best VPN

 

THE best VPN

Which is the best VPN, HideMyAss, NordVPN, or Pure VPN?

There are various factors to consider here:-

• Country where the Service is based from:

Pure VPN is operated by a company based out of Hong Kong, which should be safe for the average user. Still, there have been reports of Pure VPN handing over customer data to the US (not even in its jurisdiction).

HMA VPN is based out of the UK, a troubled region for privacy enthusiasts considering they are to keep logs for a minimum of 2 years, but HMA claims to have a no-log policy.

Nord VPN, on the other hand, is based out of Panama, where LOGGING/DATA COLLECTION is not mandatory by law. It’s known to have a strict no-logs policy and would be the best choice for someone looking for privacy and security.

• Pricing

Pure VPN and Nord VPN come under the $5/month price range when you take long-term plans, but HMA, on the other hand, costs a minimum of $6+. These costs can maybe be reduced using coupons one can find on Reddit and other websites.

• Servers

Pure VPN claims to have 2000+ servers spread through 140+ countries, but this can be misleading as almost all these servers are virtual servers and are not physically located in other countries. This can affect speed and security.

While, HMA claims to have 1000+ VPN servers covering 190+ countries (including North Korea), which shows us that some of these servers might be virtual.

Nord VPN offers a whooping 5,400 servers in 59 countries. Almost all of them are physical servers, which is a huge advantage and provides a wide variety of choices.

• Streaming/Torrenting

Pure VPN has limited access to Netflix and leaky/buggy applications which leak DNS/IP, which prevent torrenting at good speeds while maintaining your privacy. This should not be your choice if torrenting and streaming are your primary focus.

HMA offers minimal choices for torrenting (only five servers) and in the past has forwarded DMCA complaints to its users. In terms of streaming, they too have limited access to Netflix and other sites but better than Pure VPN

Nord VPN has dedicated servers just for streaming on Netflix and other platforms where VPNs don’t usually work. Torrenting too will be at its best, considering they provide a multitude of dedicated servers and high speeds.

• Speed

Pure VPN offers the worst speeds in this list, mostly just 1/10th of your bandwidth and with poor connectivity—for example, 18Mb/s on the UK server on a 500Mb/s connection.

HMA comparatively does better offering close to 160 Mb/s on the UK server with a 500 Mb/s connection.

Nord VPN provided 295 Mb/s on its UK server on a 500 Mb/s connection.

Conclusion:

Looking at almost all the aspects, Nord VPN easily beats the others by a mile while being more affordable at the same time. If not Nord VPN, you should look into Express VPN and Proton VPN (if your budget allows it). They both are privacy-oriented and provide amazing features and security whilst being affordable. The comparisons between Proton, Express, and Nord would have been much closer.