Topic: List of VPN Service Providers - 2023 - page 6. (Read 3543 times)

And there is a news out there from Mullvad: Introducing Mullvad Leta: a search engine used in the Mullvad Browser, but the problem is that it's only available for Mullvad users and isn't public.

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To be honest, I would prefer if Mullvad spent more money into increasing server speeds, adding more locations and improving overall performance instead of paying this money to Google for using their search engine because we have duckduckgo too and other alternatives. They are just reinventing the wheel by offering Mullvad web browser and Leta search engine and I see no point into it.

I'd rather discourage them, especially after you've mentioned many times that those VPN companies with trials available are being owned by such a shady company. I think that reason alone is enough to stay away from them regardless of your activity on the network when you're connected to their service. I'd rather be paranoid if the company I'm dealing with is proven to never cares about my privacy. Not to mention most paid VPNs offer a money-back guarantee for at least a month.

That's why you see only limited number of VPNs in this thread and those VPNs that offer trials have always been under Non-Privacy Focused Mainstream VPNs hood.
By the way, trials are a good way to measure VPNs speed and latency on different server locations and if one uses this just for testing, I don't think his privacy is compromised.
Some may want VPN for streaming, some may want it for gambling, that's why I included them, ExpressVPN, Cyberghost and some others are very popular for that purpose.

90% of VPNs are sketchy and don't care about your privacy whether you pay them in crypto or not. Most trials are not worth the privacy compromise, and should not even be called Virtual Private Networks.

Besides, what is the point of having a third party deanonymize you with Chainalysis if they can just collect your logs instead?

[At the risk of sounding like a shill for Proton, at least they don't engage in that crappy behavior. Neither does Mullvad, AFAIK.]

It may be an useful for people to use Trials before they actually purchase the service, so, I found out that some VPN providers from the list offer free trials for Google Pay and Apple Pay users.
CyberGhost - 1-day free trial on PC, | 3-day free trial for Android and 7-day free trial for iOS users.
ExpressVPN - 7-day free trial for Android and iOS users via Google Pay and Apple Pay.
NordVPN - 7-day free trial for Android and iOS users via Google Pay and Apple Pay.
SurfShark - 7-day free trial for Android and iOS users via Google Pay and Apple Pay.

When you subscribe to 7-day free trial, don't forget to unsubscribe them before they charge you.
Also, I hope you understand that company that uses BitPay or Coinbase to process crypto transactions, doesn't care about its privacy and won't care even more about your privacy too.

And it seems that my hope was heard as Mullvad just received a reply from the Swedish authorities[1] regarding their recent search. Here's the full - translated - text:
As for the reasons of the search, it seems that it was related with a blackmail made in Germany somewhere in 2021:
I highly advise anyone interested in knowing more about the case to read the blog entry from Mullvad. I have never seen such a high degree of transparency and effort to show how committed they are with their work and product and this goes to show that you really can't go wrong by using their service.

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[1]https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/2/update-the-swedish-authorities-answered-our-protocol-request/

I prefer a VPN with a good image, reliable service and fast uncensored internet connection. Russians can't even reach Bitcointalk without VPN (outside Russia).

Mullvad's blog is something one should constantly check because not only this but they usually post other helpful and important information.
By the way, regarding to VPNs, the fact that no one talks about Russian VPN service providers, confuses me. Literally, there is a war between Russia and West, so, logically, if one uses Russian VPN company, based on Russia, there is almost zero chance that the USA will gete any info from those VPN providers. Also, Russians are very pro-piracy, they manage the biggest torrent websites, they crack games, softwares, upload movies, etc and recently even Putin or one Russian political said that people are welcome to pirate western content.
I think, if we imagine that every VPN provider keeps logs, definitely the USA/Europe can demand data from companies that operate in western countries but I bet there is a very slight chance they'll get any data from Russia-based companies that operate from Russia.

Thanks to TryNinja[1] post in the Portuguese board, I was just informed that Mullvad recently suffered a search warrant from the Swedish polish in their offices[2]:
In line with Mullvad foundation philosophy, being transparent regarding such events is always good for any company - especially an event that resulted in supporting their privacy policies. Will be interesting to see what the case files say about this warrant (if they ever get released) since it would also validate Mullvad claims.

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[1]https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--5418378
[2]https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/4/20/mullvad-vpn-was-subject-to-a-search-warrant-customer-data-not-compromised/

I posted about Kape and PIA a few years ago in this very thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.58547859
I just went back to check if that clause in their Privacy Policy about sharing your data still exists, and it does. In addition, I also found that they use BitPay to process bitcoin payments. The same BitPay renowned for requiring KYC from their customers and their terrible privacy practices. 

So yeah, I wouldn't go anywhere near PIA or anything else owned by Kape.

The problem is that it is very hard to pinpoint exactly the interpretation that each VPN provider has regarding "No logs policy". Eventually we get to know the interpretation of each company when a case such as the one in my previous post is reported. If you go today to PureVPN privacy policy[1] you'll see that they refer that they don't collect your origin IP, which totally happened in the previous report[2]. WBM has many snapshots of the privacy policy of PureVPN and in 2016 they stated that[3]:
Out of curiosity I've checked the same page in 2018 - after the alleged colaboration with the FBI happened[2] - and the previous definition is somewhat different:
They casually removed the part that they told you they kept the IP given to the user and the part that "The time you connected to any of our servers and disconnected is counted as a session,(...)" was also edited. All in all this just screams shady behaviour and I surely wouldn't touch PureVPN even with a stick.

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@o_e_l_e_o - In a totally different realm of VPN providers, here is an interesting take on the guys behind Mullvad that I found while browsing Reddit[1]:
Albeit we should take this with a grain of salt, I would definitely feel a bit better knowing that the guys who are behind Mullvad have such high standards of security in real life...

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[1]https://www.purevpn.com/privacy-policy.php
[2]https://torrentfreak.com/purevpn-explains-how-it-helped-the-fbi-catch-a-cyberstalker-171016/
[3]https://web.archive.org/web/20160108132127/https://www.purevpn.com/privacy-policy.php
[4]https://web.archive.org/web/20180121070615/https://www.purevpn.com/privacy-policy.php
[5]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31005767

That's impossible to actually prove but at least we have facts in front of our face and I think that past is an indicator of future, especially in this case when PIA wasn't able to provide logs on every court case.
By the way, that deal part is possible to happen as it's possible to happen that they will start to keep logs but I think it's a little beneficial to include some interesting stories in this thread.

That was a list of very good articles. I think, there should be mentioned in this thread that the definition of some VPN's anti-log policy is that they won't log your activities but they will log the IP addresses that customers use to access the VPN. There is no point to use such VPN, it looks like to wear a transparent mask in public and lie to yourself that no one sees your actual face.

Besides being impossible to prove that the mantra "No logs are kept" is true, there's also the nuance about the interpretation that each VPN provider has regarding "No logs are kept" - Does it really doesn't log any kind of information regarding the usage of their service & users? Or does it log the IP that is used to access the service? Take, for instance, the case of PureVPN who also claims[1] that it doesn't keep logs but, at least in 2017, it was reported that PureVPN helped the FBI in a cyber stalking case[2]. Turns out that, according to a statement by PureVPN, the IP that was used to access their service was kept[3]:
While we will never be able to confirm or audit if these companies don't keep log - in any form - the good news is that once someone finds out that their mantra is being violated by the company themselves, the word quickly goes around and for sure their reputation is tainted. After that you're the only one to blame if you still trust in the service or not.

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[1]https://www.purevpn.com/why-purevpn
[2]https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/no-logs-vpn-service-security_8.html
[3]https://torrentfreak.com/purevpn-explains-how-it-helped-the-fbi-catch-a-cyberstalker-171016/

It's impossible to "prove a negative".

That still doesn't prove they're not keeping logs now. Here are a few possibilities:
1. They kept logs, and lied about it in court.
2. They made a deal: they denied having logs to save their business, and shared the logs anyway.
3. They didn't keep logs back then, but they're keeping logs now.

I think it will be very interesting if we have a discussion about VPNs that have actually proven to have zero-log policy. And in actually proven words I mean court cases where FBI has demanded logs from company and company hasn't provided them.

Actually, the first VPN that comes to my mind and will be added in the VPN list, is PIA - Private Internet Access.

• First court case: In 2016 one man allegedly made bomb threats while he was connected to PIA Vpn Ip. The FBI officially subpoenaed PIA to provideuser logs but they didn't provide, simply because they had no logs. [source¹]
• Second court case: In 2018, John Arsenault, the lawyer for Private Internet Access, told the court that PIA doesn't save user logs and are unable to provide any useful information in response to a subpoena. [source²]

But the problem is that in 2019, Kape Technologies acquired Private Internet Access. If you don't know why is it a problem, then you have to check this article: What is Kape Technologies?
Long story short, Kape Technologies, before 2018 called Crossrider, was actively engaging in shady behaviors, including hijacking users' browsers via malware injection. In 2018, Crossrider changed its name to Kape Technologies and as they say, they moved from infecting users to improving their cybersecurity, which is a lie, I hope we all agree with.
Kape Technologies own:

• CyberGhost VPN
• Zenmate VPN
• Private Internet Access (PIA)
• ExpressVPN

Why do they need four different VPN companies? They don't care about privacy, they care about money and money, more, more money.

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So, since PIA is now owned by Kape Technologies, if I were you, I wouldn't trust PIA because of their excellent past. Since 2019, they are owned by Kape!

Most phones will have a setting in them somewhere which allows you to either set the VPN to "Always On" so it does not disconnect, or to automatically block all traffic if the VPN is disconnected so you can't accidentally connect to somewhere without it.

About damn time.


It was part of a general blockade of social media services being used by protesters and government critics (i.e. "the usual reason").

I've heard somewhere that every serious person using Telegram has a VPN and (ideally) a disposable phone number. Crazy.


This will be very helpful to anyone who needs help overcoming internet restrictions, and it is also amazing to know that there's more tech out ther than just SOCKS4/5 and OpenVPN/WireGuard!


Sometimes the VPN is disconnected if you lock your phone, depending on which OS you're running.

I used Free Proton VPN on my phone, but I don't know if happen to someone here, because I always get disconnected after I change the browser, for example from Chrome to Firefox. I know that, because I always check whatismyipaddress before open something in bookmark and that show my real IP (Indonesia), not an outside country I choose (Japan and Netherland)

Privacy wise, as of now, it is very hard to compete with Proton has. With a single subscription you get access to a great range of products - e-mail, VPN, calendar and drive - whose mantra is focused on yourself and being private. The SimpleLogin features is also a great addition to the family of products that they have - and honestly it seems aligned with the nature of their concept. As always there are also users that observe this "centralization" of services and prefer to have their services spread between companies to avoid being centralized in one, but I guess this kind of debate and opinions will always exist.

Do note that if you aren't a Proton paid subscriber you can still access to a limited offer from SimpleLogin as a free customer, which mostly focuses on 10 aliases and 1 mailbox[1].

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[1]https://simplelogin.io/pricing/

It's almost unfair comparison (whether free or paid version of Avast) since IMO their product in general is crappy[1-2] and they also have poor privacy history[3-4]. Comparing with general/speed-oriented VPN service (such as nordvpn) would be more fair.


Slightly off-topic, but very recently i found out Proton bought SimpleLogin[5] which is service to create email alias[6]. Basically it's intermediary between sender and your email address. Since you already have paid version of Proton, you also get paid version of SimpleLogin and IMO it's worth checking out.

[1] https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/avast-antivirus-corrupted-my-windows-10/5004788c-e51c-410c-8dfd-90d32702a323
[2] https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=117057.0
[3] https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/antivirus-firm-avast-is-reportedly-selling-users-web-browsing-data/
[4] https://www.tomsguide.com/news/avast-avg-data-collection
[5] https://proton.me/blog/proton-and-simplelogin-join-forces
[6] https://simplelogin.io/