Tor is not a VPN and the use case is not interchangeable

Just wanted to leave a comment to say thank you for sharing your findings and taking the time to write your post here. I am sure you spent a lot of time and effort researching all of this. These kinds of posts are why I love Lemmy and its communities.

Not currently in need of a new VPN, pretty happy with Proton and my plan is active for another 1.5 years. But I still wanted to say I appreciate your post.

If you’re going to be giving out advice, you should at least know that Mozilla VPN is rebranded Mullvad VPN. So most of the information on your chart should be exactly the same for both.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/products/vpn/features/

Scroll down to “Convenient,” then “More than 500 servers in 30+ countries,” and click on the link “See our list of servers,” which takes you to the Mullvad website server list here:

https://mullvad.net/en/servers

Unless something has changed, the VPN that Malwarebytes sells is also rebranded Mullvad.

In my opinion, if you’re going to include a VPN like PIA, you should also include who owns them (Kape Technologies - owner of multiple VPNs), and instruct people to do an internet search for “Kape Technologies malware.” I’m not saying don’t get PIA, but people should be able to at least make an informed decision:

“Kape Technologies, originally known as Crossrider, has a history of distributing malware through its ad injection platform before rebranding and focusing on VPN services. While it has since shifted its business model, concerns about its past and corporate practices remain prevalent in discussions about its VPN offerings.”

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/detections/adware-crossrider

Adware.CrossRider

Adware.CrossRider is Malwarebytes’ detection name for a large family of adware targeting both Windows and macOS systems. CrossRider offers a highly configurable method for its clients to monetize their software.

Source and type of infection

Adware.CrossRider is usually installed by bundlers. Programs offering some kind of functionality are combined with the adware component.

Additional reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Sagi#Kape_Technologies

Likewise, inform people to search for “Nord data breach,” so people can again make an informed decision. It wasn’t the fact that there was a data breach, but how it was handled that some had a problem with:

“Evidence indicates the attack most likely happened some time between January 31st, 2018, when the server came online, and March 5th, 2018. The attack was made via a compromised data center account, not an account managed by NordVPN. The data center deleted this account on March 20th, 2018, blocking any further access to the server. NordVPN claims not to have been notified about the breach until April 13th, 2019, more than a year after it happened. It took down the server the same day, and began an immediate audit of its 5,000 servers. The company wouldn’t go public until evidence of the hack emerged some six months later. Why? The blog post stated: ‘thoroughly reviewing the providers and configurations for over 5,000 servers around the world takes time. As a result, we decided we should not notify the public until we could be sure that such an attack could not be replicated anywhere else on our infrastructure.’”

Again, not saying there is a problem with PIA and Nord, just that people should know about these things before making a decision.

Holy shit, the entitlement of some comments here. As if they paid for your service and you let them down and caused them damages.

Thanks op for your contribution.

Now we need a list of how many of those VPNs are Israeli owned so we can avoid them.

Thanks for this, looks like it took a long time to put together!

Some corrections with Windscribe since I use it: on Android you can get the APK directly (“sideload” - I use Obtanium) or through F-Droid. Also I think that pricing is for the full service. I pay like $3 a month with 30GB data and a choice of (I think) 3 or 4 countries IIRC. This has been more than enough for me and probably most people.

You should also list what providers allow P2P and what ones have port forwarding.

Do yourself a favor. Get a Digital Ocean droplet for $6/mo, Debian version, follow their excellent step-by-step directions to install OpenVPN Server. Done.

You don’t have to know Linux, the instructions are tight. I only got hung on one step where they left a small thing out. Also, I was drunk. Got it going the next evening.

This thing has been running for years and years, can’t even remember how to log in, likely lost my SSH key. 🙄 No worries about logging. It’s yours, they can’t take it away or change the rules. It’s yours.

And BTW, not sure my rate has gone up in the ~7 years I had it. Maybe $1? That might have been because I enabled additional backups.

Been nothing but satisfied with proton. I bought a years worth at once. The flatpack I got installed and works without issue. The only gripe I have is I can’t figure out how to make it (mint) boot up with wiregaurd/proton as the default.

Nice chart, but I don’t get the payment part, I looked it up for Proton and it states:

https://protonvpn.com/pricing

Visa, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal, or Proton credits

Nothing about cash???
But they accept all major credit cards.