Which VPN Service Do You Recommend?

raindog308

I have yet another friend who asked me what VPN service he should use.

I seem to have a lot of friends/family who fall into these categories:

• want a VPN for various non-nefarious reasons (want additional protection when in hotels, are not committing crimes but prefer more privacy, heard VPNs "make you more secure", etc.)

• in principle prefers no logging but isn't really worried about it because is not doing anything more super l33t than watching hulu in another country

• are not technical enough to run their own server or administer a VPN

• prefer a service because there are usually hundreds of endpoints to choose from not just one

• the usual consumer comforts like supported on all major platforms, etc.

• probably will pay with a Visa and doesn't know or care about crypto currency or complete anonymity with the provider

I'm the worst person to give a recommendation because while I generally use a VPN, it's often to purposefully appear from one IP (to enable whitelisting on various systems).

So...given that...who might you recommend?

Disclaimer: LEB is promoting ExpressVPN and PureVPN, but I have not personally used either. Over the years I've tried some cheap promos from NordVPN and PIA and they were fine, but I didn't really push the service hard or investigate them too closely.

stevenruidigao

I recommend Windscribe, but some people seem not to like it.

Hotmarer

KeepSolid, Windscribe if you like to pay monthly

magicvpn

I would say ovpn.com since they explain with a lot of detail how they work, but they're on the expensive side.
For PureVPN you can just pick up Ivacy on stacksocial, they resell from PureVPN but give the same quality at a lower price.

BlazinDimes

I use Mullvad and pay with bitcoin but maybe that's overkill? Works fantastic though.

Oh, I forgot I also have Google's VPN thats included with the 2TB Google One plan, works well but its android only and its Google. Worth it as a free addon.

ProtonVPN still have a free tier?

WebProject

@stevenruidigao said:
I recommend Windscribe, but some people seem not to like it.

Personally do use Windscribe - great service, if you do have a Apple iPhone you can use iCloud+ as its come with VPN service from Apple so get the basic security.

SirFoxy

Mullvad, OVPN. Windscribe is decent too.

nerdport53

For privacy: Mullvad, IVPN, OVPN.

For pure speed: ExpressVPN.

Ouji

Windscribe is nice. I also have Ivacy and KeepSolid (aka VPN Unlimited), but I wouldn't recommend those two unless you get them for lifetime for $15-$20 because while they work okay and have decent speed, there are better options at the price point for those who are under subscriptions.

yoursunny

I use ssh -D 1080, faster than VPN.

stevenruidigao

@BlazinDimes said:
ProtonVPN still have a free tier?

Yup.

Erisa

@yoursunny said:
I use ssh -D 1080, faster than VPN.

Is that the quick SOCKS5 proxy that SSH has? I'm always impressed that exists and its a lifesaver in some situations.
Though had some difficulties getting it to always stay open and didn't prefer it for long-living connections that are supposed to be able to stay alive after losing that connection sometimes (sometimes SSH stops receiving packets and doesn't notice, theres a thing for that but I could never get it to work reliably)

But still, for something that doesn't require installing anything extra, its amazing.

Hxxx

My vote is for NordVPN. Love the simplicity and also the advanced options.

TheBrokenBee

Proton

SirFoxy

@TheBrokenBee said:
Proton

Proton is good for being free, used the Japan location for gambling.

Privacy

AzireVPN or AirVPN. PrivateInternetAccess became shady after they were bought by Kape Technologies.

jar

Google One is nice on mobile, comes with a bunch of other benefits.

JackieSung

I dont use any VPN service anymore, since there're few open source projects on github, such as v2ray, shadowsocks. Easy to install and use.

Daniel15

AirVPN.

• Decent number of locations
• Very transparent about their servers. On their site, they show things like bandwidth available and in use, server load, number of connected users, and a log of maintenance / packet loss issues per server. https://airvpn.org/status/
• Supports port forwarding of up to 20 ports, so you can host services on the VPN, Sure, people often use it for torrenting, but it also has other use cases too, when you want a service on your machine to be accessible on the internet without revealing your IP.

For basic use cases, NordVPN works fine. I've got a NordVPN account because I forgot to cancel it and it auto-renewed, and my wife uses it to watch Australian TV via ABC iView and similar apps. NordVPN has an Android TV app that works well on the Nvidia Shield and is very simple to use - just open it and select a country.

stevenruidigao

@stevenruidigao said:
I recommend Windscribe, but some people seem not to like it.

They also currently have a sale - I think it was $69 for 3 yr, $29 for 1 yr

DewlanceVPS

You can install Open VPN using the one-click installer. If anything goes bad in the future such as VPN is not working anymore then reinstall OS using a one-click installer from your VPS provider and install VPN again.

Most of the time, I do not like to debug it and instead reinstall OS + VPN in some cases only.

chihcherng

Tor? No logging, hundreds of endpoints, complete anonymity, and free.

stevenruidigao

@chihcherng said:
Tor? No logging, hundreds of endpoints, complete anonymity, and free.

Well I mean it's sometimes slow and somewhat technical, but it might be worth considering.

adanforest

i use keepsolid

ElonBezos

i have cheap lifetime plan for keepsolid, for now only use for browsing only so i really don't know how fast it is for torrenting/download..

boner_garage

F-Secure FREEDOME VPN hands down

https://www.f-secure.com/us-en/home/products/freedome

Nekki

Given the criteria, I'd suggest ProtonVPN. Generally fast and reliable, they promote their ability to allow you to watch Hulu out of the US etc. and have a no logging policy.

Windscribe were also decent and if only or or two locations are needed, their 'build a plan' option is going to be pretty cheap.

raynor

Have lifetime BFCM offers from VeePN, FastestVPN and they are good, but prefer self-hosted WireGuard, which use mostly. Have office VPN also, but just for work with linux iso

xetsys

None.

1- Get a oracle Free VPS.
2- Deploy Wireguard/OpenVPN
3- ????
4- Profit.

sepei

@Daniel15 said:
AirVPN.

• Decent number of locations
• Very transparent about their servers. On their site, they show things like bandwidth available and in use, server load, number of connected users, and a log of maintenance / packet loss issues per server. https://airvpn.org/status/
• Supports port forwarding of up to 20 ports, so you can host services on the VPN, Sure, people often use it for torrenting, but it also has other use cases too, when you want a service on your machine to be accessible on the internet without revealing your IP.

For basic use cases, NordVPN works fine. I've got a NordVPN account because I forgot to cancel it and it auto-renewed, and my wife uses it to watch Australian TV via ABC iView and similar apps. NordVPN has an Android TV app that works well on the Nvidia Shield and is very simple to use - just open it and select a country.

I also use and can recommend AirVPN. Previously I used service like torguard, pia, windscribe, but for me AirVPN is the best fit

1allen

windscribe, keepsolid.