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Private Internet Access review: A cheap, powerful VPN

112

David Gewirtz

for DIY-IT

| August 12, 2021 — 13:56 GMT (14:56 BST)

| Topic: Security

Private Internet Access is a powerful, flexible VPN that does a good job of keeping your data and location safe.

Private Internet Access at a glance

Servers: 29,311Countries: 78Simultaneous connections: 10Kill switch: yesLogging: noBest deal: $2.19/mo or $79 for three yearsTrial: 7-day free trial and 30-day refund guaranteeSupported platforms: iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows, Linux

View now at Private Internet Access

Definitely read through the details below. There’s a lot to like with this product, and the price is good as well as the performance. Just don’t try using it to connect to India. Read on, and you’ll see those results as well. Ugh.

Initiating a connection

Initiating a connection with Private Internet Access (PIA) was quite straightforward. I’m going to demonstrate this on Windows, but the interfaces are somewhat similar for Mac, iOS, and Android.

Upon install, an app was placed in the system tray. As you can see, starting with the default connection is a matter of just pressing the amber power button:

There’s a lot you can do from this interface, even before initiating a connection. For example, you can choose what server you want to use for your connection. You can get to that list by clicking on the greater-than sign to the right of the pre-selected server location.

Special features

PIA offers a good selection of extra features and options. You can get to this by right-clicking on the tray icon or tapping the three-dot menu at the upper right and then selecting Settings. The General preferences are relatively straightforward. You can decide whether to launch on startup and connect on launch, plus there are a few appearance options. I prefer the dark theme.

Anti-malware and tracker disabling

The Account tab simply reflects your account and plan data. But the Privacy tab is interesting. Here you can enable the VPN kill switch as well as MACE, PIA’s anti-malware and tracking feature.

Split-tunnelling

A very useful feature is the comprehensive split-tunneling feature PIA offers. As you can see, you can choose whether to use the VPN or not based on both applications and IP addresses. This is powerful, for example, if you must visit a site or service without using the PIA VPN. Some banks won’t allow access if they detect you’re using a VPN. Another benefit is that you could use the PIA VPN for personal surfing, and then if you use the corporate VPN app, you could turn off PIA, so you’re on your company’s provided connection.

Protocol choice

PIA protocol choice is somewhat limited, giving you the option of OpenVPN or WireGuard. Honestly, both are quite good, so we have no complaints that some of the older, weaker, and fussier protocols aren’t provided. I’m showing OpenVPN selected here, but all the testing we will do later will be with the often-faster WireGuard, a more modern protocol for this type of application.

Connection automation

PIA’s connection automation feature is interesting, but I do wish it was more feature-rich. As it stands, you can configure PIA to automatically connect or disconnect based on whether you’re connected to an open Wi-Fi channel, an encrypted Wi-Fi link, or a wired connection.

That’s all well and good, but we’d like to see the ability to turn on and off the malware environment based on a connection, modify which apps use the VPN connection, and change settings based on IP address or block of IP address. That way, for example, when you bring your laptop to work, one full set of profiles would activate. When you’re at home, another set might activate, and so on. This is a good first step, but it’s an area where PIA can certainly benefit from additional work.

Dedicated IP

Finally, you can choose to upgrade your account with one or more dedicated IP addresses. Dedicated IP addresses are available for connections via the US, Australia, Canada, Germany, and the UK. The additional cost is $5/mo per dedicated IP address purchased. That IP remains yours throughout the duration of your dedicated IP subscription.

Performance and leak testing

I installed the Private Internet Access application on a fresh, fully-updated Windows 10 install. I always use a fresh install to do this kind of testing, so some other company’s VPN leftovers aren’t clogging up the system and possibly influencing results. I have a 1GB fiber feed, so my baseline network speed is rockin’ fast.