Depends on what you need from a VPN;
• Privacy above all else - Mullvad or IVPN
• Full suite (VPN, email, calendar, password manager, etc) - Proton
• Very illegal/sensitive activities - Njalla
• Visiting China and want protocols that pass GFW - Xeovo
• Port forwarding for torrents, webserver, plex, etc - AirVPN
• Darling of all the private torrent trackers - PrivateVPN
• Best possible performance 24/7, but less privacy - self host WireGuard on SG-based VPS
• Full control with anonymity, but higher latency due to distance - self host on 1984.hosting (pay in XMR)
• Streaming geoblocked content - any Youtuber sponsored VPN (Nord, Express, Surfshark, etc)
• If you’re an idiot - TorGuard (because Tom Spark is an idiot)

This post has been edited by dev/numb: Jun 8 2023, 08:54 PM

Used VPNs in a personal capacity since the early days of ADSL (Streamyx), and long before that at work. All I will say is that there’s no such thing as the perfect VPN for everyone, and no commercial VPN can make you completely anonymous. Lastly, most of those “Top10 VPN” lists you find on the web are paid for. Sometimes the website/magazine publishing the lists is owned by the VPN provider’s parent company.

This post has been edited by dev/numb: Jun 8 2023, 09:54 PM

Layman/Grandma explanation: Most streaming companies have a list of IP pools they blacklist. It basically like that whack-a-mole game. Streaming service block IP, VPN provider moves to new IP. Rinse, repeat. That’s why Nord may work well for a few weeks and then not work for a few weeks, and then work again.

This post has been edited by dev/numb: Jun 8 2023, 09:52 PM