Imho, 'cheapest' and 'useful' are rarely a great combo for a VPN.
I mho, Mullvad is the best available, at 5€/month.
Close second, I would place Proton VPN.
Most of the others are just, well, I don't care much about their existence.
this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
38 points (93.2% liked)
Privacy
32442 readers
844 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Popular VPNs like Mullvad are banned in some authoritorian countries
That's a good sign
Mullvad accepts cash in envelopes as payment. That's a good sign they care about privacy.
Personnaly I would recommend pia for VPN torrenting, it's not private but it's good for this use case
Why do you say PIA isn't private?
I'm not really an expert but it not known to be private, it's almost like when using any mainstream VPNs
You are spreading disinformation.
PIA has stood up in court multiple times previously: https://torrentfreak.com/private-internet-access-no-logging-claims-proven-true-again-in-court-180606/.
So unless you have a reliable source, you are wrong.
I wouldn't say that pia is the worst in term of "privacy" but you will agree with me that it's not a recommended VPN when talking about his category. Maybe it's just a really bad misconception and I'm sorry. But I would not really recommend this VPN if any.
(But you shouldn't justify yourself by using a 2018 article, and even more when talking about "no logging") Indeed, I'm wrong.
Imho, 'cheapest' and 'useful' are rarely a great combo for a VPN.
Yeah I never understood why people have this mindset.
Like looking for security, but then buying the cheapest option?
People have limited funds. It's as simple as that.
Proton VPN has a free plan that is fine if you just want general privacy from your ISP. If you want to do more like torrenting or circumventing geoblocking, there are probably cheaper options although Proton VPN does have significant Black Friday sales (which I think you just missed, unfortunately).
I’m on the Proton train, but know now, you’ll never see a discount once you’re a customer. They will promo you up to a more premium plan, but I recommend only comparing proton at full price.
Edit: I'm on a proton family plan. I’ve watched since October for any kind of deal or promo with Black Friday. There’s nothing available once you’re on this type of plan.
You will be offered a discount the first time you up to this plan, but once on it, nothing.
This sentiment is all over the proton communities.
For what it’s worth, I’m not expecting any BIG discounts from proton, but it would feel a lot better if they offered something (5 or 10 percent) on an annual subscription that’s nearly $300. (Yes I know annual is discounted from monthly, as is always the case).
As a subscriber it feels like you’re just part of the revenue stream and forgotten.
I felt this way as well. That top tier of subscription maxes you out, and they give no incentives. I assumed it was because they shrugged and thought, "They can't level up, so we have them where we want them. Let's upsell the others instead!"
but know now, you’ll never see a discount once you’re a customer.
That's not true, I have been a customer for several years and regularly receive offers on my current plan during the big sales. The problem for me is that they lowered my VPN Plus monthly rate to $5 a while back and the promotional offers usually reset to a rate higher than that, so even though I would save more in the short-term I am locking myself into a longer and potentially more expensive contract with them in the longer-term. I don't know if this is bait from them or an oversight - I did notice that the most recent Black Friday promotion said it would reset to my discounted price at the end of the promotion so maybe they've changed it. I still didn't take them up on it, though.
I get promo emails every so often, especially last weekend. Maybe they’re getting snagged by your spam filter. I always ignore the promos, because I’m grandfathered into the older price which was cheaper for a single account with all their services. As long as I don’t cancel, I get to keep that price.
Mullvad. It does not not really get cheaper if you want something reliable.
Mullvad is fairly expensive though. If you want cheaper slightly cheaper go with a 1 or 2 year subscription of Proton VPN.
Proton has a free package with unlimited bandwidth. It doesn't offer as many countries or advanced features but it works just fine.
Another vote for Mullvad, here. It's arguably one of the best VPNs out there and at 5 bucks a month, you really can't go wrong. If you want cheaper than that, you have bigger problems than a VPN.
Mullvad no longer has port forwarding.
Which is only really needed for hosting a torrent, something most people don't do. Most VPN users do not even know what torrenting is and most torrent users are leechers so they don't use it either.
I think Proton has a free tier. It would be the most legit free one. Otherwise the best VPNs would be Proton, Mullvad, and IVPN with their no log policies, anonymous account creation and payment methods, audit history, and legal track records
PIA is $40/yr and if you're just dodging hollywood lawyers, it is perfect for that. I can easily saturate my 1Gbps connection. It's a well known service so some companies block their IPs and you'll get captchas but I think that's unavoidable.
If you have state actors interested in your activities, keep shopping.
I think they just jumped about $10 a year, I was just renewed for $50 a few weeks ago.
Maybe it's a cyber Monday deal, they're advertising 3.33/mo
Son of a... Yeah probably new users or something. I'm ok with losing $10 this year though.
Buy the deal and have them merge it into your account. It’s what I did.
Note that PIA has extremely limited options if you want to be connectable on private trackers
Their port forwarding works for me, but you're right. It takes some knowledge to make it work.
The real issue is that they only allow port forwarding on certain endpoints (and when I was still using them, none of the endpoints that supported port forwarding were in the US which is a headache)
AirVPN has a pretty good reputation AKAIK, and their 2-year plans are cheaper than Mullvad and Proton.
Mullvad. Supports IPv6, €5/month no matter how long you pay for or from what country.
Tailscale.
Agreed. I have a VPS exit node for 4$/month, took an hour to set up, never once come within a mile of hitting my bandwidth cap on it.
The clients run on everything.
Surprised this isn't at the top. Perhaps I'm too used to r/selfhosted
I'm surprised too. Since it's a mesh VPN, you can set up your exit node anywhere you like.
I assume you need to pay for exit node hosting + traffic, right? Which would be comparable to the price of a classic VPN.
If you have it at home, you have to only pay for the bandwidth you're using.
i'd say Mullvad is the better choice, Surfshark if you want better speeds (from my personal experience, also depending on location)
Have a look at https://thatoneprivacysite.xyz/
for what purpose? if it's just bypassing your ISP, a free VPS + wireguard and you're golden.
Been using Air/Eddie for a while, it's been solid... Not the best interface perhaps, but a wide selection of servers globally..
Most VPN software is free. OpenVPN is FOSS and a popular product.
What are you trying to achieve?
It's no use. "VPN" means gateway/MITM service, just like "crypto" means digital tulip mania.
Today's episode brought to you by our friends CoinSkank™ and EchelonVPN.
Tor. Or use gnunet's 'vpn' function with friends in other countries.
A car with a thumbstick, I guess.
I just bought adguard vpn for 5 year. Cost me 35$. Includes adguard private dns and adguard family license.
Imo, its worth it for me. Good speed but no wireguard support.