The cheapest I've seen for the popular PIA VPN.
3 Years US$46.40 (~AU$64), 5 Years US$70.40 (~AU$97).
Also a 2 years subscription is available but the best bang for your buck is the 5 years deal.
Use a card with no XE fees.
Thanks to r0xz
$10 credit for the referrer and referee.
Apparently so!
Can it be used to extend existing subs?
"Offer good for new Private Internet Access customers only."
Probably not
Yes, contact support they can merge accounts now
How does that work?
Is it extending the current subscription?
Yes, redeem the code and once PIA sends you the new account and password details. Contact support and ask them to merge the 2 accounts together. The expiry becomes (original expiry + 5 years).
i did email support and was advised that the new subscription needed to be on the same email as the current subscription, then it needed supervisors approval prior to merging.
Can confirm, needs to be the same email. It took a day for them to respond to my ticket, but they merged my new subscription into my existing account as requested. Thank you Sleepy24seven for the tip!
@deadpoet: Hey 44sunsets after the merging of accounts when you log into the PIA portal how much does it say your subscription cost? Would be interested to know if its the new subscription price or the old one you use to have.
@doublezero1: Not sure what you mean?
When I'm logged in it highlights the "Two Years" plan for $2.91/month, or $69.95 per two years.
When I'm logged out, the same plan costs $2.50/month, or $59.95 per two years.
Standard practice for PIA, which is why nobody ever renews but signs up for a new account once their time is up.
Having difficulty getting the account merge, will keep pushing support and update.
They said no to merge my accounts. Something about the old one being a PayPal subscription and new one being a gift card.
Ditto. Still pushing.
Just bought it 10 minutes ago. Contacted live support/chat. Merged within 5 minutes. They asked for my subscription PIN (last 4 digits) which I used in a previous stacksocial PIA VPN deal. That account was due to expire in March and they added the 5 years to that account.
American hosted VPN, yea nah.
Which vpn do u recommend?
I'm getting 1ms on their Sydney servers…
How’s the tin foil hat working for you?
@cheaponos: Hows burying your head in the sand going?
And it's this kind of ignorance that allows the Labour Party and the Liberal Party to get into power and record the activities of every single citizen in the first place.
We literally force clueless people to go and give their vote with compulsory voting.
Nord VPN is slow compared to PIA IME.
TorGuard pretty good
Can confirm. Speeds are also very good. For reference on a 13 MByte/sec connection, easily able to get 10 Mbyte/sec thru American VPN using UDP protocol.
They don't just have american servers.
That's not what he means.
They can still flex on the company itself, a separate issue to compromisation of the servers.
So? US does have some pretty good privacy laws, much beyter then Australia's.
Although I doubt any of these commercial VPNs are immune from Govt hacking.
I agree. The US is pretty weak on privacy and spying etc overall, however they only seem to leverage it for actual legit investigations.
AU on the other hand shares your browsing history with local councils without any warrant or reason required.
"with local councils"
Do you have a source for that claim?
@[Deactivated]: I don't get it? I can't think of why your local council would care. Ours can't even get their own email together, let alone caring about what websites the residents go to.
Are you saying it is some sort of faith based conspiracy belief?
@Major Mess: My health record is an example where a large number of groups can access your info without warrant (as it currently stands)
@Major Mess: In one example, a local council attempted to use metadata to chase a litterbug, by asking a telecommunications carrier to report the location of calls by a man whose name was on an envelope dumped on the street.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/councils-pr…
Granted they Could be, but this is an interesting read to show they aren't.
It is an old story thoughand times change, but they gained a lot of customers when the news got out, and they even used it on their homepage as marketing for a while haha.
can any1 advise if this can be added to a pre existing 3 year license? and how?
Contact support and request the old and new accounts to be merged
I never knew they are US based company….I have used them for over 2 years but subscription expired a while back…Never renewed…and now I find out US Based company…No thanks!!!
Why is that bad?
Because the US is part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance & with their history of spying/surveillance (ref: NSA etc.) the government could be forcing/force the company to keep logs or track activity etc.
If you use a VPN in a based in a different jurisdiction with more strict laws on privacy you may be safer.
If you use a VPN in a based in a different jurisdiction with more strict laws on privacy you may be safer.
Firstly the US actually does have very good privacy laws.
Secondly, they just have to compromise the servers, which are hosted by third parties in data centres none of these guys own or control.
@[Deactivated]: It's 14 eyes and if you wish for true privacy it's best to avoid using vpns from any of these countries and even to create traffic in any of these countries. It's TRUE they keep no logs but active spying can still be achieved. It's a bit more expensive but NORDvpn is ahead in Panama and is the one I use, plus run a tor server and tor based web browser and you should be good. Yes I am paranoid.
@JokerOZ: good for you! you've obviously done your research and put your findings into practice.
I don't believe any claims of no logs, it's BS. Tey shoukld spell out what they do/don't log.
Most people who bang on about no logs then go and purchase using a credit card/paypal, which leaves a trace. In Australia, ISPs keep logs, so it's possible for authorities will be able to find out you're connecting to specific servers. Quite a few of the VPNs still use PPTP by default in their apps/configs, which is fast, but isn't secure. Thaqt's not getting into the possibility that your VPN provider is collecting and onselling your data.
For the average Joe-BLow they want to geo-relocate and hide their internet activity from others. So fast, reliable, fairly secure and value is really all they want. If you're up to no good that has national security implications or a large financial cost (hacking a large company/Govt), then I wouldn't rely on commercial VPNs services, as if if they don't roll over, there's a good chance the agencies can find a way to acquire evidence.
For torrenting/downloading copyright material, then ther economic cost for companies to pursue a VPN company to get your info, is fairly expensive, even if they do roll over.
It's been confirmed in court multiple times that PIA does not keep logs.
@taffy711: No, the FBI asked for specific information, which they said they couldn't supply. which is not they don't keep logs
@[Deactivated]: No, their General Counsel also gave evidence under oath in court that they do not keep logs. That's contempt of court and a definite jail sentence if he's found to be lying.
@taffy711: is there a transcript of that? I'd be interested to see the questions & answers, as I doubt it was that simple.
@[Deactivated]: The US court system is public record so there will be a transcript, if you care enough to go digging for it and possibly pay for it then full power to you, I'm content to trust the reporting on this and the other similar incidents.
@taffy711: good luck, I dont trust something just becuase it was reported on the internet. Especially on a site like TorrentFreak which is sponsored by the company. The simplistic claims don't stack up and the General Council wouldn't give such an all encompassing answer as "they do not keep logs", they would have been asked some very specific questions.
@[Deactivated]: There's no reason why he wouldn't say that if that's the truth. And Torrent Freak obviously wasn't the original source. But if you're moving the goalposts from your first objectively wrong statement to the point where you'll only accept first-hand proof then there's obviously no point having this conversation.
I've found PIA to be very transparent with their dealings with the US government and don't believe they are in a position to be able to provide any government with any usable data. In saying that, my threat model doesn't really include governmental surveillance because I'm not doing anything on the Internet that a nation-state would care about.
I found this podcast really interesting, an interview by Michael Bazzell (a highly respected operator in the digital privacy world) with Caleb Chen from PIA. Worth a listen if you're interested in privacy in general, VPNs more specifically, and PIA in particular. https://soundcloud.com/user-98066669/019-pia-is-here-to-disc…
Out of interest where did you think they were based?
Seems odd that you were shocked that an online company with a .com domain that charges in USD is based in the USA.
Can this work natively in IOS?
PIA's app works on both iPhone and iPad.
okay, so an app has to be running to ensure you are leveraging the VPN connection? you can't just plum the details into your network settings to ensure all traffic uses the VPN?
It has the ability to switch servers on the fly, all the app does is get the latest server details and establish a vpn through android/ios. That's it, it's not routing anything through the app
You can also do that if you like but the app also includes a killswitch if the VPN disconnects as well as a few other nifty options.
You can do it for the VPN settings in IOS itself, but the app has additional functionality that makes it worth using.
does it drain battery more using vpn on mobile?
Ive been using pia for year cos its been popular on ozb. It works on iOS and android and even my tvbox. But whats with the comments about it being a US company? My subscription is due to expire soon. Not a good idea to go with PIA anymore?
since they are in the US they need to co-operate with the US government, even though they say they won't keep logs they usually will to screw over some bloke. better off buying a non us hosted vpn
Well that's not quite true.
They need to follow a court order. Which isn't easy to obtain, the only concern would be ones granted under FISA which needs to be kept secret but they're for national security.
Any VPN provider that has servers in the US can be comprised as they server host/DC could be compelled to install code on the hosted VPN server, which would compromise the whole VPN network.
Which has literally never happened, because then that evidence would need to be shown in court. In fact, the opposite has happened where it was confirmed in court that PIA wasn't able to fulfil FBI subpoenas and search warrants about an individual because they didn't keep logs.
I dun trust the US.
PIA VPN is one of the few vpns that really don't keep logs and it's safe, highly recommended
PIA VPN is one of the few vpns that really don't keep logs
How do you know that?
I don't trust any service which claims "no logs". Because anyone whose been a server admin knows thats fairly impossible, especially if you want your server to stay up & running. They should define what logs they do & don't keep.
https://torrentfreak.com/private-internet-access-no-logging-…
Of course as they are US based they legally need to hand everything to authorities if requested. I don't mind they doing that if they have no logs from me.
I wonder how they enforce 5 concurrent logins.
Would never use a VPN provider that is based in the USA! If you are an average user you probably wouldn't care nor need to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig…
Yep, if you are planning terrorist activities probably best to look elsewhere.
This, what are people doing that they need to hide from the FBI and CIA? Downloading Linux isos in Australia isn't FBI material.
The problem in Australia is how all sorts of government and associates have access to your history without any requirement to even supply a reason. At the very least it should be like the Police system where an Officer has to log in as themselves and supply a reason for lookups of private info, which creates a paper trail. How it is now makes it open to abuse that has absolutely zero to do with protecting the country. It is open to personal vendettas and other abuse. Until today(probably read it years ago and forgot) I did not realise this information included peoples mobile phone calls, and where and when.
The theocracy that has developed in Australia is starting to show it's insanity, and in-fighting, which is being forced upon ordinary everyday, good Australians. Secular government has a proven record of increasing citizen's well being, freedom, and fairness, which makes it the enemy to our politicians and their declared foreign allegiances. They all know something they can't know, and that is their orders, which also conflict with the orders of others, from apparently the same master. Our government to citizen social contract has been broken and we are currently in a state of anarchy. Crazy stuff, and I don't want any of it forced upon me.
We have a Prime Minister who openly speaks of his imaginary friend's orders, and has called for legislation to give a right to abuse children by hiding information and evidence from them.
PIA is a perfectly reasonable solution for the vast majority of people that are after a VPN service… because the use case for most people doesn’t involve trying to hide from US three letter agencies. If your use case does include that, you’re not going to be using ANY paid VPN service, regardless of the country it’s hosted in.
Really holding out for a good NordVPN deal.. Had PIA before.. it's not bad.. but for security NordVPN is touted the best and I am guessing you are taking VPN for that and not just to play Netflix / change IP.. If so then PIA is pretty good in itself.
VPN for that and not just to play Netflix / change IP.. If so then PIA is pretty good in itself.
No it's not. I use PIA and, while I'm happy with it overall, Netflix doesn't like it.
Netflix doesn't like it
As in you can't use PIA to access Netflix libraries from other countries?
Netflix hasn't allowed VPNs to view their content for years. We even paid for one that specifically touted themselves as one that would allow access to overseas Netflix libraries, but they blocked it really quickly.
Been using the past year it works fine. Id stack this to my existing subscription if i knew how!!
Maybe read my BOLD replies above.
Thanks. Is it a guarantee/policy that they will?
As reported on whirlpool
Thank you. My PIA VPN subscription always expires around this time and its great renewal coincides with Black Friday deals.
Me Too!
A reminder that someone was arrested in Australia for reposting a Michael Jackson video.
source?
Actually I can’t find it. I think it was the one where he held a baby over a balcony or something. I think the guy was in QLD.
Why would they be arrested? Sounds like a civil matter.
Do we still need this? I have been using Sock5 that comes with this and it's awesome, but is the scare over?
Sock5 is unreliable in all torrent clients. You should never of been relying it.
Docker or VM with iptables setup is the only safe option.
I only use private trackers, each with under 15K users.
I'm not sure if the above will play nicely with them.
So I thought Sock5 is good enough in this instance, maybe not public trackers.
All top tier private trackers allow VPN for seeding, just not for browsing the site (another reason to use Docker, so HTTP traffic doesn't go via the VPN, resulting in a ban).
RubenM on 22/11/2018 - 08:45 Comment score below threshold.
