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I was on PIA for a few years before it was bought out by Kape.
Kape has a poor track record with keeping user data safe, and has reported shady business practises.
I switched to Mullvad and have been happy, excluding the limited devices which I bump into pretty frequently.
Basically 3 good choices
ProtonVPN AirVPN IVPN
Proton has a 50% off student discount bringing the price down to $5 a month for all proton services.
IVPN is probably the best but most expensive.
@MedicareForSome @pirat Windscribe
There's nothing inherently wrong with windscribe but I don't trust any company that offers a cheap lifetime plan for something that requires so much upkeep.
Where do you see Proton being 50% off for students?
I can't find anything about that.
They don't advertise it, just message support from your .edu email and tell them your username. They'll apply it and let you use the STUDENT promo code. It's 50% off the year plan so $5 a month.
Oh alright. I'll have to do that then.
Thanks for the info.
ProtonVPN has been solid for me. Switched to wireguard recently and have been able to completely saturate my 1gbps fiber link
IVPN, no contest.
ivpn looks nice, it looks like they are taking a similar approach/structure to account creation like mullvad does. I don't like the 7 device limit though, but it is still 2 more than mullvad.
+1 for GUI on linux.
Another vote here for ProtonVPN, though it doesn’t support port forwarding via a GUI on Linux, only OpenSSL and Wireguard configs. I set it up with gluetun, qBittorrent, and qBittorrent-natmap and and it just works.
Moved from PIA to Mullvad when it was sold to a new owner with bad reputation
Loving ProtonVPN, but note that if you also use ProtonMail, the account is shared, meaning no one else can use your VPN if you don't want people to have access to your email. I've tried to use vopono, and vopono needs access to your account to automatically configure VPN connections which, again, is not great because access to my VPN = access to my email 😐
Airvpn is my go-to. Tho I also have an account with pia. Airvpn for PTP is pretty simple to set up, has great support for Linux, and you can choose from multiple protocols and ports pretty easy. Their port forwarding is way simpler to setup on a server then pia.
Pia is great for me to use on my phone/laptop tho. Their client is much more ment to be interactive as opposed to set and forget.
Airvpn certainly isn't the fastest but the community is awesome and support is amazing.
Protonvpn Unlimited subscriber here. Pretty amazing ngl. I get 10 vpn connections, 500GB E2EE cloud storage, simplelogin premium, calendar, and whatever else they have that I haven't used yet or still in development.
Edit: and ofc, I use their e2ee mail serveice
I've heard that AirVPN and IVPN are good for port forwarding.
I moved off PIA after they were bought by a former ad-ware distributor, and I've been on Proton VPN since.
They do currently have a Linux GUI, though it's extensively lacking compared to the Windows client, and the CLI / DIY methods for using their service is much more flushed out.
That's not to say it's a bad client, it's just very much not what they advertise feature-wise. The speeds and server-availability are all great, and these days it's all bundled into a "Proton Account" that gives you VPN, Email, and Cloud Storage based on your tier.
I switched to AirVPN after finding out that Mullvad disabled port forwarding. I have heard rumors that the did that because of people hosting cheese pizza via their VPN accounts.
The performance of AirVPN does vary, I had to try a couple of countries before I found a server that didn't throttle me (and I only have a 50MBit connection).
Maybe I will try Proton in the future, but then I would have to commit to a 2year subscription or pay a lot more.
Torguard. Sticky IPs with port forwarding. Wireguard support for fast speeds. Lots of coupons around the 'net to purchase for $30/year.
I've used PIA for five years now. Never had an issue. It's plenty fast for my needs; I've seen sustained ~450 Mbps downloads from a transatlantic endpoint. (I honestly don't know what is typical with other VPN services but I'm not feeling choked out so I've never investigated.)
They run frequent deals and you can stack a promo code, check slickdeals and/or set an alert if there is not a current promotion. I believe my current three year sub worked out to ~$1.80/month. It is suspiciously cheap.
I'm sure others are "better" and "you get what you pay for" but PIA is good enough for the price for me.
"Better" or "you get what you pay for" aside, the owner of PIA is patently sketchy.
I use mine exclusively for torrents, so I don't really care what is happening on the other end as long as they are masking my IP address. If you were using it for general browsing I could see that mattering more. But it's really hard to beat the speeds + port forwarding for $2.22/mo ($80 for 3 years). That's less than half the price of any comparable alternatives.
I use Windscribe with a lifetime plan and I've been more than happy with it.
I've used PIA for probably close to 10 years now. They removed the 10-device limit recently and just give you unlimited devices now. I've found the connection to be very stable. If there's ever a problem, it's usually due to a specific server getting overloaded, so I switch to a different one. Lots of countries and port forwarding options to choose from. The promotion they have going right now is the best I've seen ($79 for 39 months).
Been using PIA for years. Never had any issues. As others have said I've bought bulk subscriptions and you can get insanely low prices for it. I have it set up on multiple devices. Mobile app also works good as it has a built in DNS level as blocker.
Port forwarding works super well. They have clients for a ton of Linux flavors but you can always just use the ovpn files.
All in all, despise getting bought out by a pretty shady company I haven't found enough of a reason to switch off.
Probably overkill, but AstrillVPN is the one I have been using for the past several years and it never failed me.
Same, and it’s the best if you’re in China.
I have been using NordVPN since forever to be honest.
Never had any problem (servers always up and good speed too), but people say that it is very expensive in comparison with other VPN providers, so I don't know.
This message has been sponsored by NordVPN
Also, it doesn't seem to be much more expensive than something like ExpressVPN, though that is pretty expensive at about $13 USD monthly. Way cheaper to buy yearly though. In comparison, Mullvad is a flat 5 Euro (about $5.20 - $5.40) per month. Other VPNs seem to be about $10-$13 per month.
I have not tried them, but always stayed away from them due to aggressive marketing that really put me off. there was a good year or two where I was bombarded with NordVPN ads and sponsors, and still get the occasional advert about them. It may be worth trying though, I have colleagues that use it.
It may be worth trying
You mentioned removal of port forwarding as an issue with Mullvad, why would you consider migrating to a much spammier VPN that has never had port forwarding? LOL that message really does sound like it was sponsored by NordVPN :P
Didn't know they don't have port forwarding, thanks for pointing it out, I did a google search and here's the link stating they don't offer port forwarding.
"Port forwarding and triggering could work with a VPN protocol in general, but not with NordVPN. Our apps block almost all port communication from within your device except for the ones most commonly used by popular applications."
Nord is such a weird case. It almost never gets recommended. It even gets negative comments as soon as someone mentions it. And yet, even the comparison table at r/VPN hast Nord at the top spot with full points for almost all criteria. So do people hate Nord just because they see other people hating it and go along? Or is r/VPN also just an ad for NordVPN?
I myself started using Nord quite a while back and I also never had any problem whatsoever. Speed is super good, availability was never a problem, it just works. Still, if someone would point me to some specific flaws with Nord and showed me how some other VPN is an improvement, I´d be happy to reconsider once my Nord subscription runs out in september.
I think people hate Nord because they spam their ads all over YouTube along with not offering things like port forwarding which is crucial for torrenting.
I'm using Astrill. Flawless router integration if you have a supported model (i.e. most somewhat modern ASUS and a bunch of others), works with Android, iOS, Linux (tested on Xubuntu, clean and functional GUI, identical to Win) and Windows.
Huge list of servers, generally high speeds, works well with Netflix and Disney+ (don't use any other streaming services), has a DNS Leak block and a killswitch (disconnect internet if VPN fails). Feeling pretty good about it, been using it for well over 5 years now.
Sure is a bit on the pricey side, but you get 1 router + 5 client installations as per the terms & conditions, and they don't begin kicking out devices if there's fewer than 7 connected simultaneously. So if you share it among 2-3 people, it's already a bargain.
And if you happen to live in China, it's kinda without alternatives to begin with (which is my main use case).
Proton’s good but they seem to neglect Linux a lot. Command line version is okay but missing split tunneling so I’m seriously thinking about flicking it for something else.
My vote goes to ivpn and Proton (in that order).
I use Windscribe with a lifetime plan and I've been more than happy with it.
I've been using PIA for a long time.
PIA only offers port forwarding with servers in certain regions. For example I'm in the USA and I have to connect to a server in Canada for port forwarding. Works fine though.
I don't use PIA on multiple devices so I'm not sure if there are device limitations, but I don't think there are (don't quote me on that).
PIA has a no-logs privacy guarantee by external audit which is the best you can ask for.
In general I'm pretty happy with the software and service. It's the cheapest game in town if you go with the the three year sub, last time I renewed it worked out to $2.33 a month.
The one negative is a change in ownership a few years ago. It was bought by a company with a less than stellar reputation (Kape Technologies). Though honestly I've not seen any negatives come of it myself. For some people it's a deal breaker. I was going to find a new provider when my sub ran out last, but I took the easy route and renewed.
Just looked it up and found this post (link here) by PIA from a few months ago, looks like unlimited devices is a recent addition to their service.
I've been using Windscribe for a couple years and really enjoyed it. I started on the dirt cheap $1 or $2 plan and then bought a static IP for port forwarding. You can get ephemeral port forwarding with pro I think, but that's more expensive. Can't speak for the linux GUI as I use CLI, but I've been satisfied.
I use Nord and have no issues. Offers a lot of features. Price has gone up since my last renewal I paid like .35 a month it's 3.00/month now.