GL-AR750S VPN comparisons

lostdog · 2018-09-04T01:38:38.761Z

I’m having a chance to put the AR750S through some comparisons…

At home in the US I have an OpenVPN and a Shadowsocks server running on my router. I’ve also got a Wireguard server on a computer in my home network (my router does not support Wireguard).

The internet speed (tested by Speedtest.net) at my hotel in Taiwan is 22.01 Mbs down / 20.40 Mbs up.

OpenVPN: 2.9 Mbs down / 7.47 Mbs up
Shadowsocks: 14.1 Mbs down / 6.37 Mbs up
Wireguard: 6.19 Mbs down / 1.59 Mbs up

In this scenario, the clear winner is Shadowsock. I will admit however that I’m very new to Wireguard and I don’t know if there are things I can do to improve it’s performance. I’ve repeated the speed test several times and have similar results each time.

How secure is Shadowsocks? I read online that it’s meant to obscure your browsing to get through firewalls (made for the Great Firewall) but not to be a VPN solution and protect your data. Is this correct? What I saw was people using a shadowsocks tunnel for OpenVPN. Since Shadowsocks gives me the best performance I’d like to use that for now but I want to make sure my data is safe between the AR750S and my router at home.

Thoughts on any of the above?

alzhao · 2018-09-05T10:08:47.495Z

Generally Wireguard has better throughput than Shadowsocks.
But as you link from Taiwan to US, seems Shadowsocks is a winner.
Shadowsocks is encrypted as well. It just obscure your data as https. Assume that the firewall let https data goes well so that maybe a reason shadowsocks performs better.

lostdog · 2018-09-08T01:43:50.274Z

Thank you for the comments Alzhao.

When using Shadowsocks and the standard settings on the router I find that I have a DNS leak. Are there Advanced Settings that I need to use to prevent the DNS leak? No problems found with either OpenVPN or Wireguard… Only Shadowsocks has the leak.

Thank you!

alzhao · 2018-09-08T08:20:59.748Z

Just enable custom DNS or DNS over TLS

kyson-lok · 2018-09-09T08:39:54.322Z

Please enable Cloudflare dns on Advanced DNS page, custom dns doesn’t fix dns leak yet.

lostdog · 2018-09-10T01:52:14.131Z

I’ve started using the Advanced DNS Cloudflare and it’s working great.

Would it be possible to have you bake Shadowsocks in to the firmware so it does not need to be installed after an upgrade? That would be wonderful! I use all three depending on performance.

Thank you!

alzhao · 2018-09-10T01:57:29.155Z

Even you need to reinstall them you old settings are reserved, right?

SS is something to tried to avoid in our firmware due to problems in China.

lostdog · 2018-09-10T02:08:00.784Z

Here’s a performance update from a hotel in Shanghai (again, all connecting to my server in the US).

OpenVPN: 4.67 Mbs down / 2.89 Mbs up
Shadowsocks: 4.69 Mbs down / 2.09 Mbs down
Wireguard: (could not connect… looks like the server I used for this went down)

lostdog · 2018-09-10T02:10:41.824Z

@alzhao

Yes, i have the old setting reserved but the installed packages get deleted during the upgrade. All the setting files are still there but not the shadowsocks packages themselves. Once I re-install it’s ready to work because settings files remain.

lostdog · 2018-09-11T02:19:53.978Z

Had someone at home power on my server so I am now able to get three data points!

From a hotel in Shanghai, all measurements taken within a few minutes…

OpenVPN: 3.58 Mbs Down / 2.64 Mbs Up
Shadowsocks: 4.73 Mbs Down / 2.31 Mbs Up
Wireguard: 4.74 Mbs Down / 3.00 Mbs Up

As expected, OpenVPN is the slowest of the group. Shadowsocks and Wireguard are neck and neck in performance.

I love the AR750S!!! It’s been rock solid this whole trip!

alzhao · 2018-09-12T04:39:07.014Z

Thanks for sharing @lostdog, this is acceptable speed from Shanghai to your own server.