Recommend a VPN service please

[Erich]

Looking at adding a VPN service. Would love some recommendations from those who have tried various providers. Considering Nord, Express VPN, and the like.

Friend was telling me that the downside he has seen is around subscription services that you pay for legitimately rejecting IP's  if its one they recognize as associated to one of the VPN providers. Any other downside by provider you have experienced would be helpful.

Appreciate insights.

[Erich]

If it helps anyone else, I picked up NordVPN yesterday. Playing with it still, but after adding to Desktop, iPhone, and Firestick its seems pretty good. Not seeing any decrease in speed to my  fiber connection on speedtests. Love seeing geoblocking is no longer a worry.  Uncensored news and the UK library for TV streaming! Look forward to the roadracing season starting up.

[DraxTheDad]

I've been using PIA (Private Internet Access).   One of the things I like about it is that they specifically go out of their way to say that they don't keep any logs.  This is critical for privacy; if they keep logs they can be retrieved with a court order and track you down.  If there are no logs kept, then there is nothing to get and thus you're privacy is secured better.   

 

NOTE: NORDVPN also has a strict no log policy.

Edited March 2, 2022 by CylonGlitch

[steveo50]

1st-Proton Vpn 

2nd- PIA

Those are usually the top services amongst people in cybersecurity/infosec. 

[user1776]

One downside I've noticed when I use NordVPN on my phone is that my banking apps don't load. Seems they block the some of the IPs used by NordVPN. 

 

Thanks steveo50 for those recs. Any reasons for those ones over NordVPN or ExpressVPN (which both market their services very heavily)

[steveo50]

Proton started off as an encrypted email service, and has become the top email service amongst privacy enthusiast. They started the vpn a few years ago and you can, for a lack of better words “bundle” the vpn and email service. The company is based in Switzerland which has some of the strictest privacy laws. It’s all open source. Their vpn has a lot of cool features. 

Private Internet access is secure, cheap, fast, and has lots of servers. Good customer service. You can get a dedicated ip. 

At the end of the day I’m sure they are all better than nothing, I just try to pay attention to what the experts in the security/privacy industry use. 

[liamsoren]

I'd say that VPNs are great for privacy and all, but I’ve had issues with certain apps, like banking ones, not working because the IPs get flagged. A buddy of mine suggested looking into Residential proxies instead. They use real IPs from actual devices, so they’re way less likely to get blocked. I still use a VPN for basic stuff, but for anything where I need to avoid getting flagged, like streaming or certain accounts, the proxies have been a solid backup.

Edited yesterday at 09:24 AM by liamsoren

[Links2k]

16 minutes ago, liamsoren said:

I'd say that VPNs are great for privacy and all, but I’ve had issues with certain apps, like banking ones, not working because the IPs get flagged.

You should be able to go into VPN’s privacy and security settings to allow apps that are getting flagged. 

[Pain103]

Is there any impact on the speed of your connection using a vpn? Any issues with internet providers not jiving with a vpn?

[steveo50]

VPN’s can throw red flags to apps and websites, not many ways around it. Typically just have to deal with a captcha or something. I used to use a VPN pretty regularly but I rarely do now. All of our data and personal information is already out there, and no one is really hiding from big brother these days. The most important thing you can do is have complex, unique passwords for everything and a secure password manager. Also multifactor authentication for everything, preferably a method that’s not sms(text). Credit card masking is a good idea too. 

[btq96r]

+1 for Private Internet Access.  I've been using them for 10yrs without any issues.