General VPN - Was Looking at Reddit Recommendations but Not Sure if I Can Trust Them

mickey9876 on 05/04/2023 - 13:06

There is a VPN comparison table which seems legit - https://www.reddit.com/r/VPN/comments/m736zt/vpn_comparison_…

Lots of reviews for PureVPN but when you click on the redditor promoting it, almost seems they are all shills/bots.

I was hoping to sign up to PureVPN one of their affiliate links which works out $39.99USD for 2years + 3months but the above comparison table doesn't rate it that well.

I had Surfshark for 4 years but lately their quality (just connecting to countries in general) seems to be degrading. I don't even use it for torrent so speed not a biggie. Mainly use it for reliable cheapie stuff ;)

General Discussion

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  • NJBNZ on 06/04/2023 - 13:28
    +2

    I've used Windscribe for years after getting a super cheap ($40?) lifetime subscription. Generally works really well - good speed and lots of locations

  • Plusultra556 on 06/04/2023 - 08:39
    +1

    For privacy, Mullvad is the best option. They give you an account number and that's it. You can even pay them by sending them cash or bitcoin.

    They don't do crazy marketing like Nord, don't do any deals, or fixed terms, just a fixed price per month.

    PS: i have not used it because I got a 1 year free VPN with Keepsolid which I discovered in here.

  • Jaqqour on 05/04/2023 - 16:23

    My favourite was PIA due to its settings, interface and no logs - speeds were ok too. But switched to Nord when my PIA expired as there was a cash rewards deal a while back that made it like 2$ a month (or something like that) after cash back for 3 years, I miss PIA but Nord is ok, speed is better than PIA was but the interface is clunky.

  • ace310 on 06/04/2023 - 09:26

    Surfshark expired in Feb so went with Nord when 96% cashback was going on. It's not bad, speed is decent. Works fine with torrents as well. Don't care much about the interface if things work. Only complain I have is surfshark had adblocker which Nord doesn't have so sometimes it's annoying as I have got used to not having much ads.

  • 19th on 06/04/2023 - 11:56

    I've been using PIA for the last 5 years or so and it has worked well.
    Tried PureVPN, they're cheap for a reason. I tried to cancel and refund my subscription within their 30 day trial period, was a nightmare getting my money back.
    Have also tried Surfshark, better than PureVPN and customer support was good in my experience.

    Both PureVPN and Surfshark were missing features I like from PIA so ended up sticking with PIA.
    There's better options out there, but they often cost more.

    Worth doing some free trials if you can to see what meets your needs.

  • SamwizeGamezy on 06/04/2023 - 12:37

    I've used Surfshark, PIA and now I'm with Private VPN. Surfshark was lacking the countries I needed to connect for Netflix and Hotstar Disney, they were also expensive. I was with PIA for longer than Surfshark but found a better price with PrivateVPN. The deal I'm on now is for 3 years $115NZD till 2025 ($38.33NZD per year or $3.19 per month) and can use 10 different devices so you can also share with friends and get it even cheaper. It depends on your requirement so would encourage to do some research. Good luck!

  • mickey9876 on 06/04/2023 - 20:07

    Thanks all… So thinking between PIA & Nord at the moment.
    I've been with Surfshark already. PureVPN obviously isn't that much recommended.

    The Reddit spreadsheet has Nord rated high hence why that is in the running. You guys mentioned PIA is good, so that is also in the running.

    • ace310 on 06/04/2023 - 20:26

      Wait for the cashback offer if you can. Mostly they are around once a month or alternatively.

      Caution for PIA. It was sold to an advertisement agency and have got bad reviews so do your research.

      https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/760503

      • mickey9876 on 08/04/2023 - 14:43

        Okay thanks for letting me know, I've got Surfshark for maybe couple more weeks, hopefully something pops up.
        Cashback deal worksout $2USD a month anyway right?

        • Dunno on 08/04/2023 - 15:01
          +1

          https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/767617

          nord is 96% off again, 96% off only applies to the VPN product offer not any of the extras(cloud storage etc) which cost more. You don't get cashback on the added GST, only the VPN part of it($88.83 USD). You may be able to use a VPN for a country where they won't charge GST/VAT etc.

          You won't get exactly 96% of the 88.83USD back, cashrewards currency conversions from USD to AUD etc are at rates favourable to them.

          If you paid with NZD it would cost about $165 today, cashback in upto 95 days you might get ~$130-135 back from cashrewards after conversion costing $30-35 for 27 months of Nord. Or as mentioned via a VPN where you don't pay sales tax you would pay $10-15.

        • ace310 on 08/04/2023 - 17:23

          I got nord with with above deal last time. Used Florida/US zipcode to avoid gst. And paid in USD using wise card. I think I paid around $10 n change for 3 yrs.

          • mickey9876 on 09/04/2023 - 16:48

            @ace310: I tried using existing Surfshark VPN and connected to couple of different US locations and couldn't log into cashrewards.com.au :(
            Any tips?

            • ace310 on 09/04/2023 - 17:17

              @mickey9876: You don't have to connect to US vpn. Rather don't use any vpn. Just login to cashrewards normally and follow from there. During checkout select US

              • mickey9876 on 09/04/2023 - 18:52

                @ace310: Great, but I just tried again and it keeps reverting to just 60% off monthly fees and not the 96% cashrewards

                • ace310 on 09/04/2023 - 22:30

                  @mickey9876: 60% is from nord which is correct. Cashrewards will give you 96% from the amount you pay excluding gst.

              • mickey9876 on 09/04/2023 - 18:57

                @ace310: Wait, it keeps reverting to 59% off. I updated country from NZ to US and the price is USD 107.73. I clicked through the links from cashrewards but at the checkout screen, there is no reference to cashrewards - is that normal? Just want to make sure doing this right!

                • ace310 on 09/04/2023 - 22:28

                  @mickey9876: It should be usd $88 something. Make sure you go from cashrewards link to nordvpn. There is nothing mentioned about cashrewards on the checkout page. Also select the standard option which is lowest on the page. You don't need other addons which are not discounted.

                  https://files.cheapies.nz/upload/4285/4271/img_0424.png

                  • mickey9876 on 10/04/2023 - 09:23

                    @ace310: They worked, thanks mate! The credit is in the CR account in AUD 121.42

  • L3tstaxth1s on 09/04/2023 - 13:45

    Mullvad for piece of mind - no discounts, no logs (externally audited), no login details, and fastish NZ location.

  • Avantime on 09/04/2023 - 13:51

    Beware with VPNs as they make it very difficult to unsubscribe. For example Surfshark has no way to unsubscribe without going into livechat, and they try to fob you off.

    Use Paypal or a disposable virtual card (e.g. Wise) when paying for VPN, and cancel the payments from there.

    If you use VPN for streaming, I find Windscribe to be better, but they aren't cheap.

    • Dunno on 09/04/2023 - 14:22

      Nord was painless for me to turn off auto renew, can't speak for other providers

    • ace310 on 09/04/2023 - 15:16

      Surfshark wasn't that bad either. There robo chat gives you the option to disable auto renewals.

    • Alan6984 on 09/04/2023 - 16:35

      I use a Wise virtual card for any subs that I do. That way, they can't auto renew and take any money unless I explicitly allow it.

  • NovaAlpha on 09/05/2023 - 20:12

    PSIPHON is free and works great. Used it at 3 of my jobs to bypass the network blocks.

    Softether VPN is also free and runs by a university in Japan. It can do relays to bypass blocks as well. The relay uses 443 to connect to an Azure host and so it's pretty much unlikely for companies to block that.

    There are also ways to create your own Shadowsocks proxy server on a free AWS EC2 instance.

    Other than that, VPN Unlimited and Ivacy are decent and I think Ivacy has a server in China that you can use, which can be handy in case you need to access certain sites or TV shows or whatever. I have both on lifetime license and I paid only like $30 for each or something like that.

    Windscribe VPN is also pretty good too, bypasses a lot of blocks that other VPNs failed to do so. I just refer myself over and over again and have like 5 accounts and each with 50GB data allowance as backup.

    Also check these out:

    https://github.com/tina-hello/doh-cf-pages
    https://github.com/tina-hello/doh-cf-workers
    https://vpnly.net
    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/proxy-%20-free-vpn…

    There's probably more I can list, including proxies and Wireguard, but I think that should get you up and running.

    If you're just using VPN to bypass blocked sites, then using something like DNS over HTTPs should work as well. For example, NextDNS or BlahDNS or even Cloudflare offer free DoH and you can just add that to Windows 11 under the modern Win11 settings page for your network. You can also add this as a SecureDNS in Chrome settings (or any other Chromium based browsers).

    Oh and some of the solutions I've listed (like Windscribe) can allow you to whitelist certain sites from being tunneled via the VPN. This is useful because some companies use conditional access for e.g. Outlook and if they detect an impossible location travel, then you might get into trouble. For example, you turn on the VPN and it connects to a USA server. Your Outlook connection will be seen as coming from the U.S, which is impossible travel and this will trigger an alert in Azure AD or Sentinel or somewhere. Your account might get locked out (at least this is what happens in my company) and you get a call from one of the security engineers. They're really anal about this. Luckily, most apps these days support whitelist and/or split tunneling and so it should be all good.

  • L3tstaxth1s on 09/05/2023 - 21:50

    +1 for Mullvad

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