any feedback from users of the mentioned services?
PIA works good for me so far. (2 month user, never used a vpn before)
Donât really see a slowdown on âstandardâ residential TWC here in San Diego.
FYI⌠the FBI controls or owns many of the servers that VPN companies operate under.
I donât know specifically what companies so itâs a âuse at your own riskâ scenario.
They generally donât give a rats ass about music pirates, so if thatâs your game I wouldnât stress too much.
PIA user for almost 2 years now. Zero complaints, 100% reliable and outstanding technical support. Easy to use on any device and the technical help available on their website will walk you thru setup from a simple PC connection all the way to embedded OpenVPN service on your DD-WRT compatible router.
Can remain completely anonymous if you want to depending on the form of payment. best thing to say about PIA is No Logging. Ever!
As to concerns about NSA/FBI/CIA, etcâŚlook, if you think that using a commercial VPN service to do some real nefarious and illegal shit is going to protect you then youâre probably too stupid to be doing that shit in the first place and deserve to get caught.
Iâm another PIA user. Great speeds and decent latency (I play League of Legends with no discernible lag spikes).
My only real complaint is that huge tracts of the Internet have gone on anti-VPN crusade, so (for example) now I canât access Netflix (even domestically) without shutting it off. Which I donât. Because thatâs what my AppleTV is for.
But thatâs not PIAâs fault either.
I started out using BlackVPN, but access to their US and UK servers never seemed to work. I switched to PIA and found it was just as good, just as private and way, way easier to set up. However, I started having issues connecting to various sites - Netflix told me to turn off my VPN (um, no) and other sites required CAPTCHA style logins just to connect. After two months, Iâve switched to PrivateVPN. So far, theyâre probably the most tedious to set up (on a mac,) but have the speeds and security of PIA and BlackVPN, their US and UK servers work and I can access Netflix again.
Iâve only been using a VPN for about 8 months. If accessing Netflix is important to you, Iâd think twice about PIA. However, I do think itâs a great provider, and thatâs a great deal. What you really want to do is check out TorrentFreakâs list of VPNs that take your anonymity seriously.
PIA for almost 3 years, use for 8+ hours a day on nearly all my devices. Went with them because 1) all of the rave reviews, 2) many investigations and breakdowns of their safety/security practices, and 3) they accept gift cards for payment, which is pretty damn anonymous, since you can buy those with cash. They are good for general safety, but if some foreign regime or letter agency is after you, Iâm sure there are better (more expensive) choices. Best damn technology service Iâve ever paid for.
I donât know if itâs ISP throttling of plain traffic or something, but my internet is faster when I turn on PIA/VPN. Consistently amazing speeds, tons of server options, easy setup for any OS (lots of documentation), and maybe 2 glitches the entire 3 years. Each loss of connection lasted around 30 seconds, which meant that all I needed to do was disconnect and reconnect, and it was fine again. Totally recommended.
Though pay attention to what @auximines says below about anti-VPN measures on certain sites. Along with what they mention, Iâve also had certain YouTube videos refuse to load, and lots of TV network sites. But since I donât Netflix over VPN, and I donât need to see the few blocked YouTube music videos, it doesnât really affect me.
The Netflix blocking must be rather recent as I did not have any trouble switching between Canada and US Netflix sites a few months ago. Admittedly though I havenât bothered to try it in the past 3-4 months so itâs possible they started checking for known VPN server IPs.
Not sure if using PIA in conjunction with an anonymizer and proxy can bypass their checks. Need to check out the PIA forums.
Edit: Looks like Netflix is cracking down on bypassing geo-restictions- https://torrentfreak.com/netflix-announces-crackdown-on-vpn-and-proxy-pirates-160114/
Yeah, it was a couple of months ago. It looks like they are blacklisting by IP addresses, so, in theory, any affected VPN could change their servers and get new IP addresses and itâll go back to working again.
I was less annoyed by the blocking of Netflix (although, usually, I was using a server in my country, so it was pretty obvious that I wasnât trying to get around their region locking) than the CAPTCHA-style BS to access other sites. I was learning how to read âenter the text belowâ in more and more languagesâŚ
I like this sevice a lot:
i think iâve read that PIA is the best VPN but the offer only lasts for the next 4 days and i hate getting rushed. i also wish they had at least a 7 day free trial as my experience with VPNs is that they are slow death as far as slowing your internet connection. as for all these services, why the large discounts? will they even be around for length of your subscription?
on a side note i download torrents using filestream.me which seems to provide great anonymity for that activity.
PIA has been around for a while, and gets good reviews on the Wilders Security Forums. Bandwidth slowdown is a real issue, and different VPNs seem to excel for different routes, so you canât tell without trying your preferred app on the VPN. (I really liked my old VPN, but the latency to the UK became unacceptable so I switchedâŚthough not to PIA.)
Holy crapâŚa BB Store ad for VPNs that not only eschews ridiculous hyperbole, but also has actual useful products?
Hear good things about most of these providers, although PIA is based in America - whether that is important probably depends on how paranoid you are.
VPNs: for when you absolutely positively have to send that postcard from your cardboard shack to another by armored vehicle.
BoingBoingâs $39 offer for lifetime proXPN seemed like the ticket and I bought it. Whatâs the reality?
My Time Warner internet is 50Mps download - proXPN mostly delivers 2-12Mps. If I experiment, connecting to their different servers (Chicago, NYC, Miami,) especially during âoffâ hours it can jump to 36Mps, but checking download speed again a few minutes later usually shows itâs back at the 2-12Mps speed. Their tech support dances around the truth of what is actually going on. Their software canât just launch the service on booting without the app launching also. Itâs got an option to launch without the app but that doesnât work.
50Mps yeilds 2-3Mps service. I wish Iâd known.
So I would fork over 250 USD, and in return I promise to channel all my traffic through a certain provider for five years? I donât think so. Itâs like buying a lock from the guy who likes to linger in your apartment buildingsâ stairway.
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