For 2013, I wanted to update my recommendations for Anonymous VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). If you’d like a general introduction to VPNs, see this article. There are only a limited number of VPN providers that take privacy seriously. When choosing a provider, make sure that:
- They perform no logging of internet activities (not even the time and dates you connect)
- They support anonymous payments, and require only minimal information for registration
- They allow unrestricted internet usage
If a VPN provider restricts your usage of the internet via their VPN, that indicates that they are monitoring your connections in some manner.
It’s a good idea to ensure that the VPN provider doesn’t know who you are. You can do this by paying anonymously, providing artificial credentials, and signing while using a Tor browser.
You can pay Bitcoin, which a pseudo-anonymous payment system. You can increase its anonymity by using it in combination with Tor.
If you use the Tor network while connected to a VPN, it will give you an extra degree of anonymity, because the VPN solves the major issue of compromised or malicious TOR relays. For more info, check our tips for using VPNs, and our general article on Online Privacy.
These are our recommendations for the Best Anonymous VPN For 2013:
Private Internet Access
Private Internet Access is a VPN service that is highly regarded by privacy advocates. The company operates out of the United States with gigabit gateways in the U.S., Canada, UK, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
I’ve been testing their VPN service for about 9 months, and so far the service has been fast and reliable. I use it continuously now, and I don’t notice any lag when browsing the web, or downloading files.
Their VPN service supports all the major platforms: Window, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS and Android. They support the following VPN protocols: PPTP, IPSEC, OpenVPN and L2TP. You can also configure Private Internet Access to work on a DD-WRT router or Tomato router (via SSL/OpenVPN) for constant security.
Their VPN client also has handy features like DNS leakage blocking and an “internet kill switch” (a feature that shuts off your internet connection if your VPN connection goes down).
In regards to logging user activity, the company says:
We absolutely do not maintain any VPN logs of any kind. We utilize shared IP addresses rather than dynamic or static IPs, so it is not possible to match a user to an external IP. These are some of the many solutions we have implemented to enable the strongest levels of anonymity amongst VPN services. Further, we would like to encourage our users to use an anonymous e-mail and pay with Bitcoins to ensure even higher levels of anonymity should it be required. Our core verticals are privacy, quality of service, and prompt customer support. We will not share any information with third parties without a valid court order. With that said, it is impossible to match a user to any activity on our system since we utilize shared IPs and maintain absolutely no logs.
For payment they accept credit cards, Paypal, Bitcoin, and Liberty Reserve.
The service costs $6.95 per month, or $40 per year. This is about half the cost of the other VPN providers listed here.
Link: Private Internet Access
BTGuard
BTGuard is a VPN provider based in Canada. As you can tell by their name, this company specializes in creating anonymous internet connections for Bittorrent users. The service works on Windows, Mac and Linux. Besides using the pre-configured client, users can also set up their own client to work with BTGuard (any client that supports “Socks V5″ proxies including uTorrent and Vuze). In addition, BTGuard also includes encryption tunnel software for security purists.
In regards to logging user activity, the company says:
The jurisdiction is Canada. Since we do not have log files, we have no information to share. We do not communicate with any third parties. The only event we would even communicate with a third party is if we received a court order. We would then be forced to notify them we have no information. This has not happened yet.
On the negative side, I’ve seen some user complaints about BTGuard’s email support being slow, and some users also report that they are occasionally dropped from the service when using the Canadian servers.
The price for the BTGuard VPN is $9.95 per month, or $6.95 a month for their Bittorrent Proxy service. You are only allowed to connect to their servers from one household at a time, but you can connect to their servers from unlimited computers simultaneously inside that one household.
Link: BTGuard
BolehVPN
BolehVPN was founded 2007 in Malaysia, and it is now one of the largest VPN providers in South East Asia. BolehVPN does not log internet activity and they support P2P transfers. The company is known for their personalized customer support, and they have active community of customers. Aside from VPN services, they also provide game server hosting and Mumble hosting for customers in the South-East Asian region.
The have 25 servers in 9 different countries, including one located in Hong Kong.
For payment they accept Bitcoin, PayPal, Liberty Reserve, WebCash, online banking transfer (Malaysian customers only) or even cash deposits (Malaysian customers only).
he cost of the service is $10.50 per month or $85.90 per year.
Link: BolehVPN
Air VPN
Air VPN is a VPN provider located in Italy that puts a great deal of attention on providing a truly anonymous service. The company says “When we built our infrastructure we had in mind access from people who live in freedom of expression extremely hostile areas, where identity disclosure can lead to critical threats to physical safety and to personal freedom.”
Their servers are located in the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, United States and United Kingdom, and in each country there’s at least a 1 Gbit/second server. The company says:
All servers come with dedicated uplink ports. IP addresses are shared with option to forward ports from the control panel. Servers exit-IP and entry-IP are different, against correlation attacks. No logs are kept, and there’s no traffic limit.
For payment, Air VPN accepts Bitcoin, Paypal and credit cards. The price of the service is 7 euros ($9) per month, or 54 euros ($72) per year.
Link: Air VPN
I’ve had good luck with https://privacy.io — good speeds, dead simple to setup, and OpenVPN compatible so it works practically every where.
I also suggest the one I love to use, boxpn vpn (https://www.boxpn.com). They provide incredible range of servers, even SSTP encryption all for 5 USD. Getting 14-15Mbit from my 16Mbit connection.
10$ per month? No, thank you. I better stick with https://cloudnymous.com with 15 cents a day.
Cloudnymous looks like a reasonable service, although the pricing structure seems unnecessarily complicated. However, it doesn’t qualify for my list because the company keeps connections logs, albeit limited, and it doesn’t seem to accept anonymous payments.
Another good anonymous VPN in Sweden is PrivatVPN — no logging at all.
Here are two worthy of consideration despite not meeting the rigorous screening. Neither logs server data and both of them offer affordable plans:
ItsHidden – based in The Seychelles (TOS states jurisdiction is here but does state if there is a dispute under said jurisdiction then UK Law presides, which might indicate the admin office is in UK). TOS is fair and straightforward. Doesn’t keep logs.
TorVPN – based in Hungary. Has a free version with bandwidth limits. Doesn’t keep logs. For free version, customer only has to provide an email address (company suggests using anonymous or disposable email address to do so).
VPN4ALL seems suspect. It is operated out of Netherlands (VPN4ALL Ltd. Prinsenhil 29 4825 AX Breda The Netherlands) and the server network is operated from The Seychelles by Web Broadcasting Ltd. Its TOS and Privacy Policy are disturbing. It gathers all personal information of customers including IP and presumably can tie a customer to server data *if* it suspects customer of violating TOS (which includes distributing “National Socialism” information – I kid you not). Oh, and it can charge customer $175/hour to investigate alleged violations and automatically deduct from credit card/pay pal account without dispute. See its TOS. These policies are bizarre at best.
The selected VPNs are all very good options, another one I would consider is VPNTunnel.com located in Sweden and claiming that they keep no logs. or VPNSecure.me in Australia keeps logs for only 24 hours.
you had me at big boobs in shiny outfit
How do you know that these VPN sites are not setup as honeypots to gather your information?
It’s unlikely that they are honeypots. However, if you need that level of privacy, see my suggestions in this article How To Be Anonymous On The Internet and this article: Using A VPN Inside A Virtual Machine For Extra Anonymity.
Thanks for the reply.
TOR is a good option, but still the fact that those using a VPN may be those with something to hide, makes setting up a VPN service a great way to gather sensitive data.
But that’s true of any ISP too though. If you don’t trust anyone, you’d be better off using Tails and a VPN tunnel as mentioned previously.
Yeah right, most VPN providers suggested here are located in modern EU countries or USA. Thus you should not count on them keeping your privacy very well.
For strong NO-LOGS policy and wide list of offshore vpn providers go for a anonymous vpn provider like VPN Area
They are hosted in Switzerland and have a strong no logs declaration, and you can even pay with LibertyReserve if you want.
Our aim here is to recommend privacy services suitable for average people. If you have special needs, I encourage you to pursue providers in “non-modern” countries.
“Average people”. Average people can be political journalists or bloggers on political subjects. Average people can be downloading torrents. Average people do say the B word in conversations without being terrorists themselves (thus being automatically spied on by the government). Average people do watch alternative porn (most of which is forbidden in UK and by alternative I mean acts between consenting adults, such as BDSM).
Average people do use internet for offshore online banking, to legally avoid tax.
All of the above can lead authorities to your door.
Contrary to your beliefs, 50% of VPN users are ones seeking privacy, when it comes to privacy No-Logs policy and offshore provider is a must for a VPN company.
In today’s reality “PRIVACY” is a “SPECIAL NEED”. There for once again, if you want a truly private VPN go for VPN Area
or some other company with no-logs policy and offshore server locations.
Just my two cents.
This is great, the speeds are often faster through the VPN than not. I leave my computer connected to BTGUARD all the time as it makes no difference! Netflix is the main reason I use this, never had a problem in over 6 months.