This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/jailbreak by /u/Tiocfaidh-Allah on 2024-05-22 14:24:32+00:00.

So I’ve been using TetherMe for about a decade, and it’s been wonderful. But the catch has been that in order to mask the hotspot use (at least on Verizon), you have to use a VPN. You either have to pay for a VPN, which offsets the savings of having a cheaper mobile plan, or use a free VPN which tends to have slower speeds, less privacy, and is often plagued with Captcha’s and blocking.

But I recently found a way to avoid ALL of the downsides of VPN masking: NordVPN’s MeshNet

It’s a fairly new feature from NordVPN, but basically it allows you to use your home computer as a VPN server for free. You don’t need a paid subscription. It takes about 10 seconds to set up in the NordVPN Mac/Windows app. And despite TetherMe being fairly finicky with VPNs, MeshNet works perfectly. From a website’s perspective, all your traffic comes from your home WiFi, which means no Captcha’s and no streaming issues. From your carrier’s perspective, it looks like all your hotspot traffic comes from the phone.

The only catch is you’re limited by your home internet’s upload speeds. So if you have Comcast you’re SOL — even their highest tier plans tend to have just 14mbps upload. But if you have Verizon or virtually any non-Comcast fiber internet, you can get 500mbps+ speeds and lower pings than many paid VPNs for free.

I know there have always been ways to use home computers as VPN servers, but NordVPN’s MeshNet makes it much much simpler to set up. And I haven’t seen anyone here mention it before. MeshNet also uses the superior WireGuard-based NordLynx protocol compared to most DIY VPNs that tend to use OpenVPN protocol.