Hi privacy fans :) I’ve been a lurker in this lemmy-community for a while now and a “fan” of privacy for about 4 years now. Since 4 years, I’ve been on and of with VPNs. Sometimes I think I dont need one, sometimes I change my mind and start searching for one. The only one I tested (and used) so far, was Mullvad. But now reading about Surfshark, I was wondering, if there might be a better solution or if Mullvad is already the best solution for VPN. What I dont like about Surfshark is, that it is part of North Security and that it is not open-source (or at least I can find any info about that).

I hope you guy and gals have some suggestions or recommendation :)

Edit: wow… thanks for all of your fast replies. Coming from Reddit, I am used to only shitposting. Thanks for all your input. I will look into all the mentioned VPN hosters, thx 👍

  • ccx@sopuli.xyz
    2·
    9 days ago

    Tor.

    And the correct term is anonymizing proxy. Having the term VPN overloaded to mean two completely distinct things is rather annoying and/or confusing.

  • Imprint9816@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    2·
    12 days ago

    Mullvad, IVPN, and Proton are the top tier for privacy respecting VPNs.

    Windscribe and AirVPN are also decent options but do not have the audit history to be in the same tier as the other 3.

    Most other VPNs people mention either have a dubious history or no real proof of their claims to be privacy respecting.

    • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
      1·
      12 days ago

      Plus one to Proton. They recently moved to a not-for-profit model because they believe it will help them better protect their customers interests

        • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
          1·
          12 days ago

          And they’re continuing to put out more and more apps and features without increasing prices or any of that bullshit. They grandfathered my Proton Prime plan or whatever it was called without any interruption of service when they got rid of the plan. Basically, they just do a lot of great things

    • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      12 days ago

      Windsribe also has a big advantage for price with their “Build a plan” in that you can pick a few locations and only spend $3 a month without needing to deal with any coupons/sales or long term purchases.

  • kevincox@lemmy.ml
    1·
    12 days ago

    Mullvad is one of the best options if you care about privacy. They take privacy seriously, both on their side and pushing users towards private options. They also support fully anonymous payments. Their price is also incredibly reasonable.

    I’m actually working on a VPN product as well. It is a multi-hop system so that we can’t track you. But it isn’t publicly available yet, so in the meantime I happily recommend Mullvad.

  • MNLFNUT8YG@lemmy.world
    0·
    11 days ago

    A VPN is not for privacy. It simply put your front door to another location. There needs to be more done for being “private”. But Mullvad would be a good start.

    • OlPatchy2Eyes@slrpnk.net
      1·
      9 days ago

      Would you elaborate on this? Encrypting your traffic and not accessing sites from your actual IP address sounds pretty vital to privacy for me.

      • MNLFNUT8YG@lemmy.world
        1·
        8 days ago

        Yes, your traffic is encrypted through the VPN tunnel, to the other location, but than you need to get access to the internet again. SSL traffic is already private, so there you don’t need an VPN for. Yeah, you get another IP, but you browse on the internet (same fingerprint) your pc has access to the internet (same hardware ID) and so on. So you can be tracked still. There are multiple videos on YouTube telling you a VPN on its own is a private method to access the Internet. Look for it.