I was sitting in Sankt Oberholz, this overly hip coffee shop in Berlin, back in 2019. The air smelled like burnt oat milk and desperation. I was using a free VPN—I think it was called TurboVPN or something equally stupid—because I thought I was being clever by ‘securing’ my connection while I worked on a client project. Two hours later, I got a notification that $442.10 had been moved out of my PayPal to a random electronics store in Russia. I felt like a total idiot. I was the guy who ‘knew about tech’ and I’d basically handed my login credentials to a man-in-the-middle attacker on a silver platter. That was the day I realized that if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product, and sometimes the product is your bank account.
I am going to be completely unfair to NordVPN
I hate NordVPN. I know, I know. Every YouTuber you watch says they’re the best. Every ‘top 10’ list has them at number one. I don’t care. Their marketing is so aggressive it feels greasy. VPN companies are like those guys at the mall who try to clean your shoes while you’re walking past—aggressive and probably hiding something. I refuse to recommend them simply because I’m sick of seeing their logo. Is their tech okay? Maybe. But I can’t trust a company that spends more on influencer sponsorships than a mid-tier soda brand. It’s a gut feeling, and I’m sticking to it. If you want to use them, go ahead, but I think you’re paying for their ad budget, not your privacy.
Total waste of time.
The part where I actually looked at the numbers
After the Berlin disaster, I went down a rabbit hole. I didn’t just read reviews; I started running my own speed tests because I was convinced everyone was lying. I have a 1Gbps fiber connection at home. I tested three big names over the course of a week, running exactly 42 speed tests at different times of the day to see how they actually handled the load. What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently. I wanted to see who was throttling me when I was just trying to watch a 4K video or download a massive OS update.
- Mullvad: Consistently hit 840Mbps. It barely felt like it was on.
- ProtonVPN: Hovered around 620Mbps. Respectable, but noticeable lag on some hops.
- ExpressVPN: Tanked to 310Mbps. For $12.95 a month, that is an absolute joke.
I used to think ExpressVPN was the gold standard. I was completely wrong. They’ve been bought out by a company called Kape Technologies, which used to be called Crossrider—a company literally known for distributing malware and ad-injection tools. Why is nobody talking about this in the ‘professional’ reviews? It’s insane to me. Using a VPN without a kill-switch or a trustworthy parent company is like wearing a raincoat that dissolves when it actually starts pouring.
The Netflix thing and why I might be wrong
I know people will disagree with me here, but I honestly think using a VPN to ‘unblock Netflix’ is a massive distraction. If your primary goal is to watch the British version of The Office, you don’t need a high-security tool; you need a proxy. I find the obsession with streaming libraries kind of pathetic when the real issue is that your ISP is literally selling your browsing history to the highest bidder. Maybe I’m being a jerk. I probably am. Maybe you really need those K-Dramas and you don’t care about 256-bit encryption. That’s fine. But don’t call it a ‘security’ choice. It’s a convenience choice.
The moment you prioritize streaming over a zero-knowledge policy, you’ve already lost the privacy game.
Anyway, I remember back in the day on the old vBulletin forums, people used to actually argue about packet loss and latency without trying to sell you a subscription. Now everything is a ‘comprehensive guide’ that ends with an affiliate link. It makes me miss the old internet. But I digress.
Just get Mullvad and move on
If you want my actual, non-sponsored opinion: just use Mullvad. They don’t even ask for an email address. You just generate a random account number, pay your 5 Euros (it’s been 5 Euros forever, which is weirdly comforting), and that’s it. No recurring subscriptions that are impossible to cancel. No ‘limited time’ 70% off deals that never actually end. Just a flat fee for a tool that works. I’ve been using it for three years now and I haven’t had a single issue, even when I’m traveling in places with sketchy Wi-Fi. It’s the only one that doesn’t feel like a scam.
Will they eventually get bought out and ruined like all the others? I don’t know. I hope not. But for now, it’s the only thing I actually trust with my data.
Mullvad. No fluff. Just works.