A VPN, or a Virtual Private Network, is a great tool to protect your privacy and security while you use the internet. Whether you’re at home or using public Wi-Fi while traveling, the best combine great pricing with security features and privacy guarantees that make them worth your trust. This week, we’re looking at five of the best VPN providers, based on your nominations.
Earlier in the week, we asked you which VPN service providers you thought were the best—the ones that don’t keep logs, protect your anonymity, don’t discriminate against traffic or protocol types, offer exit servers to help you get around location-restricted content blocks, and deliver the best bang for your buck. It takes a lot to make a VPN service worth your trust, but there are some good ones out there. Here are some of the ones you thought were the best, in no specific order:
Private Internet Access
Private Internet Access is one of our favorite VPN service providers, and based on the number of nominations they picked up, they’re one of yours as well. PIA is one of those VPN service providers that both protects your privacy and security by encrypting all of the traffic between your home computer (or home network) and their service, but also anonymizes it and helps you get around regional content restrictions by giving you a choice of exit servers (close to 1000, in 10 different countries.) PIA doesn’t log data about your session or connection details, they don’t discriminate against protocols or IP addresses, and they don’t host any data about its users activities at all. They support a number of different authentication and encryption methods, support virtually every mobile and desktop operating system, and their pricing isn’t bad either ($7/mo or $40/yr for up to five devices connected simultaneously.)
PIA has made the list every time Torrentfreak looked into privacy protecting VPN providers, and picked up an Editors Choice award from PCMag. Those of you who chimed in in the nominations thread noted that they also provide connectivity options for your home router so you can stay constantly connected, connect to your home network when you’re away, or customize your solution. Many of you praised their customer support and technical expertise. Read more in the nominations thread here.
TorGuard
TorGuard’s claim to fame is that they offer specific types of servers for different activities. That gives you the ability to connect to torrent-friendly services if you need to download something, encryption and anonymity-friendly servers if you just need a little privacy and security, and so on. They’re also one of the few VPN service providers to take DNS leaking seriously, and they even offer their own test to make sure that your VPN—even if you don’t use them—isn’t leaking DNS and thus information you thought was secure. Depending on your usage habits and patterns, TorGuard has different plans for you. For our purposes though, their full VPN service will set you back $10/mo or $60/yr, and they have less expensive plans if you just want an anonymous proxy or a torrent proxy. Their full VPN service however features over 200 exit servers in 18 countries, no logging or data retention of any kind, and their network is set up in a way that they actually have no information to collect on their user activities—they don’t know what you’re doing or when you’re connected. They delivered a really great response to Torrentfreak’s questions that’s well worth a read for more info. They also support multiple connectivity protocols, support for virtually every desktop and mobile OS, and even offer their customers encrypted, offshore email service if you want to take advantage of it.
Those of you who praised TorGuard in the call for contenders thread noted that they have “Stealth” VPN servers to protect you against deep packet inspection (a technique used to capture and systematically decrypt or inspect encrypted data, usually used by corporate networks, university networks, or specific “agencies.”) You also noted that they support OpenVPN, help you get connected via your home network, and have great customer service. Read more in the nominations thread here.
IPVanish VPN
IPVanish takes an interesting approach to privacy and security. They use shared IP addresses, so when they say no one has any idea what you’re doing when you’re connected, they mean it. That doesn’t mean they’re compromising security though—they have over 14,0000 IPs to share on over a hundred exit servers in 47 different countries. You can choose where you’d prefer to connect, which again is perfect for getting around location restrictions, and their encryption makes sure your traffic is safe from prying eyes. They support OS X, Windows, and Ubuntu (although it wouldn’t be too hard to stretch that to other distributions), along with iOS and Android, and they offer configuration utilities so you can set you home router to connect to them as well. They feature multiple connection protocols, don’t discriminate against traffic types or port usage, don’t monitor your activities, and only log a few things. Torrentfreak gave them the nod as well. Accounts with IPVanish are $10/mo or $78/yr, and you can connect two devices at once (as long as they’re using different protocols.)
IPVanish earned high praise in the call for contenders thread for its speed while connected. How they manage to do it is impressive, but the service manages to hold itself to a high standard of privacy and security while giving you breakneck speeds that you may not be accustomed to with a VPN. The service proudly notes that they’re happy with you streaming video or music while you’re connected to get around pesky content blocks, especially if you’re an expat who’s currently abroad but wishes they could see their favorite TV shows back home or make use of their streaming music subscription. Read more in the nomination thread here.
CyberGhost VPN
CyberGhost has been around for a long time, and while we’ve mentioned them before, they made a great showing in the call for contenders thread. Like any good, trustworthy VPN provider, they both encrypt all of the data that passes through your connection and anonymize your location. They offer free and paid subscription plans, so if you just need a little security on the go, you may be able to get away with a free account. The service just went through a massive overhaul about a year ago, where they removed traffic and bandwidth restrictions for free accounts, and improved security from the ground up. CyberGhost doesn’t log any traffic, and they don’t monitor what you’re doing while you’re connected. They do retain some information, but not much. They offer your choice of exit servers in 23 different countries (free users can pick from one of 14, still impressive for a free service), and you can see server status at any time. Their clients are easy to use, support virtually every mobile and desktop platforms, and they don’t discriminate against traffic types, protocols, or IP addresses (in fact, they just donated 10,000 licenses to users in Turkey to get around their location-blocks.)
The only major difference between free and pro CyberGhost accounts is that free accounts disconnect after 3 hours, and are limited to the official client, while pro accounts can use other connection protoctols and have way more servers in more countries to choose from. You’ll pay $7/mo or $40/yr for a premium account, but if you need more than one device connected at any given time, you’ll need to step up to Premium Plus, at $11/mo and $70/yr. Those of you who praised the service noted their great connection speeds, wealth of servers to choose from (even for free users). Read more in the nomination thread here.
Do-It-Yourself
Of course, no list of great options would be complete with the DIY approach. If you don’t need exit servers in different countries, and your primary need is to encrypt and secure your data when you’re away from home, you can roll yout own VPN with OpenVPN or a number of other free, open-source tools. Many of the best routers on the market support OpenVPN out of the box, and even if they don’t, the DD-WRT or Tomato firmwares do, so if you can install those on your router, you’ll be all set. The beauty of a home-rolled VPN is that you get to set the level of encryption, you get complete control over who connects and who has access to what parts of your home network, and where your data goes from there.
Of course, this setup is best for people traveling who want to encrypt their data while they’re on the go, but with a couple of friends, it’s easy to set up a mesh network that would get you around content restrictions and port blocks. Similarly, advanced users can fire up a VPN on their preferred host or VPS provider and keep their VPN running there while they connect to it when necessary. The sky’s the limit with the DIY option, it just takes the skill and knowhow to do it, and some compromise on the level of features and tools you get. You won’t get quite as much as a professional VPN service provides, but you might get everything that you need. Check out the nominations thread here.
Now that you’ve seen the top five, it’s time to put them to an all-out vote to determine the winner.
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We have more than a few honorable mentions this week, including one of my personal favorites, Hideman VPN, for their cross-platform, mobile-friendly, no-logging VPN service—complete with free VPN options for people just looking for a little security on the go without shelling out for a premium service. Also noteworthy are the great people over at Tunnelbear, who are constantly working to improve and update their service to help you get around regional restrictions and blocks—-and recently unveiled a browser add-on to tunnel some services but not others, giving you even more control over your connection.
We’ll also give the nod to AirVPN, a popular pick around Lifehacker HQ that packs in way more features than you might possibly need. You can forward remote ports, pick and choose exit services in multiple countries, and even generate an OpenVPN config through their wizard to connect your home network to their service all the time—oh, and they don’t log, don’t discriminate against protocols, and they have no idea when you’re connected. If you’re looking to walk the line between a truly DIY option and a VPN that you roll at home, configure, and then connect to externally, they’re worth a look.
We should also highlight VyprVPN, which was a really tough call. VyprVPN is owned by the same company that owns Giganews, the Usenet service provider. You can use VyprVPN as a stand-alone VPN client, but you’ll sign up for Giganews when you get it. They did very well in the call for contenders thread—although many of their votes were from first-time accounts—and they certainly talk the talk on privacy issues. They have multiple exit servers in multiple countries, strong encryption, and they’re improving their service all the time. However, they have a history of logging user data, sometimes a lot of user data, and at the very least log user sessions and data for troubleshooting, acceptable use issues, and more for up to 90 days. That’s not an issue if you don’t care about logging, but they were cagey with Torrentfreak back in 2011 on the topic, cagey with me when I last spoke to a rep from the company, and this Reddit thread is rather illuminating as well. Still, there are signs that things may be changing with VyprVPN. The feature set and the face of the company both look good, and they combine Usenet with VPN services which is great, but we don’t feel comfortable calling them one of the best if we can’t verify their commitment to your privacy and anonymity as well as the security of your data.
A final note—something we mentioned when we talked about how to tell if your VPN provider is trustworthy—don’t fall into the geography trap, assuming that an overseas VPN or one outside your country is somehow safer or more committed to privacy than ones based in your own or subject to your own laws. A local VPN that doesn’t keep logs and has none to turn over is more trustworthy than an overseas VPN that logs everything and is happy to turn your data over to anyone who asks—and there are definitely VPN providers that fall in both categories.
Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn’t included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Don’t just complain about the top five, let us know what your preferred alternative is—and make your case for it—in the discussions below.
The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it didn’t get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it’s a bit of a popularity contest. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at [email protected]!
Photo by Maksim Kabakou.