VPN Suggestions: iPhone and MacBook

[NJGuy78]

Hello! I'll be traveling to Europe soon and looking for suggestions on a good VPN that I can use on my iPhone and MacBook. I'm not the 'techiest' person, so something that I could easily login to and use would be preferred.

Thank you all in advance!

 

[unashamedgeek]

I've been using Private Internet Access (PIA) VPN for years and have not had any issues with them. They have clients for iOS, Mac, Windows, Linux, and Android. I believe one license allows 5 devices to use the connection at the same time.

I find it easy to use and have got my wife and parents to understand how to use it. On your iPhone, it will install as an app and you can either enable the VPN through the app using the toggle switch or through the iPhone VPN settings. On your Mac, you install it as an app and it will add an icon to the menu bar. You can click on that icon to manage settings and to enable/disable the VPN.

 

[MacDawg]

I used PIA for years as well, but recently I was unable to send emails from Apple Mail reliably with it enabled
I switched to NordVPN and have been happy so far
It too has apps and for virtually every device and OS
And it can be enabled on 6 devices

 

[lynchdavidh]

This article has a pretty complete rundown of iPhone VPNs. NordVPN and Private Internet Access seem to be the favorites among people I've talked to.

 

[richard13]

I used PIA for years as well, but recently I was unable to send emails from Apple Mail reliably with it enabled
I switched to NordVPN and have been happy so far
It too has apps and for virtually every device and OS
And it can be enabled on 6 devices

I started using NordVPN a couple days ago. I'm a little confused as to why they have two apps for the Mac. May I ask which one you are using and why (IKEv2 vs OpenVPN)?

 

[robduckett14]

Mullvad

 

[MacDawg]

I started using NordVPN a couple days ago. I'm a little confused as to why they have two apps for the Mac. May I ask which one you are using and why (IKEv2 vs OpenVPN)?

I'm using the OpenVPN version as I recall because it offered more options and configurability in the settings
If I remember correctly my connection was dropping with the other version

 

[richard13]

I'm using the OpenVPN version as I recall because it offered more options and configurability in the settings
If I remember correctly my connection was dropping with the other version

Interesting. I have been using the OpenVPN version on my iMac and it's been dropping connections (which is why I asked). I'm now trying the IKEv2 version to see if that remedies the situation. That said, I have been using OpenVPN on my MacBook Pro and it seems fine.

Here's what I gather between the two please correct me if you think it's wrong: OpenVPN comes with an Ad Blocker via CyberSec which is good but the Kill Switch is inferior. It requires the user to name apps to be shut down in case of a dropped VPN connection. IKEv2 does not have CyberSec so no Ad Blocker but the Kill Switch acts like a kill switch. It stops all traffic in the case of a lost VPN connection.

If that's all true, then I think I prefer the IKEv2 version as it's more important to me to stop traffic (without killing apps) if my VPN connection is dropped. The Ad Blocker functionality is nice but not required as I can get that elsewhere. In my opinion, NordVPN needs to merge the feature set and deprecate one or the other. It's confusing to customers to have this weird duality.

 

[Minorite]

TunnelBear should be good and easy from what I know.

 

[drewaz]

so .... do you only need a VPN if you are connecting to the internet on a public network?

 

[Apple_Robert]

so .... do you only need a VPN if you are connecting to the internet on a public network?

In my opinion, you should use a VPN all the time, for security and privacy from your ISP and anyone else with a vested interest tied to your ISP etc.

 

[Daniel Brown37]

I use Windscribe

 

[IdentityCrisis]

I use NordVPN on my pc, Mac, and iPhone. Works great.