What are /r/vpnreviews' favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

I've had issues with NordVPN before too, but tbh if you're unsure you can just start the 30 day free trial and use it for a month before you commit (same with ExpressVPN, PureVPN etc.) That is the best thing to do -

It's hard to look at this "proofs" and believe that it's true when all the information comes from competitors. It looks like instead of improving their own service, just talk shit about other VPNs and try to push them out of the market. I understand that the VPN market is really competitive but doing this won't bring them anything good. This guy here is also a shill for Torguard (he says he is not but just look at his history and his websites). I personally find it very shady. People are trying continuing milking this story when Proton very clearly came forward and explained this.

Their review system looks really dodgy. Out of sheer curiosity I’ve looked for the other VPN reviews, which have the best score. Some of them have obviously fake comments (same phrases over and over again, broken english, everything is with 5 stars etc.) NordVPN looks pretty good judging only by that context.

Nice review. Used to be in almost the exact same situation, contemplating between PIA and Mullvad.

The thing you don't really mention, is price. - Mullvad is €60 per year ($70?) - PIA is €34 per year ($40)

You state "both are cheap" but Mullvad is almost double the price compared to PIA.

Now this may not be a financial disaster for most people here, but considering long term usage of a good VPN, this may be significant, at least it was for me.

Say you're gonna use the vpn for another 10, or maybe 20, years. The prices would be the following, assuming the prices stay the same: -Mullvad €600 (10years) or €1200 (20 years) -PIA €340 (10years) or €680 (20years)

You can see where I'm getting at. (In dollars it would be about 10% higher.) It comes down to this question: do the advantages of Mullvad outweigh PIA's ridiculous price offer and reputation of good speeds? For me not. For others it could be. Hope this is of added value.

AirVPN is already marked as not logging traffic. Connection duration and bandwidth from your screenshot is real time connected, not long term stored. As soon as those users disconnect, they presumably drop off that list.

found it.

"CyberGhost was sold to Kape Technologies (formerly known as Crossrider Plc), an Isreali based ad tech company infamous for creating and distributing Malware."

yeah, i wouldn't use this vpn even if it were free.

I've been using NordVPN for about a year and for the most part it's alright. I really doubt that you will find a VPN that is universally good, this stuff depends on so many variables (your connection quality, device, location, server choice etc) so of course everyone has a different experience with it. Also various services (like Netflix) try to block VPNs so it's a constant game of cat and mouse.

Actually if you search in this sub & in /r/VPN for NordVPN you can find many threads of people having issues with both the service & the support from them. Even the review at is not stellar.
It's enough to keep me away personally.

Also the fact you posted 2 affiliate links tells me you are likely very biased.

>less than one month later changes are made to the VyprVPN pricing

If you were within the 30 days from the purchase I think you could ask for a full refund and subscribe again to the new plan. I know it's too late now and I'd feel very disappointed too by this reply.

>It is the account owners responsibility to remain informed of any changes/additions that are made to our service.

It's definitely a lapse of style and sounds a bit rude.

Well, Trustpilot seems to like removing the reviews. Once I've written a review about some other product (not NordVPN or any other VPN) and then I've received the news from them that it was fake? Kinda shocking, but whatever. Can't really trust them I think, they need to redesign their system.

One thing that annoyed me about ExpressVPN is that you could not change your email address with them. I had to contact their staff and specify the reason why I want my email address. They did it without too much hassle, but I found this rather odd none the less. Changing email should be standard practice for any service. That said, I didn't have any other complaints with them.

Eventually I changed over to Mullvad. But to be honest they are not that good in terms of speed. ExpressVPN was better in that respect.

Nice write up.

When picking a plan I was torn between PIA and Mullvad.

Picked Mullvad and love it, chose it because the the VPN guy basically signed off on it. There are many ways to pay for it but BTC is the easiest and you can just do month by month for $5 or whatever tiny fraction of a BTC it is. But you can also just pay whatever amount to them and it will do the math on how many days. Like I overpaid a little one month so I got 34 days instead of 30. You can pay my credit, debit, a bunch of other options even mail them cash. When you sign up you get a random number assigned to you for a short free trial then you can choose to pay. It's that simple to sign up they are "the VPN that doesn't want to get to know you" I can't remember if that's their saying or someone else's.

I have no rational basis or proof to back up my feeling but I do not trust Nord at all. Even if they are totally on the up and up, they are the biggest name with their constant commericals on TV, which makes them the biggest target for people or agencies to find a weakness to exploit. Plus all the places you would expect VPN ads, they also seem to always have the same "sale" price going on with different names like a furniture store. They really want you to use them.

Also they gave themselves a name which makes you think they operate out of a Scandinavian country with good privacy laws. When really they are in Panama.

Just my 2. I would have gone with PIA if I didn't go with Mullvad. Also if you go with PIA I know Linus's Tech Tips has them as an active sponsor so watch a video to get the coupon code.

Linus had advertised for Tunnelbear until they sold out, then PIA became the VPN sponsor. Nice to see Linus showing he had integrity.

Oh you have to be kidding. They are paying you far too little for these kinds of lies. AirVPN or any other VPN service is 1000 times better than PureVPN will ever be.

Everything is wrong with that corporation, starting with product and ending with marketing schemes.

"VPNSecure was directly identified in an academic paper for leaking IPv6 and DNS requests, which leaves its users exposed to “mass surveillance and malicious agents.” The same paper also noted that VPNSecure has a number of egress points in residential ISPs. This suggests that users are unknowingly being used as endpoints in a P2P-like bandwidth network – i.e. user bandwidth is being stolen (although the paper could not confirm this)." -from VPN Warning List

Thanks, I read that you're managing this sub yesterday through one of your cross posts to another sub and I wanted to write a review that would do the sub justice and I also noticed there were no other reviews of IVPN here either so it was a good opportunity.

Hey smrDave, I agree with you on AirVPN saying "no monitoring, nor logging of your online activity" they displaying session stat logging on their site as contradictory. Looking at those sessions, many have a session time of almost 3 weeks (presumably they're connected at a router level). That's a lot of info being kept. Why do they have a Nick column? It's like they're saying we have that info too. It's actually the reason I dropped them from my list.

But I don't agree with you on TOPG's spreadsheet being littered with 'personal opinion' in an attempt at bias. It's a handy resource to start with and asking the providers the question posed on each column yourself is a good way to gauge how worthy they might be for your business. But logging columns can't be trusted unless there is some 3rd party auditor to confirm the claims.

I find a good way to start weeding out worthy providers is asking "Do you keep logs, if so, what sorts of information is logged, how long is it stored for, is it backed up, etc" If they reply "No we don't keep any logs" I know they're lying & drop them off my list.

Of course the business if full of self promoting used car/snake oil salespeople so it's very hard to know if the info provided is correct or not.

Yeh NordVPN is probably the best VPN you can get at the moment, price wise and performance wise. Either that or ExpressVPn imo. You get a free trial with both too which is pretty sweet -

The reason people trash NordVPN is because they used so many affiliate reviewers (basically all the reviews were paid for) and because relatively recently people discovered that NordVPN was not based in Panama. I personally never had an issue with their service ,but after reading about both issues I decided the company was too sketchy for me.

Using an encrypted tunnel is always going to raise ping times & reduce throughput somewhat but that's an abnormally large hit you're reporting.

You get what you pay for in the VPN world. Try a monthly subscriptions with Perfect Privacy, or Windscribe. Test different exit nodes.

Make sure your router is up to date firmware & can handle a deluge of encrypted traffic.

ISP's (and governments) can use 'deep packet inspection' to determine what type of vpn traffic is passing even if they can't read it & consequently throttle or even block it. Top quality VPN providers like Perfect Privacy give you solutions to draconian measures but a performance hit goes with the territory of privacy.

Hope this helps.

I have also picked up Nord. To make it more clear my location is in Europe. First of all I've tried Express, but found their speed with US servers are terrible, the maximum I've managed to reach was around 7Mbps when my ISP speed is around 100Mbps. The second one was NordVPN, i pickup a 3 days free trial and after founding it have really good speeds and no problems with US Netflix streaming I've subscribed them also with 2 years plan for $79 ;coupon=VIPCODE there is also good deal in r vpncoupons for annual subscription

Mullvad doesn't use username and password authorization you have certificate auth so you need extra files as you say.

I think they're a pretty forward thinking company, look at their sign up process, it can be totally anonymous.

Give [Mullvad]() a try. That VPN keeps surprising me and the speed is just awesome, comes also with IPv6. I'm also currently with NordVPN but not the happiest costumer. I also tried iVPN, which is great but price wise Mullvad is just unbeatable. I would like to hear @ThatOnePrivacyGuy's opinion about Mullvad.

It's not recommended to use VPNs located in countries that are part of 5 eyes like the US. I've been a PIA user for 2 years and recently decided to switch. PIA has been great to me, speeds are fantastic but they're based in US.

I switched to AirVPN after some reading and so far it's okay-ish. I subbed for 3 months and I won't be renewing it. My usual speed is 70Mbps, PIA give me around 68Mbps, AirVPN gives me around 65 which isn't bad.

The issue is loading websites that used to take a couple of seconds takes forever on AirVPN. Also when I'm downloading stuff, the speed sometimes drops to like 800Kbps... err WTF. These are files I've downloaded before and have always been quick so I know it's AirVPN.

So far I've found the servers in Netherlands work best but I'll be trying out other VPNs to find the right one for me.

SWIM should either look for a VPN provider with a client that uses the integrated firewall in Mac OS X (PF) or make the rules himself to block all traffic that want's to bypass the VPN tunnel.

The one that I know that uses PF is AirVPN (it's called "networklock").

Also the modern day Scarface should be using TOR on top of his VPN, to fly as low as possible ;-). Because just a VPN will not make him fly very low.

Puh. 100 euros... I'm on NordVPN but don't experience any kind of problems to get the support. I only had one encounter with them about the OSX app, and why isn't it compatible with Mavericks, but other then that no problems whatsoever. I'll check out BlackVPN to compare it, but just wanted to add that Nord doesn't have problems oftenly.

NordVPN Christina here. Please note we do take customer concerns very seriously. If you feel you have been wronged - we insist that you contact us to conduct an escalated investigation. We are equally motivated to get to the bottom of this. Our apps get tested by thousands of beta testers before they go public. We are constantly adding new security features like the 'kill switch' because we are on your side when it comes to security and privacy protection. So please please do get in touch. Direct message here or via Facebook for an escalated investigation. Thank you.

• With TigerVPN Lite access to 15 nodes (full-priced VPN offers 61).
• 1 active connection allowed at any given moment (user must end an active session on one device before connecting to another)

The 15 nodes are a misnomer. You get access to all the important ones and these are really good nodes that I only see 5% reduction of my max ISP speeds, which is pretty standard for VPNs.

Check under specs for more details

I am not endorsing going via techdirt. It is just the second link when you google for "Tiger VPN Lite Lifetime". Feel free to go with any of these deal sites to get the deal.

You are missing quite a few. Off the top of my head, the following should be added: BlackVPN, VikingVPN, LiquidVPN, Mullvad, and CyberGhost. I am sure there are more though. I do realize that this is a top ten list, but some of the ones that you have chosen are guaranteed to not be in any top 10 list (HMA). I think for a little while, you should have all of the available VPN services listed, so you can narrow it down to the real top ten.

Go for r/Windscribe. They're pretty good, decent speeds and are the only VPN that offer a make your own plan, where you can pay just $2 every month for unlimited data plus ten free servers and an extra additional premium location of your choice OR pay $4 x 12 = $48 every year for all the servers which include the ten free one and about 50 countries with premium servers.

https://windscribe.com/status

The ones marked with the star are the premium servers. The rest are free ones, on which you get unlimited data when you pay $2 every month (or 10 GB every month if you're just trying it out and not paying).

This has been my worry with NordVPN - especially since they seem to be selling so hard right now. Loads of YT sponsored ads, internet ads, etc. And most of the recent reviews I’ve seen have matched yours (ie quality/speed dropped significantly to nearly unusable). To get good pricing, you have to commit to 3 year and a lot can happen in that time. Plus, they won’t work with Plex at all and they are adamant about that.

I've used PIA, PureVPN and Nord. Nord just never preformed well. I can connected with P2P, Dedicated IP, US, UK, Canada, etc, and it all seems to drag. This is on a PC which is hardwired to my router on a 100mbps connection and when I run tests with it off, I get around 95Mbps on fast, and speedtest gives me around 100Mbps, ran off my ISP's server, and even using I get an average of 75 and max of 85 Mbps, so my speeds are fine, in general. When I connected with NordVPN on a "recommended" US server or even if I mess around and pick various servers, I drop down to 20-30 Mpbs. It's a joke. With PIA, and PureVPN I saw very little issues with speed, on a US sever I might see 60-70 Mbps or so, which is fine. Furthermore, I hate Nords "client". I am old school, I just want to set it up PPTP or L2TP, but they do not offer that. I tried them twice, and once time I did a years sub, cancelled it after a month and I tried it again this year and so far it still sucks. When I load deluge and try to download an 10 Gb torrent at 2.0 Mbps, that is not acceptable. Sure they are "secure" but I need speed, and Nord just has never come through for me. PIA and Pure were good on that side of tracks, speed, even if you are worried about the "14 eyes" and logs, speed is still a primary concern for anyone using a VPN, so if you are looking for blazing fast speeds, do not pick Nord. Heck, with PureVPN or PIA I connected to Austarlia and streamed anime from Anime Lab at 720p and it ran flawlessly. NordVPN I can barley even load pages at times without switching to different servers.

Netflix is permanently working on blocking VPNs. They block the IP addresses of the VPN servers. Therefore the “best” VPN for Netflix would be one that a) adds additional servers (with new ip addresses) constantly or b) changes the IP addresses of their servers from time to time. NordVPN offers a free 7 day trial In general it does work with Netflix but not on every server because of the reason i mentioned before.

I have gone the opposite route - I switched from Mullvad to PIA and I am happy to be with PIA again. I had previously used PIA for several years, but I switched to Mullvad for a year. Mullvad is a good vpn, but the speeds were too slow for me. I should have never switched from PIA.

I use Mullvad and I'm happier with the service than all the other VPNs I've used in the past (PIA, , and VyprVPN). They're on the spendy side, but I always get great speeds and they have all the features I was wanting, namely top-notch privacy policies, US servers and P2P tolerance. They're totally a niche service, and they don't waste any time pretending to be otherwise, and their customer support will vouch for that.

If they fit your criteria, I'd say give them a shot. I pay by Bitcoin and get the 10% off, and there's no advantage to paying for a longer term of service so your sunk costs are almost nothing if it doesn't work as well for you. Hope this helps.

I use NordVPN because it has good speeds, it's based in Panama, and has no logs. Their PC app just got a new update making it even more polished and I THINK they updated their servers recently to allow a much higher user capacity because the server loads show as ~20% now compared to being around ~80-90% a little while ago.

If you do end up with NordVPN you HAVE to disable the IPv6 protocol on every device that uses NordVPN or else it will leak your IP. Be sure to do an IP leak test regardless of the decision you make.

There's no internet kill switch which is lame if the VPN disconnects. The app kill switch only activates if you disconnect manually, not if the VPN gets disconnected due to a connection error :|

Something else that's a little concerning to me about NordVPN is that they claim things like being "100% anonymous." Which it's not. Especially before you disable the IPv6 protocol.........

My opinion is that it's a really good VPN service but I'm left slightly suspicious because it seems too good to be true. I'm not an expert.

Additionally, their android app disconnects constantly for me but I think it has to do with a setting within android that causes the VPN to stop functioning after the phone goes to sleep.

I'm pretty tired so hopefully this post makes enough sense.

Yes unfortunately that is true. AirVPN staff is usually very rude and for the most part it feels like they only prefer to have 14 year old fanboys active in their forums.

I avoid them nowadays even if their service in itself is sort of ok at least.

No, this doesn't read like a sales pitch.

"High quality and attention to detail" - Except for their deplorable website. Obviously.

And you used one or maybe two servers. Plus your attested speeds couldn't be any more vague. This doesn't denote thorough experience with the service. Instead, it makes me question the validity of your intentions and methodology here.

Everything else you listed off can be gleaned from their promotional materials. Ex. "This VPN works great on Mac, iOS, Windows, etc." So you used it extensively on all four including "etc."? Hmmmm, okay. But how about some actual details.

What I got from this "review" is that you admit to barely testing BlackVPN, that you can parrot back a bunch of their marketing speak, that you needed to sound slightly neutral so you added a few cons about their website, oh and that you overpaid for this service based on your self-limited experience with it.

I'll stick with my VPN, thanks.

Mullvad: Looks more serious about privacy, and they clearly mention if court knocks their door, they will tell them that they can't cooperate because of strict no-logs policy.

Sweden is a 9eye country, however the jurisdiction of sweden about cyber things is way more better than most of the other countries around it. But again, not the best! But hey, no data retention!

Mullvad offers servers that are prioritized to be safe and secure rather than fast, so it can be slow at times as many people mention. For torrent, Mullvad and AirVPN are both excellent.

AirVPN: Perfect for torrent. They log bandwidth, timestamp of connection and is stored (not sure how long), this part already declares the anonymity on AirVPN is more below than Mullvad VPN where they have 0-info about you. It is truly 0-info!

AirVPN is perfect for torrenters, and it can be abused by those who torrent cuz airvpn is preferred by seeders or leechers. Choice of countries and servers is very nice on it, price is suitable (cheap) but heard their speed is not great too, decent we can say.

If i were you, if anonymity, transparency, privacy is highest priority, i would go with Mullvad VPN.

If geo-locations, server amount/country is what you look for mostly, is then AirVPN.

Both have no-logs, however AirVPN is logging when your account connects and how much bandwidth it consumed.

It is not possible to pinpoint a user by just these if there are many users in same server, so it is still safe and reliable.

Mullvad is more known for a reputable privacy-respecting vpn company.

Both are excellent.

If you want a super reliable, fast, solution for your Mac, I'd look into utilizing the built-in IKEv2 encryption with Perfect Privacy. It will definitely cost more than PIA, but it won't be a POS. For a Mac user, utilizing the built in IPSec/IKEv2 option will ensure your system is leak proof, as it is already integrated with your Firewall settings. Selecting "connect on demand" will force all Mac applications through the VPN. No hassle, no bugs, no leaks, no worries. Done. You can download the specific network configurations for the servers you want to use (or download everything) from Perfect Privacy, and then have one selected server always automatically connected. You can also see connection status at the top of your dashboard, too. It's the most reliable solution I've found for Mac so far, but it won't be cheap. You'll get IPv6 support too, which is rare for a VPN provider. Explained in detail here:

You can't. A government could but you can't.

It's kind of obvious that OP has no idea what he is talking about so it would not be too far off to assume that he just failed to set up NordVPN after failing to set up PIA.

They definitely seem to be. I use it for streaming and torrenting mostly, good speeds, easy to use. Quite cheap too, check r/vpncoupons if you decide on it, there's a thread with good deals

Mullvad has a great reputation among people who are really into VPN’s , and Confirmed (might be mac/iOS only) is open source and audited twice a year by an independent third party whose final report is posted prominently in Confirmed’s front page. So I’m convinced enough that it truly is no logs

1. TorGuard is a fine VPN. Jurisdiction really is not of a huge thing for P2P users (Unless it's Russia or China)
2. IPVanish Tom Spark does not push at all... I do not know where you got that from. Just look at his list, it is apparent that it is not a VPN he uses or trusts.

Any VPN with a 0 rep he never uses and does not suggest. (IPVanish has a 2.5 and I have yet to see him recommend them)

I also use TorGuard so there is that if you don't trust me don't... but from experience, TorGuard has served wonders and I have yet to get an actual DMCA request or even a DNS/IP leak.

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PIA and Mullvad are other providers inside the eyes and they are also wonderful services that are great for P2P/torrents. I am not sure why people really value jurisdiction if you are only doing P2P. If you are some spy or rapist or something then you should not be using any consumer product but rather Tails + Tor and more.

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I can understand something like IPVanish since they actually gave up logs... but TorGuard, PIA, and Mullvad have yet to give logs and PIA has even been proven to NOT give logs.

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EDIT: Jurisdiction is just a marketing tactic used by other providers to put the other down. I am more than happy to use a US, Canada, Sweden, and or Switzerland VPN and have done so and have yet to have issues. (All of which are in the 5, 9, or 14 eyes)

This is is something I noticed with pretty much all the popular VPN apps (Nord, CyberGhost, SurfShark, ExpressVPN, PrivateVPN, etc.)

You go to their websites and you’ll notice they all have pretty much the same template/layout, right down to the customer support chat options.

It’s as if they chose the same pre-made website template and just changed the colors and branding.

Have to agree with hearwa on this one, I've used PIA for 3 years, and even though it is a Five Eyes based VPN, never received any DMCA etc. But my software settings are so it's bound to the PIA ethernet adapter, and killswitch is also on. I plan to switch to a VPN that is out of 5/9/14 jurisdiction (probably ExpressVPN) soon, but the problems I've had with PIA have been the old shitty apps they had in the past, and a specific country's servers being inconsistent speed-wise. I actually do believe the company's claims about not logging (remember the F.B.I. thing etc.?) but it's still a huge risk because it's a 5 eyes country based company.

I have to doubt the settings your friend used though, I doubt they would risk their no logging policies for a petty DMCA case?

So what issue is it your actually having?

Whilst support always seem to down talk / extract information from you when you want to upgrade/enquiry about something, least in my questions, they have been nothing short of great for myself and actually answered my questions and also give me what I wanted. The only gripe I had was their '24.7 live chat' wasn't actually live when I tried to use it twice and was sent to email - maybe I caught them at a bad time or something, not the end of the world.

Only company I've seen people get 'banned' from forms etc was AirVPN.

Only other cons I have with torguard which aren't really that bad;
* They do nothing to set themselves apart from other VPNS out there - Though to me the market is now stale, There is really nothing new or exciting other than wireguard. Not really a con against torguard.

• you pay extra for a streaming IP 'Netflix' IP and only get one location whilst others are now offering this and more with-in their service and more locations at no extra cost
• They hardy at new servers - this could also be my issue as I don't watch their announcements etc
• Not the fastest out there for torrents or streaming but not the worse. Could be based on different factors like my speed etc..

Over all been happy with torguard and no real complaints with the service and the cons haven't been enough for me to go it's rubbish but different people different views. The good news with torguard is they always have their half price deal so can always leave and come back, I do have subs with other companies as well as I'm finding the best one for me but overall torguard is actually pretty good.

Nord VPN being another service I have I agree their support is good too.

As for PureVPN it's rubbish and wouldn't touch it. Their support is the same.

I did try NordVPN for a month or so and I think their servers are not consistently fast. One second it works at maximum speed, next day it would be crawling.

I did have an issue with macOS software and I sent NordVPN a tweet, they replied within 3-4 minutes and they solved my problem, this is something you cannot find anywhere (TorGuard's support is also excellent).

Since NordVPN is not cheaper than TorGuard, I cannot see any reason to recommend it, it does not suck all the time, but it sucks sometimes. >.>

And how do you explain the fact that IMDB is working with any other provider, except AirVPN? If that what you said is true, there would be problems accessing IMDB in general, not only with AirVPN...

Well VPN provider tends to blame you or the service you could not access and will try to deny the issue is from their end. Thats what most of the providers do

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But then +1 for choosing Mullvad, their support was really awesome for me and super fast. I mean sometimes I got replied within a few minutes.

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For netflix, you really should try , it just work always. but keep in mind last time their support was quite c0cky. now they improved much.

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Sorry for my language.

yeah. I replied to his post in Mullvad, "openvpn will nvr do 900mpbs mate, its a fact", below is the reply i got from him. lol

"Why can I get 900mbps on Fibergrid then? Answer me that, and stop talking shit when you live in fucking Asia and don't have a connection like this to test yourself and you think 100mbps is 'speedy' lmfao.

Don't get all salty with me because the post of you bitching was removed."

_vpn_is_exceptional/

As much as I don't like PureVPN, have reading your post, I take a look at their refund policy and this is what I found.

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"

PureVPN supports a variety of payment methods to make it easy for you to get PureVPN. However, please note that some payment methods do not support the refund option. We have clearly marked such payment methods "non-refundable" during the checkout process and they are not covered by this policy.

This Refund Policy is subject to all PureVPN terms and conditions.

"

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If you choose to pay with "CoinPayments" on the right hand side it shows "Non Refundable"

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I personally use Mullvad because they generate you a string of number to be your account. This means there’s no email, phone number or cc connected to it. However, lately I’ve been experiencing some internet slow down. Not sure if it’s me or the vpn. I like their support team to because they respond pretty quickly.

I switched from PIA to Torguard. Torguard hands down. I still have 2 month for PIA left but I'm not going back. Been with PIA since 2016 and switched like last month. PIA disconnect every day for me. Torguard has yet to disconnect for me. I like how Torguard would give you more info too like how long you been connected and how much you download and uploaded through them per connection.

I torrent shows and movies. Price is the same. $30 per year on sale. Torguard actually cheaper if you do 2 years, which is $50. I definitely reccomend Torguard over PIA

Also another issue with VyprVPN: their macOS software does not get uninstalled when you uninstall it.

Last year I did try VyprVPN and then uninstalled their software, last month I opened Activity Monitor to look at something, and there I saw "VyprVPNuseragent" running 7/24, I was like "what the fuck???", then I right-clicked and traced it, it was located at User>Library>Application Support>VyprVPN and there was a file to uninstall, then it vanished.

Why a VPN service has to be discreet/sneaky like that? Jesus... God knows if they did log any info on me or not.

After a few hours looking at which one is better between PIA VS Torguard on reddit and google, my heart goes to torguard because they have a lot of features compared to PIA (you can google to compare), and since the price is cheaper on tor after 50% off (code: Lifetime50TG) so I just pay $15 per 6 months.

the good thing I like about Tor is their software, extension, and the app is lightweight.

PIA plans: a month, year(s) TOR plans: 1, 3, 6 months, year(s)

I never do a review on things like this unless I really like it. I was using ExpressVPN and compared the speed with tor, tor win. again this is my opinion and speed is depends on your location.

Thanks to everyone who suggested to use Torguard. you guys rock! ;) Cheers.

Great review and very thorough. I've been using Mullvad for a few years and have been pretty satisfied with it. I get much better speeds but I'm in the US and use US servers located relatively close to me. I agree with you that the desktop application is not that great (borderline hot garbage). They had a beta with a much better looking UI but it was Mac only for some reason. It's now out of beta for the Mac but who knows when (or if) it'll make it to PC. Also, by default it will always use the Sweden servers until you change it to one of the other servers.

I’m on their trial right now.

I’m able to utilize 50%-95% of my maximum bandwidth speed. I’m impressed. Way above my current VPN (Windscribe)

No DNS leak but for some reason Whoer detects 2 more different DNS thus revealing that I’m using a VPN. ( If someone from reads this, help would be appreciated)

Not based on 14 eyes country which is a big plus.

Claims to not log.

I’m considering switching to . Windscribe couldn’t even utilize 10% of my bandwidth.

>They even discuss in various guides and blog posts, the future of their product with protocols such as WireGuard. You couldn't ask for more and it felt like the tech team behind Mullvad are forward facing and really know what they're doing.

I have been using NordVPN as of yesterday and so far I have encountered no issues. Even set it up with Deluge and tested it with and works pretty good. Speeds are a little slow but nothing terrible. The again I only use it when browsing the web and using Deluge and I am not an expert on the matter

NordVPN is pretty bad, I don't mean bad, I mean PRETTY BAD. I got my refund after trying it 2 days, worst experience I have had in my life, slow torrenting speed ,slow internet speed, slow...everything is so slow!

I agree to most popular but it's definitely not the most reliable VPN provider. NordVPN's speed is usually lower than low and a lot of people are complaining about it. I can just recommend to stay away from it. Their privacy policies are also shady.

That's not true. Let's take ProtonVPN or Golden Frog for example. You know exactly who's the director and who works at the service:

I've also had a bad experience with VyprVPN:

I tried their premium service for less than a day, didn't like it, and canceled their services.

Today, three days later, I receive a notification from my credit card company that I was being charged for the service.

Contacting their customer service has been useless: they say that they saw that the cancellation process was initiated but not finalized—which I disagree with.

As of now, they've cancelled my service but they won't issue the refund until the end of the invoice period (that is, one year (!) from now).

I'm opposing the charge with my credit card company. I wouldn't trust VyprVPN or Golden Frog.

Had PIA for about 7 months. When the 'leak' anomoly occurred a month or so ago I used it as a motivator to try another service out. Tried Torguard, overall a more positive experience. Faster speeds with a much better desktop client. The PIA leak may or may not have been legitimate, but it was weird to say the least (VPN ip not the actual ip, actual ip hosted from a fake company, ISP dude said he could actually see the leak on his side, etc.). Either way I have better service with Torguard now. Someone in a thread recently put it best when they said "PIA is the Walmart of VPNs"

Ironic you link to this site, however, since this website recommends VPNs and uses affiliates to monetize itself. If this subreddit was moderated I bet your link would be removed due to affiliate links.

Also hello, owner of restoreprivacy. I see you spreading your affiliate links already in this subreddit.

"ExpressVPN is one of the few VPNs (that seem trustworthy) Not sure about that. They claim to be a "no log" or "logless" or "zero log" VPN, but it's all BS - ExpressVPN review Edit: They are also using fake server locations"

^ has affiliate links in your review

I wonder, how much does perfectprivacy pay you every month for recommendations? How do you go to sleep everynight by profiting off anonymity recommendations that could negatively effect user lives?

I haven't tried ProtonVPN, but I personally stay away from AirVPN.

I did some testing and the speeds were fine -- but I was concerned by their Terms of Service.

1. They claim to not log any traffic or usage, but the ToS says:

> The right to be refunded is invalid if You have violated the Terms of Service and/or if you send the request after having used the Service for more than 3 days and/or if you have used the Service for a global traffic volume exceeding 5 GigaBytes. Air warrants a reimbursement within 30 days from receipt of reimbursement request.

1. Their privacy terms say that they acquire your IP address

> Air servers and software procedures acquire only personal data which are strictly necessary for the technical functioning of the service, for example IP address. These data are not collected to identify, through elaboration or any other technique, users' personal identities. These data are not transmitted to third parties.

> Pressure from private actors to obtain any data (including but not limited to IP address of users) is an illegal act and Air, in order to protect its business and the users' privacy, reserves the right to inform the competent authorities and prosecute the private entities responsible for such illegal acts.

3.. It's pretty unclear who owns and runs this VPN. The support staff doesn't have direct access to the owners/admin (from what I understand from my tickets with them)

While I understand that this is widely trusted by others, I didn't feel comfortable with it.

I can just agree. I've been trying a lot different VPNs already and Mullvad is the best I've tried so far. Speed, privacy policy, support are just great. Furthermore they also offer WireGuard which is currently in beta. I can just highly recommend it.

I've used both in the past year. The speeds on PIA were amazing. Using Speedtest, I actually got faster throughput with PIA on than directly through my ISP which suggests my ISP may have been throttling me. Downside is it would not reconnect on a regular basis. I got tired of having to reconnect manually every time I picked up my iPad or iPhone.

I switched to NordVPN, where the speeds are slower (about 10% slower with VPN on) but I don't have any reliability issues. I bought a two year subscription. Only downside with NordVPN is they make it difficult to know exactly where their servers are located. They use server numbers instead of locations. You can find distances if you use their desktop app which is a PIA ;)

FACT : ISP's & governments can use 'deep packet inspection' to determine what type of traffic is passing even through VPN's.

Privacy centric providers like Perfect Privacy or AirVPN develop solutions to this intrusive surveillance. Big commercial providers like PIA don't care & will rat you out in a heartbeat.

Interesting you mention "speed" so many times and yet don't disclose what it is.

NordVPN is one of the better choices for privacy based on what we know, however, they are also known to be one of the slower providers as well.

I forgot a few other things. Like you get 6 connections. Or that their reply to DMCA is basically "what's DMCA? This is the Balkans." Their tutorials and FAQ (which is a must-read) are fairly extensive and quite truthful, ex. "Word of advice: question those who promise you 100% [anything] - especially in a highly dynamic and complex industry like information security." When they caught Torguard pilfering the source code for SecureProxy, was flattered but also pretty frank about calling them out on it. So their brutal honesty is one of the many reasons I find this company agreeable and trustworthy.

You really do get a whole hell of a lot even if you paid the full asking price. Like I said though, there are a few affiliate discount codes out there, and if you find the right one, the cost becomes insanely low for what you are getting.

YES! I am happy to know I am not the only one with the issue. Been about 12 hours--that I have noticed at least.

ETA: I checked their facebook page and many others have the same problem. Below is their suggestion for the time being. : try connecting to servers in Austria, Russia, Bulgaria, Poland Belgium and Hungary for now

Agreed. These VPNs can resort to other marketing/promtoional techniques, not these which are so blatant fake and unprofesional, BlackVPN may be the best, but this review has no impact on me at all. Maybe on a n00b it would..

Peace of mind is worth something to me. I earn that much in about 20 minutes, and enjoy leak-free connections for an entire month on MacOS. IVPN and OVPN are the only two services (tested so far) that can claim this. If you want to be a cheapskate with your security, don't "Jesus Christ" others because they don't feel the same way.

decent review but its too expensive for all the features that it offers, there are better services available for the same price as BlackVPN. Their service should be good right now since they don't have too many users on their network. Thanks for the review though.

I contacted Mullvad regarding this issue and they answered me the following:

"The website claims that there are Leaks when reconnecting on OSX, it mentions a DNS lookup to mullvad servers and also a packet coming in from Twitter,

The DNS query is expected, since we will do a DNS lookup to connect to for instance.

The twitter packet that came in, not sure how the testing was done, but was the Killswitch enabled for OSX ? (per default it is not enabled, and is one thing that we are planning to change the default for)"

Misread the title on this. I currently use NordVPN and haven't got this issue? at most sometimes when I first load up chrome / browser it takes a minute or two to kick into gear but nothing as bad as what your saying. Though I will run tests on this more, they have had a lot of recents sales so maybe everybody is jumping on and it's going down. Are you using their software? Could be the server you're connecting to has a bad Server load?

I hear IVPN is a good choice. I'm also making the switch although my reasons are because PIA has become almost unusable for me due to their blacklist issue. From another comment I made today:

> I've been using PIA for about 2 years now. I'm overall super satisfied with their speed and service, except one huge caveat which is causing me to leave the service, they've been blacklisted by a large number of services. > I can not log into ANY of my bank services, nor netflix, not my utilities. I'm guessing due to a high level of malicious activity coming from their IP addresses, PIA has become almost unusable for me. > Very unfortunate, as I've had great speeds and nothing but good things to say about PIA up until this issues :( > Are you also experiencing this issue?

I've used VPNSecure for a good few months now (after being attracted to it based on ThatOnePrivacyGuy's spreadsheet) and I've been generally happy with the service. In particular I've had very few issues with connections becoming dodgy or servers going down, which has been my experience with a number of other services. I primarily connect through Australian servers which may or may not be relevant here (VPNSecure being based in Australia). My 25/5 connection maxes out when downloading torrents and I can watch 720p Netflix and stream HiFi quality tracks on Tidal with no issues.

Compared to some other VPN providers the feature list is relatively basic. They do offer 'leak fix' and 'ipv6 disable' options in the (Windows) client, which appear to work based on my limited testing. All DNS requests are routed through their own service, again without leaking in my limited testing. They do have servers in 46 countries (as per the spreadsheet), with connection obfuscation possible for many of these ('stealth VPN').

My major gripe with the service is the variability in function of some of the other options in the client. The 'open on startup' option simply does not work on my PC, and 'disable internet on disconnect' (i.e. kill switch) sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. When I wake my PC from sleep or hibernate, often the client says that I am still connected to the VPN, but a simple check of the connection demonstrates that I am not.

With the above caveats in mind, it's a service that I'd recommend but I'd really like to see the bugs in the client fixed!

(Edited to add: with regard to the issue of safety, I have no way of independently verifying the claims that the service does not log anything, but I have not got any kind of dodgy vibe from them thus far)

IP geolocation services are not accurate. I rented servers before from VPS providers that had a IP belonging in USA, speed tests were always locating me in USA, but the server was actually in Tokyo where i wanted it. Most of the time, the problem is not that the company lies about the physical location of the server, its that the geolocation services wrongly locate the IP address and label it as an "american address" therefore they think its located in US.

If you want a good idea where the server is physically located, used ping services like:

And run the IP address of the server if possible. It will ping the address from dozens of location worldwide, giving you the latency. Then you can triangulate the location. For example if it gives 180ms from LA, but 6ms from HongKong, you can see its near hong kong.

There was some conspiracy theory that ExpressVPN belonged to a chinese company because the owner of ExpressVPN also own a company located in hongkong, but as far as i know the guy is caucasian he is not chinese. Its one of the most popular VPN for foreigners in china and it mostly get good reviews.

Their first ever post was against NordVPN and a lot of their comments and posts are, I'd guess that the logging part is an exaggeration because there aren't any sources that I've found.

Saying that; avoid NordVPN because I've heard a lot of complaints about them recently

/u/Jessica_NordVPN

Hi Jessica,

Can you explain these strange connections your latest iOS client makes that I have only just noticed.

Upon disconnecting manually:

It also seems iCloud messaging bypasses the VPN and possibly also iTunes does too.

Hi! We would like to get few things straight on behalf of NordVPN as it seems that there is some sort of misunderstanding here. We are based and operate under the jurisdiction of Panama which is not a part of either 5 eyes or 14 eyes countries. Our special server configuration (regardless of where they are) allows us not to log anything because all data immediately goes to /dev/null directory which acts like a black hole in the server. All datacenters have an ability (if they are configured in that way) to see the requests sent from the server to the website and the other way round. However, it is not possible for them to see the content of those requests. Nevertheless it could not be associated with the respective user, so regardless of what you might heard from any ISP you have contacted, neither they, nor anyone can see any of our customers activity. All of our servers are completely secure.

As for connection speed - it depends on various factors and connection protocol is one of them. In most cases OpenVPN UDP protocol will be considerably faster than TCP. Furthermore, distance between you and the server, server load, your ISP and actual Internet speed, device you are connecting with and firewall must also be taken into consideration. Nevertheless, if service doesn't meet your requirements, NordVPN provide 30 day money back guarantee, you can redeem it via email at or via live chat.

Code signing doesn't make code legitimate. A virus or malware can still be code signed. It doesn't provide for any notion of security, it only serves to verify that a specific piece of code was written by the alleged author. If I wanted to make a virus appear more legitimate, I'd have it code signed with a Panamanian Shell Corporation's code signing certificate. If I wrote a virus and the signature said it was written by XYZ Corp, would it be any more legitimate? Do you trust XYZ over Google or is it more or less the same?

I'm also going to say: AirVPN didn't write the OpenVPN TAP adapter that's almost universally prevalent amongst other VPN software clients. OpenVPN did, and if you can't trust the AirVPN client, I doubt you could trust any other OpenVPN software implementation and clients from Cisco and other major corporations.

In a perfect world, if Adobe wanted to prove that the code in Adobe Flash Player was written by Adobe, they would codesign. Microsoft and Adobe doesn't code sign for AirVPN or other technology companies. We don't live in a perfect world -- AirVPN would only be code signed by Microsoft if the developers (or OpenVPN's developers) hacked into Microsoft's code signing server. That very act is concerning.

The notion that code signing provides any sort of real protection for users is bullshit: it serves to verify that this particular piece of code was written by this particular developer in extremely ideal situations.

Your logic that code signing reassures the user also sets an extremely concerning precedent -- the average user is vulnerable to these social engineering attacks. Misinformed, uneducated individuals and plain stupid people are very likely to fall for these attacks.

I tested 29 Windows VPN clients for DNS, IPv4 and IPv6 Leaks. Six (AirVPN, FrootVPN, IVPN, Mullvad, Perfect Privacy and SlickVPN) performed perfectly. Three others (CyberGhost, and ) hit VPN-specified nameservers directly while reconnecting after uplink interruption. They didn't hit other nameservers, but this leak does reveal hostnames being browsed. The other 20 Windows VPN clients failed in various ways. Over half leaked IPv6 packets whenever the machine was connected to the Internet. After uplink interruption, some failed to reconnect automatically, and some leaked IPv4 packets.

IVPN provided funding and technical support for this work.

One thing to note here that isn't exclusive to Buffered but, all VPN services are much slower on a router. Using OpenVPN on a router will definitely have slower speeds because processors in routers are much weaker than our modern PCs by far. I got horrible speeds too from my router but once I switched to the desktop app, speeds tripled.

I do not agree with Buffered and their refund policy; ten hours is definitely enough for me and if they are so concerned about abuse, shorten the refund period and be more realistic. Perhaps, even offer a $2 seven day trial for people on the fence for the service. I did that with my service and was 100% on board a few days into the trial.

I have been a firm user of IVPN for the past 2.5 years and although I have often "thought" about switching to another provider, I have not been able to find one I trust as much. I'll give you some examples:

• IVPN posted Privacy Guides where they basically explain how to not get caught doing anything.

• They explain in somewhat incredible detail how to pay anonymously with cash.

• Their administration team all has PGP Keys and are very willing to use that over email to secure communications with you. I have used it on multiple occasions with and one other email (different public key for each though so I am assuming different people)

• They were the first (I think) to provide a multihop system and have been producing a warrant canary for over a year now

• Their support team actually has a clue what they are talking about when you contact them about the nitty gritty. About a year ago I inquired further about shared-servers. I think they said 6-12 people per IP and around 70 per node at a time. That is likely wrong (I hardey remember the conversation), but goes to show you that they aren't full of sh*t

• Everything about their service is clean. It isn't congested or difficult to find the facts. Nor is it filled with claims of "ZERO LOGS" and "Military Grade Encryption" to try and win over new customers. They don't and hopefully will not ever have this idea that using their service gives you completely 100% anonymity.

If I was to ever switch (unlikely), it would only be to Cryptostorm because I know the staff there on a much more personal level. I would still continue to purchase my subscription to IVPN for $100 a year though because I believe they deserve that income.

With some minor tweaks, they could be living among the VPN gods in my books. There isn't another service (that I know of) who does the job as well as they do.

Crypto | Seb

Regarding Gibraltar, I had a direct exchange with IVPN regarding whether Gibraltar should be considered a fourteen eyes country and this was my rebuttal to their blog post.

TL;DR - Interpol considers Gibraltar a part of the UK (which is a 5EC and notorious for mass surveillance), and I believe IF they wanted to, they could coerce companies based there.

Edit: I'm not trying to warn people away from this particular service, just clarifying based on my research.

If you're even connecting to a server in a 5EC (despite where the company is based) its going to be susceptible to government interference. I think one of the most important attributes for a VPN company is trustworthy people whose hearts are in the right place, and while I don't necessarily endorse or recommend them, I believe IVPN has this attribute (based on my interactions with them, their willingness to update their site to be more transparent, refine their policies, etc).

That isn't going to be good enough for some people's threat models, and in those cases a company who is based outside of fourteen eyes and a server located likewise will be important. Consider based on your needs if this is important to you and your privacy model.

Since i paid for a 1 year subscription at airvpn i am still with them. However i am looking at either or IVPN, they seem fairly good. I might just switch to them before my period at Airvpn is over.

Perfect-privacy is considered to be good too and have have even had servers taken by the police which in my book is good proof that they are what they claim. A little bit on the expensive side though.

Many VPN companies have reseller programs, and those affiliates will troll around message boards to give their praise (without disclosure) to companies that pay them to do so. AirVPN does not have a policy that forbids spam or requires disclosure from their affiliates, so definitely do your research and as the sidebar says - Beware of False Reviews!

We all have feelings sometimes that some things may or may not be completely right - wether is is or not. These are the feelings i have.

What would make me feel better if people would not get all defensive about AirVPN, which is something that would make me feel like they are either affiliate spam or paid shills.

You don't get how i could feel that they are not taking user safety seriously? Ok. They say that they do not log, but they do not prove it. Just take a look at their status pages and the current connection information that you can find on the profile which does show you your IP address. I know that they themselves claim that "oh no this is inevitable for us to see" blabla, but there's absolutely a security hole right there just showing it on the page. No web-applications are completely safe and people that mean ill could gain access to that and right when you know it... you get my point.

Some providers also disclose the actual OpenVPN configuration that they have or some, like Cryptostorm even have published the code they use to modify their OpenVPN to completely get rid of these these temporary status logs.

You are absolutely right. So far i feel really suspicious of especially AirVPN reviewers and just people that are generally recommending them. Either AirVPN is simply just that good, or people are really desperate since many refuse to listen to whatever negative points people might come up with.

I am a AirVPN user but i agree with you. When i am done with my paid period there i might switch to IVPN, Perfect-Privacy or .

There is indeed always that "something" about AirVPN that makes me regret the choice about selecting them as one of my providers.

I agree with most of your sentiments with regards to accurately verifying the information on the OP's list, but I sure hope you own LiquidVPN otherwise this isn't how you should represent your employer.

Wow, 195Mbit? Lucky you.

I'm still testing , and speed-wise they're pretty good. I easily can max out my 75Mbps connection, depending on time of day.

I think you may want to make the fact that you were not using their highest tier of service a bit more prominent in that review. I mean they have servers everywhere, including the Isle of Man, which I assume would get you very decent speeds.

Not trying to argue for them, I probably won't end up using them after my month is up, but the speeds you are seeing is not really indicative of the speeds that are achievable.

Regarding Netflix: https://windscribe.com/features/windflix

I know some companies like Amazon actively block VPNs to some degree.

Try different nodes to see if you can find one that gives you access.

I use it on my iPhone and Windows 10 laptop and I would recommend. It has three options: 1) Free extension for Chrome for everyday use - includes malware blocking, tracker blocking, ad blocking, enhanced privacy, lower bandwidth and better page loading times. 2) Paid program for whole PC connections (not just browser) and iOS, same advantages as 1) plus a secure search that uses DDG and hides your searches. 3) Paid VPN for enhanced use on iOS/PC - complete encryption, hides location and IP but with a slightly slower connection compared to the everyday blocking. Speed is very good on both, customer service is also good. They don't keep logs so your data can't be decrypted by a certain US service because they don't store any logs or extra data. Edit: Servers are available in USA, EU, Germany and Asia. https://disconnect.me/help

Not happy with ExpressVPN either. It drops offline at least once per day, some days multiple times. I don't trust the auto renew cancel feature, so I will call my credit card company and tell them not to accept a charge from this company when it comes up in October. I still have PIA which I'm using now, but I have no idea which is the best. Nord?

We have a lot to be concerned. Former Malware Distributor Kape Technologies now owns ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, Zenmate, and a Collection of VPN “Review” Websites. Is your VPN provider next?

I used ExpressVPN for about two years. They did try to double bill me when I first joined, and reluctantly refunded the money after I pursued them for it.

Fast, reliable, and a good number of servers. I left only because I feel they can't be trusted.