r/BDS • u/A_Table-Vendetta- • 10d ago

ASK THE SUB Are VPN providers supporting Israel by having it available as a location?

I imagine having Israel on the list of a VPN provider's available locations means they are also supporting Israel, since I imagine it would require them to buy and own Israeli servers, and/or possibly even have Israel based employees. Maybe I'm wrong and that isn't how it works though? I'm not super knowledgeable on how VPNs work. If someone could explain for me, I would very much appreciate it, and if this is indeed how it works, I would like to ask if anyone knows of a VPN provider that doesn't offer Israel as an available location?

58 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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26

u/BulltacTV 10d ago

You would have to research each developer, as having a server in Israel for that kind of thing isnt really supporting them in a meaningful way. They are a big tech economy though so good chance some of those vpn providers are Israeli.

It does, however, offer some fun possibilities, like everyone with VPNs selecting Israel as a location, and then rabidly downvoting disgusting Israeli hasbarah propaganda lol

5

u/A_Table-Vendetta- 10d ago

Yeah, I've thought about things like that. For research and political purposes it seems like a good thing to have. Thank you for the response

23

u/Longjumping-Date1342 10d ago

Avoid Private Internet Access, Cyberghost and ExpressVPN. Those are all not only support apartheid, but will have the apartheid state access your browser history

9

u/PhillNeRD 10d ago

Most VPNs are owned by Israel and they are spying on you!

1

u/PapiChuloMiRey 8d ago

Which ones aren't?

5

u/cudiaco 9d ago

Alternative: spin up your own private vpn server https://github.com/trailofbits/algo

2

u/sudoer777_ 9d ago edited 9d ago

This isn't meant for anonymizing/hiding your internet traffic, it's for using a VPN for its intended purpose which is connecting devices between different physical locations. For privacy you want Mullvad VPN, Proton VPN, or Tor.

Actually it looks like it's for censorship avoidance, but it still isn't close to private/anonymous since your VPS has your identity.

1

u/cudiaco 9d ago

I’m personally highly skeptical of anonymity claims by vpn providers. VPNs move the goalpost in the end, while tor is designed for anonymity.

3

u/sudoer777_ 9d ago

Neither of them are completely safe. Proton VPN is somewhat reputable but it uses more identifiers than it should. The only identifier Mullvad has is a random number, your payment method which can be a private cryptocurrency like Monero, and your IP address (which you can't get away from). You do have to trust that they are not logging your internet activity, and I believe they have been raided before and authorities couldn't get anything so they are relatively trustworthy.

Tor is designed for anonymity. The weakness with Tor is a lot of nodes are run by intelligence agencies and if you land on a circuit where all nodes are run by the same government your anonymity is compromised, so you need to make sure at least one of the nodes on the circuit is run by someone that you know is not going to cooperate with a government that is likely to target you.Â