Best VPN for Twin Cities?

October 3, 2014 3:19 PM

I am trying to find the best VPN services in 2014 with emphasis in the Twin Cities, but open to all options.

Well, I am looking into VPN services and feel overwhelmed with information (not sure what is content farm action vs honest curation). I want to have privacy (yeah, I get that a nation state targeting me is whole different level altogether) and is supportive of my habits, including public wifi, surfing other nation's media options, and going through a lot of media.

I travel internationally, if that is helpful but do most things in the US.

What are the best VPN services that my fellow MeFites swear by?

posted by jadepearl to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Best answer: Once in a while you may need to jump onto another server, but I have been using PIA for over a year now. Their midwest server (list of servers) appears to be located in Chicago. They have sales for $32/year a few times a year.

I'm currently limited by my Verizon LTE speeds, but I am pulling 20 down / 2-5 up for the US based servers, 5-10 / 2-3 for the canadian servers, and 3-10 / 1-2 for their UK servers. I've been traveling extensively through Asia, Europe and the US for the past year and have been using this VPN as an alternative to my work VPN for personal browsing and videos when on unsecured wifi.

I haven't downloaded content in more than a decade, but I know others use it with leak protections to get around content restrictions for streaming or to prevent torrent/usenet throttling.
posted by palionex at 4:09 PM on October 3, 2014

Best answer: I have researched many VPN providers. Manny offer a front for VPN but don't own the servers and connections behind it. Despite the name Golden Frog Vypr VPN. I think they are the best. I use them for all our computers and many of my clients do as well. Very fast and reliable. With numerous servers to choose from. Even the Great firewall can't hold this one back ;-)
posted by Mac-Expert at 6:06 PM on October 3, 2014

Best answer: My first stop in these matters is Torrent Freak, and they have a 2014 edition of their "Which VPN Services Take Your Anonymity Seriously?" survey.
posted by koucha at 2:50 PM on October 4, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks to all. I ended up with PIA due to the very good reviews from torrentfreak and also the very good customer service support. It was also the easiest to install and deal with on all my machines. Now that I have taken the plunge will be presenting this to students as well. Thanks to all.
posted by jadepearl at 7:27 AM on October 6, 2014