More than three hundred VPN services, dozens of parameters, and many opinions. Everyone would drown in that. We will not make you an expert on VPN services by reading this article, but you will undoubtedly learn how not to overlook it when choosing.
Country Of Origin And Reputation
There are differing views on the importance of VPN providers’ countries of origin. One group argues that it is foolish to use VPNs like internetetsecurite from countries with massive Internet surveillance history – especially the US and its allies, the so-called Alliance of Five Eyes. The second group claims that they have relatively good data protection laws in the United States (for example, they do not require any logging) and that secret services operate worldwide. We tend to take a second view and recommend focusing on the specific operator and other circumstances rather than the country of origin.
As far as operators are concerned, we would choose the golden mean. A few months old VPN originating in Seychelles can be an anonymous paradise as well as a trap. On the other hand, VPN services are operated by large IT corporations, which are somewhat restrictive, and large companies tend to be more compliant with government requirements – non-compliance can cost them a lot of money. The ideal is medium-sized companies with a transparent structure focusing primarily on the security and privacy of users.
Server Location
Of course, the number of servers, resp. Instead, the number of countries in which the servers are located. You will act as a home user via VPN in these countries. Almost all VPN services have servers in Europe, the USA, Australia, and Asia (mainly Japan). South America is less common, and servers in Africa are rarely available. Most VPN services do not operate in China and Russia, mainly for political reasons.
VPN Protocol
There are several protocols for VPN, mainly L2TP / IPsec, PPTP, SSTP, and OpenVPN. The latter has been outperforming the competition for several years and has essentially become the standard. It is open, has broad support, is highly configurable (encryption, authentication, etc.). It is also relatively efficient regarding the amount of data transferred and computational complexity. If you do not have a specific reason to use another protocol, be sure to use OpenVPN. If the service doesn’t support it, hands-off.
Clients And Configuration Files
Surprisingly, whether a service has a Linux application is less important. Although applications may offer a variety of more advanced features (especially the Kill Switch feature) and options, they are not essential to their operation. It would help if you wanted the service to provide configuration files for OpenVPN. You can import them into many different clients on many other platforms and choose the one that suits you. The same goes for Android and MacOS, and there is almost always an official client available for Windows.
Data Neutrality
If you want to use VPN often and for a long time, it should be data neutral. This means that it will not block specific protocols, ports, and sub-channels. This is especially the case with P2P protocols such as BitTorrent in practice. Firstly, because they burden the network, and secondly, the operator can be flooded with complaints about copyright infringement. Blocking torrents is still quite common, but the service is not praised on the front page.
I am Not Recording Traffic History.
A good VPN service should collect as little information about your activity as possible, ideally none. This also applies to data about when and from which IP you connect. In short, the data only flows through VPN servers, and nothing can be found out about them later. For various reasons, some VPNs collect at least the number of transferred data, which can still be overstated. The so-called No logging policy is declared by most VPN operators.
Speed
Probably the main quality parameter of VPN is the connection speed. Rarely does the operator specify any specific numbers? In addition, of course, they differ depending on where and where you connect. With high-quality VPNs and relatively close servers (at least within the continent), you can reach speeds of around 100 Mbps. But you will also come across ones that will give you 10 Mbps and pretend that it is okay. Such a speed should not be right nowadays.
The best way to verify speed is from practical use. All VPNs on our site have the option of a refund during a specific period. If the service doesn’t offer anything like that, we would take it as a warning signal and avoid it.
price
VPN services usually range from about $ 3 to $ 12 per month. However, in this field, official prices are one thing, and actual prices are another. Various discounts are often available, which will reduce your price by more than half. Just use the subscription for a more extended period or wait for some action.
When looking at the price, it is necessary to consider how many devices (simultaneously) VPN you want to use. Some services only allow one connection, others ten.
At this point, we also need to warn against a lifetime VPN subscription. Relatively high variable costs characterize VPN operation, so a lifetime subscription does not make economic sense (from the operator’s point of view). Except it would be costly, which in turn doesn’t make sense from the customer’s point of view. At best, the service will end after some time or be slow and unreliable. In the worst case, he will make money by monetizing your data, which he will sell to third parties. Of course, this also applies to VPNs, which the operator provides completely free of charge.
Payment Options
If you want to be as anonymous as possible, you should request an anonymous form of payment from the service. Anonymous (relative) payment methods are typically Bitcoin, or other crypto means or credits / coupons to various services and stores (for which you expect them to be lower than face value). The suitable VPN operator also doesn’t want the user more than a contact email; some even do without it.
Conclusion
There are many functions, options, and parameters of a internetprivatsphare VPN. However, if you follow at least the advice in this article, you should not make the wrong choice. If you are interested in finding out more, be sure to check out the VPN services on our site. Here you will find a list of VPN services to ensure their quality.
Also Read: How Do You Attract Customers to a Used Car Dealership?