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Comment by Brajeshwar | Hacker News Reader

What VPN Providers do you suggest?

I would not like to "just" fire up a digitalocean, AWS or a Raspberry pi. Something reliable enough for a daily driver, no-logging, and a speedier experience from a user in a corner in India.

I have used ExpressVPN but then they exited. I had the opportunity to used ClearVPN for a while, OK but too many bells and whistles. I think I also got IVACY in some discount sale for 5-years. This one just kinda works and I might actually stick to this if nothing bad happens.

I had had tried Mullvad for a few months but was slow from India (2020-ish).

I'm not worried and am not hiding anything from any country's 3-letter institutes. However, I like have one handy that I can go in as my bubble to feel comfortable in.

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https://perfect-privacy.com if you're from Europe (they have most of their high bandwidth servers with good peering in Europe).

They've been raided multiple times (and are used by a lot of criminals - I think it's actually a good indicator when fraudsters trust your privacy service).

Raid in Rotterdam (Servers): https://torrentfreak.com/police-seize-two-perfect-privacy-vp... Raid in Erfurt (Admins Home): https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2010-August/...

Also: Perfect-Privacy found an exploit (dubbed Port Fail) which was present in a lot of other commercial VPNs (PIA, nVPN, ovpn.to) and reported it to them before disclosing it publicly: https://torrentfreak.com/huge-security-flaw-can-expose-vpn-u...

Mullvad. It's fast for me and I like their approach (honesty, ethics etc. - I don't use services that manipulate, lie, etc. for that I am happy to pay for services that directly write about their pros and cons).

Mullvad, IVPN, AIRVPN, Windscribe or Tunnelbear.

I wouldn't trust any other.

Tried that in China. Didn't work. It's OK when we're in the west but in any country that blocks the internet or censors it you're in trouble. Shadowsocks used to be my go to in China when the AWS trick got killed.

Hmmm… three accounts that are newer than 6 months all recommend mullvad…

Well, maybe I can balance that out?

Mullvad is very good. I was on a trip recently where I needed a VPN and decided to try it out after someone I trust recommended it. It didn't ask for any of my information; allowed me to download a wireguard config so that I didn't even need other clients; and it was the first time I was actually able to pay for something useful with crypto.

They are quite good with nice general tutorials. Took a look at their openvpn ones when i was still at another provider. You can also sign up with leaving little data and they have been around for a while. I also never saw a mullvad ad, i think they live by (imho earned) word of mouth.

Thats not to say that they are perfect, your experience may vary with your use case, but in general i havent seen anything to complain about. Not something you can say about many of the other providers.

Are you just asking for Mullvad recommendations here? ;) Almost 10-year-old account, I have no complaints, been a customer for 2 years.

IMO Restore Privacy [1] is a reliable source for VPN recommendations. For what it's worth, I use Surfshark and am very happy with them (except the lack of a kill switch in the CLI app and the lack of a Linux GUI client).

[1] https://restoreprivacy.com/

edit: typo

Paying for protonmail anyway and they seem reputable to me so protonvpn

Also have a ivacy one kicking around but don't use it

Depends on your use case. If it's piracy I would stick to services that have been subpoenaed and produced no records.

I already trust ProtonMail with my emails, so started using ProtonVPN when I have a need for one.

They have wireguard support now.

ExpressVPN works great for geolocked streaming services, which is all I ever turn it on for.

They recently got bought out. Shame though, they work well.

What’s the problem?

They were bought up for around a billion dollar from the Israeli company kape technologies (formerly called crossrider). Who also own CyberGhost VPN and Private Internet Access. Screams data mining to me. Then again, i like my tinfoil hat.

On a side note, crossriders former CEO and cofounder having worked at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_8200 in the past. Left long before the takeover though.

edit: With both expressvpn and PIA being among the most widely publicized providers that had their servers seized for non cooperation.

Fine for me as long as I only use it for the one thing it’s actually good for (convincing Viacom I am geographically worthy)

Crossrider used to develop adware, that's the biggest issue

https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-crossrider-malw...

Seconding Mullvad, but I'm in the US and not India so it might be different.

Mullvad is the go to one at the moment. Maybe try it again?

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