First of all, I am not sure where to post this, so if it is in the wrong place, feel free to move it and I apologize for the pain caused.
Browsing the boards lately I've seen a LOT of confusion between VPN and VPS. It might only be typo errors, but better safe than sorry. One is about hosting, the other one about hiding his tracks on internet.
Hosting related
A Virtual Private Server is a place where you host your websites. To make it simple, it is big server (dedicated server) that is separated in multiple smaller virtual server (thanks to virtualization technologies). Hosting companies rent those places. It is totally hosting related.
Basic hosting plan are shared server: you can only host files, and run some cron jobs, if you want to add some programs (ie: unzip, unrar for managing archived files) you'll have to ask your hosting company to do it for you. Most of the tome they won't install any specific program. They just provide basic hosting related stuff: perl, php, etc.
Then you have VPS which are "better, faster and stronger" than shared hosting. When you rent a VPS, you can install ANYTHING (as along as you respect TOS or are not caught) you want into it. You are provided with a SSH access. This SSH access allows you to manage your system via command line. You are root, which means you can do anything on the VPS. You can install any software, create any script, you can even break it. However since VPS are part of a bigger server, you don't own the full hardware for yourself. You share the hardware with other customer and get only a defined part of resources (lets say 1024mb ram, 2ghz CPU, 100mbtis bandwidth). Most of time you have what you pay for, but sometimes resources are poorly managed and you can have less than what you paid for, or it can feel slower than the same dedicated hardware (this can be seen mainly on Windows VPS for xrumer / scrapebox boxes). Please alos note that sometimes VPS can be slowed down if someone hosting another VPS (on the same dedicated server than you) run some programs that uses resources outside of the VPS... It is pretty rare and the user would get banned quickly but it happens.
Finally, there are dedicated server. Like a VPS you have a SSH root access, and can do anything you like with your server. However this fime you don't share the hardware. You rent the full computer and you are sure to get what you paid for. It is of course more expensive, but it is way better if you need a heavy box.
Now the VPN, which is about browsing internet anonymously.
A Virtual Private Network is a way to browse internet without revealing your IP address, hence anonymously. Technically, your computer (or router, see ddwrt on google) connects to an remote PC with an encrypted connection (allways use openVPN, and flee pptp vpn). Then this remote computer (the VPN) browse the web, pull your email, scrapes stuff, with his own IP.
This process is totally transparent for the end user (it only adds a few ms of latency and decrease your connection by very small amount due to encryption) and allows you a total anonymity on internet. In some point, this is better than proxies, because whatever you do, you are allways behind the VPN, whatever the port or the application is, with no setup, you are protected!
However, if you go scraping, or mass commenting, you wand to prefer multiple proxies. Multiple proxies = multiple IP,a nd proxies are like napkins. Use them, once they are busted / blacklisted, change them! The VPN only has one IP for all the customers... once you blacklist it, you have to find a new VPN provider.
In short:
Tricky points:
Hope it helps.
Browsing the boards lately I've seen a LOT of confusion between VPN and VPS. It might only be typo errors, but better safe than sorry. One is about hosting, the other one about hiding his tracks on internet.
Hosting related
A Virtual Private Server is a place where you host your websites. To make it simple, it is big server (dedicated server) that is separated in multiple smaller virtual server (thanks to virtualization technologies). Hosting companies rent those places. It is totally hosting related.
Basic hosting plan are shared server: you can only host files, and run some cron jobs, if you want to add some programs (ie: unzip, unrar for managing archived files) you'll have to ask your hosting company to do it for you. Most of the tome they won't install any specific program. They just provide basic hosting related stuff: perl, php, etc.
Then you have VPS which are "better, faster and stronger" than shared hosting. When you rent a VPS, you can install ANYTHING (as along as you respect TOS or are not caught) you want into it. You are provided with a SSH access. This SSH access allows you to manage your system via command line. You are root, which means you can do anything on the VPS. You can install any software, create any script, you can even break it. However since VPS are part of a bigger server, you don't own the full hardware for yourself. You share the hardware with other customer and get only a defined part of resources (lets say 1024mb ram, 2ghz CPU, 100mbtis bandwidth). Most of time you have what you pay for, but sometimes resources are poorly managed and you can have less than what you paid for, or it can feel slower than the same dedicated hardware (this can be seen mainly on Windows VPS for xrumer / scrapebox boxes). Please alos note that sometimes VPS can be slowed down if someone hosting another VPS (on the same dedicated server than you) run some programs that uses resources outside of the VPS... It is pretty rare and the user would get banned quickly but it happens.
Finally, there are dedicated server. Like a VPS you have a SSH root access, and can do anything you like with your server. However this fime you don't share the hardware. You rent the full computer and you are sure to get what you paid for. It is of course more expensive, but it is way better if you need a heavy box.
Now the VPN, which is about browsing internet anonymously.
A Virtual Private Network is a way to browse internet without revealing your IP address, hence anonymously. Technically, your computer (or router, see ddwrt on google) connects to an remote PC with an encrypted connection (allways use openVPN, and flee pptp vpn). Then this remote computer (the VPN) browse the web, pull your email, scrapes stuff, with his own IP.
This process is totally transparent for the end user (it only adds a few ms of latency and decrease your connection by very small amount due to encryption) and allows you a total anonymity on internet. In some point, this is better than proxies, because whatever you do, you are allways behind the VPN, whatever the port or the application is, with no setup, you are protected!
However, if you go scraping, or mass commenting, you wand to prefer multiple proxies. Multiple proxies = multiple IP,a nd proxies are like napkins. Use them, once they are busted / blacklisted, change them! The VPN only has one IP for all the customers... once you blacklist it, you have to find a new VPN provider.
In short:
- everyday browsing = VPN,
- comments, xrumer / scrapebox = proxies,
- Shared hosting / VPS / Dedicated = hosting solution (from the weakest/cheapest to the strongest/more expensive).
Tricky points:
- You can install a VPN on your VPS and then fake the IP and Country location of your server... but this is not really useful.
- You want to install Scrapebox on a Windows VPS (or dedicated server if you need huge resources) and use proxies.
Hope it helps.
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