My NordVPN subscription is coming to an end. I’ve been using it for a couple of years. I know about a year ago, I considered switching but I don’t remember exactly what prompted me to think that. And I did some short research (including here) and came across Mullvad.
I don’t want to get into a long discuss on ‘best vpns’ so I’m wondering for those that use (or used) Mullvad, how satisfied are you with it.
If you switched off of it, was there any specific reason?
Secondly, with my Nord account, I actually have 5 separate accounts I can create with it which is nice. On Mullvad’s site, they link to ways to purchase Mullvad including scratch cards on Amazon. Those gift cards are much cheaper and also say I can login to 5 devices. I will assume that’s using one account unlike Nord. Curious if anyone has experience on that.
I’ve used Mullvad for several years. I’m satisfied with it.
A friend moved away from Mullvad recently because he’s finding streaming services are detecting too many of the IPs when geohopping, so that’s something to consider. Mullvad has significantly fewer exit nodes than the largest VPN companies.
As far as paying and number of accounts, it’s up to you how you want to mix them. The main reason to use one payment method or another, and how many account numbers you want to juggle, is how you want to manage anonymity and convenience. If you’re worried about it, I’d just spend $5 to check out the interface and set it up on a few devices.
I’ve been using it for a while and have had no issues.
It’s different from most such services I’ve used; but it works well. One license w/ an account number and you plug that into the app on your devices.
I don’t do anything complex; so I can’t talk to extended features; but I’ve paid monthly a couple of different ways and all my devices saw the updated “Time left:”
I pay for several streaming services and have to turn it off or they don’t work.
Friends send me Reddit links and, if I forget to turn it off, Reddit has a freak-out and asks me to sign in.
I agree with cornchip. Give it a whirl for about $5 and see if you like it – I do like that it can be bought a month at a time and, if I forget and have a four-day lapse, then I didn’t pay for 4 days I didn’t use.
With a Mullvad subscription, you can select it as an exit node on a Tailscale mesh. That will mean nothing to most people, but if you’re into Tailscale, it’s straight up amazing and makes a subscription a must-have for me. I believe it’s the only VPN that does this.
Otherwise, in terms of speed, price, etc it’s fine. Comparable with Nord. I still like AirVPN the most, but given the above I’ll be using Mullvad for the foreseeable.
The very short answer is that, if you’re out and about, you can be connected to both your home network and a commercial VPN service at the same time, gaining the benefits of both at once.
I’ve tried both and liked them, but ended up sticking with Nord as it was the only one that allowed me to watch my sports abroad. My ISP has blocked the IPs Mullvad uses, and it’s the same for services like the BBC, unfortunately.
Nord on the AppleTV also lets me see TV shows from my home country (I live abroad), and I use this too much to live without.
I have been very impressed with Mullvad. It is the service I recommend to people after conducting significant research and having much experience with VPNs in general.
The Mullvad folks take security very seriously. A good example of this was when there were issues early on with macOS Sequoia’s network stack, Mullvad was the only one that wouldn’t allow system connections to circumvent the VPN, which was what caused things like Messages to break, until a permanent secure fix could be provided.
Thank you all! No doubt I will give it a one month try and see how it goes. And thanks to @appledispatch for the link to your article. I skimmed the top just now but I will go read it later.
This isnt the question being asked, but in case its helpful to anyone, if you’re abroad and want to watch TV from back home, a better way to do it is to VPN in to a machine in your house. This sets all your traffic to your home IP address, and avoids any issues with TV providers blocking IP ranges for commercial VPNs. If you don’t have an always on machine in the house, sometimes your router will have an OpenVPN option you can use instead. Won’t be incredibly fast, but should be fine for watching sports or TV from back home while you’re in a hotel room somewhere.