Streaming VPNs: Solution to Access Geo-Restricted Streaming Services

[pjr57]

Deeper Network DPN: Game Changer for me

Deeper Network Mini SE

I have been eyeing this technology for quite a while now and i finally took the plunge on Black Friday. I didn't buy the fastest one because i was still being cautious and if it was a bust, i lost less money but now i wish i had gotten the 1gbps instead of the 500mbps one.

For those that don't know, this little magic box lets you use what is called a DPN. Decentralized VPN. It's like a regular VPN except it's all residential IPs and there are no monthly/yearly fees.

With it, you can get a legitimate residential IP from pretty much anywhere around the world. Not only do you get the DPN, you also have Ad-blocking, Parental Controls and Enterprise-grade Cybersecurity.

I received it yesterday and immediately plugged it into my international download machine. Hardware setup was ridiculously easy and i took it for a spin without changing ANY settings. Literally plug-and-play.

Add some stuff from Amazon US, Hulu US, Channel 4 UK and Disney+ Canada to my queue and clicked Start All.

Everything downloaded at great speeds seamlessly and i didn't have to disconnect from one country to connect to another. By default, i had plenty of IPs available to me from all over the world. The system is domain-aware and uses smart routing:


They also have a feature called App Relocator where you can decide for yourself what region to use for individual services. Kinda like what dns4me does.


To me, this is the way to go if you download/stream from multiple regions. It will save me a ton of money and no headaches with trying to find the right server that works with a particular service. Yes it's early in usage but i am confident i can cancel my subscriptions to NordVPN, ProtonVPN, dns4me, GetFlix, Smart DNS Proxy, ControlD, Unlocator, and SurfShark

Hi jpp72 ,
Just wondering if after 6 months usage you still feel the same about your Deeper Connect.
Still like it? Any issues?

[jpp72]

Hi jpp72 ,
Just wondering if after 6 months usage you still feel the same about your Deeper Connect.
Still like it? Any issues?

Best tech purchase in quite some time for me.

It works perfectly, speeds are decent and i have zero issues.

So far, i've used it to get stuff from the US, Australia, New Zealand, UK, South Korea, and France.

I love that i can say, for that specific URL, use this region. Really awesome.

It was an investment but i no longer pay for NordVPN, SurfShark, Proton, ControlD, SmartDNS Proxy, DNS4me, and Unlocator. Yes, i was paying for all of these. I still have, but don't use, GetFlix but that's just because i have a lifetime subscription.

[Cats4U]

If I'm following the theory behind DPN correctly - https://shop.deeper.network/blogs/news/a-101-on-dpn. What you have there is a Hardware BitTorrent box (with extra features like ad blocking and etc.). My worry would be that my Internet usage would soar. As you know, I'm a big fan of BitTorrent and was using it almost exclusively instead of SF. Comcast gives me Peacock for free, as does my Amazon Prime account, gives me Prime Video as part of the subscription, but otherwise I always used BitTorrent. I only recently resubscribed to Paramount+ (via Amazon) and Hulu for use with StreamFab. Since I was getting almost everything over a private BitTorrent tracker, my Internet usage was going through the roof. Let's say that I want to download a 2Gb episode of some show. That's 2Gb down, plus ideally 2.2Gb up. I have my BitTorrent set to send 1.10x back to fellow users so that my ratio slowly climbs. On a private BT tracker, you have to maintain a positive ratio, or you risk being kicked off. What doesn't slowly climb is my Internet usage. That has grown large rapidly. That's why I'm starting to return to SF, as then I only have to worry about the down.
I would think that with this DPN box, you'd be gathering data and sending it out constantly to other people in the world. Your Internet usage would soar. Is that what you've seen?

[Sebastian001]

If I'm following the theory behind DPN correctly - https://shop.deeper.network/blogs/news/a-101-on-dpn. What you have there is a Hardware BitTorrent box (with extra features like ad blocking and etc.). My worry would be that my Internet usage would soar. As you know, I'm a big fan of BitTorrent and was using it almost exclusively instead of SF. Comcast gives me Peacock for free, as does my Amazon Prime account, gives me Prime Video as part of the subscription, but otherwise I always used BitTorrent. I only recently resubscribed to Paramount+ (via Amazon) and Hulu for use with StreamFab. Since I was getting almost everything over a private BitTorrent tracker, my Internet usage was going through the roof. Let's say that I want to download a 2Gb episode of some show. That's 2Gb down, plus ideally 2.2Gb up. I have my BitTorrent set to send 1.10x back to fellow users so that my ratio slowly climbs. On a private BT tracker, you have to maintain a positive ratio, or you risk being kicked off. What doesn't slowly climb is my Internet usage. That has grown large rapidly. That's why I'm starting to return to SF, as then I only have to worry about the down.
I would think that with this DPN box, you'd be gathering data and sending it out constantly to other people in the world. Your Internet usage would soar. Is that what you've seen?

What is the legal situation in your country? In Germany, it's not recommended; authorities usually take action against people who distribute content....

[jpp72]

If I'm following the theory behind DPN correctly - https://shop.deeper.network/blogs/news/a-101-on-dpn. What you have there is a Hardware BitTorrent box (with extra features like ad blocking and etc.). My worry would be that my Internet usage would soar. As you know, I'm a big fan of BitTorrent and was using it almost exclusively instead of SF. Comcast gives me Peacock for free, as does my Amazon Prime account, gives me Prime Video as part of the subscription, but otherwise I always used BitTorrent. I only recently resubscribed to Paramount+ (via Amazon) and Hulu for use with StreamFab. Since I was getting almost everything over a private BitTorrent tracker, my Internet usage was going through the roof. Let's say that I want to download a 2Gb episode of some show. That's 2Gb down, plus ideally 2.2Gb up. I have my BitTorrent set to send 1.10x back to fellow users so that my ratio slowly climbs. On a private BT tracker, you have to maintain a positive ratio, or you risk being kicked off. What doesn't slowly climb is my Internet usage. That has grown large rapidly. That's why I'm starting to return to SF, as then I only have to worry about the down.
I would think that with this DPN box, you'd be gathering data and sending it out constantly to other people in the world. Your Internet usage would soar. Is that what you've seen?

No it's not a BitTorrent box. It's a VPN box but Distributed instead of Centralized. The best thing about this is that you get RESIDENTIAL IP addresses so you will never have to try different servers or vpn services because one is blocked.

In the beginning, i was sharing some of my bandwidth but i never allowed BitTorrent. I also only shared a tiny bit of my Unlimited 3gbps internet.



For the past 3 months, I have disabled sharing and everything still works fine. Also, yes it has built-in Ad blocker and Miner but since i strictly use it for StreamFab and yt-dlp, i don't use the ad blocker (i use uBlock Origin in the browser) and i dgaf about mining

[jpp72]

What is the legal situation in your country? In Germany, it's not recommended; authorities usually take action against people who distribute content....

Cats4U and I spoke about this before and i recommend to everyone they should use newsgroups instead of bittorrent. You never share anything and you get full speed of your ISP when you download. It is literally impossible for you to get in trouble with newsgroups.

[Cats4U]

What is the legal situation in your country? In Germany, it's not recommended; authorities usually take action against people who distribute content....

I'm not really sure what the status is right now, here in the US. I really don't worry about it. We have many more important problems to worry about here with the psychopath that's now in charge.
The movie, TV, and music companies hire independent companies to pretend that they are BitTorrent users and write down IP addresses of other users. Then they track down your Internet provider and give them what is known as a DMCA warning threatening legal action. Then the Internet Provider is required by law to pass it on to you, the offender. There was a time when if you received 3 or more warnings in a certain amount of time, the Internet provider was required to kick you off their service. I don't know if that is still going on. I have not heard personally of anyone actually being kicked off. I heard of the movie, TV and music industry suing individuals, but not recently.
The dangerous place if you want to get caught are public BitTorrent trackers. Private BitTorrent trackers are very hard to become a member of, for the most part. You usually have to be invited by an existing member and must be vetted before you can become a member. I managed to become a member at 3 trackers, and so I feel I'm all set. I don't even feel the need to use a VPN because the security is so good. My last DMCA warning was in 2021 when I had to use a public tracker to try to find a TV episode that I couldn't find on my private trackers. I completely forgot to use my VPN and within an hour I had a DMCA warning emailed to me from my Internet provider. I've yet to get a DMCA in the 15 years I've been using private trackers.
If you're wondering, I think this DPN box is probably even more secure than a private BitTorrent tracker because you need the box to even be part of the p2p network. Add to that, the box has a lot of security and encryption features of its own.

[Cats4U]

No it's not a BitTorrent box. It's a VPN box but Distributed instead of Centralized. The best thing about this is that you get RESIDENTIAL IP addresses so you will never have to try different servers or vpn services because one is blocked.

On the DPN website itself, they compare DPN to BitTorrent themselves (See Below). Both use p2p. It may not be BitTorrent by name, but if it quacks like a duck...

From https://shop.deeper.network/blogs/news/a-101-on-dpn
However, in 2001, Bram Cohen introduced BitTorrent, which redefined the downloading process. In the decentralized BitTorrent, each download node is both a client and a server, and the speed of downloading is increased hundreds of times by exchanging downloaded file fragments among users, which greatly reduces the pressure on resource publishers.

As we mentioned in the previous section “How does a VPN Work”, all servers of a VPN are centrally deployed and centrally managed, which is similar to centralized downloading and as a consequence suffers from peak traffic overload. At the same time, VPN technology also suffers from user data leakage, poor flexibility, and other defects. Is in response to these problems that we created and implemented our DPN technology. The three letters of DPN are both the abbreviation of Deeper Network and Decentralized Privacy Network, which makes full use of the idle bandwidth resources of Internet users around the world to create a decentralized private and protected network. Each node is both a client and a server, and all the user’s data is transmitted with p2p encryption.

[jpp72]

On the DPN website itself, they compare DPN to BitTorrent themselves (See Below). Both use p2p. It may not be BitTorrent by name, but if it quacks like a duck...

Well, there is a difference between Technology and Usage. You can say it uses "BitTorrent technology" but it's not a BitTorrent box. Just like you could say something uses "Bitcoin technology" but it's really blockchain and has noting to do with digital currency. I just wanted to make it clear that the box is used as a VPN box and not a Torrent box.

First/best to market usually gets to own the terms. Just like when your partner asks you to buy a box of Kleenex, do they mean the brand or just to get tissues? Same with Googling. When you tell someone to Google it, must they go to Google or is it ok for them to use DuckDuckGo?

Anyway, while you could use it to torrent, i would assume most people don't allow it with their IP. I certainly don't and never will.

[Cats4U]

I hear what you're saying. When I went to DPN's website, I didn't have a clue as to how the thing worked. I kept on reading until I came to the part about BitTorrent, and that's where it clicked and made sense. Probably I shouldn't have said BitTorrent box. P2P Box would have been more appropriate. But the fact is that they used the word BitTorrent first in their explanation as to how it worked, and it stuck in my head.
And by the way, please, don't even think for a second that I'm against this box. It sounds like it does wondrous things. If I had any interest in getting a large amount of videos from around the world like you do, I'd shell out the money for it in a second. But with the small amount of "overseas" videoing that I do, my VPN is good enough.
As I wrote before, what concerns me is about how your Internet usage should soar. But if you say you can shut off outbound data (and did), I have another concern. If everyone does that, causing the system to not have any servers, the whole thing dies. It's like (pardon my reference to BitTorrent again) Public BitTorrents. There are no incentives for anyone not to do what is known as a "hit-and-run" where a person downloads a file and then doesn't share it with anyone. That's why you often find videos with no seeders at Public BitTorrent trackers. With Private BitTorrent trackers, you have to give back and maintain a certain ratio, or you get kicked off the tracker.

[jpp72]

I hear what you're saying. When I went to DPN's website, I didn't have a clue as to how the thing worked. I kept on reading until I came to the part about BitTorrent, and that's where it clicked and made sense. Probably I shouldn't have said BitTorrent box. P2P Box would have been more appropriate. But the fact is that they used the word BitTorrent first in their explanation as to how it worked, and it stuck in my head.
And by the way, please, don't even think for a second that I'm against this box. It sounds like it does wondrous things. If I had any interest in getting a large amount of videos from around the world like you do, I'd shell out the money for it in a second. But with the small amount of "overseas" videoing that I do, my VPN is good enough.
As I wrote before, what concerns me is about how your Internet usage should soar. But if you say you can shut off outbound data (and did), I have another concern. If everyone does that, causing the system to not have any servers, the whole thing dies. It's like (pardon my reference to BitTorrent again) Public BitTorrents. There are no incentives for anyone not to do what is known as a "hit-and-run" where a person downloads a file and then doesn't share it with anyone. That's why you often find videos with no seeders at Public BitTorrent trackers. With Private BitTorrent trackers, you have to give back and maintain a certain ratio, or you get kicked off the tracker.

Ya i agree it's no very nice of me to have shut it off it was mostly because i wanted to see if i would get a performance hit or anything.

I don't really care about my usage as i download a shitload and probably upload half that because of Plex. Actually, let me check...

Ok so last 24 hours, i have downloaded 709 GB and uploaded 242 GB. This is for all my traffic, not just the DPN box.



I will probably turn it back on soon but still limiting the speed they can use. IDGAF about the amount of data.

As for private trackers, yes you have to keep a ratio but there are lotsa people who cheat. If you are not too greedy and configure it properly, you can get a very nice ratio using RatioMaster or any of the native mods from https://www.sb-innovation.de/forumdi...p-Tools

[Cats4U]

Ok so last 24 hours, i have downloaded 709 GB and uploaded 242 GB. This is for all my traffic, not just the DPN box.

That's insane! I knew you have a thing going with your relatives and friends, but that's just crazy for 24 hours. I don't have specific stats, but since it is the slow TV period now, I downloaded one show episode today using SF. BitTorrent outbound looks to be very light today, nothing inbound. There are a ton of Internet stat programs out there, which one do you use to track your 24 hr usage?
I don't need to cheat on my BT ratios. On my three private trackers I'm at 5.136, 2.81, and 3.193. Even the 2.81 one is enough insurance that I won't get kicked off unless I go on a downloading binge for a while with no sharing. And that's not going to happen. As I think I wrote previously, I share downloaded files until they are 1.10x the download size and then BT deletes them. Of course, they'd already been copied over to my Emby library for my own use.