I’ve heard of several different ones that track and report even when they say they don’t.
or would I be best to just to just set up my own in a cloud?
Depends on your goal. Mullvad and Proton are usually quite well respected. Privacy Guides has a good write up on the options.
Depends on what you need it for and where you live.
For example if you live in a country, where your ISP is NOT legally allowed to sell your data to third-parties, then the need for a VPN is honestly not much. Yes they will give it to law enforcememts, but to most people it’s not a great risk, since they can only see the websites you are connecting to.
If you need it for torrenting “linux isos” then basically any VPN will do with a good connection. Unless it’s directly owned by someone who really wants you to pay for those “linux isos” it doesn’t really matter which one you use, since it’s really hard to figure out what “isos” you’re torrenting even if they see all your activity.
If you need it to get trough region locks then a littlebit more secure VPN would be good, but it still doesn’t have to be that great.
If you want to have “true privacy” however, then your only real option is in fact deep/dark web routing, for example TOR. But that comes with the cost of low internet speed.
Now there are VPNs as well, but it’s impossible to say what they will do with the data you are sending trough them, even via third-party audits. They probably have at least a few days to hide anything before that audit comes even near thier servers and they could even have mechanisms to fool them.
A good thing to keep in mind is that most VPNs that have a ton of adverts everywhere are almost always spywere or at the very least lying about how secure they are. I would say Mullvad is the one that seems the most secure so far, but I have to state, that I don’t have any experince with it, I only heard it from people I think are reliable.
Setting up your own VPN:
Undoubtedly the most secure option, but you have to keep a few things in mind.
First of all the cloud provider should be a trusted one, goes without saying. They are much safer than VPN companies in a sense that thier service model probably has nothing to do with collecting your data since 99 precent of
people don’t use thier service to set up a VPN. Then you have to keep in mind that surpassing region locks is limited to the country you rented the VPS in (which is preferably not your own).
If you want to use it for torrenting try to find a country which doesn’t implement the DMCA laws (Netherlands I guess).
And finally doing shady stuff: just don’t. If anyone wants to figure out who you are by your IP, you probably signed up to the cloud provider with your real name, or at least you are connecting to your home-made VPN with your real IP address. In that sense a cloud provider IS less secure than a good VPN, because it’s very improbable they will defend you against the feds.
So for that TOR remains. Or even better just don’t do any of that at all.
Conclusion: Mullvad or Self-made.
Conclusion 2: that took a lot more time to write than I initially expected and half of it is borderline off-topic.
Check to see if they are independently audited by a reputable 3rd party, they usually are clear about that. If they are then a report will be available.
Can’t go wrong with any of Mullvad, Windscribe, IVPN, OVPN, and CryptoStorm in my opinion.
Your own. I use Proton for day to day stuff, and am very happy with it. But there’s nothing like having your own that you KNOW you control, are the only one using it, and are the only one who sees the logs.
I’ve never had much trouble with Nord VPN. Taken from the wiki page: “NordVPN operates under the jurisdiction of Panama, as the country has no mandatory data retention laws and does not participate in the Five Eyes or Fourteen Eyes intelligence sharing alliances. Its offices are located in Lithuania, the United Kingdom, Panama and the Netherlands.[11]”
Just make sure that you’re logged in before you use the internet. It could be the amount of devices I’ve logged into it with, but every so often it logs me out without me knowing (luckily not when I’m in the middle of using it), and forces me to log back in before it works again.
Host your own Wireguard VPN…
The other comments in this thread are better advice for recommendations but I came to say don’t self host your own, that will most likely achieve the exact opposite effect of what you’re looking for and will not protect for s you for any kind of piracy or the like
I’ve been using Surfshark passed couple of years never have an issue and can use the same account on PCs phones etc
In my country, none. Recently government asked all VPN providers to store access logs for at least 5 years. I don’t know why would anyone use those if they are under such a strict radar.
None of them, they are unnecessary and their ads are just misleading
I’m using CyberGhost at the moment but once my subscription is up, I’m going to try a new one. What is your budget and what will you primarily be using it for?
I’m currently living in China and the only two vpns that I know that work well here are ExpressVPN and Astrill.
Has anyone used Surfshark?
Your own VPN, on your own private server
No matter the VPN, just don’t be evil
Nordvpn. It’s located in a good country, it’s cheap, no logs, and it’s been tested/audited for no logs many times.
If you google for the best von, unfortunately expressvpn will be the most recommended. I believe that this is just because they have a better referral program so posters/websites will recommended them solely on that.
Make your own one. Rent a server in some random country and link it all there. Will give you much bigger control over what’s going on and the privacy. For example you can get alright server from hetzner in Germany for like 3 Euro. Will do the job
I’m surprised no one here suggest WeVPN.