I’ve been using Tunnelbear for several years. It used to be a good option for watching UK TV from Australia, but sadly this no longer works. I suspect this applies to many of the popular VPNs, not just Tunnelbear.
My annual subscription is due in a few weeks, so thought it would be good to cast about for opinions on other services.
So what do you use, and why?
I use encrypt.me (formerly Cloak). That said, I’ve never really used it to get around geo-blocking, so I don’t know how well it does on that score.
It depends what you want to use it for. One use is what you’ve outlined, to watch content that you are normally blocked from viewing due to your geolocation. Another use of a VPN to improve your privacy. With the latter you want to pay more attention to the company you are doing business with as you are relying on them to protect your privacy.
I think this website is a great resource for learning more about VPN’s in general and it rates dozens of options: VPN rating site.
Hope that helps.
ExpressVPN has been incredible for me so far, but I wish it had smart VPN for the iOS format. That’s one of the things that I miss about the old Cloak software.
Private Internet Access. I’ve been on it for 18 months, and after the first year I jumped on a Stacksocial deal for 3 years for $90. That deal is gone but a similar 2-years-for-$60 offer is ongoing.
I get the occasional hiccup, like a while back not being able to access treelinebackpacker.com from the NYC node because it was temporarily on a blacklist (that got lifted). Speeds seem fine, no problems.
It was one of the finalists for me based on various privacy, stability and speed considerations, reviews, and user reviews on Reddit. (There is also an active user community for PIA on Reddit.)
I can choose between turning on the VPN for my computer as a whole, or just use a Chrome/Safari browser plugin to use while websurfing.
I’m sure there are other good VPNs as well.
Wow. That is some comparison table… 
Since I subscribe to Eero plus, it includes a subscription to encrypt.me which I’ve installed on all of my devices and have enjoyed using when connecting to public WiFi networks. If you are looking for a VPN and a great mesh WiFi system that could be the way to go!
Plus Eero plus even includes a subscription to 1Password
I don’t know. Dropped Cloak when they changed names. Gota like the name or it’s just no good. smiley redacted ///
Was subscribed to 1Password and Encrypt.me before getting the eero setup. Once they offered eero Plus, I switched over and gained Malware Bytes for about the same cost as the standalone 1PW and Encrypt.me subscriptions. No complaints with my use case for Encrypt.me so after about a year of use.
I use Private Internet Access based on the comparison sheet that someone posted above. Also, most of my friends and colleagues in the cybersecurity arena use it. I used Cloak (now encrypt.me) but switched when I learned that your usage is not encrypted from them. They have records that your IP address was used to access websites, torrents, FTP, etc. PIA does not.
TunnelBear for now, but will probably switch to NordVPN soon.
ProXPN and my own OpenVPN server.
I’m running my own OpenVPN servers.
I use VPN unlimited, lifetime subscription. This is offered regularly. Works fine for me.
Mine is not a VPN perse, but it’s a geo-blocker I used for watching content in US/UK. I use PlaymoTV since I can easily use it on my AppleTV and all my devices. I used VPN back then, but it’s not easy to use for AppleTV. Playmo just gives you a DNS access and it lets you geo-block. I find it much more convenient and cheaper than using VPN.
I am using the same however I am running beta12 on my iPad Pro and the OpenVPN app closes the connection as soon as you try and switch to another app. My main reason for the VPN is the remote viewing of my security cameras and NVR.
When in a public wifi I just use the built in VPN of my router.
I have manually created a profile that automatically connects to that when in an unknown network.
TunnelBear here and it’s been great. When switch to eero wifi will do the + and change to encrypt.
Can you please explain how you’re doing that? I have this on my Android phone using Tasker, but couldn’t find anything to get this working on iOS.
I use VyprVPN because they are based in Switzerland (good laws) and they are by far the fastest service I’ve used. They also don’t need an app to use the service and work perfectly in China, where I have to go several times a year for work.
Oh, and I can watch my cable football using it (others I tried were blocked).
The only downside is that they do ban you for illegal activity like torrenting, and they log your IP address, but I don’t do anything illegal online so it’s not a problem for me. I use it for encryption rather than hiding illegal activities.