website' and to leave others alone.
Nick also tells port 42179 to forward to port 80 ( he is smart, this way he gets away with not forcing the server to use port 42179 ).
Done

Now whenever Nick wants to access his website he simply goes to http://nick-website.oeck.me:42179
Regardless of which VPN exit node the 'website' is using, it will always be available by going to that address.


- What are the speeds?

These will vary, but rule of thumb is around 95% of your native speed. However, pings are generally lower for gaming networks than your ISP ( we peer with most major gaming networks ).

- Wireguard support?

Not yet. It is on the roadmap, but at the moment we have to focus all of our efforts on growing the business. Once we have breathing space we will be good to stop working on growth so much and focus on features. If you can get us customers, please do so as it will speed up this process.

- Can i choose which server location i want?
Yes, you have a choice of Melbourne, Sydney, Seattle, London and Netherlands. If you are looking to stream, we have over 30 locations which automatically unblock most major streaming services, regardless of which VPN exit-node you are using ( another feature unique to Oeck ).

Here is a video of what each device profile looks like. You can have up to 100. The video is dated, but there are 30 Netflix regions to choose from.

You can find a list of the automatic channels we unblock at Auto Channels

It may be a good idea to also have a read of our manual - Getting started

- Hope this helps!

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.

Thanks for the quick reply! 10 ports wouldn't really be enough for me so maybe ill stick with just getting a VPS, i might use Oeck on my remote devices though! Any recommendations for VPS's without bandwidth limits?

 

[Oeck]

Thanks for the quick reply! 10 ports wouldn't really be enough for me so maybe ill stick with just getting a VPS, i might use Oeck on my remote devices though! Any recommendations for VPS's without bandwidth limits?

Hi @throwaway59328905,

It really depends on what you are doing. I would steer clear of a VPS if you are doing anything privacy related. I can't recommend a VPS provider as we use our own hardware ( colocation ). However, www.instantdedicated.com run a very, very good business but only offer dedicated servers. You can pick something small up for around 50 Euro per month.

All VPSs have bandwidth limitations. They may offer "unlimited" data transfer, but your bandwidth is heavily reduced. Don't forget, you are sharing it with everyone else.

How many ports do you need and how much monthly data-transfer would you estimate you will be consuming?

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.