Why You Should Opt for Private Internet Access as VPN Provider!

Don’t let the terrible stock art on its website fool you; Private Internet Access VPN is a first-rate VPN with a trifecta of fair pricing, excellent performance, and useful features. In fact, it’s our top pick of the five we're evaluating this week. The only downsides to Private Internet Access are the inability to select a specific server (you can choose servers only by geographic location) and its unattractive desktop app. These two issues are relatively minor, however, when you consider the whole package Private Internet Access provides.

If you want to see what your connection is like, it offers a seven-day money-back guarantee so you can take it for a spin. Payment options include credit card, PayPal, Bitcoin and the ability to pay anonymously with a gift card from Starbucks, Best Buy and other major retailers. For any of these plans, you can use up to five devices simultaneously. Private internet access vpn supports Windows PCs, Macs, Linux, Chromebooks and has mobile apps for Android and iOS. It can also be installed on some routers. I used the Windows app for my tests.

Private Internet Access keeps its desktop app out of your way, which is a good thing because it has an interface only a mother could love. Like the other VPNs, Private Internet Access installs a small icon in your system tray that lets you toggle the service on and off. Right-click the icon to auto-connect to whatever server Private Internet Access thinks is the best connection for your location or choose by country. For the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia, you can drill down and choose a region.

Private Internet Access makes it easy to tell when you are connected; the Taskbar icon turns green when you are connected and is red when you are not. In settings, you can enable a kill switch that shuts down your Internet connection if the VPN gets disconnected, and you can also enable an ad blocker, which is a feature not commonly found on other VPNs. Private Internet Access does not let you cycle through IP addresses at regular intervals, which is a feature less important to online gamers than users looking to exploit every measure possible to cover their tracks online. Private Internet Access supports OpenVPN over TCP and UDP (UDP can be faster than TCP because it doesn’t do error correction). It also supports PPTP, and L2TP protocols. Private Internet Access allows for anonymous BitTorrent use but blocks Netflix.