cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/37366040
After making a post about comparing VPN providers, I received a lot of requested feedback. I’ve implemented most of the ideas I received.
Providers
- AirVPN
- IVPN
- Mozilla VPN
- Mullvad VPN
- NordVPN
- NymVPN
- Private Internet Access (abbreviated PIA)
- Proton VPN
- Surfshark VPN
- Tor (technically not a VPN)
- Windscribe
Notes
- I’m human. I make mistakes. I made multiple mistakes in my last post, and there may be some here. I’ve tried my best.
- Pricing is sometimes weird. For example, a 1 year plan for Private Internet Access is 37.19€ first year and then auto-renews annually at 46.73€. By the way, they misspelled “annually”. AirVPN has a 3 day pricing plan. For the instances when pricing is weird, I did what I felt was best on a case-by-case basis.
- Tor is not a VPN, but there are multiple apps that allow you to use it like a VPN. They’ve released an official Tor VPN app for Android, and there is a verified Flatpak called Carburetor which you can use to use Tor like a VPN on secureblue (Linux). It’s not unreasonable to add this to the list.
- Some projects use different licenses for different platforms. For example, NordVPN has an open source Linux client. However, to call NordVPN open source would be like calling a meat sandwich vegan because the bread is vegan.
- The age of a VPN isn’t a good indicator of how secure it is. There could be a trustworthy VPN that’s been around for 10 years but uses insecure, outdated code, and a new VPN that’s been around for 10 days but uses up-to-date, modern code.
- Some VPNs, like Surfshark VPN, operate in multiple countries. Legality may vary.
- All of the VPNs claim a “no log” policy, but there’s some I trust more than others to actually uphold that.
- Tor is special in the port forwarding category, because it depends on what you’re using port forwarding for. In some cases, Tor doesn’t need port forwarding.
- Tor technically doesn’t have a WireGuard profile, but you could (probably?) create one.
Takeaways
- If you don’t mind the speed cost, Tor is a really good option to protect your IP address.
- If you’re on a budget, NymVPN, Private Internet Access, and Surfshark VPN are generally the cheapest. If you’re paying month-by-month, Mullvad VPN still can’t be beat.
- If you want VPNs that go out of their way to collect as little information as possible, IVPN, Mullvad VPN, and NymVPN don’t require any personal information to use. And Tor, of course.
ODS file: https://files.catbox.moe/cly0o6.ods
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Mullvad is really the only one worth using in my opinion. It’s cheap, it’s been audited by plenty of trustworthy people, history has proven they actually do not keep logs, and they don’t require an e-mail/phone number/username/password to have an account with them.
And some fun facts about some of the others listed here:
- Private Internet Access is owned by Kape Technologies, an Israeli company owned by an Israeli billionaire with ties to Israeli intelligence
- Proton’s CEO Andy Yen publicly talked about his appreciation for the Republican party and how “10 years ago the Republicans were the party of big business, now they stand up for the little guy” on Twitter
- Mozilla has a history of their services shutting down abruptly quite frequently due to internal restructuring and reallocating of funding to different things
- NordVPN and Surfshark are really the same thing, except NordVPN has a cheaper price tag, they’re owned by the same company
- Windscribe’s founder & CEO Yegor Sak is quite a big fan of Elon Musk and posts quite interesting things on his Twitter account (cw: ableist slur, https://xcancel.com/yegor/status/1898491865713791126)
What’s wrong with that
Per the chart, Nord VPN doesnt support wireguard but surfshark does. Are people still using open VPN? I thought it was not good.
I still use OpenVPN on my NetBSD machines. NetBSD has WireGuard support, but I’ve had issues with it a couple of times and it’s still technically experimental even though it’s existed for 5 years or so at this point. I’ve been meaning to try it again but I don’t really have the time. They both get the job done for me so I don’t really have a strong preference. If it isn’t broke don’t fix it.
Invalid tweet id
i can see it (sorry my computer is fucking dying right now I can’t upload a screenshot)
AirVPN is the major one with port forwarding, you can forward 5 ports both TCP and UDP.
This is a great project, if I could make a suggestion, it might be helpful to add, to the “availability” category:
- f.droid app store
- the ability to generate wireguard and/or openvpn files. I know a few providers support this and its generally a better experience on Linux IME with Wireguard than trying to get their applications running on various different distros, since its natively supported with NetworkManager. There’s also a Wireguard app for Windows but I haven’t tried it, and of course OpenVPN is well supported on all major operating systems. Some advanced features may not be available, or can be set up in some cases at creation of the configs. I’ve only personally done this with Proton and it’s worked well. (I think PIA discontinued openvpn generation years ago which sucks as I had a lot of trouble with their app on Linux since I wanted to make a headless server)
Just in case its not obvious in your view of Lemmy, this is cross post of @Charger8232@lemmy.ml’s work so constructive comments should probably go in the OP which is on !privacy@lemmy.ml where they’ll be noticed.
If you want VPNs that go out of their way to collect as little information as possible, IVPN, Mullvad VPN, and NymVPN don’t require any personal information to use. And Tor, of course.
xeovo too
Should be a row for “sells your data to Israel”
I made this comment on the privacy ml version of this post.
This isn’t a useful chart to use. Select your vpn service based on what you’re trying to accomplish, not some weird abstracted chart.
Pricing info on this is way off. Don’t ever pay full price for a VPN unless its Mullvad’s flat $5. Proton has the best price to quality ratio when its on sale, which it just was and will be again soon for black friday.
