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VikingVPN has great anti-logging policies and excellent security practices. It based is in the USA, which has a poor internet privacy record.Popularity trend
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Hi guys, VikingVPN admin here.
Our warrant canary is a "dead man's switch" style canary that activates if we do not refresh a timer at regular intervals. I am currently in Austria doing unrelated work for OSTIF (negotiating with the Austrian government to establish an EU wing) and did not get to it in time due to an overloaded schedule. The service is fine and we have received no requests for information, clandestine or otherwise.
I will publish a signed statement on the transparency blog shortly.
I'm glad that someone noticed!
Edit: The canary has been updated, and the PGP signed statement is up on our transparency blog.
It wasn't a massive breach. It was just 1 server in Finland with around 200 people using it. And it wasn't just nordvpn. TorGuard and VikingVPN rented the same server in this Datacenter. The hacker couldn't decrypt any data packets or see any user data.
You can say it was even a prove for all 3 companies that none of them store any user logs, because all the hacker could leak was 1 TLS key.
I agree with you that they should have told their users immediately though.
Co-founder here. I left years ago.
There's no one running VikingVPN anymore. The warrant canary gets tripped when no one bothers to update it. (it is a dead-man's-switch design.)
I don't advise using it. They likely aren't doing security updates nor have they even publicly responded to getting compromised rather recently. There's much better VPNs out there.
Your table is wrong.
We (VikingVPN) have never forwarded a DMCA. Ever. We can't. It is a zero knowledge network and we cannot discern users from one another.
And what the hell does abuse monitoring have to do with privacy? We do not keep logs and monitor our network against internal and external threats. Do you honestly believe there are services that do not monitor their networks? They'd be DDoSed into oblivion or taken down by anti-spam laws in days.
This table is a perfect example of being punished for not lying to the public.
Briefly looking in to this I have seen VikingVPN claim to have a canary...their icon will change colour 'noticeably' on their home page if they are compromised. Its red right now which seems like a warning sign but maybe it was always red and will go black when compromised? I havent looked that far in to it :P
PIA have said they have received letters, in 2012 they received 11, 3 from outside US. Their stance seems to be 'We get asked for user data, but we dont log data so we dont have any data to give'. They said they havent been compelled to start logging thats a matter of trust. They acknowledged that a canary would help build trust but there is still no canary. old article as source
>OSTIF
Who? What credibility does this group have in source code auditing? Their staff page doesn't list anyone with coding experience beyond web design (which is hilarious because their site is a very basic, terrible looking, wordpress site). Their only past claim to fame I can find is running VikingVPN.
This just seems like a scam to take a skim off donations to other open source projects.
Look into Warrant Canaries. A good warrant canary system goes around the gag order system by being passively activated. This is because from a legal standpoint, a national security letter can compel you to remain silent about being compromised, but cannot compel you to lie. So if you don't actively renew the timer on your warrant canary after receiving a NSL, you are taking no action and the canary activates.
Some of the American VPNs have specifically implemented them to fight "National Security Letters".
Not to mention that "not trusting US based VPNs" might be a bad idea overall. Since they (the NSA) don't need any legal process at all to attack any foreign VPN. They have to go through the FISA court and legal process to go after American VPNs.
Source: I'm a co-founder of VikingVPN.
These are two completely separate projects, and while it's right to be skeptical, here are the things that i've done to ensure impartiality.
- VikingVPN is ran by myself and two partners, my partners at Viking are uninvolved in OSTIF.
- We have already raised money for audits before, and given transparent and public results:
- We have completely open books, and you can see where every dollar that is taken in by OSTIF is spent:
- OSTIF is a non profit IRS 501(c)3 organization. If i used the charity to inure myself or benefit a company I have a stake in, I would face jail time.
If you still have concerns, feel free to add them publicly here and we can address them.
I can't speak for dat, but VikingVPN routes all of their users on all servers through a single external IP. You should probably hold your tongue if you don't know what you're talking about.
We run 5 10Gb servers, generate false traffic, and use advanced routing to get it all out through a single IP. That is MORE anonymity than any single server from other providers that simply acts as a router with NAT.
He is one of the partners that run VikingVPN. I tested them about a month or so ago and came away really impressed with the experience. They offer really excellent security and crazy fast speeds (literally get my normal 60+Mbps speed when using the VPN). They are a little more expensive but definitely check them out along with other providers.
I have used AirVPN and am currently testing VikingVPN. Both provide excellent security and speed (I get my full speed using Viking). PIA seems to be recommended around here quite a bit but I haven't gotten around to trying them yet. Best advice would be to try out a few providers and choose the one that suits your needs, best of luck.
No you can't. What the hell are you talking about?
You can see when we connect to VikingVPN, you can see when we disconnect, how much we send.
If you control the dns servers for clients dnscrypt won't protect them.
VikingVPN can see all user data not protected by SSL/TLS. VikingVPN holds the private keys. They can decrypt everything not protected with a extra layer of protection.
Why would you tell such an obvious lie? You can see everything no matter the client. You just don't look.
That's like saying you can't see inside a safe you have the key to because you don't look.
I've read a fair amount posted by /u/ThatOnePrivacyGuy even checking his website and spreadsheet and it appears as though 99% are established in the fourteen eyes countries or co-operative. The ones that aren't, after checking their websites some of which look very poor quality I worry trusting even a VPN with my traffic if they somehow tap into my transfers and read my data.
Is it best practise to avoid a VPN set up in a 14 eyes country? as surely even if they state no logs like VikingVPN do (a USA based VPN) they are in usa therefore don't have choice but to log? or is it more important which network you connect to once you use the VPN? as the server you connect to will abide by its own laws of jurisdiction.
Heh, as stated before, I have no alts.
I'm also not affiliated with /u/Youknowimtheman in any way.
If you can find the cached version of my original post from December, someone from VikingVPN actually got in my face about my data.
The fact that this breach happened to Torguard and VikingVPN confirms that it was the fault of the server providers, not NordVPN. And no user data was leaked. What really happened is that this "hack" confirmed that they don't keep logs and are pretty secure. They even have plans to improve their service like no other VPN.
But ultimately it's true that VPN's aren't really a security tool, but for getting around geographical restrictions. And you shouldn't use a VPN with Tor anyway. So yeah, get Nord if you need more content on Netflix or if some video game is blocked in your country.
I can only speak from experience where I have actually looked at infrastructure, but VikingVPN was bare metal only under my direction up until I left, and PIA has been bare metal only for years.
I would say that VPSs and Cloud instances are the industry standard, but there are VPN companies that care about security.
It depends. If the provider cuts down the cost by using less servers or cheaper servers it could get pretty cheap. As far as I can remember, a good server can cost somewhere between 100$ to 500$ depending on location, hardware and bandwith. So you can do some basic math as to how much it costs to provide good service with a low user per server ratio and why some are so cheap while others cost so much more.
Also you can read some better explanations from the VikingVPN admin here:
It would route everything through another network, it is awesome. I don't like PIA (seriously stock photos look like snakeoil to me), I always recommend , Mullvad, iVPN, and VikingVPN. Yeah, make sure they don't IP leak, make sure they don't log, run iptables or a killswitch. They will most likely provide no protection in a legal battle.
VPNs I have used or currently use in no particular order, this is not to be considered a professional endorsement but rather a needless sharing of info from person to person:
A neat trick you can do with Mullvad, well not really a trick it's obvious as shit, but just keep using the 3-hour trial periods over and over again and it's possibly free. But pay the people you cheap fuck. I'm talking to me, not you, sorry.
/u/youknowimtheman, any comment from VikingVPN on this quote?:
>most will keep session logs (real IP, time in/out, GBs) to prevent account fraud (someone else using your account), and those who claim they don't are probably lying - as there is no way to verify they're not, and it's difficult to run a viable business online without logging as pretty much every web host does.
Absolutely yes. I 100% agree.
There are other small benefits to a VPN service even in this case: You can have the security of the server managed by experts rather than yourself. You also have the issue of being entirely responsible for the security of that server. You don't have to worry about vetting hosts or dealing with issues upstream. In the case of the cheaper VPNs, the commercial VPN may be cheaper than a good VPS. (I am not talking about VikingVPN in this case)
Just chiming in for accuracy.
VikingVPN has three server clusters, each cluster is made up of at least eight individual VPN servers (and support servers) with independent network connections.
Our model goes for load-balancing and very high quality bandwidth rather than questionable reliability (due to no or little redundancy, or oversold servers) scattered over many locations.
Our model is not meant to compete with PIA. We have a more expensive setup by design. You pay for higher availability and higher speeds at peak times. You pay to not have to hunt around for an optimal server to connect to. If that model is worth it to you, VikingVPN is here. If you'd rather save money and don't mind the other stuff, then a cheaper provider is all you need.
VikingVPN does not have a server cluster in Poland.
Our only cluster in Europe is in Amsterdam, NL.
If cost is a concern then you'll probably want to go with one of the cheaper alternatives. We target people who are after high security, speed, and uptime for a premium.
2048bit is just the handshake to start the session. The actual encryption is one of a few set ciphers and they are either 128, 192, or 256 bit (or none, if you want to set it up that way).
For example my VPN, VikingVPN, has a 4096-bit handshake and AES-256-CBC encryption for the rest of the session (which is very strong).
We run a load balanced 12+ carrier mix (all tier-1 and tier-2 carriers) at each of our server clusters and have no servers with connectivity under 1Gbps.
There is also the issue of whether they are using closed-source apps or known-broken VPN protocols like PPTP with MSCHAP or L2TP with MSCHAPv2.
Long story short: Don't fall for marketing jargon.
AirVPN and VikingVPN are top of the line premium VPN services. I personally LOVED both for streaming and had absolutely no issues with them. PIA is great and can handle streaming, but I feel its a bit over used to perform greatness when streaming. I still love PIA and its blazing fast, just Air and Viking feel smoother when streaming for large periods of time.
Also for the USA issues I will let /u/norkamus handle that. But PIA has noted they will shutdown if they recieve a gag order to spy on users. Viking has noted the same I am pretty sure.
And Air is operates under Italian jurisdiction where you should be completely secure. I would personally recommend the two over PIA for what your looking for.
Yeah I will look into more of them. But VikingVPN doesn't market themselves as premium, but they do mention it, and their prices mention it too.
But yeah, when I first got into VPN's I thought the price for premiums was crazy. Some run up to $30 per month. But now I am looking to stick with premium services now. I still love commercial services, and love trying all of them out every few weeks.
It is an odd criteria, but when you actually start using premiums, the smoothness of them is unreal.
If you want speed, VikingVPN has AMAZING speed. But if you are looking for a commercial service with a fair price point, PIA is okay.
You may want to take a look into CyberGhost. They are great as well.
Yes, it does work.
I built a Mini-ITX machine based on a low end dual-core AMD-APU.
I used OpenBSD for the OS and configured the pf firewall.
It runs VikingVPN (4096 handshake, AES-256-CBC, SHA1-160) at 100mbit with low CPU utilization.
The main hurdle right now for commercial routers is none of them support AES-NI acceleration which is a literal 500% performance increase on powerful CPUs. It is probably a lot larger of a gap on shitty MIPS router CPUs.
It is easily over 95% fake reviews.
On top of that there are hired black hat PR firms that post fake reviews all over the place in places like Reddit.
Do not trust a review unless it is from someone you personally know.
As a co-founder of VikingVPN, I have received multiple offers from websites to post fake positive reviews in exchange for cash/bitcoins.
I can confirm similar results on Comcast with VikingVPN over UDP 443 vs the OpenVPN default port.
As for your experiment with routers, have you thought about just building a pfSense or Vyatta PC? They'd easily handle 75mbit even with low end PC parts and you'd have a full enterprise class firewall as well as a router all in one.
Distance attenuates performance.
Moving over the transatlantic pipes is a performance hit, regardless of how fast the servers in europe are.
At VikingVPN, we use an extremely high performance cluster of servers based in Amsterdam. You'll still take a rather large performance hit connecting from the US. It is just the nature of having long routes.
VikingVPN is basically defunct, has been for a while. As is the nature of these things, by not administering the canary, it will trip on its own even if there is nothing particularly malicious happening besides no one running it anymore.
Windows 10 doesn't have a built-in VPN, what you are referring to is the ability to connect to one that you have bought access to. There are lots of different reputable VPN's out there, some that I would recommend: Mullvad, ProtonVPN, AirVPN, VikingVPN, Private Internet Access etc.. They vary in price but if all you care about is preventing your ISP to see your traffic I would go with Private Internet Access, it costs $3.33/mo if you buy a 1 year subscription.
You are absolutely right VikingVPN Admin.
***** EDIT ***** I retract my previously posted statement for clarity. I see a SIGNIFICANT hit using the Pivpn as a standalone OpenVPN server on my network. As a VPN it works beautifully, but there is a DRAMATIC speed/bandwidth hit when running it.
After I got home from work today, I ran some tests again and the hit is nearly 75%, or from 150/150 with no VPN connection, to 30/30 (ish) with the VPN connected.
***** END EDIT *****
What about number of servers in other countries? For me being able to avoid television blackouts and other country restrictions is big. But thanks, next year when my renewal comes up I will consider IVPN, AIRVPN, Cryptostorm and VikingVPN.
PIA seems to me to have the best connections (as in lots of servers in lots of countries) and I always have high speeds through them.
I will have to closely look at the other 4 and decide if they fit my needs. Again, thanks.
Thank you for the in-depth info! Making VikingVPN look especially good.
I'm actually not using OpenVPN. I'm using the base client that each VPN has provided. [ This is the data that I gathered this morning. What do you make of it?]()
Okay well first off the school can, and some do. Go with OpenVPN because it is the most secure, if you cannot try and get around the filter first. Do you know if they are blocking locally on the computer or network? This REVIEW-VPN guy is most likely paid to say some VPNs are good, just a heads up. Above all I recommend Cryptostrom for decent speed and awesome security. Besides that Mullvad (they do something using obfsproxy in their Windows client). Besides that VikingVPN is fast (but spendy) and iVPN is cool too.
>Sort of like Tor.
No, it is nothing like Tor.
Why do so many people get down votes for expressing their opinion on this subreddit? What I look for in a VPN is their privacy policies for their own networks (no logs and such) and their activism in fighting for their consumers privacy. I also avoid companies based in the united states but that is personal preference. With that in mind here are my favorites:
AirVPN seems very trustworthy but I find their service cuts out frequently and is quite slow for the price. I've talked to others with the same issue.
I am using ExpressVPN but their windows client does not route your DNS requests and you must do a work around
I will be switching to VikingVPN when my subscription runs out.
I do.
At home my router comments to the VPN, so every devices that's connected to the router is funnelled through the VPN by default. When I travel I just use the OpenVPN client.
I use VikingVPN, and the connection overhead for me hasn't had any meaningful impact. I have a 150Mbps connection, and in virtually every scenario I'm bottlenecked somewhere other than the VPN, which gives me about 90% of my connection (which is standard overheard for encryption, OpenVPN, etc).
Anecdotally, I've even found that some things to perform better over my VPN.
Very rarely I'll have to disconnect for some specific use case, but it's rare.
I use VikingVPN usually when I game and I get better ping than people that live down the street from me. It's also a noticeable difference (5-10ms). I have seen it claimed as a feature on some VPN sites as well.
OpenVPN has a header on the encapsulation it uses that can be detected.
In countries where using a VPN is illegal, like Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Iran, they can look for that header to find people using it.
Obfsproxy masks those identifying characteristics.
VikingVPN does not offer an obfsproxy service. I post here to help the community. The flair is for full disclosure.
I dont trust chrome at all, so no for Zenmate. And I personally dont want to use PIA, because everybody here at Reddit /r/VPN loves PIA a bit little too much for my comfort. 9 out of 10 posts here are about PIA too. And that worries me.
MullVad requires me to install its client and I am a bit unhappy with the client as it tends to sometimes disconnect but the icon indicates that you are still connected and you wouldnt know unless you search yourself to find whats your public IP. It doesnt happen often though. And in LinuxMint, whole system freezes up sometimes when you right click on the client, and only a hard reboot will recover the system. VikingVPN is great, I might try that out, lets see.
Yes I personally enjoyed it. I actually tried abusing it by streaming HD for 6+ hours and not a dot of lag. Full blown HD and no speed problems. They really are a great service. They are also not as big as due to price. But try a month, its a decent price. I can guarantee you will fall in love with premium services.
Also, they use 4096 bit crypto for their standard. So top of the line crypto, along with great speed. Here is some info I found on them
- VikingVPN Interview
- VikingVPN website
You can PM me with questions. Many users here dont want to pay the extra or just leech onto PIA. But personally if you want real premium, there are many great services. VikingVPN is one of the few GREAT ones.
Yes, being a US provider was one of my initial worries too, and I have myself advocated that before to many times.
I also use Mullvad, a Swedish based VPN provider which is quite good. Not trying to endorse anyone, but there are a few jems about VikingVPN despite being an US provider if you email them, or ask /u/Youknowimtheman , he' is one of their admins.
..snip..
We operate four server clusters.
They are in Amsterdam, Phoenix, Chicago, and New York City.
We plan to expand to Asia, but we are working on ways to combat the great firewall first.
It is located on the front page in the "How VikingVPN works" area, the last bullet point.
We should probably create a page with a network map. I've even already made the graphics for it in our transparency posts.
That's exactly what I mean. Right now, when you're on a VPN, your connection is encrypted, therefore, Verizon does not know what data is flowing through it, therefore, they have no reason to throttle a VPN connection. For right now, they assume that all VPN connection is business related, so they won't throttle that. However, as more and more VPN services are used, they will start to monitor which IP address belong to a VPN services that does not actually provide any business-related VPN and will throttle that.
What I'm saying is that eventually, Verizon will filter and throttle all connections to VyprVPN or PIA or VikingVPN and anything similar.
how come VikingVPN never got their SSL cert re-issued? This vulnerability has been around for a long time. Your jumping all over all of these other providers in at least 2 threads but your SSL cert was issued last month meaning your web server may be compromised still.
> PIA: Our CTO/co-founder, who many know as coderrr, the developer of privacy extensions from the early years of Bitcoin, moved out of the US along with our entire admin/development team.
> VikingVPN: Right now, I can confidently say that VikingVPN has not been served a National Security Letter. Feel free to ask me again later. If I don’t reply at some point in the future when you ask me, then you’ll know. See how easy that was? The reason this works is that the Govt. cannot compel you to lie, but they can (apparently) compel you to remain silent.
Hmmm, I really like both of these responses.
Are you configuring your own VPN, looking to convert a .ovpn file to iOS, or looking for a provider that does so? A VPN provider has to make a specific .ovpn file for iOS. If the provider doesn't support it, their .ovpn file won't work on iOS regardless of what you do.
If you want a good mobile VPN that supports OpenVPN for iOS, and Android look into
- VikingVPN
- blackVPN
VPNs sure are... something.
I used and loved VikingVPN. People used to talk up how good it was. Then the CEO left. They kept taking money, but stopped responding to emails. Their Twitter account died. The service eventually started becoming impossible to connect to. It was impossible to end your account without contacting support, which was impossible because they never checked anything.
We had to call the bank and have them start blocking the company from withdrawing money.
Hello! I left VikingVPN over a year ago. It was primarily due to my partners not doing any work, so it is unsurprising to hear that they aren't managing customer care well. If they aren't responding to you via i'd just do a chargeback with the credit/debit card and be sure that you give them a reason that implies that the company is not honoring your cancellation. After enough of those complaints the payment gateway that they use will drop them.
It is not a usual practice at PIA.
I'm in a unique position because I've been in the VPN and security circles around reddit for quite some time, so I continue the account that people associate with me.
I started VikingVPN back in the day, founded a few years ago, etc. People who have been around on /r/vpn, /r/privacy, /r/privacytoolsio, /r/codes etc know this username by those things.
PIA is good if you're on a budget. They're also one of the few reliable VPN providers that allows port forwarding, so they can be one of the top choices for torrenting.
If you're looking for maximum speed and reliability, there are premium VPNs such as VikingVPN that are several times more expensive than PIA but can also saturate just about any consumer-grade internet speeds.
At all costs, avoid VPN providers from China. There are a number of VPNs that have NA shell companies but are really owned out of China. They tend to be very unreliable and often refuse refunds.
I've been using AstrillVPN for half a year now, previously used ProtonVPN, VikingVPN and IronSocket (whichever one I could find a coupon for over on /r/vpncoupons). Now that I live in China, Astrill is the only one that remains useful over time; all the others get shut down occasionally and don't add new servers.
I will also always buy a local SIM and avoid wifi as best as I can; online banking will be done exclusively on my phone (usually still through a VPN).
Internet cafes are a big no-go for me.
This is why warrant canaries are almost useless for VPN providers. Canaries are only useful for institutions that can't be closed down (Libraries) or if the company's admin team might be arrested and replaced.
Warrant canaries for VPN providers are based on the same trust as no logging policies. You have to trust the company is on the up and up to trip the warrant canary, and basically bankrupt the company in the process. If a company is willing to do that, then they should be willing to just shut the whole operation down like Lavabit. A NSL comes with a gag order, not a "lie to everyone order".
What I am seeing here, is people believing VikingVPN to be honest enough to trip their canary, but not being honest when they say it was a mistake and restored the canary.
Only VPN I have stuck with is VikingVPN after trying around ten of them.
I have it set up on my router so anyone who connects to wifi at my residence is protected by vpn.
Viking is more money than most of the others that I tried/subscribed to but its so much faster that it's really worth the extra money.
I'm not affiliated with Viking in any way other than being a customer.
Hey! Newbie VPN guy here. I'm want to select a VPN that can give me a security layer while using Public Wi-Fi and mobile data. I use my mobile a lot due to business reasons, so OpenVPN support is a must. I checked the comparison chart and it seems that VikingVPN is a good option. I also found the GenerousVPN service which seems interesting so I'm testing their free lite service. Any good recommendations?
Hi guys- I'm interested using VPN for my home via router and for iOS devices. VikingVPN is what I'm leaning towards, however, the price is nearly double or more annually compared to a few others I'm considering.
I've used the VPN Comparison Chart, yet I'm still undecided. Is VikingVPN truly worth double the annual cost or is a mid tier option a better choice? My need is anonymity and speed. Thanks.
Depends, does that cloud have end to end encryption? How well do they treat privacy. Check out ProtonMail, DuckDuckGo, a good VPN (, Mullvad, VikingVPN), Tutanota, SpyderOak, and Mega. You could host your own stuff on an old computer with YuNohost, this reduces security, increases privacy, although if you have no security there goes your privacy.
I wouldn't trust them. Anyone letting users use PPTP and still saying they are secure losses my trust. With that many locations for that price they are just using throwaway VPS, not dedicated servers. They use a lot of snake oil type language on their site, seems sketchy. Most kill switches and stuff like that seem to not work perfect, I am sceptical about that. I also recommend Mullvad, IVPN, and VikingVPN.
I did not say 2 or 3 at any point.
You continue to pretend that my other points do not exist.
You seem to be taking my request for legitimate comments very personally. I have no idea why you are so hostile.
Ignoring large pieces of my statements and then paraphrasing others to make them look worse is where the faulty logic lies.
The ad hominem is stating that the only reason I make these arguments is because i'm financially motivated to do so. I was a privacy activist pre-Snowden, VikingVPN is far older than , we are huge supporters of the EFF, I personally support the FSF, and I've dedicated my entire life to this cause. It is insulting to an extreme that you choose to conflate "America bad" with my message of "we're all on the same side here, we need better ways to verify who is who".
I personally run with VikingVPN. They're a little pricey compared to their competitors ($15 a month) but you get what you pay for: my browsing speed when connected is indistinguishable from that of my base connection.
I like them because they're US based and they don't log user information or network access history -- they're only concerned with bandwidth.
I'd suggest doing some reading into it -- if you care about security look for other groups that do not keep logs of user activity. Here's a good starting point to check around.
Quick Summary:
It is unfortunate that Hulu is blocking VPN service IPs”, said Andrew Lee, CEO of Private Internet Access.
For those looking for workarounds, a dedicated VPN IP could be a good quick fix.
Several major VPN service providers including VikingVPN, TorGuard, Private Internet Access, and others, are now dealing with customer complaints over the issue. “Private Internet Access exists to protect the privacy of netizens everywhere.
Many of our customers leave their Private Internet Access accounts enabled 24/7/365.
Hulu, the largest public movie and TV streaming service in the United States, has reportedly created an extensive blocklist of IP addresses which covers IP ranges of all major VPN services.
^Disclaimer: ^(this summary is not guaranteed to be accurate, correct or even news.)
Thanks for the reply, forgot my password so I had to make a new account. But looking at both of them I will probably go with AirVPN because it is cheaper and right now they offer more servers than VikingVPN. But with the client since they don't offer a dns leak fix or internet kill switch how should I go about implementing those? As long as it's safe and doesn't hinder my privacy and security being a 3rd party option.
I use VikingVPN. It's pricey (14.99/mo) but totally worth it. I get no loss of bandwidth or any latency issues whatsoever. If you're only using a VPN to torrent, then I'd get a cheaper one, but I usually always have mine going.
I actually decided to go with VikingVPN. They seem really knowledegable, got a WC and only use linux servers. They just strike me as very decent privacy oriented people that know their stuff, so I decided to go with them.
My two cousins and I are testing out three different VPN solutions now to see which is better. I have IPVanish, one has VikingVPN and another has PIA. So far, the one with Viking is the one with the worst (but not bad) performance since their servers are in either the US or Netherlands, with me and PIA being the better of the two. I'm able to get nearly my full 18/0.5 speed while Viking pulls about 7.5/0.5, also on Optus cable.
I see now #ComputersAreDumb. It is important to me to have all my traffic, whether I have network connectivity either through WiFi or through Cellular AirInterfaces or Random Access Technologies such as 3G or LTE, that I remain cloacked behind my VPN. I used to able to accomplish this on my iPad before the upgrade using OpenVPN protocol and VikingVPN as my provider. VikingVPN is also very spendy and expensive provider, as unlike other providers, they use dedicated servers (instead of cloud) for everything, and provide the fastest VPN service and insanely long crypto/encryptions. 4096 kbits Diffie-Hellman I was told. Let me do some more research. Thx!
disclaimer I co-founded a VPN service.
There are a bunch of good VPN services with Chicago nodes. If you want high speed and high reliability you'll want a VPN with tier-1 carriers and a policy of no overselling.
My service isn't the cheapest because it is a premium VPN service (VikingVPN), but there's a least a dozen major VPN services with various price ranges and network policies.
As long as Bahrain does not employ layer-7 filtering, Viking will work.
I believe we (VikingVPN) have customers from that region.
The speeds may not be great as the closest cluster is Amsterdam, but it absolutely should function.
Try VikingVPN and employs anti-NSL measures. And are all around good guys.