VPN Getting Blocked Everywhere? My New Split Setup

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https://techlore.tv/w/sv8sovkR8QT739MJeRZ2iU

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://techlore.tv/w/sv8sovkR8QT739MJeRZ2iU
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Can’t get this setup to work with Mullvad, seeing as they require you to be connected to the VPN in the first place before using their proxy extension. Not sure if there is a workaround for this. Sounds like a great setup. I have to exclude most of my programs regardless because, for my use case, I only really need the browser to run through one.

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I have been trying this out and one thing I have been noticing is that when using the Proton VPN Extension, I can’t seem to also use NextDNS. I set it in the DNS setting in both Brave and Firefox, but then extension seems to take over the DNS. Any ways around this? I am Fedora 42. I also have NextDNS set up systemwide using the NextDNS command line program.

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I actually setup a slightly different variation a while ago that may interest you. My goal was to be on a VPN be default but then by able to easily have certain browser tabs not on the VPN. I used Firefox Multi-Account Containers and a local SOCKS proxy to set it up as described in this thread. It’s been working quite well for me. I believe you could also invert it so it was off the VPN by default but then you use a local SOCKS proxy to be on the VPN.

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Here is another idea to split your “VPN“ and “non VPN“ activity. - Use a virtual machine with a system wide VPN.

Outside the VM do all the activity that is linked to your identity, like banking. Protect yourself from nosy third parties just with ad blockers and DNS filters there.

Inside the VM where you have system wide VPN, do everything that should not be linked to your identity, like writing pots in some unsavory forum, watching po… politics, pi… piloting copyrighted content and meeting up with your ha … harmless friends.

Use the Tor Browser outside or even better inside your VM to really stay anonymous when you resurch sensitive topics like illness, debt and other issues you would be “downgraded“ for.

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Oh, I should also have added that with the default in the VPN setup you can setup different account containers to use both the local SOCKS proxy to go around the VPN (as described in the other thread) and use the Mullvad SOCKS proxies inside the VPN for multi-hop. You can then set certain sites to always open in a particular container (and, therefore, use a particular proxy). And of course in addition to the SOCKS proxy you can also still start other programs with mullvad-exclude if you want their traffic to be outside the VPN.

Even with this setup I still use a tiered approach where I use Firefox with the outside the VPN proxy for stuff that doesn’t work well with the VPN (usually because the site tries to block VPNs) but is already tied to my real identity anyway, the default inside the VPN setting for most things, multi-hop for more sensitive stuff that I want tied to a persistent (generally pseudonymous) identity, and then there are options like Mullvad browser (with multihop) and Tor browser for even more sensitive stuff.