Ask HN: What is the best VPN provider?
20 comments
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ works for me
I am partial to blackvpn.com. Cheap and they don't store logs. I did a couple armchair speed tests through a couple of their locations vs my baseline internet connection:
NO VPN enabled
http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168457639
PING 17 ms
DOWNLOAD 195.94 Mbps
UPLOAD 23.60 Mbps
BlackVPN through Canada
http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168460690
PING 53 ms
DOWNLOAD 151.71 Mbps
UPLOAD 16.48 Mbps
BlackVPN through Brazil
http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168447144
PING 160 ms
DOWNLOAD 186.43 Mbps
UPLOAD 10.21 Mbps
BlackVPN through Switzerland
http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168451606
PING 263 ms
DOWNLOAD 19.93 Mbps
UPLOAD 5.60 MbpsWith respect, I would advise using other speed testing sites. Speedtest.net is well-known to be optimized by most ISPs, and so doesn't really give you accurate results.
Fast.com is provided by Netflix, and you use their actual CDN to download a part of a freely available movie, and so you get a really good estimate of what kinds of download speeds you can see from them.
The other one I like is from dslreports.com -- it uses only HTML5 instead of flash, and they adaptively test your bandwidth from multiple simultaneous server sites, with adaptive multi-streaming.
You can't make a reasonable conclusion if you don't have reasonable data to work from, and with Speedtest.net you can't trust any of their results.
Fast.com is provided by Netflix, and you use their actual CDN to download a part of a freely available movie, and so you get a really good estimate of what kinds of download speeds you can see from them.
The other one I like is from dslreports.com -- it uses only HTML5 instead of flash, and they adaptively test your bandwidth from multiple simultaneous server sites, with adaptive multi-streaming.
You can't make a reasonable conclusion if you don't have reasonable data to work from, and with Speedtest.net you can't trust any of their results.
PrivateInternetAccess. Lives up to the hype. Inexpensive; I picked up two years for $40. On my 250Mbps/15Mbps pipe I usually can pull down 200Mbps and push 10Mbps up.
NordVPN (https://nordvpn.com/). Panama, doesn't store logs, plenty of servers around the world. Works with the majority of devices out there. Accepts bitcoin. Checks pretty much all the boxes.
Also recommended on https://privacytoolsio.github.io/privacytools.io/.
Also recommended on https://privacytoolsio.github.io/privacytools.io/.
This is the only one I've tried (and I'm currently subscribed) but one thing I've been disappointed by is the speed. I know this is something to be aware of when using any VPN so I am not sure how bad NordVPN is in comparison to others, it may actually not be worse than others, I haven't had to time to compare.
I actually tried TrustZone as well and it was worse, at least for Germany. With NordVPN, I'm seeing speeds at about 60-70% of the original - which is a lot less granted, but it works fine for my day to day stuff like browsing or netflix.
https://www.mullvad.net/ seems like a great option, anyone tried it?
Using it since a couple of years. They never seem to be the bottleneck, but it is hard to test since I am too cheap to get anything else than the lowest bandwidth (30/30). I get 2.2MB/s down and a bit less up, which is about the same as I get without VPN.
The app is nice (at least on Linux), but for environments where it doesn't work they provide openvpn files.
The app is nice (at least on Linux), but for environments where it doesn't work they provide openvpn files.
I've used a bunch of small-scale providers because their servers aren't as hogged as the big guys out there (looking at you, IPVanish!) I found Hotspotshield and PureVPN mentioned on this list: https://www.bestvpnprovider.com to be somewhere between serivceable to trustworthy in this regard.
I like IVPN. Based in Gibraltar, excellent bandwidth, plenty of servers, accepts Bitcoin, uses OpenVPN.
Seems pretty good in the charts.
Freedome (https://www.f-secure.com/en/web/home_global/freedome) is my go to
AirVPN is pretty good. Modern crypto and uses OpenNIC DNS servers. You can lock the connection so it doesn't do IPv6 leaks and such. Clients are open source.
https://www.tunnelbear.com/ has been great for me
I've had good experiences with Azire.
The list suggested by him https://thatoneprivacysite.net/simple-vpn-comparison-chart/ has some interesting points. What do you think he is using? Also, what are you using and why?