Ask HN: What is the best VPN provider?

[rtfpessoa]

After the post by Bryan Krebs I started investigation what would be the VPN used by him.

The list suggested by him https://thatoneprivacysite.net/simple-vpn-comparison-chart/ has some interesting points. What do you think he is using? Also, what are you using and why?

[rwieruch]

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ works for me

[remlov]

I am partial to blackvpn.com. Cheap and they don't store logs. I did a couple armchair speed tests through a couple of their locations vs my baseline internet connection:

  NO VPN enabled
  http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168457639
  PING 17 ms
  DOWNLOAD 195.94 Mbps
  UPLOAD 23.60 Mbps

  BlackVPN through Canada
  http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168460690
  PING 53 ms
  DOWNLOAD 151.71 Mbps
  UPLOAD 16.48 Mbps

  BlackVPN through Brazil
  http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168447144
  PING 160 ms
  DOWNLOAD 186.43 Mbps
  UPLOAD 10.21 Mbps

  BlackVPN through Switzerland
  http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168451606
  PING 263 ms
  DOWNLOAD 19.93 Mbps
  UPLOAD 5.60 Mbps

[bradknowles]

With respect, I would advise using other speed testing sites. Speedtest.net is well-known to be optimized by most ISPs, and so doesn't really give you accurate results.

Fast.com is provided by Netflix, and you use their actual CDN to download a part of a freely available movie, and so you get a really good estimate of what kinds of download speeds you can see from them.

The other one I like is from dslreports.com -- it uses only HTML5 instead of flash, and they adaptively test your bandwidth from multiple simultaneous server sites, with adaptive multi-streaming.

You can't make a reasonable conclusion if you don't have reasonable data to work from, and with Speedtest.net you can't trust any of their results.

[joshmn]

PrivateInternetAccess. Lives up to the hype. Inexpensive; I picked up two years for $40. On my 250Mbps/15Mbps pipe I usually can pull down 200Mbps and push 10Mbps up.

[tricinel]

NordVPN (https://nordvpn.com/). Panama, doesn't store logs, plenty of servers around the world. Works with the majority of devices out there. Accepts bitcoin. Checks pretty much all the boxes.

Also recommended on https://privacytoolsio.github.io/privacytools.io/.

[ajeet_dhaliwal]

This is the only one I've tried (and I'm currently subscribed) but one thing I've been disappointed by is the speed. I know this is something to be aware of when using any VPN so I am not sure how bad NordVPN is in comparison to others, it may actually not be worse than others, I haven't had to time to compare.

[tricinel]

I actually tried TrustZone as well and it was worse, at least for Germany. With NordVPN, I'm seeing speeds at about 60-70% of the original - which is a lot less granted, but it works fine for my day to day stuff like browsing or netflix.

[rtfpessoa]

https://www.mullvad.net/ seems like a great option, anyone tried it?

[Johnny_Brahms]

Using it since a couple of years. They never seem to be the bottleneck, but it is hard to test since I am too cheap to get anything else than the lowest bandwidth (30/30). I get 2.2MB/s down and a bit less up, which is about the same as I get without VPN.

The app is nice (at least on Linux), but for environments where it doesn't work they provide openvpn files.

[hbogard]

I've used a bunch of small-scale providers because their servers aren't as hogged as the big guys out there (looking at you, IPVanish!) I found Hotspotshield and PureVPN mentioned on this list: https://www.bestvpnprovider.com to be somewhere between serivceable to trustworthy in this regard.

[damnmachine]

I like IVPN. Based in Gibraltar, excellent bandwidth, plenty of servers, accepts Bitcoin, uses OpenVPN.

[marvel_boy]

Url is https://www.ivpn.net

[rtfpessoa]

Seems pretty good in the charts.

[alltakendamned]

Freedome (https://www.f-secure.com/en/web/home_global/freedome) is my go to

[mtgx]

AirVPN is pretty good. Modern crypto and uses OpenNIC DNS servers. You can lock the connection so it doesn't do IPv6 leaks and such. Clients are open source.

[ayylmaoo]

https://www.tunnelbear.com/ has been great for me

[ionised]

I use Mullvad personally

[rtfpessoa]

How long have you used it? What are the average/max speeds you get? Have you used any other before? How do they compare?

[irremediable]

I've had good experiences with Azire.