- Hey guys, my name is Christian Taylor,
welcome back to Craylor Made, where I'd like
to talk about all things online branding and marketing.
So today we are changing it up a bit
and doing something a little bit different.
I got an email from a subscriber named Max,
asking me if I would consider making a VPN comparison video.
So thank you Max for this suggestion,
and that's what we're gonna cover today.
Stay tuned to the video.
(upbeat percussive music)
Hey, just a quick note before we start the comparison,
I'm going to assume that you already know
what a VPN is, what it does, and why you want one.
There's debates on whether you need a VPN or not,
and if you don't understand what a VPN is,
I'll have a couple links to videos below
that will explain that to you.
But for the sake of keeping this video short
and not making it an hour long,
I'm just sticking to the comparison today,
I'm not going to explain any more.
So without further ado, let's get right into it.
Alright, let's start off with NordVPN.
They're one of the most popular VPN services
out there right now, and chances are
you've probably heard of them a few times
through sponsor spots at the end of other YouTube videos.
Now here are the main technical details for NordVPN,
so feel free to pause the video
and read if you want to know the small details.
So my experience with NordVPN was alright.
It's a pretty great value at $125
for a three year subscription,
and I had no problems using NordVPN
to watch Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV+.
Speed-wise, this VPN was pretty middle of the road.
It wasn't lightning fast, but it wasn't slow either.
It gets the job done, works reliably,
and I was generally happy with my experience with NordVPN.
Now one thing I need to bring up
is the recent controversy NordVPN faced
due to a poorly disclosed security breach.
NordVPN was breached in March 2019.
Something happened at a third party data center
NordVPN uses, and someone essentially left
a security hole in one of the servers.
A hacker leveraged this hole to get data
from NordVPN users, and while the issue
is now fixed, NordVPN waited until October 2019
to notify people of the breach.
Now look, breaches happen, and no one,
not even VPN providers are exempt from getting hacked.
I'm personally not too bothered that NordVPN was breached.
It sucks, it's uncomfortable, but it's going to happen.
However, I do have less respect for NordVPN
due to the amount of time they took
to disclose the breach, but I also understand
that they had to secure the rest of their servers.
I see both sides of the story,
and I believe in second chances,
so I personally think it's fine to give NordVPN
a try if their features and pricing align with your needs,
but with that being said, I completely understand
if you don't want to use NordVPN because of this,
so keep watching to hear about some other options.
Next, let's take a look at the best
budget option I've tried.
If you're looking for the cheapest VPN possible,
that will still get the job done,
and provide a decent experience,
Private Internet Access is for you.
For seven dollars a month, or $40 per year,
you'll be able to connect up to five devices
and enjoy a quality and reliable VPN.
Private Internet Access is what I personally used
before doing this comparison video,
and I've always been pretty happy with it.
My two biggest problems with Private Internet Access
is that streaming Netflix and Hulu doesn't always work,
and the speed are mediocre at best.
PIA doesn't advertise streaming as a feature
of their VPN, so I'm not upset that I can't stream video,
but that's going to be a huge letdown for a lot of people.
If you travel internationally a lot,
but you want to be able to watch Netflix on the go,
having a VPN that supports streaming is a must
to make sure you're able to watch your shows.
This is because the US Netflix catalog
can't be accessed from anywhere but the US,
so having a VPN service and connecting
to a US VPN server while you're outside of the US
will spoof Netflix into thinking
you're located in the US at the time of streaming.
Unfortunately, PIA isn't going to be
a good option for you if this is important.
As I also mentioned earlier, Private Internet Access
is definitely mediocre speed-wise.
If your internet connection is 100 megabits per second
download speed or slower, I think PIA
is going to be fine for you, but if you have
a 300 megabit per second download speed like I do,
or even faster, you'll definitely notice
slower speeds when you're connected to PIA.
It's not a huge deal, I still had speeds
of around 80 to 120 megabits per second,
but you definitely get what you pay for.
Next, let's take a look at the best overall VPN I tested.
ExpressVPN has the tagline of, "The VPN that just works."
on their website, and I think this
summarizes ExpressVPN perfectly.
It's a fast VPN that works reliably
for streaming, or whatever you could throw at it.
ExpressVPN supports every device you can think of,
including Linux and internet routers.
Now ExpressVPN is not cheap, coming in
at a whopping $99.95 per year.
That makes ExpressVPN the most expensive option
on this list, but I can honestly say
that it's the best VPN in my testing.
I saw average speeds between 150 and 180
megabits per second down on my internet connection,
and this is almost as fast as what I typically see
without using a VPN on my network.
Honestly, there's not much more to say about ExpressVPN.
My experience was smooth, and everything worked reliably.
Perhaps my biggest gripe is the price,
$100 per year is a hard price to swallow for a VPN
when there are tons of cheaper options
that are almost as good.
But that's the key, almost as good.
If you're looking for a VPN that makes no compromises,
it's fast, it's private, it's secure,
it works with streaming, and you can use it
on all devices, including Linux,
I think you're really going to enjoy ExpressVPN.
Alright, so I've taken a look at the best budget option,
the best overall option, but what about a VPN
with some added value to shake things up a bit?
Well, if you're looking for a VPN
with some added value, take a look at Hotspot Shield.
To be honest, Hotspot Shield really shocked me.
I've used them in the past, and I wasn't that impressed.
But I included them in this comparison
due to their popularity, and I'm glad I revisited
Hotspot Shield, because a lot has changed.
For starters, they now bundle their VPN
with some other valuable services.
When you subscribe to Hotspot Shield, you get access
to 1Password, Robo Shield, and Identity Guard.
Now 1Password is the password manager I personally use,
and it costs $35.88 per year on it's own.
So when you factor this into the $95.88
yearly cost of Hotspot Shield, you begin to see
how great of a value this VPN truly is.
Now Hotspot Shield is fast, really fast.
I regularly saw speeds of 150 megabits
per second down, and one time I got 287 megabits
per second down in a speed test.
The VPN is also optimized for streaming,
allowing you to watch Netflix and Hulu with ease.
Now on paper, this seems like a dream VPN.
It's just as fast as ExpressVPN or faster,
and it comes with 1Password and other included apps
for a fairly reasonable price.
A couple bucks cheaper per year than ExpressVPN.
But for some reason, something just
felt off about Hotspot Shield.
My first turn off came when I checked out
their support page.
They make it nearly impossible to speak to a person
to ask questions or resolve issues.
The amount of hoops you have to jump through
to find a simple contact button is ridiculous.
Now this got me curious about what else
might be fishy with Hotspot Shield,
and when I looked at their privacy policy,
I found some pretty strange wording
when it pertains to logging.
They used wording on their website such as,
"Pango does not record your VPN browsing activities
"in any way that can be associated back to you."
I thought, huh, why not say, we don't keep logs
like every other VPN provider?
Well, when looking at their privacy policy,
the reason became clear.
Pango, the parent company of Hotspot Shield,
seems to talk in circles.
They have the typical spiel about not recording
browsing activities that can be traced back to you,
and sure enough, in their privacy policy,
they say, "our VPN product logs the domains
"that have been accessed by our users,
"but on an anonymized basis, such that
"we do not know which user accessed which domain."
Look, some people are gonna be perfectly okay with this.
If these logs are truly anonymized,
there shouldn't be any concerns about your privacy.
But I just don't like that Pango is doing this.
I had a weird gut feeling going in to trying Hotspot Shield,
and I don't want to use any VPN that is logging
the domains I visit, whether they're anonymous or not.
VPNs should never keep logs, period, end of story.
When we look at ExpressVPN's privacy policy,
we see things laid out in clear English.
"We ensure that we never log browsing data,
"traffic destinations, data content,
"IP addresses, or DNS queries."
They also have a page dedicated
to their logging policy, that states,
"ExpressVPN never logs connections timestamps,
"session duration, your source IP address,
"or the ExpressVPN IP address that your computer
"assumes when connected to the VPN."
So the moral of the story is, if your privacy
is important to you, maybe stay away from Hotspot Shield.
If all you care about is a blazing fast VPN,
and you like the bundle with 1Password,
then go for it, but I feel much more comfortable
using any of the other VPNs on this list,
as they all include way more clear and direct
logging policies on their websites.
Alright, we're nearing the end of this list,
and I wanna talk about the VPN
that is a happy medium between
Private Internet Access and ExpressVPN.
It balances price, and speed, and all the features
you may want, and I think that it's gonna be
a great option for a lot of people.
And that's TunnelBear.
It's very affordable, at $60 per year,
and while it's not the cheapest option on this list,
it's a nice VPN with killer support and fast speeds.
I typically saw speeds in the range
of 120 to 150 megabits per second down,
and I got 200 megabits per second down in one speed test.
TunnelBear is a refreshingly simple VPN.
Their bear branding is a lot of fun,
and the app is just dead simple to use.
Flip the switch to connect, flip it again
to disconnect, and that's basically it.
TunnelBear has a clear no logging policy
on their website, and they don't collect
your IP address, DNS queries, or websites you visit.
When I first started testing TunnelBear,
I had an issue where my iPhone kept disconnecting.
I reached out to TunnelBear support,
and they replied quickly, saying this was
a widespread issue they were working on fixing,
and they would let me know when it was fixed.
The TunnelBear team followed up shortly after
to let me know the issue was fixed,
and they were prompt and professional
with their customer service.
I didn't have any further issues, and I really liked
how quickly TunnelBear handled my inquiry.
Now the one huge drawback to TunnelBear
is the same drawback to Private Internet Access.
They don't support streaming.
I was not able to stream Netflix or Hulu, and I know
this is going to be a huge turn off for some users.
In addition, there was a controversy with TunnelBear
not too long ago, where they got acquired by McAfee.
Many people, including myself, have a strong dislike
for McAfee's security products.
They're known for being very pushy,
expensive, and just not helpful.
So naturally, when McAfee acquired TunnelBear,
the general consensus was that TunnelBear
was going go downhill fast.
Linus Tech Tips ended their sponsorship contract
with TunnelBear, and cut ties just because of this news,
and many users threw in the towel
and decided to switch to a different VPN company.
And I'll admit, while I'm not a fan
of McAfee at all, I'm happy to admit
that they haven't messed with TunnelBear at all.
It's been well over a year since the acquisition
took place, and TunnelBear is still functioning
as a 100% independent company.
I don't know if this is going to change in the future,
but so long as their operating as an independent company,
I have to say that I was very pleased with TunnelBear.
It's a little bit faster than Private Internet Access
in my testing, and I think it's a great
happy medium between PIA and ExpressVPN.
TunnelBear offers a free account
that gives you 500 megabytes of data per month,
so you can get a feel for the service before signing up.
Okay, so the final option on this list is Namecheap.
Now if this is the first time watching my channel,
you're probably wondering why the heck
I included Namecheap on this list.
They aren't known for their VPN service,
and they're probably the least popular
VPN on the planet at this point.
And that's because Namecheap is a domain registrar
and web host, but if you watch my other videos,
you'll know that I'm kind of obsessed with Namecheap.
And since I'm such a big fan of their services,
I just had to give their VPN a try.
On the surface, the Namecheap VPN looks great.
It's only $34.56 per year, making it cheaper
than Private Internet Access, and the Namecheap
VPN is scary fast.
I average speeds in the 200 megabit per second down range,
and I saw multiple instances of getting 330
megabits per second down in speed tests.
That is literally the speed I get
when I'm connected to my router via ethernet with no VPN.
I was like, shocked.
So I really wanted to love the Namecheap VPN,
but the benefits stopped there.
I noticed that my phone just wouldn't
stay connected to the VPN.
This is the same issue I was experiencing
with TunnelBear at first, so I decided
to reach out to Namecheap support.
(laughs) Well, good luck figuring out how to do that.
Namecheap has absolutely no support option
in their VPN app, and it's totally unclear
how you get in touch with them.
Because I use Namecheap for my domains
and email hosting, I knew that you can go
initiate a live chat at the bottom of Namecheap.com,
but if I weren't a regular Namecheap
customer, how would I figure out
how to contact Namecheap if I needed help?
So once I contacted Namecheap support,
I was told that Namecheap does not
currently support autoconnect on the VPN!
What?
Seriously, that's unacceptable.
That's absolutely unacceptable.
Autoconnect is a standard feature on all VPNs,
and no one is going to remember to connect
to the VPN each time they switch networks
or go between wifi and cellular.
Because of this, I would not recommend
the Namecheap VPN to anybody, and I would be sure
to stay away from it, just period.
Please, don't use the Namecheap VPN, that's ridiculous.
Whew, okay, so we've made it through the list of VPNs.
In summary, if you're looking for the best
overall option, and money is no object,
I would highly recommend ExpressVPN.
Now if streaming is important to you,
but you want a cheaper, more value option,
NordVPN might be for you.
You can use promo code Christian
to get a special deal at NordVPN.com, and I'll also
have a link in the description below for all the VPNs.
If you simply want the cheapest VPN
that's still reliable, look no further
than Private Internet Access.
And finally, if you're looking for a great value VPN
that is reasonably fast, and you don't need
to do streaming, give TunnelBear a try.
As for me, I am personally going to be using
ExpressVPN, I think that it's worth it
to be able to do streaming on it,
and I'm all for just buying the best VPN
that's going to give you everything
you need and be the most flexible.
Well anyway guys, thank you so much for watching,
that's gonna do it for this video,
so which VPN service did you pick?
I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments down below,
and if you like this video, do be sure
to hit that subscribe button and click the bell
so you don't miss when I release new videos.
With that said, I will catch you guys next time.