I considered posting in r/VPN but figured the focus of my query is really privacy over general VPN usage.
I’ve tried a few over the years and long story short many of the big names have questionable ownership including or ore specifically NordVPN prompting a refresh of tools. Aside from setting up my own on a VPS, I was looking at Mullvad and iVPN.
For me no logs is key as well as servers outside 14 eyes should I need them. Crypto payment is also a bonus but not essential and clear ownership info important. Wondered what you had each discovered and found beneficial?
You’re going to find that many in r/VPN will just spruik whatever they are using, because of the desire for self validation.
Additionally you’re going to find many sites (all the ones I’ve seen), operate with referrals which means they make money from referring you to specific VPN providers.
PrivacyTools has no referral program, so our recommendations are unbiased and according to the criteria.
I wouldn’t concern yourself too much with the “5/10/14 eyes” agreement. Use encryption to the services you access. A VPN regardless of where it operates/has servers is no substitute for this.
It’s really a marketing point these days now that most sites are operating on https. Additionally it doesn’t consider some governments that are not a part of the “eyes” may actually be worse for privacy. Surveillance is everywhere.
We are in the process of redefining that requirement. Really the only case where it matters is where a provider holds your data unencrypted. In those cases you should choose a country with good privacy legislation as opposed to trying to not select a bad one.
Mullvad and IVPN are the best hands down. It’s important to note though, VPNs offer no real privacy or anonymity despite their claims. All that VPNs do is hide your traffic from your ISP, nobody else.
I’ve used Mulvad for about a year, its really good and really well priced.
But, I swapped yesterday to Perfect Privacy. For some reason AdAway stopped working for me on my phone a few weeks back, so I wanted a VPN with built in Ad Blocker.
Only used this new VPN for a day or so, but so far so good and seen zero ads system wide. Its twice the price of Mulvad though, so horses for courses.
Edit: PP has tracking blocking as well from FB and other social media, if you don’t use them (I don’t use fb so the tracking blocker is good for me). You can also block Google, but that more or less breaks the internet!!