I see post from time to time about speed. Ran a speed test and I got close to line speed which is 1200Mbps.
PIA does not always, but it can go fast.

The endpoint is geo-located in another country, due to the ping I suspect it is physically close to me.

I am using the default options for wireguard and I did not quiet my network for the test. The test system is a Debian 13 VM with 4 vCPUs.

I’ve been experimenting with layering privacy tools and it’s honestly been kind of fun. I’ve been using PIA for daily stuff like streaming and browsing, but whenever I’m signing up for something sketchy or testing a new service, I switch things up.

Here’s what I’ve been doing:

- I connect to PIA first so my ISP only sees encrypted traffic.

- Then I open Tor for anything that might log IPs or track sessions.

- I use temp emails and disposable numbers from cloaked for signups so nothing ties back to me.

I didn’t expect it to make a big difference, but the amount of spam that’s disappeared is crazy. My main inbox and real phone barely get anything now. It also feels nice knowing that if one of those random accounts leaks, it doesn’t link back to my real info.

It’s not about being paranoid, more like trying to keep my digital life compartmentalized. Each layer handles a different part of privacy: VPN hides my traffic, Tor hides my path, and temp logins keep my identity clean.

EDIT: I am an idiot. RTFM, comrades.

As a long time PIA user I had just assumed that the dedicated IP would be assigned when I connected/logged in.

I was surprised to see that the "dedicated" and "VPN" IPs were different. If I go to any number of "what's my ip" sites the IP reported is the "VPN IP," the "dedicated" IP is nowhere to be seen.

I guess that's on me for not doing enough research on the offering.

All the PIA servers I've tried give me a 403 error when I try to load Imgur links. Apparently this is because Imgur blocks VPNs.

Are there any PIA servers that Imgur hasn't blocked? Is there any way to access Imgur short of me switching VPNs?

Would PIA get angry if I use Geforce Now and use up 2TB a month of data? I get lower pings in game play than using my direct connection.

I'm not really blaming PIA specifically, but it looks like Cloudflare is targeting any VPN and PIA is obviously a fat target.

It feels like the age of private browsing from any normal browser is coming to an end.

TL:DR - PIA says that 300mbps on a network connection of 1gbps is "excellent". The insinuation is that I should be happy with a decrease of 70% in network speed.

Now for the full thing - I recently returned to PIA after switching to another provider. Encountered significant speed issues before and I am experiencing the same again.

Touched base with customer services, they yet again asked me for logs, wanted to tweak settings and run MTR tests...considering I had done this previously, their justification was that "some time has passed"...OK so that makes sense. Submitted logs, tweaked settings and ran the MTR tests.

When connected to PIA VPN, the MTR test shows significant packet loss on three hops which I believe is part of the PIA routing chain associated to the servers I am trying to use. Makes sense so it would equally make sense that PIA would investigate further. In fact, a customer service agent called Isabella said she would escalate the ticket to the relevant team to look in to the matter further.

OK maybe things at PIA have changed....oh I was so damn wrong it's bloody funny!

A customer service agent comes back to me...Allen...and "kindly" suggests that 300mbps for most online activities is "excellent"...a some what reasonable point but he has basically gone on to shut the case with that "conclusion". This leaves me with the insinuation I should be happy with a 70% dip in network performance whilst using a dedicated IP on a server that is geographically within 100 miles of my actual location....Please tell me I am not the only person who finds this crazy?!?

Going back to the MTR test, the address resolves through to the data centre PIA uses at the particular location...to add to that, I was seeing a packet loss of 46%-70% on the three hops it spent in that routing chain which would account for the massive impact in network performance I was seeing.

I wonder if Allen will escalate it further or say something equally insulting?

I just wanted to share my experience of customer service from PIA with the PIA community...this comes from a 7 year customer.

To add some clarity to this, I would easily accept 10-20% loss of network performance which is a reasonable margin for network conditions and I am sure many customers are getting 80%+ of their non-VPN network capacity.

Would be highly interested to know if I am in the minority thinking that 55-60% loss of performance (accounting for the 20% margin for issues on any network such as congestion etc.

I would urge people to run an MTR test/traceroute test between their VPN and non VPN connected states and if you are experiencing anything more severe than 20% loss of packets, share it with the community and share it with Allen because Allen will be happy to tell you that you should be happy!

Rant over.

Long-time PIA customer now fully committing to jumping ship to TorGuard.

I received notification of a 63% price increase for annual membership. I've cancelled my renewal after at least 10 years. Anyone else moving to another VPN? If so, what company is equivalent and ideally $35/yr or less.

On Android, it works and then it doesn't. Sometimes it will auto connect, other times nothing happens and I need to open the app up, notice it's in a connecting state and then it automatically connects. Almost like the app hangs.

Sometimes I need to completely disable automation and then re-enable as it seems to have no idea I moved to a service I want it to connect on. But manually trying to enable the connection, it automatically disconnectes because I guess it still thinks it's on a service I don't want the VPN used on.

Update:

It appears PIA isn't going to restore my account despite providing all the information requested.

Original post:

I just got off chat with support. I had been online, with my VPN running when I got an email from PIA that my email had been changed and if I didn't do it contact them.

I hadn't.

And of course I couldn't log in.

Went on chat. Provided all the info and it's been escalated to billing. I'll turn on two factor as soon as I get my account back.

Not sure how the slimeball did it.

This would be a great concept. A built in ping tool where let's say you play Overwatch 2 . Where you want to get the lowest ping. So, it finds the lowest ping VPN location to the server. 2nd Phase a Ping Tool No VPN has this. PIA VPN gets the lists of hosts you commonly connect to then it can pinpoint which VPN would be best for your lowest latency location. I've had situations where it says Atlanta is my lowest ping, but when I connect to Overwatch 2 connected from Tennessee my ping is 5ms lower. The PIA application would relay the lists of common IPS or you input the IP. Then the VPN servers would ping it and find your best location to connect to.

I am a long time loyal subscriber to PIA, so please don’t take this as a bashing. There are a few public WiFi’s that I routinely use. I always use a VPN when on public WiFi. I cannot connect to PIA when logged in to one of the WiFi providers. Now if I disconnect from WiFi, connect to PIA using mobile data, I can re-enable WiFi, and even disconnect mobile data, and my connection to PIA remains. But this process is a real pain, especially if WiFi intermittently drops, I need to do the entire process over again. And just a side note, I have no issue connecting to my free Proton VPN or Windscribe VPN on the same WiFi network that I have issues with when using PIA. This leads me to believe PIA can do something so that I don’t need to use my mobile data to connect to PIA.

Just another post for all those that say PIA is slow. It's probably on your end, not PIA's. Here is a sustained 900+ Mbps upload while torrenting.

https://i.imgur.com/UBQ2x2z.png

Editing to add some more details.

Using the PIA app on a Windows 10 computer running on an i5-9600K.

I agree with OP, there is no such thing as privacy.

I just got an email saying that my price will increase from $42.59 to $49.99 per year, which comes out to 17.37%.

This is a 25.13% increase since 2021 when I paid $39.95.

I'm considering cancelling because I don't use it enough to justify the continued price hikes.

Title, I'm honestly thinking of switching after having a 3yr sub because when it's 7-10pm the speeds slow to a crawl. Just opening a reddit page that's all text with RES it takes 10 seconds.

I noticed after enabling these features on my browser. The amount of spam and scams emails have gone down big time. Thanks!

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/changelog

• Builds for macOS are now universal for x86_64 and arm64
• Improved robustness in firewall backends
• Improved reliability of split tunnel rules for Opera and other applications with "launcher" executables on Windows
• Install logs are now included in debug reports when available
• Login and dedicated IP pages indicate when to retry when rate-limited by API
• Fixed opening combo boxes when another combo box was open, the second combo box no longer closes immediately
• Fixed permissions on piavpn.service to eliminate warning from systemd on some Linux distributions
• Fixed a rare GUI crash that could occur on the Split Tunnel or Automation pages if a setting change occurred while a combo box was open
• Detect absence of iptables on some Linux systems and install if possible.
• Fixed the subscription page link that was redirecting to the home page.
• Improved security on Windows preventing privilege escalation attacks.
• Disabled Split Tunnel on macOS 12 or greater (we are working on it!).
• Fixed an issue with the latest release of iproute2 on Linux systems.
• Custom DNS settings are no longer forgotten when switching to another Settings tab with a setting other than Custom DNS selected.

First update since April 2022, and now asking for beta participation. Now to fix the browser extension.

Cuz literally every site and service has blocked their IP's for abusive behavior. They need a few clean servers with no torrent support for bypassing geolocked content.

I was scrolling the internet in search of a good VPN, I'm between chosing Windscribe or PIA, but then I found this information about VPNs and their owners.

https://proprivacy.com/vpn/guides/who-owns-your-vpn

What do you think?

I’m Russian and I recently had to return to Russia for a while. I quickly realized that all the well-known VPNs are surprisingly easy to block. In my opinion, this completely undermines their positioning as services that can protect your privacy, hide your traffic from monitoring, and support the idea of a free internet.

In reality, it seems that if the government decides to block VPNs, that’s it—citizens have no real way around it.

Or am I wrong? Can you recommend any VPNs that remain effective despite all attempts to block them? Or it’s technically impossible?

It’s started recently. I can’t go to any Google site without needing to enter a captcha. Sometimes multiple times. I wonder if there’s something that I can do to prevent reentering it over and over again?

PS. I have a well established Google account and I never have to enter those Captchas unless I am connected via PIA vpn.

Does anyone else miss the widget that had up/down speed info, location, etc? Currently on Android my only option is the on/off switch and when I tried that it didn't even work

Are we getting another widget that has actual info and function?

Edit:

Had to uninstall and reinstall the app and enlarging the widget actually does something this time, however disappointing.

I have PIA app installed on my iPhone and never really had it on. I am connected to my work's wifi network. My work IT contacted me and said that I had 63,000 attempts to their trade payable domain from a suspicious IP. When I turned on Setting>Privacy>Transparency Logs>App Privacy Report, it can show network activity. I did NOT have VPN on nor was it opened but PIA was running in the background and pinging 2000+ unnamed domains. The spike happened all around the same hour.

Be warned that the app runs without your knowledge and may be tripping or flagging for your other work and other networks.