List of VPN Service Providers - 2024

[LTU_btc]

Tip 1During the VPN session, don't use Russian servers if anonymity is your priority because Roskomnadzor has high control on them.



Tip 2Russia's firewall doesn't work well and compared to the Chinese firewall, it's very weak. Websites are blocked by ISPs and you can still access blocked websites by using the VPN that has servers in other countries.
The list of VPNs on this thread will help Russian people to get out of the information vacuum and check blocked news websites.

Good tips, man. I just want to add few words about it. It's good suggestion about privacy - don't use Russian VPN servers for privacy reasons. From what I saw, quite many VPN providers don't even have servers in Russia, probably because of reason that you mentioned.
About 2nd tip. There is problem that Russia started to block VPN providers websites. So, it might be an issue to subscribe VPN for Russian people if they haven't done it yet. And since Visa and MC isn't working, Bitcoin is one of few ramining alternatives to pay for VPN.

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[Rikafip]

I've been using ExpressVPN for a couple of years now and so far I haven't had any issues with them whatsoever. My subscription ends in 2 weeks and I see here that some people raised legit concerns regarding them and privacy they provide so now I am looking at the competition and seriously thinking about getting something else.

Since one of the things I use VPN for are streaming services (Netflix and Amazon mainly), are there any VPNs on the market (other than ExpressVPN which I know works very good for this) that can handle 4k streaming without issues, with high amount of available servers that consistently work for streaming sites?

[ABCbits]

Since one of the things I use VPN for are streaming services (Netflix and Amazon mainly), are there any VPNs on the market (other than ExpressVPN which I know works very good for this) that can handle 4k streaming without issues, with high amount of available servers that consistently work for streaming sites?

There aren't many VPN which simultaneously offer decent privacy and high speed for streaming. AFAIK only ProtonVPN offer both. I only used free version though with slow home internet connection, so i don't know if it can handle 4K streaming.

[dkbit98]

Russia's firewall doesn't work well and compared to the Chinese firewall, it's very weak.

I know many people from China also use VPN for accessing many website services and it works just fine, so ''great'' firewall is not that great afteral.

I've been using ExpressVPN for a couple of years now and so far I haven't had any issues with them whatsoever. My subscription ends in 2 weeks and I see here that some people raised legit concerns regarding them and privacy they provide so now I am looking at the competition and seriously thinking about getting something else.

I think that Mullvad is the best VPN you can buy anonymously with cryptocurrencies, but they are certainly not the cheapest available option.
If you have Coingecko account with collected candies you can use their code and get a nice discount for Surfshark VPN with 24 Months + Free 3 Months, or 18% off on NordVPN.
You can also try Windscribe or Proton free versions but for anything serious you will need to pay pro version.
 

[Rikafip]

There aren't many VPN which simultaneously offer decent privacy and high speed for streaming.

Yeah I know, it's much harder than it looks, to find something that ticks both of those boxes. Before settling with ExpressVPN few years ago I tried few other that were supposed to be very good (like NordVPN and ProtonVPN) but all of them had some issues when it comes to streaming services. Either it was speed, Netflix reliability (NordVPN) or low amount of servers that work with Netflix (ProtonVPN) or not working with Amazon at all.

AFAIK only ProtonVPN offer both. I only used free version though with slow home internet connection, so i don't know if it can handle 4K streaming.

I am looking at their website now and it seems that they improved a lot compared to the last time I checked (iirc it was 2019). I see that they have wider selection of servers now and  since 1 month of their "Plus" package costs only $10 I will definitely give it a go.

I think that Mullvad is the best VPN you can buy anonymously with cryptocurrencies, but they are certainly not the cheapest available option.

I will give it a go if ProtonVPN turns out not to be good for my needs, and it seems like its even cheaper than the one I am using at the moment.

You can also try Windscribe or Proton free versions but for anything serious you will need to pay pro version.

Not really interested in free versions as from my experience free VPN versions are good for only the most basic browsing purposes and nothing else and I have no issues paying something 5-10 USD per month if it means it will work hassle free and without any restrictions. You know the saying, "if something is free, you're the product".

[LoyceV]

I know many people from China also use VPN for accessing many website services and it works just fine, so ''great'' firewall is not that great afteral.

Don't they use residential VPNs for that? I would assume they block any known VPN IP address in their "great firewall".
I remember the days when I ran an open proxy. Without advertising it (it was meant for myself only), it got many Chinese users.

I think that Mullvad is the best VPN you can buy anonymously with cryptocurrencies, but they are certainly not the cheapest available option.

It's the cheapest one I've seen if you don't need it continuously. You can literally pay for an hour, and create a new account when you need it again. I just tested it: €0.01 got me 1 hour and 38 minutes of full speed VPN.

[dkbit98]

Not really interested in free versions as from my experience free VPN versions are good for only the most basic browsing purposes and nothing else and I have no issues paying something 5-10 USD per month if it means it will work hassle free and without any restrictions. You know the saying, "if something is free, you're the product".

Proton also have the free version, but both Proton and Windscribe free versions are very limited in number of locations, speed and traffic.
Paid version unlocks all locations and they provide unlimited traffic and speed, but for any vpn I would look to avoid jurisdiction of five, nine and 14 eyes countries.

Don't they use residential VPNs for that? I would assume they block any known VPN IP address in their "great firewall".
I remember the days when I ran an open proxy. Without advertising it (it was meant for myself only), it got many Chinese users.

I don't know what exact kind of vpn they use but I know they are using it for accessing twitter, youtube and other websites.
They have their own alternative cloned versions, so I would not be surprised if they have chinese version of bitcointalk forum 

It's the cheapest one I've seen if you don't need it continuously. You can literally pay for an hour, and create a new account when you need it again. I just tested it: €0.01 got me 1 hour and 38 minutes of full speed VPN.

Yeah, I was talking about plans that include one or more years, some vpn's even have special lifetime plan deals sometimes.
Getting some deal like that for Mullvad vpn would be great.

[LoyceV]

some vpn's even have special lifetime plan deals sometimes.
Getting some deal like that for Mullvad vpn would be great.

Somehow I never trust "lifetime plans". Let's call it experience
I think Mullvad if honest in their pricing:

With a sustainable payment model, we can invest in quality development and bandwidth. No €1/month rate or lifetime membership could ever support that.

You can get a lifetime plan though: say you plan to live 50 more years, that cost you 0.07 Bitcoin

[o_e_l_e_o]

Somehow I never trust "lifetime plans". Let's call it experience

Agree. I wouldn't trust a lifetime plan on anything, but especially not for something like a VPN which operates in a constantly changing ecosystem with constant new technological developments, protocols, regulations, laws, and so on. I had a friend who had just splashed out on a 3 year plan on Private Internet Access about two weeks before they were bought over by Kape. Couldn't get her money back, so just had to eat the loss and pay for another subscription with a different provider. Being bought out is only one risk to consider. What if the provider goes bankrupt, is shutdown, leaks data, complies with data requests, changes their privacy policy, etc., and you are locked in to a lifetime contract?

And there is the principle of it to consider as well. Once you've paid for a lifetime contract, then the VPN provider has less incentive to provide you with a good service to keep you as a customer. It's like all the early access video games we see which just cease development and collapse after raking in a few tens of millions of dollars in pre-sales.

[dkbit98]

Somehow I never trust "lifetime plans". Let's call it experience

Why would you trust any plan for that matter?
I am taking everything with a bit of suspicion and I know everything can collapse at any moment, so I won't fall in depression that easy.
Even the most trusted vpn service could be selling your data to government without you knowledge and claim they have ''zero log policy''.
Most lifetime plans I saw for vpn are not really lifetime and you need to to some free action after few years to renew it.

What if the provider goes bankrupt, is shutdown, leaks data, complies with data requests, changes their privacy policy, etc., and you are locked in to a lifetime contract?

This could happen with any business, you could sign a contract with bank, take a credit for apartment, and it can all fall apart.
It's not like you would paid huge amounts of money for vpn, that you would need to cry later or call for lawyers after that

And there is the principle of it to consider as well. Once you've paid for a lifetime contract, then the VPN provider has less incentive to provide you with a good service to keep you as a customer.

Lifetime deals are only temporary, for limited time and for closed circle of people, so we are not talking about millions of customers per se

[Rikafip]

Proton also have the free version, but both Proton and Windscribe free versions are very limited in number of locations, speed and traffic.

For my use, free version of either of those is completely useless. As I said before, I am not a fan of "free" stuff as more often than not they end up being more costly (usually wasting my time, and time is money) than those I paid for. So yeah, gonna test ProtonVPN "Plus" plan which fits my needs.


Regarding all this lifetime/long term subscription thing, I generally avoid the former (I don't remember taking lifetime plan for anything) but I have nothing against 1 year sub. I don't take those right from the start though as first few months I like to test the service and if it proves to be reliable, I switch to yearly sub simply because I don't want to think about it every month. And as @dkbit98 said, it's not like I am risking thousands of dollars but 100, tops. I did the same thing with ExpressVPN, and will do with ProtonVPN as well if it proves to be as good as people claim it is.

[LoyceV]

gonna test ProtonVPN "Plus" plan which fits my needs.

I can't agree with ProntonVPN's Terms:

You specifically agree not to use this Service for:
~
Harassing, abusing, insulting, harming, defaming, slandering, disparaging, intimidating, or discriminating based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, race, age, national origin, or disability

So they don't log anything, but they restrict freedom of speech by telling me I can't tell you you're a dick? I'm insulted by the fact that they think insults have to be regulated.

On the one hand they say this:

You specifically agree not to use this Service for:

Promoting illegal activities

But on the other hand they say this:

We created ProtonVPN to protect the journalists and activists who use ProtonMail.

So which one is it? If a shady government bans something that threatens them, that means an activist won't be allowed to use ProtonVPN to promote overthrowing that government.

[LoyceV]

While i can understand you disagreement, it sounds like standard ToS where they include any possible user activity that could give them trouble. Even other privacy-oriented VPN mentioned in this forum have some unsettling/vague details on their ToS, such as
~

It sounds like the standard disclaimer that anyone just dismisses and clicks "ok" on. In my opinion, a VPN is one of those services where you should not dismiss terms you don't agree with.
All the more reason I won't use any of those VPNs. There's literally nothing like it in Mullvad's Terms.

[dkbit98]

It sounds like the standard disclaimer that anyone just dismisses and clicks "ok" on. In my opinion, a VPN is one of those services where you should not dismiss terms you don't agree with.
All the more reason I won't use any of those VPNs. There's literally nothing like it in Mullvad's Terms.

You know those terms looks fine on paper but they can be changed at any time, especially when we know that Mullvad is based in Sweden, and that is one of the 14 Eyes countries.
It's not like we didn't see terms being changed recently or played around them, like for example with Proton mail that many forum members here praised multiple times.
Mullvad vpn is good but I wouldn't trust any vpn including Mullvad for anything serious.

[LoyceV]

Do you think ProtonVPN is bad choice for privacy even if your main usage is 4K streaming?

I don't know (never tested it).

Can you suggest another VPN with better ToS/privacy policy which also promise it's suitable for 4K streaming, have very high bandwidth or low delay?

For Mullvad, I've never tried 4k streaming either. But it maxes out my internet connection when I'm downloading.
For streaming, I can imagine the server location matters a lot, and ideally the VPN server should be in between your location and the streaming server.

[Rikafip]

However, the initial discussion was about VPN with fairly good privacy for 4K streaming.

Exactly. I knew that it will be hard to find VPN provider that can tick all of my boxes and that some compromises will have to be made. Tbh, If I was doing something extremely risky, I don't think I would trust any of the  VPNs that are mentioned here, no matter what they say about not keeping logs etc as all of those things can change easily.


So, I took 1 month of Mullvad today to give it a go and I must say that I like it a lot, even though I won't use it for streaming. You can really tell that is privacy-oriented VPN.

First of all, registration is very simply and straightforward; you get 16 digit code that is your only login info. No emails, no confirmations and no hassle. I used BTC for payment of course and what I like is that you get 10% discount compared to other means of payment (to be precise they offer 10%  discount for BCH as well) so it's nice to see that they encourage people to use crypto. I tried various servers, from EU countries to NA and Asia and speed was generally very good, between 50-60 Mbps which is more than enough for comfortable 4k HDR streaming/torrenting.

Regarding streaming sites, I was surprised to see that Netflix actually works as I Googled it a bit and people said that Mullvad is generally not very good for that. So, I managed to access US, Australian, Japanese and few others without any issues. Unfortunately, Amazon didn't work at all, no matter the server I chose so for me it's not an option. Even though I won't use it for streaming purposes, I think that I will extend my sub and continue using it on my PC and mobile phone as as primary VPN since I really like how privacy oriented it is and find something else that I will use for TV only where I watch majority of stuff,

After Mullvad, I was about to get 1 month ProtonVPN sub, hoping that will be my go-to streaming option. Since they boast to have servers in 63 countries I kinda assumed that one certain country will be among those, but for some reason it isn't which is a deal-breaker for me as for some streaming reasons I need server in that country.

The search goes on. Or I will just use 2 different VPNs from now on, Mullvad + something else.

[RickDeckard]

The search goes on. Or I will just use 2 different VPNs from now on, Mullvad + something else.

Mullvad is probably one of the best privacy focused VPN's that I've used in the past. In fact, it was the only one - that I'm aware - that earned the excellence badge from the deceased thatoneprivacysite.net[1]. Sadly the website is no longer the same as it has been sold to SafetyDetectives - which is owned by Kape Technologies[2] - by the guy that created it[3]. If you want to look for the spreadsheet that was maintained by the site owner, someone over at GitHub managed to scrap (most) of it[4]. As it stands today, I can no longer recommend thatoneprivacysite.net/SafetyDetectives as a beacon of light to identify good VPN companies.

If you are able to, I would also recommend that you check out IVPN[5]. I know it has been discussed in this thread but I've also used them in the past and I enjoyed them as much as Mullvad. They've also got WireGuard implemented which is nice. Recently they've also been supporting Ukrainian refugees with free IVPN accounts[6] - as well to Russian oppressed population - which even though doesn't make them more "privacy" oriented, they could've just continued their operations as normal and do nothing to help with the current crisis.

While they don't have trial accounts, they do offer an "affordable one week trial plan" or you can just use their 30-day money-back guarantee rule if you're not satisfied with the service[7].
[1]https://web.archive.org/web/20200204212321/https://thatoneprivacysite.net/blog/mullvad-review/
[2]https://restoreprivacy.com/vpn-review-websites-owned-by-vpns/
[3]https://web.archive.org/web/20201201214426/https://www.safetydetectives.com/blog/announcement-tops/
[4]https://github.com/BitWrecker/Archived-VPN-Comparison-Spreadsheet
[5]https://www.ivpn.net/
[6]https://www.ivpn.net/blog/in-support-of-ukraine
[7]https://www.ivpn.net/knowledgebase/billing/does-ivpn-offer-a-free-trial/

[Rikafip]

If you are able to, I would also recommend that you check out IVPN[5]. I know it has been discussed in this thread but I've also used them in the past and I enjoyed them as much as Mullvad. They've also got WireGuard implemented which is nice. Recently they've also been supporting Ukrainian refugees with free IVPN accounts[6] - as well to Russian oppressed population - which even though doesn't make them more "privacy" oriented, they could've just continued their operations as normal and do nothing to help with the current crisis.

For now I will give Mullvad a go, as looking at IVPN server status they have even less countries supported than Mullvad, and only half of what ProtonVPN has so I doubt it would be good choice for me, especially for streaming.

It's not hard at all to find VPN that does one or two things very good, but to find one that does everything good seems impossible. I might try NordVPN again even though I wasn't really satisfied with their reliability at all few years ago but maybe they improved in the meantime, or suck it up and use ProtonVPN even though they miss one country on their list that is important to me. It really sucks that ExpressVPN is by far the best one when it comes to streaming purposes but that one is not an option anymore.

[dkbit98]

I tried various servers, from EU countries to NA and Asia and speed was generally very good, between 50-60 Mbps which is more than enough for comfortable 4k HDR streaming/torrenting.

What is your normal internet speed without using any VPN?
50-60 Mbps is not bad but it could be better especially if your normal speed is much higher than that, but it all depends from country you choose, latency, percentage of use for specific location and other factors.

The search goes on. Or I will just use 2 different VPNs from now on, Mullvad + something else.

I saw that windscribe is offering location that are specialized servers used for streaming and netflix, there are four of them in Canada, United States, United Kingdom and Japan.
Only thing is that you can use this locations only if you have pro account I think, but I can't confirm that because I never tried how it works.
I wanted to try Surfshark that looks decent and they son't have any bandwidth limits or restrictions.

[Rikafip]

What is your normal internet speed without using any VPN?

I have 200/200. Fiber connection, so very low ping.

50-60 Mbps is not bad but it could be better especially if your normal speed is much higher than that, but it all depends from country you choose, latency, percentage of use for specific location and other factors.

True, it could be better, but since those speeds are more than enough for 4k HDR streaming (afaik 25-30 Mbps is enough) I am fine with it. Also, keep in mind that those were the speeds for US/Australia/Japan servers which are very far away from me.

I saw that windscribe is offering location that are specialized servers used for streaming and netflix, there are four of them in Canada, United States, United Kingdom and Japan.

Since Netlfix works good with Mullvad on all those servers that you mentioned (and many more), there's really no point for me testing that one as well. While you can find several VPNs that work good with Netflix, problems start when you want to get one that will work with several others streaming sites. Beside Netflix, I use Amazon, Apple+ and HBO Max and to find VPN that works reliably for all of those while having wide selection of server is very hard. Well, there's one, but it has it's own issues.

I wanted to try Surfshark that looks decent and they son't have any bandwidth limits or restrictions

Let me know if you check that one!