this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
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PIA got purchased by Kape Technologies a couple years ago. With their track record, you can choose to believe the report issued by consultants they paid, or you can just go to companies with better track records, like Mozilla VPN or Mullvad.
Seems like an easy choice to me.
Or Proton.
I use Proton vpn and love it. I actually like mullvad more as a standalone vpn, but Proton vpn is still great and I use it because of the whole bundle. It's a great deal and VERY convenient. The unlimited email aliases built in seamlessly to the password manager is a game changer for easy to use privacy.
Hey so I just looked up Proton and see no mention on their main marketing page for email aliases or password manager. Where can I find thst? I'm intrigued obviously haha. I've been woth Norn for a couple years but dont do anything crazy or get additional benefits.
Others have linked it to you but let me tell you why I like it. It lets you generate a new email alias and password instantly whenever you make a new online account somewhere. Or just whenever you want. I've been slowly changing all my accounts over to their own unique email alias that can't be tied back to my main email. My main address is known by nobody at all.
The main benefits are if someone steals a password, the email address that comes with it will only be useful for that one account. (I don't need to go over the benefits of a standard password manager.) and so if that email is leaked or added to a spam list, I simply delete that address after changing the address for the single account it was used for. I can tell exactly which address is getting spam easily. 0 spam. Ever. Spam email has been solved for me.
Proton remembers which sites use which email/password as well.
Other than that, it's just good for privacy. Having a different email for each account makes it harder to track a user across accounts.
These addresses are somewhat auto generated, with the name of the site along with a random word and a few numbers. But if you want to create another email address, you get a handful of custom ones for free with the subscription too. You can revoke these the same way, so you can have a professional looking email to hand out to people that's not auto generated, without giving out your account's root email address.
Edit: I also want to specify that while all of this is technically possible through other means, Proton makes it easier than any other option. Plus access to a good vpn, a nice replacement for Google drive (for storage and basic editing, at least) in addition to the email service and password manager mentioned above. A very good deal, in my opinion.
Edit 2: it sure sounds like I'm a paid shill but I can assure you I just really fucking love Proton and I get too excited about things.
I appreciate your type up! Thanks for taking the time. Didnt come off as a shill at all was explanatory and informative which is what I was looking for. Thanks again and habe a great weekemd!
It's right there on proton.me
It's possible you checked protonvpn.com instead.
You know what thats EXACTLY what I did. Thanks for the clarification!
https://proton.me/pass
https://proton.me/pricing
Look for simplelogin
Yeah the moment Proton developed a password manager I switched. Very convenient and the price ain't bad if you use all their services.
Proton also, unlike PIA, doesn't routinely crash and break my VPN access on iPhone.
My sessions go until I disable them (for stuff like sports betting that legally has to restrict VPN usage).
Do they have port forwarding?
Yup, https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding/
Awesome, thank you !
I mean, Mozilla VPN is Mullvad, so yeah. You can trust Mullvad.
Does Mullvad let you use a custom DNS?
yes :)
Yeah as soon as I saw Delloite I knew it was shit.
I understand the sentiment about the inherent conflict of interest with paying someone to audit your software, but it's highly unlikely that anyone is going to do that work for free. I'd want some evidence before taking your comment for anything other than opinion/bias. I don't use any of these products so whatever the reality is doesn't affect me, it just seems like nuance is too easily lost.
What’s wrong with PIA’s track record?
Kape used to be a malware company or something. Also, a few years ago PIA made a negative statement about Proton but instead it backfired. I can't remember exactly what it was
Ah right. I was totally unaware.
https://restoreprivacy.com/private-internet-access-kape-crossrider/ for those that want to read a bit more.
I used Nord VPN after a lot of research when I initially started using them years ago. What have you heard about them?
Personally I don't trust companies who aggressively advertise like they do, but that's not a real reason grounded in evidence. It just tends to be correct. I recommend Mullvad.
They advertise aggressively because running a VPN is ridiculously profitable. I do agree with your apprehensive feeling, but at the same time their advertisements do make sense.
Right,but their YouTube ads also contain a bunch of misleading statements and outright lies about streaming services, privacy and military grade encryption.
They didn’t aggressively advertise when I first started using them like 6 years ago. I have yet to see evidence of their no-log policy being broken but it’s hard to trust most companies these days.
I feel like 6 years ago was the height of their marketing. Literally every podcast I listened to had them as a sponsor and maybe half of the YouTube sponsorships were Nord.
It is because of them most people probably now know what a VPN is, but I feel like their marketing budget is a hundred fold smaller than it used to be.
Nord had a very bad incident a few years ago https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/21/nordvpn-confirms-it-was-hacked/
They were also REALLY late to the disclosure and tried to play it off as "them being responsible":
They (at least were) also very aggressive about advertising (all over YouTube at one point sponsoring all kinds of stuff)... Which is typically the opposite of what you want.
Proton has had write ups in the past about the VPN review market as well and how a lot of reviews are "whoever pays us the most money is the top VPN." Proton has a strong enough track record in their other software for doing the right thing and truly valuing security, privacy, and open standards, so I'm inclined to believe them. VPN was one of the first spinoff products they launched when it was still mail, and they did so because some of their more sensitive customers (think journalists in some bad parts of the world) were having to rely on third party VPNs of questionable integrity.
I trust Mullvad and Proton at this point for VPNs, nobody else.
Any reason you can state not to use AirVPN? I switched to them from Mullvad because they support port forwarding. So far I've been very happy with their service.
Having ads and sponsors blocked I can't be 100% sure, but I don't think they advertise at all. I only tried them because of a recommendation on Lemmy. Their site design is very old school which really says "run by nerds and not marketers" to me.
I do not know anything about AirVPN specifically.
Proton does provide port forwarding these days FYI.
I think "run by nerds not marketers" is a good thing ... though I don't know if a site looking old really means it's run by nerds lol
Yeah I know, but have you seen their site? It's like an old 90s static HTML page. The main thing I see is that it's clearly not a glossy "marketing first" service. They're surviving off of their actual product.
Yeah that's fair. It can definitely go both ways though. Like your sign over your shop can look old because you're still getting growth/a really nice cash flow without updating the sign or it can look old because you stopped caring a long time ago and you're just milking what you can from the remaining customers.
I had a friend who's ISP was very much in the latter category about a decade ago, charging like $90/mo for 10Mbps (IIRC with a data cap).
To counter some of the other comments, them being based in Panama is a huge plus imo, if you're inclined to do things deemed illegal by local authorities. They have no incentive to comply with government issued search warrants or the like. Most western country-based companies are legally obligated to comply with those requests, or even store information for a number of years. With quantum-based decryption there's no saying how long even encrypted data will be safe.
That was my rational too when I initially did my research.
I loved mullvad but they removed port forwarding and now I don't know where to go sadly.
I think Air VPN supports port forwarding
Do they but unfortunately they are also slower. I could get max 600 Megabits per second with them. I now use proton that supports at least 2,5 gigabits
Actually I mentioned AirVPN because I forgot that Proton supports port forwarding 😄
Their port forwarding works but it's very annoying because it changes the port after each connection.
Fortunately I use a third party app that automatically updates qbittorrent with the new port.
Can we trust them though (I mean as much as mullvad) ?
I am inclined to say see. But probably just because I bought a three years subscription and need a peace of mind. Sadly their vl8ent is crap but at least wireguard works fine.
Perfect, I only use wireguard anyway, thanks.
I rarely use VPN, but personally I would trust them, although not as much as Mullvad
Alright, thank you