NordVPN vs Private Internet Access (PIA) - I got my money back from NordVPN...
I've used Private Internet Access for just under 2 years and recently trialled NordVPN.
I had heard great things about Nord VPN from the internet, and signed up for their special 2 year deal (save 72%). It cost $79 USD for 2-years. Pretty awesome value you would think. You can get it here.
NordVPN boasts super secure "Double VPN" and "TOR over VPN" services as well as optimised streaming services for netflix etc. These are all gimmicks. People who are truly concerned about their privacy wouldn't be fucking around with Nord, they'd probably used TAILS OS or a similar bootable linux distro. This has the disadvantage of slowing down your speed, and you sort of have to navigate through their app to get access to these services (which are extremely crowded due to the 72% special mentioned above).
The issue I had was that the speed on the standard VPN, comparable to the service the PIA offers, was bad. Well, not completely shit, it was still pretty fast but just not comparable. And it probably didn't help that I'd just switched over from PIA. Streaming porn was super slow and would hang for minutes before the speed picked up again. Same for movies. Websites seemed the follow the same trend, they would stall for a moment and then load, but at a slower speed than PIA.
What sums it up for me is that when I disconnect from PIA, all my internet speeds are pretty much the same. When I disconnect from Nord however, everything drastically improves...
Positives
The security offered by Nord VPN is probably better than Private Internet Access. But I would say that it is negligible and for the average punter doesn't actually matter. One layer of fast VPN protection is far preferable to me. Also, I can just use TOR whilst PIA is activated.... And I guess I could use the chrome browser extension on top of the windows PIA app if I had to to double VPN?
NordVPN has got excellent customer service I will say. I knew about this before I signed up, and it was exceptional during my speed issues. They had me trial different settings and three different ways of connecting to their service before they refunded me my $79 USD, no questions asked absolutely no issues. Great work NordVPN!
Both companies don't keep logs. And both offer bitcoin.
Needless to say, I've switched back to PIA for another year at $39 USD.
I've never had the chance to try out PIA's customer service, but that's probably a credit to their service and speed.