I’ve been using Private Internet Access for years now and have been very happy. Pretty darn cheap! I get good speeds even going through international servers. iOS app works well, too.
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Moved to IPVanish from BTGuard about a year ago. No regrets. Running on Mac, Windows, and three iOS devices across multiple countries and it’s been great.
I switch between NordVPN and encrypt.me. I love encrypt.me auto connecting capabilities on my iPhone, I use it even in cellular. For NordVPN, I found that it has more VPN server around my region, so I use it mostly for content consumption.
Have you noticed any significant impact to battery life when connected all the time?
Private Internet Access. Overall the service has been good.
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EXpress VPN sadly can no longer provide access to all Netflix regions. Netflix needs to get ‘real’ - often I want to use a VPN service to protect me not dodge them!
I switched from PIA to NordVPN but can’t recommend it. It has trouble accessing Amazon for some reason. I didn’t have that problem with PIA.
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From my experience, not very significant. Our local provider loves to block and throttle speed on certain sites, so instead of switching back and forth, I decided to use VPN all the time.
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I have it summed up here. All you need is a router that supports it and a static ip or dyn-dns.
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OpenVPN is very easy to setup on a server including SSL on Digital Ocean. You can run your own server for $5/month. 1 afternoon setting it up is worth the control and privacy.
Thanks for the blog post. However, i can’t download the example profile. Could you make that available too?
I use OpenVPN. They released version 3.0.0 today. Finally a more modern UI!
However, this bug (“OpenVPN error : Missing External PKI alias”) still seems to be present:
https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/ticket/1031
Anyone know how to work around this?
Preferably still storing the client certificate and private key in the iOS keychain, as discussed here:
Why not just build a self-hosted one? It’s way more cheaper and flexible than commercial VPN services. (A Linux instance on DigitalOcean/Vultr/Linode costs only $5 a month with more than enough computing power for running a VPN server.) And you don’t actually need to deal with command lines — solution like Outline is open-source, cross-platform and clicks-away to set up.
It’s also easy to solve your problem of circumventing regional limitation of streaming services. Just create your instance in a London data center, say, for UK-only videos. A caveat is that you may want to experiment for a little while before settling down — some streaming services allow traffic from genuine residential network only — but since all said services bill on hour basis you have nothing to lose.
Of course, here’s also a biggest plus for all self-hosted services — complete control of your data.
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My PrivateInternetAccess subscription costs me $2.50/month, offers umlimited bandwidth access to 3500+ servers in 30 countries, keeps no user logs, and has both a menubar Mac app and a browser extension to choose between.
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Another content PIA subscriber here, for the last 3 years +. I won’t elaborate on all the reasons I subscribe, most have been noted in above posts. However, I’m of the belief that in the U$A, especially under the current administration, that business interests will 7rump the civil liberties of citizens. As net neutrality issues rise, then sort them selves out, the use and selection of VPN providers could become a much larger matter.
I was really hoping iOS 12 would allow using password managers with the VPN dialog…no luck.
Using PIA, but keep getting tempted to switch to or add Encrypt.me for its location based activation. Is there another VPN that can switch on automagically at designated locations?
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Looks like it’s now about $2.91a month… for a two year plan. Given is unlimited it’s better than my encrypt.me account at $2.99 a month for 5 gig. But I rarely use 500 meg a month of restaurant use with no country spoofing.
Went back to encrypt.me after dropping TunnelBear for free VPN from DashLane. After waisting time trying to get it to function, second tier support wrote. And said, its not working is a known problem.
There are periodic $60/ 2-yr sales. After using it for a year (at $35 IIRC) I found a StackSocial 3-yr deal pop up for $90. Works fine, iOS or Mac, no major problems now heading into my 3rd year with PIA.
I initially learned about PIA in one of the recommendation threads in the VPN subreddit. PIA has had a very good reputation for a long time, they’re stable and fast and don’t keep logs (unlike some VPNs), and are affordable. Over time VPNs tend to rise and fall in quality of service, often linked to (over)popularity, but PIA is one of the biggest VPNs around and have weathered growth well, from what I can tell.
I’m sure there are other excellent VPNs. At least I hope so, in case something ever happened to this one, lol.