My top two VPN’s work well. My final rankings come down to price, ease of use and functionality with other services. I used to recommend 4 providers, but if I’m being honest, there’s only 2 to consider. I personally use Private Internet Access and have used it for years.
1. Private Internet Access (PIA)
Private Internet Access takes my number 1 spot because it does all things well. Let’s start with the price. At $40/year ($3.33/mo), it has the best single year price of all the major VPN’s. The two year commitment price is even better at $70 ($2.91/mo). The app is very easy to use with a single click to turn it on or off. With some deeper settings you can have certain apps bypass the vpn tunnel so you don’t have to turn it on and off when you switch apps.
2. Nord VPN
Nord VPN drops into my number 2 spot by a tight margin. Nord’s pricing isn’t bad, but not as good as PIA for a 1 or 2 year commitment, but it has better pricing than PIA if you go with the 3 year commitment, but that’s a judgement call on whether you want to sign up that long. Nord has 2 things going for it. 1. Nord is based in Panama. They are not beholden to US laws and won’t have to respond to a subpoena. 2. If you’re not afraid to dip into settings, Nord has servers available based on your activity type. If you like to use Peer to Peer networks, Nord has servers for you. Need extra security via Tor or double vpn, Nord has servers for you. To some people, this is worth the extra cost.