Express vpn, encrypt.me, or something else?

Any suggestions? I’m not super-techie, so hopefully whatever you’re using (and liking) is something that a simpleton like myself can figure out. I’ve heard that encrypt.me doesn’t work well with google apps email, so that’s a concern. Thanks!!

I use the free ProtonVPN - it works great

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I tested a few different ones for a couple of months and settled on iVPN. It has worked very well for me the last month across multiple Macs and iOS devices.

Isn’t using a VPN just redirecting the internet traffic through someone else’s servers and logs, etc.?

I’m asking because I don’t really know the principle behind it.

But without a VPN, my ISP (or Hotel’s/Coffee Shop’s ISP) is able to log my tracffic. Using a VPN, isn’t that traffic just redirected to the VPN-company? I guess my question is why trust one, and not the other?

I use encrypt.me (as part of the eero+ subscription) and it works well with the gmail app and everything else —no issues whatsoever.

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That’s why you need to search for a service that does not keep logs. ThatOnePrivacySite has a great comparison. I’m using Private Internet Access. They’ve stood behind their policy in court.

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You might want to take a look at this thread.

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I trust a company whose business model is to be secure more than a company whose business it is to collect customer data (coffee shop,…). Since ISPs are free to sell that data (ISPs can now collect and sell your data: What to know about Internet privacy rules), you can choose to have a new “ISP” via VPN in a country which forbids collecting and sale of data. Are you in Denmark? Than, thanks to GDPR your ISP (and the coffe shop!) is heavily restricted, but for ppl in realms with lower privacy standards (USA) might prefer to use a VPN.
That’s why at home I never use a VPN, what for? But I use it in coffee shops, airports, etc. Not only because they might be doing something wonky, also because I don’t trust in any baristas (or whatever coffee-machine button pushers are called today) knowledge in securing a wireless network. MIM attacks are also realistic in such settings. Rather fruitless today, since everything should be HTTPS and SSL, but who knows…

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I use Private Internet Access (PIA) on both my macs and iPhone. They claim not to keep traffic logs; I tend to believe them as they pulled out of Russia recently when required to log traffic, but of course you can never really know.

For the paranoid use a VPN service in Switzerland as they have very strict privacy rules and I doubt (but don’t know) that they would accept an international request to log traffic. Mind your DNS settings; if you’re trying to avoid being tracked, there’s no point in using a VPN to avoid you ISP logging your requests if your system’s DNS requests are still being routed to you ISP’s DNS servers. PIA has a (default) setting that allows you to route DNS requests to its DNS servers. For the totally paranoid, use a randomly selected VPN server and then route everything through TOR.

All that said, I tend not to use VPN from my home; if the UK authorities want to trawl the metadata on my connections with MPU, let them.

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I am very happy with Private Internet Access as well. You can set up the account and pay for it with Bitcoin or even a Starbucks or Target Gift Card and PIA will not know your identity.

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Encrypt.me and protonvpn for me!

Had been using TunnelBear and happy with it but dropped it in favor of encrypt.me since it came with my Eero+ subscription and I wasn’t happy about the Macafee acquisition. It has been working well enough.

This seems like a repeat of previous threads (Use the Search, Luke!).

Anyway, as I’ve noted in those threads, I bought a year of Private Internet Access, liked it so much I bought a 3-year deal, and I’m currently half way through that deal.

Currently, with this deal link, they’re offering 1-y for $35, or 2-yrs for $60 (Normally its $40 and $70, respectively.)

Encrypt.me is the one I use. Mostly because David and Katie told me to in an episode of MPU. The thing I like about it is the automatic feature of encrypting whenever it encounters an unknown network. So when I connect to a public network, it defaults to encrypted. If it’s a network I trust, I simply add it to the trusted list and Encrypt.me will no longer encrypt by default.

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Encrypt.me is fine for providing basic privacy protection when you’re connecting to untrusted / public / open Wi-F; the fact that it turns itself on automatically when you connect to an untrusted network is really nice.

Biggest downside to Encrypt.me is that bittorrent is turned off by default “to discourage signing up and abusing the service” as they stated in a Reddit thread. They also detail why they don’t recommend using VPNs for torrenting … but that seems to ignore the point that many people torrent over VPNs at home so their ISPs can’t see theur traffic (and, in some cases, throttle speeds when they detect torrenting).

But I use my VPN exclusively with my desktop. On mobile I do not use my PIA VPN; instead I (a) don’t do banking/etc on WiFi mobile and (b)on iOS I use a pseudo-VPN app that blocks ads on everything (apps and browsers) on my device.

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I use it as part of an EERO + subscription as well. Works great. Particularly useful is the automatic switching off of the VPN when you have defined a “trusted” WiFi network, like home.

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