I received an email offering 12 months for US$29 because I used to be a customer, but the URL was targeted.
I hunted around and found this public link to PIA's Cyber Monday Sale, using google cache on a removed webpage.
US$29 is the cheapest they ever do for 12 months. If you haven't heard of them, they are one of the most popular and well known VPN service providers.
Referrers and referees receive 30 days free.
How are they with streaming services?
Netflix USA is ⛔️~
A bloody sperm?
Lol. Take my upvote
You're able to use Netflix USA by connecting to the Silicon Valley US server
The PIA Silicon Valley server?
Correct
Thank you. great to know. I've been using PIA for a couple of years now and had resigned myself to being stuck on local netflix.
If you already have an account with them that you cancelled can you still sign up to this deal?
Yes you can. This will be my 3rd account (paid full price on my first account, got a $31.95 deal on my second, now redeeming this $29 deal - thanks OP!)
I am a current customer of PureVPN. Can anyone who used both tell me which is the best. My 2 year subscription ends this month and need to choose one from both.
pureVPN is a pos.
You can get PureVPN 'lifetime' for $60USD from Stacksocial. Note that by lifetime they mean 5 years, which apparently you can then extend for free for another 5 years each time it expires (untested). PureVPN apps are ok and speeds are fine.
But depending what/why you are using it PureVPN may not be suitable. Because there is some logging. They don't appear to log your activity/traffic but they do log your connections. This is certainly not ideal but depending on your use case it may or may not be a big deal. There is plenty of info about it online.
PIA on the other hand do not appear to be keeping any logs (there is no way to tell for sure though). But depending on your use case PIA may not be suitable. Because PIA are a US based company. This is certainly not ideal but depending on your use case it also may or may not be a big deal.
How does everyone feel about it being a US based company? Still the best to go with?
What alternative is there really? This one so far has been what they advertise
That really depends on what you're after. If it's privacy you want, I'd highly recommend mullvad. There's not much anyone can do with just a string of numbers.
My view is that unless you're auditioning for Mr Robot or Rolf Harris, they won't be targeting you.
What Rolf Harris the musical?
BlackVPN is having their black friday sale atm. I didn't bother making a thread for it, but might be worth considering.
Can you buy it now and activate it later? I still have about a month left on my current PIA plan.
Probably not.
Definitely not
How does US$99 for three years at NordVPN compare? got this email yesterday.
https://nordvpn.com/vpn-cyber-deal/?utm_campaign=Newsletter_…
Still costs far more per year compared to the 2yr PIA mentioned above. Very similar service, but PIA has had better Aus P2P support.
After 28% cash rewards the prices are reasonably similar.
But Aus P2P support being better is a great point, thanks.
This is no good for Netflix but I keep mine because the speeds are great, and the mobile app is really easy to flick on and off anytime I need to use a public/hotel WiFi. No way on earth would I connect to one without it.
Great price cheers OP.
But you will likely find that it won't work in some wireless hotspots as you need to toggle settings to TCP and port 80 or 443 which allows it to connect when a firewall only permits normal traffic.
Absolutely sorry should've mentioned that - the reason I like PIA is the ease at which you can change those settings within the apps.
Is it possible to renew a current account with this deal?
No. You’ll have to cancel your current one or it will keep auto renewing
Ahhh I see. Thanks. Interestingly, I signed up for a 2 year deal for $59.99 USD, which will auto-renew soon, at the same price. Do you know if I'll get 2 years for that?
Why do you want this deal if you have the two year one anyway? It’s the same price when you think about it..
I've never renewed before so assumed PIA would automatically renew my subscription on a much costlier (ie. RRP) plan
@brian77: From my own experience they'll renew at the price you originally paid (i.e. the discounted price). If you log into your PIA account it'll show your next billing date along with how much they'll be charging.
@Heero: thanks for the information. Yes, it shows the renewal price of $59.99 USD but does not mention the time period, hence I thought it could be just 1 year. Looking forward to enjoying this renewal price into the future!
are these guys better than IPVanish/NordVPN
Used NordVPN for a year and had consistent connection issues. Recently moved to PIA and haven't had any issues.
thanks
Just get a VPS for $10/year (512M RAM is more than enough, even 256 + swap will do just fine) and setup your own VPN server using Softether VPN, takes like 5 minutes to do it. A nice bonus is that Android will work using in-built VPN client, same for Windows but there's a full featured VPN client as well if you need it.
If it’s so simple how about you come over to my house and no doubt another 100 ozbargainers houses and set it up for us?
That'd be $100/hour plus business class airfare, paid upfront, minimum one hour.
But you said it would take 5 min to do.
How about a left handed wristy?
You can google it yourself and do it in 5 min or you can pay me $100/h to do that. Your choice.
Which $10/year vps do you recommend?
The flaw with that is that they can track you down via the VPS hosting company. E.g. if your VPS IP address is 1.2.3.4, law enforcement can find out who you are by going to the VPS hosting provider.
It's still better than logs of everything you do recorded and stored by VPN provider.
You can also buy multiple VPS, pay with bitcoins and daisychain them if that's really what you need.
So with just one server setup, would it be possible to get a copyright infringement as your details could be tracked down?
As with everything it all depends how badly they want to get you. Everything is traceable if you put enough resources into it, all you can do is put enough obfuscation hoping that whoever is after you finds it not worth the efforts.
If you do care about things like that your best bet is a VPN to a country known to not be particularly cooperative with Australian and US authorities, for example Russia.
I also have a account and about a month left and I was told (by Pia support) if I want this deal I’d have to buy it now while the Black Friday sale is going otherwise I can’t get it. And to just cancel my exciting account, this way I’d have two accounts for a month. what a bullshit policy this is but I guess I can think of several reasons why they would do this
Are you sure you don’t have to activate it straight away?
Check the license tab
Just FYI, checkout Torguard (Blog article on Black Friday special).
2 years VPN usd$50 and get free mini vpn router. Just pay freight $10
these guys drop it when you download too fast. I signed up for a year so I'm annoyed
Drop what? I've used them for years and never had a problem. No-one from Australia would be anywhere near a fast downloader in global terms.
The connection.
I still like their company because they donated to Linux mint.
OK, but that's almost certainly a problem with the client, not their servers. If you're using their software, you could try reinstalling it or using another OpenVPN client. Even changing ports can fix the issue in some cases.
@dazweeja: Nope, the problem is on their end. I have no issues with competing companies. The issue is that I'm using OpenVPN, which they officially support, but which dies in the a$$ when downloading.
Does this work with BBC iPlayer?
Yes - it works.
After some major changes a few months ago, their customer service is pretty much non-existent. You're looking at a 2-3 weeks wait for an email response saying they can't help.
They also don't support OpenWRT or LEDE, so you're out of luck if you use them in your router.
They're also in the five eyes, so privacy is a concern with them, especially with the changes they've been making behind the scenes without notifying customers the past few months.
Care to elaborate? What changes behind the scenes?
I get replies with in 2 hours, not sure what you’re asking that it’s taking weeks
Plenty of people have been having trouble with payment, account access issues or trying to get a refund during the trial time.
In the case of getting a refund, they often get a response 2 weeks later saying that their trial has ended, so they can't receive a refund, even though they were still in the trial time when the email was sent.
Can't find the info at the moment on the changes from a few months ago, but it was heavily discussed on their forums, and it looks like they changed hands during that business and are now run by another company. If you look on the forums, you might be able to find it, or they might have removed it.
Check out the last PIA deal for other people who had problems with them.
I’ve looked for what you said and I can’t find anything concrete, maybe I’m not looking in the right places. Can’t even find anything on them changing hands. The link you put up seems like a few people had a bad experience and are now bashing on them. I’ve used them since 2015 and I can’t complain. Only thing I don’t like is that they are in America.
@Melbournebargain: Yeah, sorry I can't find the old links. You might find what I'm referring to in the forums, but there's over 50 pages to sort through, and they will likely have taken it down since it gives them a bad reputation.
I won't deny that there is likely a small group bashing on them, but there's a lot of other people who have been having problems as well.
There was also another problem around the same time where IP addresses weren't what the client said it is, there was an official announcement saying it was due to some changes to make more IP addresses available, but in reality there are now fewer available and you're more likely to have captcha etc.
Some users did some digging and found some interesting info, check here
"They also don't support OpenWRT or LEDE, so you're out of luck if you use them in your router."
That doesn't sound right:
https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand/wiki/Setting-an…
Their OVPN configurations don't play nicely or work with AES on AsusWRT or Merlin.
Works on dd-wrt
I disagree that privacy is more a concern than non-five eyes providers. There's no metadata retention laws in the US, if the NSA are monitoring from outside that would do them no good because they can't match the inbound connection with the outbound, and they don't keep logs so that doesn't help intelligence agencies with warrants either. They're probably one of the better VPN providers when it comes to privacy IMO.
It's still possible agencies have accessed servers via back doors, or even physically, to monitor in and outbound traffic, despite any laws or regard for what locale its located.
I take your point but do you think that's something that should concern the average user of PIA? I mean we're not talking about piracy here - that evidence would have to be presented in a court so we'd know about it. Even quite serious crimes would. The scenarios where we wouldn't know are those to do with terrorism and other really nasty stuff. I'm not sure it's relevant to the average Joe when selecting a VPN provider.
How’s PIA with Netflix?
Doesn’t work
No mention of expressvpn? Anyone with experience?
it was pretty good. last time i used it (4 months ago) it still worked with US netflix. And their customer support with live chat was really good. rarely had issues but if i did i could usually get a hold of them. But too expensive for me so I bought a year with PIA
mmm i think i need to revoke my vote.
so i just signed into the plan, set everything up…all working great.
but the speed is freakin horrible?
100/40 avg 95/38 with vpn on to 10/20 with speed test?
i did a asus 88u firmware vpn install… can anyone else guide me? did i do something wrong?
DainB will help you out for $100 ph
Check your CPU use on the router, particularly when downloading.
If it's really high, then that's your issue, and there's not a lot you can do, other than use different hardare.
If it's not high, thenas I suspect, PIA is just a pain in the ass.
seems like a pain in the ass.
its a dual core. mid range modem. cpu usage sitting around 20-30 when streaming
ive tried local servers… which is around 10/20, dont know why my upload is faster than download.
tried different encryption still the same.
i think its either overloaded of users or i dont know.
would've been happy with a 20% drop in speed but not 90%. quite disappointing.
Anyone got a VPN recommendation for US Netflix?
Thanks OP, perfect timing for the 1 year I bought last year during these sales
Thanks OP. Been looking for a new VPN and at this price it's a no brainer. Also for anyone interested if you choose reoccurring payments every year it stays at that price ongoing