Since many of you look for recommendations for specific providers, we’re going to make this megathread. It’s a chance for you to ask for or recommend your favorite provider.
You must mention at least a couple of reasons why you prefer it. Do not just list VPN features that are common knowledge. Explain why you chose it personally. Comments that are simply mentioning the name are not allowed. No links to VPN provider websites, aff links, or review sites. No shilling, or you’ll get banned.
You might also want to visit our Comparison table where we add new providers each week. Could potentially find a provider that ticks most of your boxes.
The thread is still going to be looked after by moderators. If we see a lot of abuse or pure shilling it will be deleted.
Nord is the best for netflix and streaming since it has so many ips and geos available
You can learn sooo much about a company based on where it’s incorporated
Any company based in England is a NO-GO because many crooks go there to hide behind their strict libel laws to the point it’s called “libel tourism”
Panama (Nord) is based far enough from USA that they don’t have to turn over data to 14 eyes. But close enough that the FTC will still step in if they are using deceptive advertising, or billing practices. Pretty much all VPN’s don’t store logs, but virgin islands are always in some sort of corruption scandal.
Globe News Wire has a good piece on the best VPN’s and I believe they list where they’re based
Used VPNs for 4+ years, tried a few free trials, for long term I chose NordVPN, and used Proton VPN before that cause I use their mail.
Here’s my personal experience with NordVPN, I understand it might be different for different users, anw:
I literally can unlock US Netflix by choosing a server in the US in Brave browser Nord extension, and all I have to do is refresh Netflix page. Unlocked Twin Peaks in 10 seconds, one of the best shows on Netflix!
This VPN is super fast, I know speeds can be different maybe in other geographical areas, idk, but what I get is ~10% speed drop MAX, and they released new faster NordLynx protocol last year, so for streaming which I use a lot it just works without any speed issues.
IMHO there are lots of nice VPNs there but for me personally NordVPN just has it all packed, great thread too!
I have instructions (step by step text and video) for deploying wireguard+pihole+dns over https automatically in a cloud provider (or raspberry pi, or ubuntu server).
Clouds supported (you pick): aws, azure, digital ocean, google cloud, oracle cloud, scaleway. There is a discord (see github page) if you have questions/ideas.
edit:
Worth mention - a lot of these cloud providers offer some kind of free trial - e.g. credits for a few months, a small amount of always free storage. The default settings for the project tries to best utilize the free tiers. With that said:
Oracle has an always-free tier that include a small server - just large enough to run this project.
Oracle’s always-free tier also includes 10TB of data transfer per month.
DigitalOcean’s smallest droplet includes 1TB of data transfer per month.
Scaleway is based in the EU (GDPR compliant, not under CLOUD Act), no data transfer limit (AFAIK).
Google has an always-free tier that includes a small server too (like Oracle), but has a smaller amount of memory and is limited to the US regions, but also does not include a large amount of data transfer (only 1 GB).
I’d like to warn against a provider; www.privateinternetaccess.comI signed up in Dec 2021, they didn’t meet my speed needs. Three months later I’m still trying to cancel and get refunds.
The best VPN is the one that you setup and manage yourself, however not everyone has the technical know how.
I run my own service for expats in China (Unleashed VPN). I can trust it because I manage it myself so I’m assured of no logging. I get decent speeds, no DNS leaks and can unlock geolocked content.
Don’t bother looking for a website for my service because you won’t find one, I intentionally don’t have one to avoid detection by the great firewall, my customers all find me by word of mouth only.
Proton. Its a good simple UI and lots of servers to choose from even during rush hours i get good speeds. Has ability to connect to multiple servers to spoof your location. So yea good enough. Logging is whatever since if anyone really wants to do that to you, they will.
Currently on HotspotShield since it seems to win most reviewers’ speed tests. Can confirm it’s solid on my gigabit. Was previously on ExpressVPN, no complaints.
I’m dropping PIA. I have to turn it off to use any streaming services, it constantly loses connection to the server and regularly slows my gigabit connection to < 10Mbits / sec. This is true across multiple devices and was even true when using different connections (back when I used to go to client sites).
I don’t trust any of the review sites, since all of them seem to list PIA as one of the top 5 VPN providers, and I know from experience that they suck.
Not considering cost (they’re all cheap for what they do), would you use SurfShark, Hotspot Shield, or NordVPN?
(Apologies if this counts as “asking for recommendations”, but I don’t know how else to ask this question.)
Mostly, choose based on features and service and reliability.
Trying to guess “trustworthiness” or “not logging” is a losing game. You never can be sure, about any product or service. Even an audit or court case just establishes one data point.
So, instead DON’T trust: compartmentalize, encrypt, use defense in depth, test, verify, don’t post private stuff, maybe don’t do illegal stuff. And give fake/anon info where possible: fake name, throwaway or unique email address, pay with gift card or virtual credit card or crypto or cash.
You can use a VPN, ISP, bank, etc without having to trust them.
Saying “If they’re based in country X they must be good/bad” also is pretty fuzzy.
So, choose based on features and service and reliability, and reports about those.
I use Hotspot Sheild As My Main VPN Provider Because It Has Its Own Protocol That’s Faster Than The Most Commonly Used OpenVPN . It Has The Ability To Watch Netflix Without Being Blocked Sine The Protocol Is New And Its Far Away Regions (etc China) Are Still Very Fast
Looking to subscribe to my first VPN service, looking for recommendations. I understand that “free” isn’t the way but I also dont want something expensive.
Hey, looking if there is something that would fit my needs. I have a limited need of VPN, so I would like if I could tell it to only filter specified websites or programs. So that everything else works unaffected but the listed websites/programs are secured by a vpn.
I need a good VPN for gaming and bypassing restricted mode on my college wifi. A couple of buddies and I want to game in our college hostel, but the college wifi restricts gaming and so without a VPN, we can’t connect to the game servers.
We are around 6-7 people (depends if anyone decides to opt out later) so we need a VPN that supports those many devices at least, and has good, reliable and fast Indian servers. We’re also not looking to shell out too many bucks, so a budget option would be excellent.
Again, we’re not getting superfast 1Gbps internet speed either, so a VPN that doesn’t reduce speed by too much is all we need. Currently we’re looking at Surfshark because its 2 year plan is quite affordable for us, but the unlimited accounts makes us worried that other people might find out the password and leech off of us. Thus, Cyberghost is looking to be the next best option right now, but I’ve been hearing that it’s slow and laggy, so I’m not sure.
Should we go for Cyberghost or Surfshark? Or, if there are any better options, please let me know! Thank you so much!
I was in /piracy reading up about what vpn i should get.
all the guides and comparisons where old or missing and the wiki was gone too. So, i decided to post my question there ( text at bottom ) but it got removed and was told to post in /vpn.
Ok, did that… got removed and was told to post here
So, here goes!
I’m sorry to ask this question, but when I follow the guide in the megathread of /piracy i get sent to non existent wiki’s and guides/tips/reviews of 2 years old.
I’m looking for a good vpn, mainly for torrenting and streaming. But the only info i did manage to find is that when you google “good vpn” all you see is ads.
Maybe the kind people of /vpn can guide me in the right direction.
My location is the Netherlands by the way.
Any help is appreciated. Yell at me, name your favorite vpn, point me to guides / comparisons. It’s all good!
I used PIA for a couple of years but grew increasingly frustrated with the number of sites blocking it. Switched to Mullvad about 6 months ago and have been very happy. I get full 100MBPS throughput (no loss of line speed), encounter blocks very rarely, and it’s extremely stable.
My one issue is that I’d like to switch to Wireguard but Mullvad intercepts DNS with no option to get around it (which they provide with OVPN).
I was with IPVanish for a few years. No real complaints with them, just did not use it enough to justify the cost.
I’m with ProtonVPN now. Its included with my email service for my family. They have more features that IPVanish did, Secure Core and Netshield. I can’t recall the specifics of it all, but it is listed on their site. So far, my service with them is faster, but I have read complaints about their service that I have not experienced. They do have a free version that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles. I have found myself using their service more than I did when I was with IPVanish. Maybe because I feel more secure with the bells and whistles.
I use it mainly for protection when I do anything with finances, online shopping, logging into my bank account, etc… or if I am on a public network.
There is a subreddit for them as well.
I’m still in my learning phase for online privacy. Hope that helps…
