Glad you're on Nostr! What about for someone residing in China? Would you say these guides still hold true? Haven't read yet in case your answer is, "oh China is a special case, you'd need xyz solution instead"
A privacy guide series we recently wrapped up details the steps for self-auditing your VPN.
It's a fairly technical series, but if you rely on a commercial VPN for privacy - no matter the provider - we recommend taking the time to work through these steps. That will help you verify that your VPN connection is working as intended, there are no leaks, and that your provider implemented important features like firewall and forward secrecy properly.
In part one, we cover the initial setup, including installing WireShark for packet capture and analysis. You'll also learn to gather necessary details on your VPN's server, protocol, and port: https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/self-audit-series-part1/
In part two, we show how to verify the details of a WireGuard VPN connection, including checking for leaks. This guide includes verification of v2Ray obfuscation and post-quantum resistant encryption: https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/self-audit-series-part2/
Part three we do the same for OpenVPN and also discuss checking firewall effectiveness and perfect forward secrecy implementation: https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/self-audit-series-part3/
Have you gone through these guides and have feedback or questions? You know what to do.
Discussion
These checks are doable in any network scenario, they were created for universal usage. These guides also include checking for proper obfuscation implementation (obfs and v2ray), which is specifically helpful in restrictive environments like China. Of course Chinese firewall conditions might prevent you to progress at certain steps. On the other hand, our key focus with IVPN is not censorship circumvention that's why we don't manually test/QA from within China.
Thanks for answering