Best VPN?

[JMorton6]

What are my top 3 choices?

Tks!

 

[gsaldivar]

It would be helpful if you describe your needs...

 

[JMorton6]

It would be helpful if you describe your needs...

I guess just the usual: normal internet usage, P2P, etc. Maximum privacy and security of course.

 

[boochi]

For P2P it would probably be "Hide My Ass Pro" since you can torrent on all servers including the US ones. They have a ton of servers and the yearly subscription is a pretty good deal. I use ibVPN which only allows P2P on 4 European servers which cuts your speed. ibVPN is much more stable than HMA Pro and rarely drops connections. However I have a usenet subscription that is routed around the vpn as it is secure and anonymous as is.

Most VPN services expressly forbid P2P use and your account can be terminated without refund.

 

[JMorton6]

Seems a bit pricy?

Do they at least allow multiple devices to use the account?

 

[boochi]

If the devices are in the same home, you should look at a router that supports DD-WRT or Tomato as it can run PPTP or OpenVPN on itself thus all household traffic leaves encrypted. HMA Pro allows two connections at a time, but I am not sure if they are required to be at the same IP. ibVPN only allows one connection at a time but it can be by a single computer or a router. A little pricey maybe, but the man can't track you behind the VPN.

 

[benbrooks]

You do get what you pay for when it comes to VPN's I believe. Theres a few free services out there but the bandwidth is far too slow. Really you want one that also supports torrent downloads as many will shut you off if you are accidentally running bit torrent when connected. I was using http://www.laptoptelly.com earlier in the year in Dubai, worked fine for connecting to iplayer etc.

 

[razibhasan]

Spotflux works great as free VPN. For paid VPN StrongVPN is a great one. Btw, most VPN services allow VPN on multiple devices but you cannot use at a time on multiple devies if they are not connected to the router (like boochi said) and the router should be configured with VPN.

 

[MadScientist]

Besides price, reliability, and speed, you want to be anonymous. Pick a VPN that does not keep logs.
http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity-seriously-111007/

I went with PrivateInternetAcess. Cheap, $39.95/yr, fast (no reduction in download and upload speeds), reliable, easy to set up, and they keep no logs.
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/

 

[s44]

Instead of paying VPN providers to steal, how about actually paying for the content?

 

[MadScientist]

Instead of paying VPN providers to steal, how about actually paying for the content?

Not all VPN users are pirates.

http://lifehacker.com/5940565/why-you-should-start-using-a-vpn-and-how-to-choose-the-best-one-for-your-needs

 

[s44]

Not all VPN users are pirates.

http://lifehacker.com/5940565/why-you-should-start-using-a-vpn-and-how-to-choose-the-best-one-for-your-needs

Oh, I agree, but have you read the previous posts in this thread?

There are a lot of options if you don't need to pirate. Not so many if you do.

 

[MadScientist]

Just an FYI. Some ISPs have usage caps. Even with a VPN your download usage is recorded.

Here's Comcast's usage allowance, check your Comcast account for the usage cap in your area:
In the Nashville market, we will increase our data usage allowance for all tiers to 300 GB per month and also offer additional gigabytes in increments/blocks (e.g., $10 per 50 GB).

In the Tucson market, we will increase our data usage allowance for XFINITY Internet customers subscribing to the Economy tier through the Performance tier from 250 GB to 300 GB. In addition, those customers subscribed to the Blast! tier will receive an increase to 350 GB, those subscribed to Extreme 50 will be increased to 450 GB, and those subscribed to Extreme 105 will be increased to 600 GB (see table below).

XFINITY Internet Package New Data Usage Allowance
Economy 300 GB
Economy Plus 300 GB
Internet Essentials 300 GB
Performance Starter 300 GB
Performance 300 GB
Blast 350 GB
Extreme 50 450 GB
Extreme 105 600 GB
In both approaches, we'll be increasing the initial data usage allowance for our customers from 250 GB per month to at least 300 GB per month.

It's highly unlikely that anyone will go over 300GB/month, but not only file downloads are recorded as data usage. http://datacalculator.comcast.net/index.html

 

[fergus2013]

http://www.freevpnproxy.co.uk is worth a look for UK & US VPN connections

 

[TechVill]

hidemyass is my favorite!

 

[Red Squirrel]

What I would do is lease a VPS/server overseas and setup a VPN tunnel there. Have a designated computer or network use that tunnel and do private activities from there. Or tunnel all your traffic there, whatever fits your needs.

If this is for torrents, may also be simpler to simply setup a torrent server overseas and just use SSH to manage it. You can tunnel stuff through as well such as HTTP to access the Transmission interface. That way all the downloading/sharing happens there, and you just SSH to it to fetch the files you want once they're done.

I personally have not done any of this since I'm in Canada so don't really have to worry about the NSA (at least probably not as much as someone in the US) but if I lived in the US it's probably what I'd do. You could also use TOR from that overseas server just to add an extra layer of privacy.

 

[jacktesterson]

I use Hidemyass so I can get US content on everything in Canada including MLB.TV (Blue Jays games)

 

[sze5003]

Another vote for private internet access. I should have done the year subscription because it's working great and speeds are good. No logs is a plus too. Comcast only throttles in Tennessee and another state as part of a pilot.