cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/37366040
After making a post about comparing VPN providers, I received a lot of requested feedback. I’ve implemented most of the ideas I received.
Providers
- AirVPN
- IVPN
- Mozilla VPN
- Mullvad VPN
- NordVPN
- NymVPN
- Private Internet Access (abbreviated PIA)
- Proton VPN
- Surfshark VPN
- Tor (technically not a VPN)
- Windscribe
Notes
- I’m human. I make mistakes. I made multiple mistakes in my last post, and there may be some here. I’ve tried my best.
- Pricing is sometimes weird. For example, a 1 year plan for Private Internet Access is 37.19€ first year and then auto-renews annually at 46.73€. By the way, they misspelled “annually”. AirVPN has a 3 day pricing plan. For the instances when pricing is weird, I did what I felt was best on a case-by-case basis.
- Tor is not a VPN, but there are multiple apps that allow you to use it like a VPN. They’ve released an official Tor VPN app for Android, and there is a verified Flatpak called Carburetor which you can use to use Tor like a VPN on secureblue (Linux). It’s not unreasonable to add this to the list.
- Some projects use different licenses for different platforms. For example, NordVPN has an open source Linux client. However, to call NordVPN open source would be like calling a meat sandwich vegan because the bread is vegan.
- The age of a VPN isn’t a good indicator of how secure it is. There could be a trustworthy VPN that’s been around for 10 years but uses insecure, outdated code, and a new VPN that’s been around for 10 days but uses up-to-date, modern code.
- Some VPNs, like Surfshark VPN, operate in multiple countries. Legality may vary.
- All of the VPNs claim a “no log” policy, but there’s some I trust more than others to actually uphold that.
- Tor is special in the port forwarding category, because it depends on what you’re using port forwarding for. In some cases, Tor doesn’t need port forwarding.
- Tor technically doesn’t have a WireGuard profile, but you could (probably?) create one.
Takeaways
- If you don’t mind the speed cost, Tor is a really good option to protect your IP address.
- If you’re on a budget, NymVPN, Private Internet Access, and Surfshark VPN are generally the cheapest. If you’re paying month-by-month, Mullvad VPN still can’t be beat.
- If you want VPNs that go out of their way to collect as little information as possible, IVPN, Mullvad VPN, and NymVPN don’t require any personal information to use. And Tor, of course.
ODS file: https://files.catbox.moe/cly0o6.ods
Tor is not a VPN and the use case is not interchangeable
I believe that supposed to be whether you can get to their website to download clients / register / etc through TOR. Not that the VPN can access the TOR network.
Now we need a list of how many of those VPNs are Israeli owned so we can avoid them.
Just wanted to leave a comment to say thank you for sharing your findings and taking the time to write your post here. I am sure you spent a lot of time and effort researching all of this. These kinds of posts are why I love Lemmy and its communities.
Not currently in need of a new VPN, pretty happy with Proton and my plan is active for another 1.5 years. But I still wanted to say I appreciate your post.
Holy shit, the entitlement of some comments here. As if they paid for your service and you let them down and caused them damages.
Thanks op for your contribution.
Been nothing but satisfied with proton. I bought a years worth at once. The flatpack I got installed and works without issue. The only gripe I have is I can’t figure out how to make it (mint) boot up with wiregaurd/proton as the default.
The Flatpak isn’t from Proton
Nice chart, but I don’t get the payment part, I looked it up for Proton and it states:
Visa, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal, or Proton credits
Nothing about cash???
But they accept all major credit cards.As we’ve seems with steam, you can’t rely on credit cards for paying for things. A credit processor simply has to saw “well he could be using that to access porn” and block processing payments for it entirely.
The Proton prices are also misleading…I got 2 years for $71 on one of their regular sales. I’m sure the same is true for many of the other provider prices listed here.
Do yourself a favor. Get a Digital Ocean droplet for $6/mo, Debian version, follow their excellent step-by-step directions to install OpenVPN Server. Done.
You don’t have to know Linux, the instructions are tight. I only got hung on one step where they left a small thing out. Also, I was drunk. Got it going the next evening.
This thing has been running for years and years, can’t even remember how to log in, likely lost my SSH key. 🙄 No worries about logging. It’s yours, they can’t take it away or change the rules. It’s yours.
And BTW, not sure my rate has gone up in the ~7 years I had it. Maybe $1? That might have been because I enabled additional backups.
Bad take
- You only have one country (the one you run your vps in).
- Costs more than any vpn provider (which come with many extra features out the box).
- You are not maintaining your OpenVPN installation and having to is likely a pain for most people (you said you “can’t even remember how to login”, which tells you me are not updating your servers OS or OpenVPN itself, which is leaving you open to vulnerabilities in the old software).
There might be advantages too, but I can’t think of any unless you are gonna use the VPS for other stuff too and creating the vpn is basically free then (but I still wouldn’t do it personally).
