My Surfshark sub is almost up and I’m looking for my best option.

I’m so glad this little community has popped up, as looking for reviews on Reddit and elsewhere online is next to impossible, since every review is simply an ad in disguise.

I need a VPN primarily for streaming, so need it to be fast, and obviously security and privacy are key concerns too.

I’ve narrowed down my choices to Mullvad, Proton or sticking with Surfshark. Surfshark has been ok, but I assumed there must be better out there.

What are everyone’s thoughts on the best performing service at the moment?

Thanks.

  • seemebreakthis@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    One vote for Mullvad. Like you I moved from Surfshark but that was a year ago. Never looked back.

    There is a server list page on Mullvad to let you see the bandwidth of each server they have in each country. Take a look and pick the faster ones if necessary (they have all been ok for me fast or slow when I stream).

    Note however I don’t have Netflix account etc. I stream from a “members only” IPTV service.

    • AnAnonymousApe@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I too stream IPTV, which is what the VPNs primary use is. I’m glad Mullvad has worked well for, it’s the one in thinking of sticking with. Fortunately, I’m able to try it for a month for the same price I’d normally pay, unlike their competitors. The only thing that’s holding Mullvad back are their comparatively poor apps.

  • Chris@programming.devEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I don’t use any of the ones you mention, but am pretty happy with PrivateVPN. It works well as an app on my iPhone, but the main use case is for torrenting. You can connect to privacy focused countries and do kill switches so you don’t leak your ip. I used Surfshark as well, but the torrenting part was lacking a few years ago.

  • DarienGS@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’m a professional reviewer of VPNs (among other things). I’m afraid it’s impossible to name one “best performing service” as that depends on factors such as which ISP you’re using, where you’re located, where the server is that you want to use, and what load it’s under at that time.

    However, I can tell you that in my tests Express VPN, Hotspot Shield and IPVanish all had very decent performance and successfully unblocked all the streaming services I tried, namely BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, Now TV, Netflix US, Disney+ US and Hulu.

  • LTColumbo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    I’ve tried almost all of them. Express has been the most reliable as well as Hide. me They both stream extremely well.