Five-Star Reader Ratings
☆ Rating: ★★★★★✓ Pros: I have never had an issue with speeds, even when remote accessing my home computer at 1920x1200 with low compression and both ends being run through their service. Latency is good, especially considering I am connecting from rural Alaska. I actually regularly get better latency through it, due to bad routing in my location. Their wide variety of payment methods was initially a factor in what brought me here after trying quite a few others. Well made apps are available for smartphones, never had an issue with them. Good price. Lots of servers to choose from around the world. Good privacy policy, as close to anonymous purchasing as you can get.✗ Cons: In two years of service, I can't think of anything. ☁ Comments: PIA provides flawless service at a good price, they support all major platforms well, and have a number of payment methods, including bitcoin. |
☆ Rating: ★★★★★✓ Pros: Consistent speed, multiple regions (hope they add more EU countries!), and ease of use on multiple devices.✗ Cons: No iOS client (as of March 2015), but I hear they're in the process of releasing one.. can't wait!☁ Comments: PIA has consistently shown itself to value privacy, freedom of speech, and affordability. They don't have the most fancy client software, but their service rocks. |
☆ Rating: ★★★★★✓ Pros: Lots of locations, most of the time can do 50+ mbps, they seem to care about privacy.✗ Cons: Some IPs get banned from some services (due to other users?), but can switch to a different server to get around the issue.☁ Comments: Good speeds and lots of servers/locations. |
☆ Rating: ★★★★★✓ Pros: I like that there are lots access points to connect to. ✗ Cons: The popular hubs are crowded at peak times. e.g. East coast servers. Also, the higher encryption bit rates slow down the connection quite a bit. Lastly, I wish the VPN app would run without having to be installed on the computer.☁ Comments: It's best value for this type of VPN service. |
☆ Rating: ★★★★★✓ Pros: PIA's price of $7/mo or $40/yr is excellent. I like the privacy reassurances given by shared IP and their no logging policy. On my 100mbps (advertised rate) internet I get 117mbps down and 11mbps up at 27ms ping on PIA's east cost server. Needless to say I am very impressed with the speed delivered by their servers. And finally a VPN is no good if it doesnt work on every platform you want to use it on so it's great that PIA supports Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, various flavors of Linux, even custom firmware such as DD-WRT for routers. They also allow multiple connection methods such as OpenVPN, L2TP and even SOCKS proxy. They have a wide variety of gateways in different countries. Their Windows and Mac clients offer killswitch and IPv6 leak protection which are always great features to have. In short, PIA is an excellent VPN service with little to no disadvantages.✗ Cons: They do limit to only 5 devices simultaneously but this can be worked around by either buying or configuring a router on your own that has PIA access built-in and then your whole household can share. Then the only separate access you'll need is for your mobile devices. I'd like to see the option to maybe pay a little more to have more than 5 devices on one account although I guess you could just sign up for 2 accounts (hassle with multiple usernames and passwords) I've used PIA for at least a year now and there are very little disadvantages and tons of advantages.☁ Comments: Price, performance, privacy via shared IP and compatibility with various platforms make PIA a standout service. |
☆ Rating: ★★★★★✓ Pros: The client apps are automatically configured, so I don't have to be a network expert to set anything up. I just pick a destination server from a drop-down list and Presto! I'm connected from any location I choose, and fully anonymized. They have dozens of servers, a massive bandwidth, and no usage limitations. I get a fast, reliable connection 95% of the time. If there is anything laggy about the connection, I can just switch to another server and I'm back on track.✗ Cons: The service drops from time to time. I have to utilize an additional layer of security to shut down my processes in case PIA drops my IP address. I also have my firewall set up to try and block traffic through my regular IP. Most days, it's not a problem, but I'm still scared that one of these service breaks could compromise my privacy, even if just for 30-60 seconds.☁ Comments: PIA is inexpensive, secure, and hassle-free. |
☆ Rating: ★★★★★✓ Pros: Android (and iOS) app, Windows 7 app. Good price for the year. Their attitude toward user privacy.✗ Cons: Occasionally I seem to route from US to Canada even though I select a US server. (Google will ask if I want to use Google.Ca instead of Google.com) Some servers can be slow at times, but I would just disconnect and choose another server. On rare occasions, I do find several servers close to me to be slow at times. I would give a ridiculously slow failure rate (very slow for more than 10 minutes on most servers) of 4 times in 3 years, with almost daily usage.☁ Comments: Good service, policies and price with multiple servers to connect through on the PC and Android devices. |
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