I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that every other company seems to be a VPN company these days. And why not? Privacy is on everyone’s mind these days, with good reason. There are a ton of VPN apps on the App Store, and I’ll share five of them here. I’ve used three of them personally, and I’ll share two with good reputations. And don’t worry, none of these companies have ever contacted me or paid me to be included in this list.
This article has been updated with new information and a new VPN.
Warp
Cloudflare recently released its Warp VPN for everyone. Warp is free with a paid Warp+ option that gives you faster speeds using its Argo network. It also has a pubic DNS you can use: 1.1.1.1. I’ve used Warp without any problems. Do note however that its privacy policy states: “We may retain your request data for a period of 24 hours for emergency purposes, such as responding to emergency law enforcement requests.” Warp+ is US$4.99/month.
Private Internet Access
So far this is the VPN I’ve been falling back on. It costs US$40/year with a lot of servers around the world. According to its privacy policy it doesn’t log traffic, and a court case in 2016 confirmed that. It does use Google Analytics with interest- and demographics tracking disabled and anonymizing of IP addresses enabled.
ProtonVPN
After having used Private Internet Access for a year or two, I switched to ProtonVPN for most of 2020. I picked ProtonVPN because I was already using ProtonMail and they offer packaged-deals with both services. I also believe Proton has good privacy practices track record. There are paid and free versions of ProtonVPN, and the limited free version is subsidized by paid users, so there is no compromise of “If it’s free, how will we make money?” I wish I could use custom DNS servers with the VPN, but that also increases the chance of DNS leaks. ProtonVPN starts at 48€ (US$56).
Confirmed
I’m adding Confirmed to the list because of Lockdown. I’ve never used the standalone app but I do use it inside Lockdown. Confirmed says it’s no-logs, fully audited, and openly operated. Openly Operated means that the app has to prove its privacy claims with a public audit kit and audit reports. US$4.99/month or US$49.99/year. Privacy Policy
NordVPN
I’ve never used Nord but it does have a good reputation in the VPN industry. They promise a no-logs policy and process minimal user data. The user data they do process are email addresses and payment data, which is a must if they are able to collect your money and create your account. Nord has different subscription levels, like one month (US$11.99), six months US$53.99), and a twelve month plan for US$83.99. Privacy Policy
Further Reading:
Ive been with NORD for two years and just renewed for another three. It does its job, you can’t ask much more. The only thing I wish was a way to set a preferred server or country. If I use the widget to connect it goes to the fastest server, but where I live that means US. I want my data to Stay in Canada. I wish I could tell it to do that, or to not go to US servers.
You can do with with ProtonVPN, which is what I switched to this year. There are servers in a bunch of countries and you can set one up as your preferred one. Although if you just renewed with Nord, no sense in switching.
Typo?
It does use Google Analytics to with interest?
Whoops, thanks for catching that 🙂
I’m using Nord and I can’t complain. It does everything I want, doesn’t do anything I don’t expect, and it’s always up. I went with a 2 year subscription to save even more.