this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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obviously the shitty VPNs like NordSurshark, TorGuard, Tunnelbear, cyberghost and PrivateInternetExpress suck...pretty much every VPN that's part of some giant conglomerate sucks ass in terms of privacy and security
But then there's iVPN, Mullvad and ProtonVPN and even Adguard VPN which do very little to no advertising at all and allow their products to speak for themselves. I mean...Kitboga and RionaPoison are sponsored by Proton, but Proton is a good company that takes their security and the security of their swiss-law-abiding users very seriously.
Don't be a scumbag and Proton won't snitch on you.
The VPNs you characterise as "shitty" aren't necessarily a bad choice; they're cheaper than the legitimate privacy VPNs. Mullvad is famously 5€ per month, Proton is 4.49€ per month, but NordVPN is 3.09€, Surfshark is 2.19€, and PIA is 1.79€ per month.
If you're really just here to pretend you're in another country (rather than privatemaxing) or hide your torrenting activity from your ISP, the cheaper options can be a perfectly legitimate choice.
Mullvad doesn't try and lock you in with any auto-renewal shenanigans and was the second service that I know of to offer payment via xmr. The first was ivpn but their server speeds were trash.
That's true. Mullvad will even let you send cash by post to them which is definitely not something you can do with other services.
However, in terms of private payment options, you can always use BTC's Lightning Network with the other options if that concerns you.
I believe Proton VPN allows for cash mail in. https://protonvpn.com/support/payment-options/
It seems you're right. I did not know that.
they do. They also accept bitcoin
Their server speeds are great now. I tried them. They just have a very small number of servers compared to those other three
Love it. If you want to stay anonymous, might as well go the whole way. Granted TOR should not be used with a VPN.
https://thatoneprivacysite.xyz/ is a good base for comparisons
Bear in mind that info hasn't been updated since 2019, when the OG thatoneprivacysite sold out to a shady company. The .xyz site is an old backup someone put up of the site before it changed to only recommend a handful of bad VPNs.
Is there a more recent guide that you'd recommend?
Perhaps Privacyguides.org, but I'm not aware of a replacement for the exhausting level of detail and breadth which thatoneprivacysite once provided.
Just what I was looking for. Thanks.