this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2026
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From another user's comment earlier
So, owned by Isreal. I didn't know PIA was owned by the same and that's what I've been using. So maybe I'll look into AirVPN? Or IVPN is another one mentioned
AirVPN is based in Gibraltar and hence under British Law, meaning information courts and secret trawling surveillance court orders.
IVPN is Italian and Italy is a 14 eyes member. No idea how bad or not their surveillance legislation is, but it very unlikely they're as bad as the UK (which was even worse than the US according to the Snowden Revelations and none of that shit was walked back, quite the contrary).
Do you use a VPN service, and if so which one? It's seemingly become a bigger and bigger issue... or maybe I'm just not informed enough about privacy/security; is it a trade off between morality and privacy? Because somehow that doesn't feel correct. Should I just choose the most secure and cheapest option, because it's all fucked anyway?
Like at this point, what would be the best option? My personal threat-model isn't that real, but still... what should I be comparing when looking for "the best option"?
Well, I use Mullvad at the moment and one of their founders being an extreme rightwing nutter is alarming.
That's why I started looking around and, lo and behold, it's alarming just how many supposedly privacy-conscientious VPN services are based in or owned by people or companies based in jurisdictions with insane surveillance laws.
I expect most privacy focused VPNs will help a bit with protecting your privacy vs private entities, especially if you rotate exit points. This also applies to things like copyright violation - lawyers just trying to discover who is the person sharing some torrent based on their IP address will find it extremely hard (and thus not worth their time) if that IP just leads to a no-logging VPN server address (as finding out who the person is would require a court order to watch it in real time in a different country, which they won't get for non-commercial piracy) by comparison to that IP just leading to a home user in an ISP as several countries have made laws were the ISPs have to deliver user information matching a provided IP address and time on suspicion of copyright violation to somebody claiming to represent the copyright owner.
If you've avoiding getting your activities tracked by dragnet surveillance states, I would say that in the West one should avoid like the plague any company based or registered in the US, UK or Israel (or any place falling under their laws, such as Gibraltar or Puerto Rico) as they all have special surveillance courts and the kind of surveillance laws that wouldn't be out of place in an Autocracy and which do apply to any company registered or based in those legal jurisdictions.
If you're trying to avoid The Law (as in, the normal Law, not the special surveillance courts and their mass dragnet surveillance orders), I have no idea. I suppose you probably would be better off using VPN inside a VPN crossing at least two jurisdictions without agreements for data sharing in court cases (so, for example, if one is an EU member country, the other should not be one).