PIA one month review

I was considering getting mullvad VPN but after few considerations I have decided against any European VPN provider. And honestly I don't have the money to pay for the ones in Russia and so I settled down on American company PIA. As far as I am concerned they say no logging but NSA doesn't require logging on its own servers - there are a million ways to bypass the logging requirement and stick a huge gag order and threaten prison. And so Im gonna use this company only to secure my internet connection while at airports, internet cafes, hotels and to steam Netflix when Im out of the country.
I paid $7 for one month trail and if I like it I may buy 1 year commitment for $40.
If anybody else is using PIA, how do you like it? Any issues?

 

Please tell me your post is a gag.....

 

Speculation aside, VPN customers have no way to verify or refute such claims by providers.

PIA is inexpensive and fast. There have been posts here explaining away their situation as a US company. But again, customers have no way to test such claims, or predict how they would deal with LEA demands.

If I were living in the US, I would not connect directly through a US-based VPN service. Wherever you live, I think that it's best to start with VPN services that are based in other countries. However, PIA does offer a variety of exit locations, and they are very inexpensive, so they serve well as semi-disposable exits in multi-VPN chains. They're also good for tunneling through Tor, if you've anonymized your Bitcoins well enough before purchasing.

 

What about their Speed? Is that OK?

After using Air and Boleh (more or less same speed, maybe a bit higher with Air), I would like to try PIA..

 

I guess you can't trust any VPN provider but ill firmly stick to mullvad or boleh or any other VPN provider based in Europe.

Same goes for anything else

My mullvad connection hits speeds slightly higher then when I tested airvpn and boleh oddly and I was connecting to similar areas if not the same but it was only 1meg difference.

 

How do you evaluate speed? I would be happy to do it for you. Which countries you would like to compare?

I don't trust any provider outside of Russia.

 

Which one(s) in Russia?

How's Insorg these days?

They seemed to be getting unreliable a few months ago.

 

I haven't done my research yet. Im probably gonna wait another year before I settle down on a Russian VPN, maybe Chinese. I just believe (maybe call me paranoid) that anything in Europe is as compromised as anything in U.S. And perhaps we are paying more $$$ for same broken anonymity.

 

I assume every place is compromised, so the hunt begins to find one that is lesser and to also consider VPN tunneling with 2-3 different VPNs.

 

How does using 2-3 VPNs make a difference. The initial VPN is the one that see traffic out of your computer and if that one is compromised then it's sending that traffic directly to the highest bidder.

 

No matter what you do -- using one VPN, using three nested VPNs, using Tor tunneled through VPNs, using Tor tunneled through VPNs and a VPN tunneled through Tor -- the first VPN sees all traffic from your computer, and someone can log all traffic from the final exit.

However, if you're tunneling a VPN or Tor through the first VPN, everything that the first VPN can see is encrypted, and that includes all metadata except your IP address and the IP address of the next server in the nested chain (either another VPN server, or a Tor entry guard relay).

On the other end, someone logging exit traffic can see the IP address of the Internet resource that you're accessing, and (if they can access the exit server itself) the IP address of the previous server. If the Internet-resource traffic itself isn't encrypted, they can also see (and modify) content.

 

Can you please check the speed of Germany, France and Switzerland servers?

I just need to know if PIA slows down much your usual speed (without VPN or eventually using another VPN like Air or Boleh).

Thanks much.

 

Please don't take this the wrong way

But the idea of using one of my VPN accounts in such a unique way, and then posting the results on Wilders, creeps me out

 

So just to confirm if one VPN tunnels from VPN 1 all they see is encrypted data since your going through a 2nd encrypted VPN ?

So your spreading the partitions of trust.... how many VPN tunnels would you advise ? I like 2 for now, perhaps as you have suggested to use security kiss free vpn.

 

(You) -> (VPN) -> (Tor) -> (Internet)

Configured correctly this is all you could ever need, unless your really dumb.

 

I'm not sure that I understand your numbering. Maybe a picture will help.



The first VPN tunnel that you establish, VPN1, sees VPN2-encrypted traffic from you to VPN1's exit server, and also knows the IP address of VPN2's login server.

Yes, this is a simple implementation of onion routing. I've used nested chains with as many as five VPN services. Latency is the speed killer. Two or three is enough, unless it's very important to stay hidden. At some point you might as well just use Tor.

As Taliscicero notes, using Tor through one VPN is about the strongest anonymity available. Using two nested VPNs to connect with Tor hides it better from your ISP etc. And using a VPN through Tor may be necessary for apps that require UDP, or for accessing sites that block Tor exit IPs.

 

Thanks yes that is what I meant, nice diagram explains it well. Yes I feel 2 is enough for now or Tor

 

At the airport in Milan, Italy and Im unable to connect to PIA VPN... kind of disappointed because this is where I need it the most.

 

I guess there could also be a reverse side to that. Wilders could also be ideal for laying down false trails.

 

Unable?

What were the symptoms?

Maybe some "public" WiFi APs block VPNs. It may help to try TCP on port 443.

 

That's true.

But then I'd be making up stuff that might not be very helpful.

I do lay false trails when there's no technical impact.

 

Just subscribed and connected via PIA. So far, so good. Speed pretty ok.

 

I have no idea how to connect via TCP on Linux and PIA doesn't offer a dedicated Linux software. So I had to go naked. And I was tired in Milan after 7 hour overnight flight, sick from a common cold and sinus infection and limited by 30 minut limit of internet usage on the airport. I had no time or patience to either contact their support or research online.

So while PIA is good, their lack of dedication towards Linux is a turn off for me, just like 99% of the VPN companies out there. I might go with Mullvad next year or so. PIA will be just a temporary VPN for my Netflix only needs when I travel to Europe. And my next trip is in August.

 

I would not be too much concerned about not being able to use PIA while at Milan airport.
I know that place and they have a crappy infrastructure. I am pretty confident that the rootcause was them, not PIA.

 

Will keep that in mind. I haven't given up on PIA. I think they are very cheap and quite fast. Milan was still better than Paris where my limit to use WiFi was only 15mins. And both are better than NYC JFK which wants you to purchase Bingo for $7.99 to access the internet.
How is it that in this day and age airports don't have a free WiFi?