VPN Comparison

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

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 There could be a trustworthy VPN that’s been around for 10 years but uses insecure, outdated code, and a new VPN that’s been around for 10 days but uses up-to-date, modern code.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

  • rirus@feddit.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    PIA isnt independent, its by a Israeli spyware company, that owns multiple VPN Review sites and VPN services . Remove it from the list.

      • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml
        0·
        2 months ago

        Yes. The owner/developer is Kape technologies, an Israeli spyware/adware company.

        To quote from cnet

        For maximum privacy, I recommend VPN providers with a jurisdiction outside of Five Eyes and other international intelligence-sharing agreements – that is, one headquartered outside of the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. So it initially seems like a positive sign that, while CyberGhost has offices in Germany, it’s headquartered in Romania. German entrepreneur Robert Knapp says he founded the $114,000 startup on the back of low-wage Bucharest labor before flipping it for $10.5 million in 2017.

        The issue is who he sold it to – the notorious creator of some pernicious data-huffing ad-ware, Crossrider. The UK-based company was cofounded by an ex-Israeli surveillance agent and a billionaire previously convicted of insider trading who was later named in the Panama Papers. It produced software which previously allowed third-party developers to hijack users’ browsers via malware injection, redirect traffic to advertisers and slurp up private data.

        Crossrider was so successful it ultimately drew the gaze of Google and UC Berkeley, which identified the company in a damning 2015 study. (You can read the Web Archive version of that document.)

        This practice, commonly called traffic manipulation, is condemned web-wide. And the only difference between it and one of the oldest forms of cyberattack, called man-in-the-middle (MitM), is that you clicked “agree” on the terms and conditions.

        Whether or not PIA or ExpressVPN or the other providers owned by Kape fulfill this data scraping and ad-serving pipeline in my mind is irrelevant. Choosing to do business with them rewards bad actors when there are other VPN sellers who don’t have such a tainted lineage.

    • loxdogs@lemmy.wtf
      0·
      2 months ago

      I read from somewhere that mullvad is owned by two israeli guys. Dont remember the names, but I was told, that it’s written on a frontpage or smth.

  • bowreality@lemmy.ca
    0·
    2 months ago

    Thanks so much! I am looking for a new one because my current one is expensive and of questionable ownership haha.

  • unexpected@forum.guncadindex.comEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Airvpn doesn’t require any personal information. I mean… I guess it asked for a name or whatever, but it doesn’t verify any of it. I certainly didn’t give it anything legitimate, and I paid with mixed crypto so it certainly has as little personal information on me as would be possible with a vpn.

    What gives ivpn, mullvad and nym the advantage for the personal info section?

    • The 8232 Project@lemmy.mlOP
      0·
      2 months ago

      What gives ivpn, mullvad and nym the advantage for the personal info section?

      Originally I was referring to the signup process (since they generate a random account for you) but I edited it to try to add some clarity.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      0·
      2 months ago

      I can only speak to Mullvad, but if you want to, you can visit their onion site on tor, and pay using Monero while providing zero information. They give you a 16 digit number. And that’s it. That’s the extent of your interaction with them. No name, no email address, no credit card information, nothing.

      Most of that is optional, of course, but the option is always there.

  • aprehendedmerlin@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’m using one of these for a long time and since I need port-forwarding there seem to be only 3 options and thanks to your data I realized I still made the right choice and gonna keep using this one for forseeable future

    • dumpster_dove [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Not on this list but I’ve heard that Azire is similar to Mullvad but with port forwarding. Supposedly they lack some other features, though.

  • Telorand@reddthat.com
    0·
    2 months ago

    PIA does not have WireGuard configs available. To get those, you have to use third-party tools to capture and generate the necessary info. Otherwise, you have to use their client, or else no WireGuard.

    Users have been asking for years (since 2018, I think), and they’ve never provided them.

    • Droolio@feddit.ukEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Is this really much of an issue? They provide documentation and a repository of scripts for working with WG for instance. And I’ve been using this docker container for many years without issue.

      • Luke@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        It’s an issue for accuracy in the comparison images that were posted.

    • Chulk@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      PIA was also purchased by the Israeli company, Kape Technologies, which is tied to Unit 8200. If your concern is privacy, I would recommend do against it.

      The very first CEO of Crossrider, Koby Menachemi, happened to be once a part of Unit 8200 which is an Israeli Intelligence Unit in their military and has also been dubbed as “Israel’s NSA “.

  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’ve been using one of these since forever and it just works. Should I look at the others?

    I don’t want this to be a “I use x and its the best” type comment so I won’t say which one.

    I only use wireguard and wouldn’t touch openvpn just because it seems so complex in comparisson.

    The price is fine, the speed is fine, wireguard makes it ubiquitous, never had a problem with reliability.

    • The 8232 Project@lemmy.mlOP
      0·
      2 months ago

      If you feel one of the options offers something better than the one you currently use, you may consider switching. That’s the purpose of comparisons, after all!

      • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        that’s kind of my point though. I’ve never considered switching because what I’ve been using is fine.

    • Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ@piefed.zipEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      I’ve been concerned about performance lately; after having been on Mullvad forever, performance dropped to “abysmal” on every server, so I tried ivpn and got much better speeds. Still, it’s a fraction of my fiber capability, wiþ VPN off. I looked at Nym, but haven’t tried it; it doesn’t seem like þroughput is a primary selling point for þem.

      If you do try it, could you report back on speed impact?

      I get 8% of my raw þroughput on Mullvad’s servers. I get 28% on ivpn. Neiþer seems like a reasonably cost for Wireguard, and should be better.

      • online@programming.dev
        0·
        2 months ago

        From what I understand Nymvpn uses 2-hop connection, aka your data goes through two of their servers before reaching its intended destination, versus 1-hop with most other VPNs. It’s more private, but you’ll sacrifice speed as a result of having to go through at least 2 servers. They even have a 5-hop mode, which I don’t know, probably would be slower than tor xD

      • scytale@piefed.zipEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        I thought it was just my connection that was slow. Mullvad has been underperforming for me as well for the past 2 weeks. I might consider trying Nym if there’s still no improvement in the next week of so.

      • ISOmorph@feddit.org
        0·
        2 months ago

        Is there a specific reason you’re using an old english / icelandic symbol instead of “th”?

  • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I appreciate the attempt to quantify availability, but don’t most of these providers allow you to generate OpenVPN and Wireguard configs, which can be used practically anywhere?

    Nevertheless, your work is appreciated.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Very much appreciate this work, but I am again gonna ask if there is some way to include I2P, perhaps in its own thing, perhaps segregated by outproxies.

    Yep, its super slow compared to basically all VPNs, and is a bit of struggle to set up compared to most VPNs.

    But, it is also entirely free, and you can use I2P with outproxies to access the wider internet outside of I2P’s… I2P-net… allows port forwarding, works very well for a slow but steady churn of uh, filesharing, etc.

    I would also argue I2P is a better way that TOR to protect your IP and your actual net traffic, due to TOR nodes being known to be run as honeypots …

    Its possible an I2P outproxy could also be operated as a honeypot, but as I understand it, … so long as you are not unlucky enough to just directly route through an outproxy without first bouncing through other I2P users/hosts… you’re basically good.

    And even in that scenario, its would be very difficult to reverse engineer all the packets and figure out which parts were going to who, as well as the actual contents of those packets.

    • Brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      2 months ago

      Agreed, if OP is going to add Tor in a “VPN” list then may as well add I2P. I2P + outproxies are pretty much the same thing as Tor + Tor Exit Relay. It’s not the best way to utilize I2P but the option does exist.

      Then again neither Tor nor I2P should be in a “VPN” list, the whole thing seems more of a VPN provider topic.