Today, cybersecurity is one of the most important qualities of life that many people overlook.
It’s never been easier for a knowledgeable criminal to steal your personal information, including banking information, right from under your nose. It could happen if you have an account get hacked, it could happen if you’re buying something over an open WiFi network — the list of risks goes on and on.
Plus, everyone knows that you leave a “digital footprint” in the world whenever you access the Internet. People can see what you do and where you go, including your Internet service provider.
So what can the average person do, especially if they don’t have all of the technology and knowledge to create their own protections?
The answer lies in a virtual personal network (VPN). However, there’s a catch.
VPN companies come in two varieties — free and paid.
Free VPNs often track and sell your online data to marketing companies to fund the company.
Paid VPNs often do not since you’re paying them. In other words, they don’t need the revenue from selling your information.
But, again, paid VPNs cost money, and they can get expensive.
That’s why Private Internet Access (PIA) exists. It’s affordable, powerful, safe, and versatile.
I love it — and that’s why I’m writing about it today.
My Experience with PIA VPN
I have been using Private Internet Access for about a year now to keep myself private on the internet and prevent my ISP from tracking me online. The way this works is that everything you do is routed through a private IP address, which anonymizes all traffic so your IP can’t be tracked by anyone who wants to know what sites you visit.
This is important if you want to stay anonymous because private browsing prevents advertisers from learning what products or services interest you the most as well as preventing any internet service providers from finding out what data about you they can sell to marketers or law enforcement agencies.
The price for this level of privacy is pretty low. While other VPNs might offer more servers and protocols, I think private internet access is still worth it given the price.
PIA VPN Features
PIA has plenty of features to make this private browsing worthwhile. I will highlight some below.
Here’s some of what PIA VPN offers and how it benefits you.
Servers in 30+ Countries for Ultra-Fast Speeds
These are spread out across the world so you can connect to anywhere you want with ease. If you need more than that, there are other VPN providers who offer hundreds or thousands of servers like NordVPN.
However, you don’t need that many. PIA VPN has proxy servers throughout the world that are readily available for all of its customers, especially Americans. There are dozens in the United States and Canada alone, so if you’re in North America, you’ll always have a fast and accessible network for your device.
Unlimited Bandwidth for No Surprise Fees
This means that no matter how much data you use, your speeds won’t be affected by your activity on private internet access; they only care about encrypting what is moving through their servers, not monitoring what kind of traffic it is or where it came from! You could download a whole movie and it wouldn’t affect speeds at all.
Plus, some VPN companies will attach an overage charge once you cross a certain threshold of used data, like 500GB or something to that effect.
PIA VPN doesn’t do that because, as far as they’re concerned, that’s your business — not theirs.
P2P Servers for Fast Download Speeds
This is good if you want to legally torrent because private internet access has private servers just for downloading, so other private internet access users can use them too without slowing the network down! This makes private browsing fast and efficient.
I want to stress that it’s important to legally use this feature because torrenting has a bad reputation as being inherently illegal. It isn’t — it just means your device downloads different information form different resources, allowing it to complete a full download more quickly and efficiently than downloading from a single source.
Tor Servers for Privacy
These are used by the anonymous web browser tor to give people high levels of anonymity while browsing the net. By using private internet access, you can connect directly to these servers to hide your IP address even further when it comes to tracking online activity!
Tor itself is a private network that is one of the most advanced privacy tools in the world. With it equipped on servers, your traffic is effectively anonymized.
Easy Setup for Usability
I found private internet access extremely easy to set up on my PC, android phone, and iPhone 6s+. You download their application or make an account with them in minutes and can start private browsing within seconds.
Just download the application on your device, log in, and get started.
No Logs for Privacy
This is huge because private internet access doesn’t keep track of what servers you use or when/where you connect from! They also have a kill switch feature which stops all traffic if the private IP address isn’t being used at the time so it can’t be traced back to you even if something goes wrong.
With all of that said, what are some pros of using the PIA VPN?
Pros of PIA VPN
Pros private internet access has plenty of pros that make it worth it in my opinion! Here are some of them:
Multiplatform
If you use private internet access on multiple devices, you will be happy to hear they have apps available for PC, Android phones/tablets, Linux, iPhone/iPad, DD-WRT routers, Blackberry phone/Playbook tablets, Chromebooks, Boxee boxes, and even the Raspberry Pi !
Beginner-Friendly
PIA is beginner friendly with simple menus making private browsing easy to understand. Even if this is your first time using a private virtual personal network service or browsing without being tracked by anyone else online, private internet access has guides to help you out so you can private browse with ease.
Seriously — you push a button to turn the VPN on and off. That’s as complicated as it gets!
Now, let’s talk about a few cons of using PIA VPN.
Cons of PIA VPN
If you’re skeptical about using PIA VPN, here’s what you should know.
Limited Server Selection
The only downside is that private internet access doesn’t offer as many servers as other VPNs like NordVPN, which means you may not be able to connect to every server available without getting blocked or slowed down.
Personally, I’ve never had issues with connecting to a PIA VPN server, but I also live in a populated area of the United States. If you’re in a rural part of the country (or a country with slower Internet access), server selection may be a bigger issue for you,
Price
PIA isn’t the cheapest VPN around (remember, there are some free companies), but it’s still excellent for the price. They have multiple price options available, and you can usually pre-pay for a year (or more) with a single transaction.
Should You Buy PIA VPN?
In my opinion, yes!
PIA VPN is incredibly affordable and easy to set up. The fact that you can pay via an anonymous method (like a gift card) also reinforces PIA’s values in terms of privacy and personal information protection.
I haven’t found a single company that lives its values in the same way that PIA does. It’s refreshing, encouraging, and relieving to have such an advanced software product offered at such a low price and for individuals who don’t know how to create their own VPN.
Plus, the fact that it can work on a desktop, laptop, tablet, and mobile phone all at the same time is incredibly helpful.
This is all in addition to the fact that a VPN can help keep you protected on open WiFi networks as well. So if you’re using a VPN when you’re at a cafe, you don’t have to worry about someone stealing your information on an unsecured network.
Instead, the VPN will keep you safe.
Ready to buy PIA VPN for yourself?
Click the button below to get started!
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