Which VPN provider should I stick with Private Internet Access or ProXPN?

[dc2000]

I originally signed up with Private Internet Access VPN for $39.95/yr. I've been using them for over a year and they are "OK" speed-wise and software-client-wise (for a connection from US.)

So recently I stumbled upon a deal from ProXPN (another VPN provider) that offered a life-time subscription for one time payment of $40, which I purchased. I then installed it on one of my computers and it seems to work similarly to the first one -- the speeds seems to be similar, although their software/client was a little bit more annoying by popping up every time I log in to my Windows account. But I guess I can live with it...

So my question to people who have previous experience with these two VPNs, should I cancel Private Internet Access and stick with ProXPN?

 

[Mesmurized]

It looks like ProXPN offers a limited account for free, but to get full speed, access to all servers, torrent support, all ports open, etc you'll need to pay $6.99/mo. That's more than PIA. Personally, after 2 years I'm still happy with PIA.

 

[ssali27]

So from what I gather the general consensus is that the 'Lifetime' accounts are a 3rd class of accounts:
Free Account
Lifetime Account
Normal Paid Account
And that the 'Lifetime' accounts are a 2nd class citizen separate from the 'Normal Paid' accounts. In times of congestion or whatever, the 'Lifetime' accounts will get degraded service, as there really is no business reason to provide them good service, as they are unlikely to spend any more service with you. (because they bought a lifetime)
I am curious if anyone has any different view or any real experience with ProXPN Lifetime accounts.

 

[dc2000]

Why don't you go for some other/better providers like ExpressVPN, Hide My Ass, and PureVPN? These are much better than ProXPN and PIA.

You see, the problem with "better providers" is that the answer seems to depend on where you ask. Every other site gives me their version of "better" VPN providers and there seems to be no consensus among them.

 

[bill001g]

You have found the key reason that I tend to avoid generic....what is the best questions. First you have all kinds of mis information from scum VPN services that post false information to sway polls and reviews. You even see posts on this forum disguised as answer to questions.

Bottom line is you get what you pay for in most cases. The company selling you the service has certain costs like number of location and bandwidth. You as the end consumer must somehow pay for this and some extra for the company to stay in business.

This is the trade off that only you can decide. The large provider that has lots of location around the world and keeps their bandwidth per user very high. Or a small provider with fewer location and must less dedicated bandwidth per user. And of course there are the "free" ones for people who have not yet learned nothing is actually free.

Questions like this are like asking I want to buy a car which is the best. Someone with 5 kids to haul around is going to give you a very different answer than a single rich guy that like high performance sports cars.

 

[dc2000]

Guys, if you look at my original post, I was not asking about the "best VPN." As I described, I was a customer of PIA and got a promotional deal from proXPN for a lifetime premium service for one-time payment. And that's the two options I was asking about. I thought of ditching IPA in favor of pro XPN. I don't know how it got steered into the "best VPN" discussion...

 

[bill001g]

It still does not good what is the most important feature a vpn has for you. Is it just price. The cheaper one has a total of 7 location compare to the other that has more than 33. You also have to look at how there data centers are connected to ISP you use as well as the ISP used by the sites you wish to visit. There are many other feature vpn providers have but it really depends why you need a vpn in the first place.

 

[dc2000]

Good point. Security also matters. Speaking of which, just got this from PIA today via email. Did you get it too? I can't seem to find it anywhere on their website though. (And it's not good if they are trying to hide this.)

=========================================

Dear Valued Customer,

On November 17, we were privately notified of an IP address leak vulnerability affecting the port forwarding feature of our service. Essentially, anyone connecting to a forwarded port on any of our VPN gateways could have their real IP address leaked to an attacker specifically targeting a PIA user.

Within 12 hours of the initial report, we developed and tested what we thought was a complete fix, and deployed it to all of our VPN gateways.

On November 26, the researchers who discovered the vulnerability made it public and we quickly noticed that our service was still vulnerable to the IP address leak in certain cases, despite our initial fix. After further investigation, we also realized there was a separate but related issue on our desktop client. To fix this issue we are releasing updated VPN apps to prevent any leaks. We released v.52 on November 27.

Protecting your privacy is our top priority and although exploiting this vulnerability is difficult and requires an attacker to specifically target you, we feel like we let you down with our initial response. Please accept our apologies, we are sorry.

We highly recommend users update to v.52 (or later) of the client. To ensure all of our beloved users remain protected, we have pushed an update to existing clients. Please update immediately from the application or visit one of the following links:

Windows: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/installer/download_installer_win

Mac: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/installer/download_installer_osx

Technical Facts:

The vulnerability relies on the fact that a direct route exists between the VPN client and server. If the client accesses a forwarded port on the VPN server that is maliciously set up by an attacker, the client will use the direct route using the user's default route, bypassing the VPN entirely.

Our initial fix was to block VPN clients from accessing forwarded ports on the same server at the VPN gateway firewall level, but we soon discovered a flaw in our desktop clients that made the fix incomplete. When the client disconnected, the direct route to the VPN gateway was not removed, thereby making users vulnerable even after they disconnected from the VPN. Beginning with v.52, we remove these "lingering" direct routes to the VPN gateway at disconnect time.

Note: If you are connecting to our service with a native OpenVPN client, or PIA's Android or iOS apps, you do not need a client-side fix.




Sincerely,
Private Internet Access Team
Subsidiary of London Trust Media Inc.