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Comment by kadoban | Hacker News Reader

NordVPN is by far the shittiest VPN service I have ever used. They billed me twice, two months in a row, and getting them to fix it was like pulling teeth. This is not to mention the hard time I had actually using the service, between random inability to connect and outages.

They have ISP-level arrogance, without the lock-in. I have no idea how they're still in business.

So I'd be very inclined towards believing this story.

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> I have no idea how they're still in business.

I imagine it's good marketing. They sponsor a lot of Youtube videos.

Pretty much every VPN service does. Every tech youtuber has one VPN service advertising with them. Along with cutting prices for viewers who use those links. I have to think it's a fairly solid sales model. The viewers would also line up with their best selling demographics.

Interesting, I have had the exact opposite experience personally. I have used the customer service in the past to fix a problem I caused (payment related), and they were prompt and helpful. Not only that but I get the best speeds (300 Mbps) from them over any other VPN I have used, and my connection is rock solid.

This story doesn't make me happy with NordVPN or TordGuard as a service however.

To provide a different perspective from that of kadoban, NordVPN is by far the best VPN I've used, and I've tried most of them (got to make use of those free trials). I had one issue with billing which was cleared up the same day, can't think of a time I've had a noticeable outage, and the UI is one of the best ones I've used. No, I don't work for them...

Reading NordVPN's side of the story, I wouldn't be inclined to believe either story until the truth has been pulled apart in court. [1]

[1] https://nordvpn.com/blog/torguard-lawsuit/

No idea what's up and down in the actual case, but I can, anecdotally, counter your experience with a wholly positive one from the other side of the fence:

I have a TorGuard account, and I use the VPN an awful lot - it's the default connection on the machine I'm currently writing on. Been using for a couple of years, and never once have I seen trouble or even inconvenience, save the obstacles a few sites choose to set up based an ip address. Nor with billing. They mail me an invoice. I pay. Stuff just works.

Can anyone recommend another VPN provider, than Nord or Torguard? Main use case is for using public WiFi when travelling.

Private Internet Access. Besides providing great service, they sponsor a lot of free and open source software and services, like Freenode IRC.

I've used PIA for years. The only other one that I've used is Air VPN. They seem pretty legit.

Note that this post was submitted to HN by a co-founder of PIA, and they've been known to stir the pot a bit in the past. Last year they put out a few accusations against NordVPN and ProtonVPN that were very weakly supported.

He's also (honestly) the crown prince of Korea , which is kind of crazy to think about.

>Main use case is for using public WiFi when travelling

Your own VPN is the correct answer. If you have a fast enough symmetric link at home then just run a small machine there (or your router/sec appliance may support it) or else get a ~$5 VPS from OVH/DigitalOcean/Scaleway/Amazon/Google/MS or whomever you like and run WireGuard on it. Or if you want something more turnkey with IKEv2 support (if you have devices that can't use WG) then check out Algo [1].

But there is likely no need for or reason to use a "VPN provider" if all you're looking to do is shift your virtual entry point to the internet from the edge, and lots of good reasons not to. The only real exception would be if latency is a major concern, you travel very widely and don't want to deal with any extra hassle setting up a solution to move between regions. In that case might be worth keeping an eye on CloudFlare's "Warp" solution [2], which will probably be about as good as it gets in that regard since they've got infrastructure worldwide and will be able to route well.

But I'd definitely suggest checking out running WG (alone of via Algo) yourself. It really is straight forward.

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1: https://github.com/trailofbits/algo

2: https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/

One of my main use cases for a VPN is appearing from different countries. I also anonymize my traffic. If I own the VPS, that traffic can be tracked to my quite easily. I use a VPN for these things a couple times a week. I can (and do) use my own VPN just to secure my traffic on untrusted networks, but there's more to it that just that.

Mullvad was alright. Didn't ask me any questions other than payment information.

For non do it your self I would use freedome by f secure, which is a reputable security company with a long history.

For do it yourself the best option is algo.

I would recommend my own company, based in the Netherlands: WifiMask.com.

A VPN with a focus on WiFi protection. MacOS and iOS only for now, I'm working on Android and Windows too. Send me an email for a test account if you'd like to try it out: support@wifimask.com

in this day and age: just buy a data plan sim card! it will be safer, more pratical and cheaper.

even if you have to splurge in one country or another with bad monopoly cases (e.g. visiting the usa) it's still better than using a combination of open wifi + shady vpn (all of them)

That's interesting, I too, have had the exact opposite experience. After having tried multiple VPN providers I settled for NordVPN because it gave me the most consistent speed.

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