Kalakshar US

If I had a dollar for every time a vehicle manufacturer launched a new in-car software experience designed to achieve the same levels of user experience as your average tablet or smartphone, I’d probably have about enough cash for a decent lunch at a middling restaurant. It’s a common refrain, and yet after years of hearing that same story over and over, I still find myself firing up Android Auto or Apple CarPlay as soon as I get into just about every new car I evaluate. 

At the launch of the 2026 Toyota RAV4, I heard that story yet again, about how they’d rewritten their in-car software to deliver an experience like that found in modern mobile devices. And I have to say, for once, they might have actually delivered. Toyota’s latest SUV has voice and touch capabilities that are not only quick and responsive but genuinely pleasant to use. And thankfully, the rest of the SUV has been upgraded to match.

The RAV4 has been in production for over 30 years now. This, the sixth generation, comes hot on the heels of its predecessor becoming the world’s best-selling car in 2024. Over 1.1 million were sold last year, which goes a long way towards explaining why you can’t kick a pebble in a grocery store parking lot without hitting a RAV4.

The overall changes for the 2026 RAV4 aren’t radical, but they are appreciated. For starters, every trim of this SUV is a hybrid, with base models powered by a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine that drives the front wheels, offering 226 horsepower. Those wanting all-wheel drive can add another electric motor at the back, adding a little more power (10 hp) and a good bit more drive for low-grip situations. 

For 2026, every trim of the RAV4 is a hybrid.

From there, buyers can step up to a revised plug-in hybrid model, which now makes 324 horsepower, up 22 from before. Fuel economy is up too, up to 48 mpg depending on what trim you choose, and you can now get up to 52 miles of range from a 22.7 kWh battery pack in the plug-in.

And that’s usable range. I took a RAV4 XSE plug-in edition out for a morning drive and covered nearly 20 miles without spinning up the engine. Even at highway speeds the RAV4 was slow but perfectly manageable. With that much range and even reasonably quick DC charging (50 kW maximum), it’s easy to see this as the introduction to EVs for many.

For better or worse, that DC charging is handled on a CCS port, not the newer NACS ports that most manufacturers (even Toyota) are using on their EVs. The lack of any kind of vehicle-to-load functionality is a bummer, too, especially on the rugged-ish Wilderness edition, which would seemingly be a perfect machine for powering a campsite. 

Regardless of which trim you go with, you’ll get that new software system running on either a 10.5-inch touchscreen on the lower trims or a 12.9-inch display on higher-end machines. The overall experience is the same, looking bright and crisp either way, just with more finger-friendly controls on the bigger panel.

Toyota’s revamped software is quick and responsive, especially the voice assistant.

Toyota’s software layout is familiar, with a vertical column of icons on the left for toggling between major sections like media or navigation, and then a row of controls along the bottom for controlling the car’s heating, ventilation and cooling system. The rest of the display is taken up by a customizable series of panels. As you swipe from left to right, you swing through different pages, which you can move around and rearrange as you like. None of this is particularly revolutionary, but is pleasantly responsive. Swiping from page to page was quick and easy, without any annoying lag waiting for content to load.

That responsiveness continued through to the voice assistant, which is the quickest I’ve ever used in a car. Just say “Hey, Toyota” and ask for whatever you want. When asked for pizza, the voice assistant listed nearby joints, even quoted their star rating and offered navigation, all without the annoying round-trip processing lag that’s common in these systems. Some of that speed might be thanks to the addition of 5G connectivity (provided by AT&T), but there’s surely some quicker hardware running beneath the skin powering the Linux-based software.

The car’s integrated navigation was also easy to use, quick to route and re-route and features all the points of interest you could ever want. There’s even an integrated dashcam feature that will record any incidents on the road, or whatever else you feel like highlighting, while also storing the footage from the SUV’s other cameras. 

Despite the quality experience through the touchscreen, Toyota didn’t take this as an opportunity to delete all the car’s buttons. You’ll still find physical controls for all the major features, including (praise be) a volume knob. It was all good enough to make me not feel compelled to reach for my phone, but of course, I did in the interest of testing. Both wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are supported, not only in the main touchscreen but also able to feed navigation details into the 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster. That, too, is customizable, with a series of panels of information that hover over your phone’s map view.

The meaner, sportier GR Sport edition.

So, even if you still prefer your phone, you’re covered, and powered, too. The RAV4 has a pair of Qi wireless chargers, conveniently situated in the center stack just below the HVAC controls. You’ll also find two 45-watt USB-C ports up front, plus a pair of 15-watt ports in the back for rear-seat passengers.

The new RAV4 has  a roomy, comfortable cabin with some fun touches, like a neoprene-like insert in the dash that’s pleasant to touch. The overall interior design won’t win any awards for dramatic styling or eye-catching flair, but it’s comfortable and seems like the kind of thing that’ll stand up to whatever you or your kids throw at it. 

In terms of driving dynamics, the extra power offered by the RAV4 doesn’t turn it into a rocket ship, but the PHEV trim in particular feels more than quick enough. There’s also a new GR Sport edition for those who aspire to something even more engaging, but despite a more aggressive grille up front and a big wing hanging off the back, it still feels like a RAV4 from behind the wheel. That is to say: It’s not the most exciting thing on the road.

But people don’t buy RAV4s to be wowed, they buy them because they’re practical and comfortable and priced right. Price, unfortunately, is one thing we don’t know about the new model, with Toyota only saying that it’ll start somewhere in the low $30,000 range. But all the SUV’s other virtues carry forward into 2026 with upgrades. Add to that a massively improved software experience, and you have an SUV that doesn’t disappoint.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/toyotas-new-all-hybrid-rav4-has-software-you-might-actually-want-to-use-140000442.html?src=rss 

These days, thanks to smartphones, almost everyone has a camera with them and that’s mostly a good thing. At any time, you can capture memories with family and friends, painterly sunsets and crazy spontaneous moments. The problem is most of us have endless bland photos in our camera rolls because we simply don’t know how to take great shots.

When you’re on vacation or gathering with friends and family, a good photo will provide memories you can proudly share and go back to time and again. And if you’re active on social media, they’re crucial. In this article, I’ll show you how to set yourself up for photo success with the optimal settings and simple but effective composition tips from myself and a pro photographer. And if you’re interested in going further, I’ll highlight several third-party apps that provide even greater manual control. Note that this is focused only on taking photos — I’ll cover video in a future article.

Take advantage of your smartphone’s camera setup

Most smartphones have two or more cameras, each with different lenses, sensors and resolution. They’re usually called the wide (or main), telephoto and ultrawide cameras. These work seamlessly together: You can simply pinch to zoom on the viewfinder to fit your subject into the scene and your phone will switch between the lenses automatically.

Most smartphones offer shortcuts on their viewfinders for you to quickly jump between these, and you’ll usually see numbers like 0.5x, 1x, 2x and 5x to denote the levels of zoom. Ideally, you should use each camera at its optimal setting and avoid in-between digital zooms (like 2.7x) that reduce quality.

You should also know which camera is best for a given subject. People shots are best done with the main or telephoto cameras as those focal lengths flatter the subject and reduce distortion. They also allow for naturally blurred backgrounds and “bokeh” that helps your subject stand out. Since it creates weird warping around the edges of photos, the ultrawide camera is best reserved for landscape shots. Lastly, the telephoto lens is best for distant scenes, but avoid the most extreme settings (above 10x on most cameras) as your photos may become blurry or pixelated.

When it comes to your phone’s portrait mode, there are caveats. While it does create a soft blurred background and “bokeh,” it does so using computational tricks. That can create issues like pixelation around your subject or an overly artificial look. To get natural blur, switch to the main or the telephoto camera, increase the zoom level and move farther away from your subject to frame them.

Finally, this should go without saying, but clean your lens. Whenever you set your phone down, the camera can pick up grease or dirt that will ruin your photos. If you don’t have a microfiber cloth, clean it with any soft cotton fabric — just avoid tissue as it’s rougher than it looks and can mar your lens.

Nail your settings

Exposure is the only adjustment you need

One big plus with smartphones over dedicated cameras is that they have bigger, sharper displays. To start, boost your screen brightness when taking photos so you can easily see your subject and compose your shot.

Take a few extra seconds to decide whether to snap a vertical (portrait) or horizontal (landscape) photo, depending on the subject. Get in the habit of holding your phone in a way that keeps your fingers away from the lenses, as that’s another great way to ruin a shot.

Most recent iPhone and Android models automatically focus on a subject quickly and accurately. However, if multiple people are in a shot, the AI may focus on the wrong person, so be sure to tap on the correct one.

Exposure, or the brightness or dimness of a subject, is typically selected automatically by your phone. Most devices will automatically average the levels across multiple faces so all the people in a shot are well-exposed.

One thing that smartphones are nearly as good at as cameras is macro or closeup photography. Most iPhones and Android devices let you focus very close to subjects from the main (1x) or ultra wide (0.5x) cameras. This can help you produce cool shots of insects, leaves, seashells and other things in nature. 

Selecting a new subject automatically changes both focus and exposure. If you tap on a dark part of the image, the camera will automatically brighten it and vice versa, but you can manually change that. On iPhones, tap a subject to bring up the sunshine icon, then move the slider to change brightness. You can also open up extra settings with the down arrow on iPhone and then select the +/- symbol. On a Pixel, open the settings (gear) icon, select brightness and move the slider.

Sometimes, you might want to lock the focus and exposure when taking multiple photos of the same scene. That’s done on both iPhone or Android by clicking and holding for a couple of seconds on the desired subject. Then, the exposure and focus will stay locked until you tap again. You may need to enable this feature in your phone’s settings before it can be used.

What about using the flash? It’s best to use it only when you truly don’t have enough light to capture a moment, as it can make shots look overly bright and unnatural. Below is a good example of a shot taken with and without a flash at night when there was barely enough natural light. 

iPhone 16 photo taken with flash (left) and without flash (right)

Most smartphones let you take photos nearly instantly from the lockscreen so you can easily capture when something unexpected occurs. It’s a good idea to learn how so you can snap a shot without too much delay.

Recent iPhone models have a dedicated camera button on the right side. First, ensure the settings are configured so that you can activate it without unlocking the phone. Then, push the button once to open the camera app and then again to take a shot (the main 1x camera is selected automatically). On earlier models, simply swipe left from the lockscreen to instantly access the camera. For Pixel and other Android devices, double pressing the power or volume button will usually bring up the camera app from the lockscreen.

Some iPhone and Android phones have a setting that allows you to take RAW photos. That gives you image data straight off the sensor without any sharpening or other adjustments, so it can provide a more natural look. However, editing RAW photos requires practice and the photos take up a lot of extra space on your camera roll.

Most smartphones allow you to tweak settings like saturation, brightness and contrast, but it’s best not to get too in the weeds. Even the experts, like my pro photographer friend Nathanael Charpentier, stick to the basics, “No complex settings, no artificial portrait mode. I just occasionally adjust the brightness when necessary,” he told me (one exception for him is black & white photos). This then frees him to “focus entirely on what matters to me: composition.”

Composition

Smartphones don’t have the same quality as dedicated cameras, but that forces you to think about lighting and composition. Pro photographers like Charpentier will tell you that, whether you’re using a phone or $8,000 camera, the most important part of capturing a shot is the framing.

Many photographers use the “rule of thirds.” This stipulates that key elements like people and geographical features should be placed in thirds across a photo because it’s pleasing to the eye. Simply cutting a landscape in half between the sky and the ground should often be avoided to keep the framing interesting.

To help with this, many smartphone cameras include a grid that divides the screen into thirds (turn on the “Grid” setting on iPhone or “Grid Type” on a Pixel device and choose 3×3). When that’s enabled, you can place your primary subject and other elements near where those lines intersect. These grids can also help you keep shots level.

Sometimes, though, a symmetric composition is best. If you want to shoot down a dock, for example, you can center it to take advantage of the converging lines. Then, you can slightly break that symmetry with other objects like a mountain, tree or bird.

Rule of thirds used to divide a photo’s elements

Other composition tips include the use of diagonal rather than horizontal or vertical lines to break up a composition, or curved roads or paths that guide the viewer’s eye. Another popular technique is to use converging lines in architecture when shooting up at buildings. You can also try using foreground objects close to the camera (tree leaves, a pole or a person) to frame a scene. To create dramatic shots using the wide or ultrawide cameras, hold your phone as low as possible — you can even turn it upside down to get it right next to the ground.

Interesting photos also come from strong lighting contrast, particularly shadows. To emphasize that, you can use the exposure compensation (brightness) settings mentioned earlier to make the shadows even darker while keeping your subject well exposed. To find the ideal subject or environment, look for patterns and punchy colors. Don’t be afraid to shoot straight into the light source to create dramatic, backlit silhouettes.

“Smartphones do almost everything well except scene exposure; usually the photos are too bright,” Charpentier says. “And that’s why I very often correct the exposure of my photos. It’s a basic setting and done very simply on iPhone and most Android devices.”

Many smartphone cameras also take great macro photos. You can use that to get close-up shots of subjects ranging from insects in nature to food. Finally, try using the black and white settings on your camera to create a nostalgic mood or emphasize forms and lines.

Take your photography further with apps

Taken with Lightroom Mobile

If you want to play with settings like shutter speed and ISO, reduce automatic or AI settings, take RAW photos or change noise reduction settings, you’ll usually need a third-party app. Here are three I’d recommend.

VSCO

VSCO is a popular editing and camera app for both iOS and Android that had a moment on TikTok several years ago. It gives you control of basic settings like exposure (via a nice slider), shutter speed, ISO and white balance. It also lets you separate focus and exposure points, so you can keep one subject in focus but change the lighting in another area of the scene. It offers RAW support and filters, though many of the latter require a subscription.

Lightroom Mobile

To focus on lighting and exposure, check out Lightroom Mobile. It automatically highlights overexposed areas of an image and then lets you easily dial brightness up and down, change settings like ISO and shutter speed and even apply filters. Once you’re done shooting, you can continue editing your photos afterwards using many of the tools offered in the desktop version. Though no subscription is required, a paid plan is needed for some of the content.

If you’re on iPhone, Adobe has an impressive new experimental app called Indigo that you can try for free. It uses computational photography to improve things like exposure and detail to make photos look more natural.

Halide Mark II (iOS only)

For control over just about every aspect of your smartphone camera, Halide is the best choice. Unfortunately, it’s only available on iOS. For those in Apple’s ecosystem, it lets you shoot RAW photos with minimal processing (sharpening, etc.) and, according to the developer, has “zero AI right out of the camera.” At the same time, its “Depth Mode” lets you capture portrait shots (ie, artificial depth of field) with any subject. It also comes with a manual mode and tools like color zebras and waveforms to aid with exposure. Halide Mark II isn’t free, though, as it’s $60 for a one-time purchase or $20 yearly.

Before you dive into using an app, I’d recommend that you practice the basics until you feel confident taking photos in any situation. That means making the best use of your smartphone’s camera setup for a given situation, nailing your settings each time and mastering composition. Then, apps like Lightroom Mobile will let you take your photos to another level — like an artist graduating from water colors to oil paint.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cameras/how-to-improve-your-smartphone-photography-010037588.html?src=rss 

The iPad Pro is about to turn 10, so hopefully you’ll forgive me for pulling out this well-worn Apple truism one more time. No, it’s not Steve Jobs saying “if you see a stylus, they blew it” (a quote continually used out of context.) It’s the tale of how since day one, the iPad Pro’s hardware often felt far more powerful and capable than the software it runs. If you recall, iPadOS was initially a scaled-up version of iOS, with most of the limitations inherent in software designed first for a phone. Apps could take great advantage of the larger screen, but working across multiple apps was just nowhere near as simple as doing the same thing on a Mac. Yes, the iPad has always been more portable, and accessories like the Apple Pencil make it better-suited for some tasks than a Mac, but the knock is always that the iPad — even the Pro — isn’t ideal for getting “real work” done.

The combination of the just-launched iPad Pro’s M5 processor and the massive iPadOS update might finally quiet that debate. Sure, some people will never want to replace their laptop with an iPad, but it’s more feasible than ever thanks to iPadOS 26. It brings a totally revamped windowing and multitasking system, a background tasks API that lets you run heavy processes like rendering video while working in other apps, more robust audio input support and a far better Files app, making the iPad Pro closer in its feature set to a Mac than ever before. 

As Apple’s premium tablet enters its second decade, I spoke with the company’s Ted Merendino (from the iPad Product Marketing team) and Ty Jordan (Product Manager for System Experiences) to learn more about the evolution of the iPad Pro and iPadOS.

Given how many Mac-like features came to iPadOS 26 this year, I was curious to hear how the company approached putting all that Mac DNA into the iPad while still keeping it distinct, as well as the engineering challenges it presented. “One of the things that makes iPad such a unique device is it’s extremely versatile, right?” Jordan said. “You can use it with touch, you can use it with a trackpad or a keyboard or the Apple Pencil, and that’s really powerful. But it also actually makes an extremely challenging engineering and design problem to try and solve when you’re thinking about something like the new windowing experience.”

Jordan went on to describe a “multi-year effort” to reconfigure the underlying iPadOS architecture. Apple worked to “maintain the immediacy that you’ve come to expect with a touch device, while still allowing users to have this freedom and flexibility to work across so many more windows at once,” he said. From there, the company had to figure out how to bring a bunch of familiar tools from the Mac together and make sure they work across touchscreens, trackpads and keyboards.

An iPad running multiple windows in iPadOS 26

Jordan pointed to Expose (a tool in macOS that shows you all your open windows by swiping up on the trackpad with three fingers) as a good example of something they wanted to bring to iPadOS in a way that felt native. “We leveraged the home gesture that people have been familiar with on iPad for a long time,” he said, “so you can easily see a bird’s eye view of all your windows.”

Swiping up on the iPad’s screen with one finger has brought you home for years, but now swiping up and holding for a second drops you into Expose, the same way it invokes open apps on an iPhone. And you can use the same three-finger swipe up on an iPad with a trackpad as you can on a Mac. “All these pieces have to be reconsidered over and over again in order to make sure that they do feel distinct to iPad,” Jordan said.

While iPadOS 26 is a major revision that was just released less than a month ago, the iPad Pro M5 is more of an iterative update, at least on the outside. That’s not a big surprise given that the M4 model released in May 2024 was a complete redesign. The iPad Pro M4 is more capable thanks to the big software update, but this year’s M5 update pushes the tablet even further into a world where AI performance is paramount. 

“M5 has a faster Neural Engine, which continues to be the most power efficient location on the chip to run on-device AI,” Merendino said, citing features like Live Text and Subject Lift that have been in iOS and iPadOS for a while now. He also noted that the faster CPU in the M5 has had neural accelerators for a few generations, things that help with low-latency AI tasks like speech recognition. 

But the M5’s redesigned GPU is where the big changes can be found. “Within each GPU core is the new Neural Accelerator that dramatically speeds up GPU-based AI tasks,” Merendino continued. “So if you are segmenting super high-resolution video, this is much, much faster. For on-device image generation, this is much faster.”  Benchmarks I took while reviewing the iPad Pro M5 back this up — all the GPU-based measurements showed huge improvements over the M4.

Merendino noted that Apple invited the developer for image generation app Draw Things into its labs to test the app with the M5’s GPU neural accelerators and it provided about double the performance of the M4 chip and four times the performance of the M1. My testing with Draw Things backed this up. I ran four different image generation prompts on both the M4 and M5 iPad Pro, and the M5 was more than twice as fast. It typically finished the default prompts I tried in the app in about 50 seconds, while the M4 took about 2 minutes and 25 seconds. Other tasks, like large language model token generation, are six times faster on the M5 compared to the (much older) M1. 

Impressive, for sure, but it’s also fair to say that most iPad Pro users are likely not going to be pushing to the edge of the M5’s computational powers. The flip side of this, though, is that the iPad Pro will likely remain fast enough for all but the most demanding tasks for years. Apple knows this, and it’s evident in the way it’s positioning this new iPad Pro — it’s for demanding customers who’ve been using an M1- or M2-powered iPad Pro for years now and are ready for an upgrade. 

One of the main hardware differences between the redesigned M4 and M5 iPad Pros and their predecessors is that Apple made the tablet even thinner and lighter than ever, while packing in the company’s latest silicon. It’s a wild engineering feat, one that impressed me from the very first time I picked up the iPad Pro M4 last year. There is one somewhat humorous thing about the iPad Pro, which is that it’s thinner and lighter than the iPad Air — despite the Air name having historically been used for Apple’s most portable products. Just look at the iPhone Air for the latest example.

That made me ponder if a more “pro” iPad should be a little thicker and heavier to accommodate a bigger battery, like what you’ll find in the MacBook Pro. The iPad Pro’s 10-hour battery life for basic tasks like web browsing and watching video isn’t short, but if you push it harder it’ll drain a lot quicker. Merendino said that the ongoing thought process behind balancing battery life, performance and size comes down to a focus on portability and versatility.

“One of the things that has defined iPad since the very beginning is portability. For creative pros, the iPad Pro is untethering them from a workstation,” he said. “It’s letting them create and be productive wherever they may be. And what’s unique is that over the years we’ve made iPad more and more portable.” That’s undeniable; the first iPad was about 1.5 pounds with its 9.7-inch screen and the 13-inch iPad Pro is a quarter of a pound lighter. “But we have also made it vastly more powerful,” Merendino continued, “even though it’s a more portable device, a vastly faster device. We have still maintained that all day battery life that we know users depend on.” So while we’re probably not getting an iPad Pro with 15- or 20-hour battery life any time soon, I can respect the trade-off of making the tablet as portable as possible. It’s one of its main differentiating features compared to a Mac, after all.

A rumor that started making the rounds just after the iPad Pro M5 was released puts the “Mac versus iPad” debate into a new territory, though. A few reliable sources including Mark Gurman at Bloomberg and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo both say that the M6 refresh of the MacBook Pro will usher in touchscreens for the first time on a Mac. If this happens, it’ll likely upend the debate yet again. But in the same way an iPad doesn’t really replace the Mac, I don’t think a touchscreen MacBook will necessarily be better than an iPad for some things. The iPad is still the most versatile device Apple sells, and the company believes that versatility is something people recognize and want. 

“With the windowing system that we built, it [still] starts with every app being fullscreen,” Jordan says. “And the idea behind that philosophy is making sure you can be the person who has iPad and is just using it on the couch to watch a show, and then can seamlessly transition to being a professional who’s connected to an external display with a Magic Keyboard and a bunch of windows open. And that versatility is really interesting, and I think customers who gravitate towards iPad are looking for that device that can go across those worlds.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/after-10-years-the-ipad-pro-has-finally-carved-out-its-own-identity-130108169.html?src=rss 

I came into this review thinking of Private Internet Access (PIA) as one of the better VPNs. It’s in the Kape Technologies portfolio, along with the top-tier ExpressVPN and the generally reliable CyberGhost. It’s one of the cheapest VPNs out there, its interfaces hold together and it boasts plenty of server locations.

Sadly, I was either misremembering PIA, or it used to be better until someone at Kape fell asleep at the switch. The more I tested this VPN, the more I came to terms with the fact that it’s much harder to recommend these days, especially compared to the entries in our best VPN guide. The biggest culprit is unmoored download speeds that swing wildly from acceptable to unusable, but I also encountered dropped connections, high latencies and dead ends in the UI.

I want to make it very clear that this PIA review is a snapshot of a moment in time. I don’t think this is an inherently bad service, but it needs to do a lot of work to right the ship. As I go through my usual 11-point testing plan, I’ll make a (hopefully) cogent case for why you should give PIA a miss as of now.

Editor’s note (10/20/25): We’ve overhauled our VPN coverage to provide more detailed, actionable buying advice. Going forward, we’ll continue to update both our best VPN list and individual reviews (like this one) as circumstances change. Most recently, we added official scores to all of our VPN reviews. Check out how we test VPNs to learn more about the new standards we’re using.

Table of contents

Findings at a glance

Installing, configuring and using Private Internet Access

Private Internet Access speed test

Private Internet Access security test

How much does Private Internet Access cost?

Private Internet Access side apps and bundles

Close-reading Private Internet Access’s privacy policy

Can Private Internet Access change your virtual location?

Investigating Private Internet Access’s server network

Extra features of Private Internet Access

Private Internet Access customer support options

Private Internet Access background check

Final verdict

Findings at a glance

Here’s a quick overview of everything I learned from testing Private Internet Access. For details on the bullets, check out the relevant section.

Category

Notes

Installation and UI

Desktop apps work well but are limited to mobile proportions

Android app has some confusing design choices and often gets stuck on screens that prompt setting changes

iOS app is the best, but lacks dark mode

Browser extension has several unique features

Speed

Major swings in speed and latency, even on the same server minutes apart

Average download speed drop of 34 percent conceals a lot of outliers in both directions

Latency was the most inconsistent measure of all, swinging by over 1000 milliseconds

Security

OpenVPN and WireGuard, the two universally available protocols, are secure

IKEv2/IPSec only available on iOS

Passed all leak tests, including while switching locations

Encrypts all data packets

Pricing

$11.95 per month

Best plan costs $79 for 39 months, or $2.03 per month

Unlimited connections on any plan

Bundles

Antivirus and dedicated IP addresses available at checkout for an extra fee

Privacy policy

Free of loopholes, with no basis for logging user identities or activities

RAM-only servers make long-term logging impossible

Parent company Kape Technologies is bound to the same rules

Passed two audits by Deloitte, but reports are only available to subscribers

Virtual location change

Never blocked by Netflix

Canada and UK servers failed to change content three times each

Tests were successful in Australia, Japan and Italy, but speeds remained a problem

Server network

155 locations in 91 countries

59 percent of servers are virtual

Features

Two levels of kill switch — stronger setting prevents all internet access before you connect to the VPN

PIA MACE is good at blocking banner ads

Controlling maximum download unit size can improve speeds

App and IP-based split tunneling with normal and inverse options

Automation generally doesn’t work

Multi-hop uses ShadowSocks or SOCKS5 obfuscation

Port forwarding supported

Customer support

Written knowledgebase is not easy to use

Live chat is attentive but slow and not always expert

Support team answers email tickets quickly

Background check

Owned by Kape Technologies

No serious hacks or breaches

Former CTO came with some controversy, but no longer works there

Two court cases have confirmed PIA doesn’t store logs

Installing, configuring and using Private Internet Access

Private Internet Access downloads and installs with very little friction across all the platforms that support its apps. Since I have basically no complaints about the experience of setting it up, I’ll spend this section focusing on how it feels to use PIA on each platform.

I have a number of issues with how PIA structures its apps on each OS, but I want to preface them by saying that this VPN generally works fine. It connects quickly, its settings are easy to toggle and it never puts active obstacles in the user’s path. Each app except iOS has a soothingly dark aesthetic that’s always readable. Keep that baseline in mind when I start describing what PIA could have done better.

Windows

There’s no good way to describe PIA on Windows or Mac except as a mobile app dragged kicking and screaming onto desktop. This VPN app never misses an opportunity to remind you that it would rather be on your phone. By default, it’s attached to your lower toolbar and cannot be moved or resized. You can change the settings to have it launch in a movable window instead, but you still can’t change its size.

The main window is cluttered, but once you figure it out, there’s a much higher degree of customization than most VPNs offer. Clicking the arrow at the bottom opens a long panel of additional widgets, including quick-connect links, usage stats, a snooze option and buttons for some of the settings you’ll use most commonly. You can drag these elements around to reorder them, or click the ribbon icon to move each to the default launch display. It’s quite cool — just not especially intuitive.

The server list is another example of PIA’s mobile fixation. Despite having an entire screen to work with, PIA on Windows does not let you view the main display and the server list at the same time — you have to click the arrow by the name of the current server to swap in the list of locations. This list can be organized by country name or by live latency test, though the buttons to change this are not clearly marked as such.

Though the search bar works quickly, the streaming-optimized servers are not sorted out from the rest. You have to type “streaming optimized” into search to see if your chosen country has a streaming server.

You can click the three dots at top-right to go to the settings menu, which is a breath of fresh air after the clunky main UI. Settings are arranged in tabs, and each tab’s design makes it easy to tell what its feature does and how to control it. PIA’s launch window feels over-engineered to make a distinct first impression, but the settings menu is free from that hangup.

Mac

PIA’s Mac app also feels like it was designed for mobile and then ported to desktop. Like the Windows app, it’s attached to the toolbar until you change the settings to let it move independently. After that, it has the same problem of being crammed into a mobile-sized window, with the server list and the main UI not visible at the same time.

The Mac version also has the unique problem of not showing up in the system dock, instead working entirely from the toolbar. That said, right-clicking the toolbar does let you connect to the VPN and even choose a location, which is awesome and provides some justification for this design choice (though I’ll point out that this could also be done from a dock icon).

The main window of the Mac app can be reordered or expanded through clicking and dragging just like the Windows UI. The settings panel is accessed the same way and is just as seamless to use. In fact, one big point in PIA’s favor is that its two desktop apps are almost identical — water in the desert after the wild swings of Norton VPN.

Android

Having already complained twice about PIA’s desktop interfaces feeling like mobile apps, I had high hopes for it on Android. While it functions just as smoothly here as everywhere else, it comes with a set of design decisions that are weird in a whole new way.

First of all, you can’t sort the server list alphabetically anymore; it’s arranged by current latency instead, which means the list is constantly shifting in real time. Customizing the main window is now done by clicking a button at the top-right of the screen. This flips the entire look in a way that’s likely to startle first-time users. It’s ultimately the same interface as on desktop — drag widgets around and toggle whether or not they’re seen — but it could be handled better.

The preferences list is not nearly as user-friendly as on the two desktop apps. Most of the important features are buried two menus deep under the tab marked “Settings,” except for split tunneling, which is called “Per App Settings” for some reason (and barely explained).

The larger issue, though, is that PIA on Android is extremely dependent on making you change system settings outside the app — which would be fine, except that it hasn’t figured out a working interface for actually doing that. Almost every time I was prompted to change something in the settings, I got stuck on a prompt page with a useless button. Going into Settings and making the changes manually did nothing to unstick these pages.

iOS

Of all PIA’s VPN apps, iOS is the closest to a home run, save for the inexplicable decision to lock the interface in light mode. I gather PIA was just trying to keep its iOS and Android apps visually distinct, but throwing out one of its best aesthetic choices isn’t the way to do that.

That gripe aside, everything else is nearly ideal, pointing to iPhone and iPad as PIA’s natural home. The option to toggle what appears on the main page is finally done right — you still have to tap a button that causes a bit of whiplash, but it’s much clearer what you’re meant to do in order to shift, add and remove widgets.

Browser extensions

PIA’s browser extensions are available for Chrome and Firefox. They look fairly similar to the desktop app, but with some distinct features for the web. The best is the ability to instantly add the website you’re currently on to the bypass list, which is incredibly handy if you’re doing something non-sensitive and the VPN is actively slowing it down.

The extra features are organized into three categories: security, privacy and tracking. Security blocks WebRTC leaks and automatically connects unsecured websites through HTTPS. Privacy blocks websites from accessing your camera, microphone or real location and can prevent you from connecting to websites with known security concerns. Tracking, as you might guess, blocks various forms of activity trackers.

It’s both very thorough and surprisingly different from any of PIA’s other apps — there’s reason to use this extension even if you’re already using a PIA app on the same device. However, its explanations of each feature rely a bit too much on technical jargon, so casual users might not find many of them helpful.

Other platforms

Private Internet Access can also be installed on Linux and has native apps for Apple TV and Android TV. To protect any other internet-capable device, including game consoles, you can install PIA on your router, which automatically protects any device connecting through your home WiFi.

Private Internet Access speed test

I used Speedtest by Ookla to test how much Private Internet Access impacted my browsing speeds. Running a VPN inevitably reduces download speed (how fast web pages display), upload speed (for posting and torrenting) and latency (the gap in real-time communications, such as during games and live chats. The real question, then, is whether PIA can keep those reductions as minimal as possible — like my current speed champion, Surfshark.

Server location

Ping (ms)

Increase factor

Download speed (Mbps)

Percentage drop

Upload speed (Mbps)

Percentage drop

Portland, USA (unprotected)

13

—

57.92

—

5.64

—

Las Vegas, USA

105

8x

40.33

30.4

4.55

19.3

Montreal, Canada

512

39x

48.14

16.9

5.61

0.5

Chile

413

32x

44.63

22.9

5.60

0.7

Milan, Italy

672

52x

41.55

28.3

3.69

34.6

South Africa

1120

86x

26.88

53.6

4.36

22.7

Sydney, Australia

350

27x

28.08

51.5

5.26

6.7

Average

529

40.7x

38.26

33.9

4.85

10.9

This speed test was a marked disappointment. PIA had some of the most inconsistent readings I’ve seen on a VPN in some time — so bad I initially assumed there was something wrong with the speed tester. I ran more speed tests on more days than I usually do, just to make sure a fluke outlier didn’t permanently taint PIA’s score. Speeds were often good, but occasional sharp drops suppressed them.

This problem was especially pronounced with latency. In practically every test, the three pings swung wildly, sometimes ending up above 2000 milliseconds (or, as we call it in the business, two seconds). I can’t say what the problem is, but until PIA fixes it, I don’t suggest using this VPN for any split-second gaming.

Additionally, on my first day of testing, the server location PIA chose as the fastest gave me four-digit pings, download speeds below 2 Mbps and no upload speeds at all. Other servers worked, so the problem wasn’t on my end. This didn’t happen in every location by any means, nor on every test — but it repeated in Montreal, implying an issue with more than one PIA server.

Due to several low outliers, PIA’s worldwide averages don’t look good at all compared to other VPNs. The best news in the table above is that upload speed only dropped by about 11 percent, and download speed by about 34 percent, retaining two-thirds of my unprotected speed. But the inconsistency is a serious problem; PIA might be quite fast at times, but it’s unpredictable. I’ve reached out to PIA for comment on its speeds and will update this when I receive a reply.

Private Internet Access security test

Since most websites today use HTTPS encryption, it’s very difficult for third parties to see precisely what you do online — but motivated people can still see your real location and the sites you visit. The purpose of a VPN is not to keep you completely anonymous or safe online, but to prevent your IP address and DNS requests from being visible to your internet service provider or anyone else.

I looked from three different angles to see whether Private Internet Access is actually capable of doing what its name promises. First, I checked to make sure it uses VPN protocols considered to be secure. I next used an IP address checker to see if any locations leaked my IP address, and finally ran a WireShark test to ensure all protocols applied encryption evenly.

VPN protocols

PIA uses three VPN protocols to mediate between your device and its servers — OpenVPN (over TCP or UDP), WireGuard and IKEv2/IPSec. OpenVPN has provided reliable VPN security for many years now; it’s open-source and constantly updated by volunteers to stay current. TCP is slower but more stable, while UDP is faster but more likely to drop connections. OpenVPN is available on all PIA apps.

WireGuard is a newer protocol that PIA contributed to the development of. It’s leaner and often faster than OpenVPN, and uses a stream cipher that’s harder to crack (though in practice, both WireGuard and OpenVPN use cryptography unbeatable by existing technology). WireGuard is available on all PIA apps.

WireGuard’s one downside is that it stores user IP addresses to keep the tunnel open — but that’s no issue if a VPN is following its no-logging policy, which I believe PIA is. See “Close-reading PIA’s privacy policy” for more details.

IKEv2/IPSec is only present on PIA’s iOS app. Its ability to stay connected through rapid network changes makes it great for mobile, so it’s disappointing not to see it on Android as well. IKEv2 isn’t open-source like OpenVPN and WireGuard, but when paired with the IPSec suite, it’s just as secure.

Leak test

To run this test, I wrote down my IP address without VPN protection. Then I connected to several PIA servers and checked whether ipleak.net showed me a different IP address, ideally in a wholly different location. PIA passed the first round of tests easily, as you can see in the screenshot below — I never once saw my real location, which means neither DNS nor WebRTC was leaking it. PIA also blocks IPv6 on all apps to prevent it from leaking (this can’t be disabled).

However, since reviewing Norton VPN, I’ve gotten paranoid about VPNs letting security drop during server switches. So I added another test in which I changed servers several times while watching the IP leak test. PIA passed this test as well, always jumping seamlessly from one VPN location to the next without ever revealing my real IP address.

Encryption test

The last step in testing VPN security is to use a packet sniffer like WireShark to make sure the traffic you send is actually getting encrypted. It’s pretty rare for even the jankiest of VPNs to fail this part, but any VPN that does fail gets an automatic blanket no. Luckily, PIA passed on all three protocols, as WireShark showed data packets with clear encryption.

How much does Private Internet Access cost?

Cost is one of the biggest reasons to pick Private Internet Access as your main VPN. At the monthly level, it costs $11.95 — not that much cheaper than its competitors and more expensive than some of the best, including Proton VPN.

The long-term plans change all of that. One year of PIA costs just under $40, or $3.33 per month. The three-year plan is an even heavier discount, costing just $79 and including three bonus months in the first period. That works out to $2.03 per month for the first three years and $2.19 per month after that.

A single PIA subscription can be used on an unlimited number of devices. This could potentially stretch your money further still, covering an entire family, friend group or small business. Having said that, as with Surfshark, you can still be restricted for using an excessive number of devices. PIA’s terms of service document states that it may contact users who appear to be abusing the privilege and can restrict access to the VPN if the abuse persists.

Private Internet Access side apps and bundles

Alongside the basic Private Internet Access VPN service, there are a couple of add-ons worth noting. You can select one or both of these on the checkout page after choosing your plan.

PIA Antivirus runs continuous malware scans and sends you alerts whenever any activity matches its database of known viruses. You can schedule system-wide scans to catch malware that might have made it through the net. There’s also a quarantine box for storing malicious files. The main thing you won’t get is the kind of actively learning antivirus system that can catch new threats based on their behavior — for that, I still recommend a dedicated AV app. Adding antivirus costs $4.50 per month, $24 for a year or $36 for three years.

A dedicated IP address ensures you’ll have the same IP address every time you connect to the VPN. A constantly fluctuating IP can trigger CAPTCHAs on some pages, so if you’re sick of having to identify crosswalks just to use Google, this extra fee might be worth it. You can also add your dedicated IP to allowlists for remote access services. A dedicated IP address through PIA costs $5 a month, $51 for a year or $90 for three years. 

Close-reading Private Internet Access’s privacy policy

A VPN’s privacy policy is a legal document that lays out the terms of its relationship with its users. It’s easy to assume it’s all hollow words, but directly contradicting its own policy can get a provider in trouble. Looking closely at PIA’s privacy policy can tell us what its priorities are, what your rights are as a user and how much you can trust it not to exploit its access to your secrets.

PIA is a Kape Technologies property, like ExpressVPN and CyberGhost. I’ll get into that more in the background check, but for this section, my overriding question was whether any loopholes in the privacy policy might allow PIA to share user data with its parent company, and from there to its other properties.

Fortunately for me (and everyone who cares about this stuff and isn’t a lawyer), PIA has a very succinct and transparent privacy policy, mostly made up of bullet points. At the top, the policy states that PIA always handles customer data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), even outside of the EU. Further down, we get this key statement:

That’s pretty definitive, leaving very little wiggle room. It doesn’t include device fingerprints, which can be used in place of IP addresses and activity logs, but lower down, the policy states that device identifiers can only be gathered from users who opt in — and thankfully, PIA’s apps do not send that information by default.

The next section discusses what PIA can do with the information it does collect. It’s permitted to share customer support data with Deskpro, which powers its live chat assistance. It also uses Stripe, PayPal, Amazon Pay and BitPay for payments, but sharing email addresses and payment methods with financial processors is standard even for the most private VPNs (Mullvad has this same carve-out, to name one).

PIA ends the privacy policy by addressing the question of its parent company, Kape Technologies, stating: “neither PIA nor anyone at Kape Technologies logs or stores any kind of substantiative [sic] Personal Data, user browsing data, or individual connection data other than what has been outlined here, nor do we share any personal or usage information with third parties for marketing purposes.”

Misspelling aside, I’m perfectly satisfied with the policy. Combined with PIA’s use of RAM-only servers without long-term information storage, this document all but eliminates the potential for abuse. A PIA representative confirmed for me that while some user data is handled by “cross-group employees,” none of it is sensitive or identifiable.

Independent privacy audits

Third-party audits are one more critical piece of evidence we can use to decide whether a VPN is trustworthy. PIA passed an audit of its systems by Deloitte Romania in April 2024, which found that it was adhering to its no-logs policy.

The report itself is only available to subscribers, which is a bit annoying, but at least not unique. After downloading it through my account portal, I was able to confirm that Deloitte’s investigation found nothing in PIA’s systems that went against its privacy statements.

Can Private Internet Access change your virtual location?

Chances are good that you found this review because you need a VPN to mask your virtual location, whether that’s to get around age verification or to see what’s streaming on your favorite platforms in other countries. This section’s test is designed to see if Private Internet Access is able to change your virtual location convincingly enough for Netflix.

I tried connecting three times in each in five different locations and recorded my results in the table. I used the streaming-optimized servers whenever possible, and the WireGuard protocol for the best speeds. “Unblocked Netflix” shows whether I got to Netflix without being caught using a VPN, and “Changed content” shows whether I actually saw a new library.

Server location

Unblocked Netflix?

Changed content?

Canada

3/3

0/3

United Kingdom

3/3

0/3

Japan

3/3

3/3

Australia

3/3

3/3

Italy

3/3

3/3

My findings continued the trend of PIA being just good enough that I’m frustrated by the ways it fails to be better. PIA never got caught, which indicates that it’s taking care to not use IP addresses Netflix has blocked. Three of the five locations — in Japan, Australia and Italy — managed to change the contest I saw.

However, with all nine tests in each of those three virtual locations, PIA’s speeds dragged so much that I waited several minutes to see if it had actually worked. The other two server locations, Canada and the UK, didn’t change Netflix at all, no matter how many times I disconnected and reconnected.

The bigger problem, though, is that PIA’s fluctuating speeds meant Netflix took ages to load and often froze until I refreshed it. Shows stuttered and lagged even when I could watch them. Until it fixes whatever is going on with its speeds, PIA won’t be a good choice for streaming in any location.

Investigating Private Internet Access’s server network

Private Internet Access has 155 server locations in 91 countries. Confusingly, I counted that it also has 91 virtual server locations, though it’s not the same 91. Its network is heavily weighted toward Europe, which accounts for 44 countries, but there’s also decent representation in Asia. Traditionally underserved South America and Africa get nine and four locations respectively, though they’re all virtual.

Region

Countries with servers

Total server locations

Virtual server locations

North America

8

64

45

South America

9

9

9

Europe

44

48

14

Africa

4

4

4

Middle East

6

6

3

Asia

18

18

16

Oceania

2

6

0

Total

91

155

91 (59 percent)

Virtual server locations aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but when used to excess, they may indicate that a VPN is more concerned with making its server network look big than ensuring it works for every user. PIA’s server network is more than half virtual worldwide. Recently, it’s added locations in every US state — again, mostly virtual, which makes it come off as more of a stunt than a genuine improvement. Given the trouble I had using PIA for this review, I find that there’s something to the claim that it’s more interested in growing than in working.

PIA’s website has a helpful page that shows where virtual servers are physically located, though it’s out of date, having been updated last in July 2023. The list shows that PIA tries to put the real locations of virtual servers as close to their displayed locations as possible. There are a couple of weird choices, like the Buenos Aires server really being in Miami, but that’s mostly kept to a minimum.

Extra features of Private Internet Access

Private Internet Access doesn’t have the wealth of features you’ll see on the likes of Surfshark or NordVPN, but it’s not quite as bare-bones as ExpressVPN, either. Some of its most interesting extras are self-explanatory, while others are a little technical. I’ll explain the most important features here.

Kill switch

A kill switch is a must-have for a safe VPN. While active, the kill switch makes it impossible to connect outside the VPN tunnel, which keeps you from accidentally connecting to malicious fake servers. This also means that if PIA drops your connection for any reason, you won’t be able to get online at all — which can be annoying, but saves you from broadcasting any sensitive information without encryption.

PIA comes with two levels of kill switch. The basic version watches for traffic outside the tunnel when the VPN is active. The stronger “advanced kill switch” works even when you aren’t connected to the VPN, so you cannot get online at all without being protected by PIA first.

PIA MACE

MACE is PIA’s ad blocker. It keeps a list of domains known to display ads, malware, scams or invasive trackers, and blocks them all from loading. This won’t stop all ads, since some of them come from domains considered legitimate — notably, MACE can’t do anything about YouTube video ads — but it works on most banner ads and definitely lightened the load on my browser.

MACE is available on all PIA’s apps except iOS. iPhone and iPad users instead get a content blocker that does much the same thing, but only on Safari. If you prefer to use Chrome or Firefox on your iOS device, you’re out of luck (unless of course you get another ad blocker).

Maximum transfer unit (MTU)

MTU is a somewhat technical feature. You may not need it, unless your connection is extremely sluggish and the traditional fixes don’t work. In short, MTU limits how much data can move through PIA’s servers at a time. Large packets complete loading faster, but may struggle on shaky connections. Small packets make for slower but more stable downloads overall.

I say you probably won’t need it because it’s almost always best to leave it on the auto setting and let PIA pick MTU on its own. I ran some speed tests with both the large and small MTU options and didn’t see a noticeable difference. That indicates that PIA is pretty good at picking the best MTU, so in most cases, just let it cook.

Automation

On the automation tab in PIA’s settings, you can set up rules to save you some trouble with the VPN. On Mac and iOS, automation can respond to three types of network: protected Wi-Fi, open Wi-Fi and wired. On each of these, you can set PIA to automatically connect or disconnect. That’s it — you can only have a maximum of three rules.

Android and Windows users get the option to make rules for specific networks, but only the network they’re currently connected to. On every platform, there’s no way to determine which server PIA auto-connects to. It always picks the fastest.

The inch-deep options on their own would make for a disappointing feature, but there’s a bigger issue: it doesn’t work half the time. I spent at least an hour on four different platforms trying to make automation happen. On iOS and macOS, I could make the rules, but they never triggered. With Android, I got stuck at a prompt telling me to enable location services, which I had already done.

Windows was the only version where PIA’s automation worked the first time. On the plus side, it gave me the question I used to test PIA’s customer support.

Split tunneling

Split tunneling — which lets you decide which apps or websites go through the VPN tunnel and which stay outside — is a common feature, but PIA surprisingly has one of the best implementations of it. To start with, it can split tunnel by app or by IP address, which lets you protect specific websites or leave them unencrypted.

In another layer of versatility, you can make your split tunnel rules in normal or inverse fashion. Either every app and website uses the VPN except the ones you designate, or only the ones you designate use the VPN. All these options give you a much finer level of control that you get over the automation feature.

Multi-Hop via Shadowsocks and SOCKS5

Double-hop or multi-hop is when a VPN runs your requests through two servers instead of one. PIA handles multi-hop a little differently than other VPNs, as the second server will always be a Shadowsocks or SOCKS5 proxy. These two protocols are designed to obfuscate VPN traffic so it looks like a regular connection, which gets you around certain firewalls.

If you choose a SOCKS5 proxy, you’ll need to get a server address from an outside service and set it up yourself. If you pick Shadowsocks, which is the more secure option anyway, you can choose from a list of locations to use as the first node. It’s nice to have so many choices, but still a bit frustrating that you can’t get obfuscation without also using double VPN (which only works on the OpenVPN protocol).

Port forwarding

The final PIA feature worth noting is port forwarding, which keeps the VPN from getting in the way of any outward-facing services you might be using. This gives you a more stable connection on remote desktop protocols or torrenting clients — especially the latter, as that’s the sort of traffic you really want to keep encrypted.

Private Internet Access customer support options

When I set out to test the automation features of Private Internet Access, I found myself blocked on the Android app. A notification popped up telling me to enable background access to location services, but the button labeled “go to permissions settings” didn’t do anything. I took the long way around and made the changes myself, but the pop-up remained stubborn.

This gave me a perfect opportunity to see how PIA helps users caught in predicaments like this one. First, I went to the website and clicked “support” in the top banner to reach the PIA helpdesk. Then the trouble started. I opened up the Android guide on my Mac laptop and waited several minutes for the file to load. When it didn’t, I tried my Android phone, which also didn’t work. I checked back on the laptop, where I finally saw the guide after reloading the page.

After all that, the guide said nothing about my problem. Nor could I find it anywhere in the general FAQs, which kept splitting into smaller and smaller categories which never really explained what I’d find. However, after a few minutes of searching, I found the problem had resolved itself with no explanation. 

Live support experience

I still had to test live chat, though, so I pivoted to a new problem: how to get the Android automation feature to recognize my home Wi-Fi network instead of calling it “unknown SSID.” I couldn’t be sure it was my own network and not a malicious duplicate. This may sound like paranoid nitpicking, but paranoid nitpicking is the bread and butter of cybersecurity.

I first had to find live chat, which confusingly can’t be accessed through the helpdesk — you have to go back to the main website. I managed to get past the AI gatekeeper fairly quickly, and sat to wait for a human agent.

In less than a minute, I was chatting with Carl, who requested screenshots and ran me through some tests. Carl was able to explain that the pop-up problem had resolved because I’d given PIA full access to location services (which is not something the window itself specified I would need to do), but the unknown SSID issue persisted.

Carl was diligent, but slow. After well over 30 minutes of back-and-forth, during which I sent over two screenshots and a debug log, he told me we’d have to escalate the problem. I got an email from the support team about a day later that suggested I try connecting to other Wi-Fi networks and see if the problem persisted; this eventually led me to discover the culprit in my router settings, so I can’t blame PIA for this one.

Private Internet Access background check

The final step, as always, is to look into the history of Private Internet Access as a corporation and look for any red flags I may have missed. A VPN’s biography can reveal its attitudes about critical aspects of its job and show how it might behave in the future.

PIA was launched in 2010 by Andrew Lee in Denver, Colorado, where it’s still based today. In 2019, the brand was acquired by Kape Technologies, owners of ExpressVPN, CyberGhost and the now-defunct ZenMate. I won’t relitigate the full Kape controversy here; you can find a longer summary in my ExpressVPN review. Suffice to say that while it’s come under scrutiny in the past for tacitly allowing its products to become malware vectors, there’s no evidence the acquisition changed anything substantial about how PIA operated.

Most of the usual red flags aren’t factors here. PIA has never suffered a serious hack or breach. In its 15-year record, I only found two things worth pointing out: a controversial executive and its United States headquarters.

Former CTO Mark Karpeles

Mark Karpeles was the CEO of Mt. Gox, the market for Magic: The Gathering trading cards that became the world’s largest crypto exchange, only to lose it all in a massive hack that’s never been fully explained. Karpeles was arrested in Japan after the heist and found guilty of falsifying records, but was sentenced to time served and released in 2019.

While the Japan trial was ongoing, Karpeles joined PIA parent company London Trust Media as its chief technical officer. PIA founder Andrew Lee defended the hiring in a statement on the PIA blog, writing that “If we, as a society, do not give second chances to those who fall, then we as a society will cease to progress,” and comparing Karpeles’s arrest to Steve Jobs being forced out of Apple.

Neither man works at PIA anymore. According to his LinkedIn, Karpeles left London Trust Media after the Kape Acquisition in 2019. Lee left at the same time, and these days seems less interested in cybersecurity than in trying to become the Prince of Korea. 

Bottom line: Although hiring an executive in the middle of his malfeasance trial may be terrible optics, the whole controversy isn’t relevant to the VPN’s operations today.

US headquarters and Five Eyes

The other potential sticking point with PIA is that it’s headquartered in the United States, which is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement. Now, I’m on the record as not thinking Five Eyes is a big deal for a VPN — either the VPN is following its privacy policy, in which case it’ll have nothing to share with intelligence agents, or it’s not, in which case its location is the least of its problems.

As I concluded in the Privacy section, whatever PIA’s flaws, it’s not mishandling user data or violating its own privacy policy. That’s not only confirmed by two audits, but also by two separate court cases in which PIA was unable to comply with requests for logs on its customers. If the VPN doesn’t save information, there’s nothing for Five Eyes to access.

Final verdict

There’s plenty that does work about PIA. Its privacy and security are unimpeachable — it uses vetted protocols with strong encryption and doesn’t leak. Its iOS app is a nearly perfect mobile VPN, and the ability to customize the home screen on every app is a great touch. Split tunneling is outstanding, MACE blocks ads efficiently and I even like the automation (though I wish it was deeper).

But PIA is aggravating to use in too many ways. While its servers are frequently fast, you can’t trust that download speeds will hold from one moment to the next. Basic quality assurance, like assuring pop-up buttons always do something when pressed, seems to have gone by the wayside in its Android app.

In spite of it all, I still recommend Private Internet Access as a budget VPN. Its three-year plan is the cheapest subscription on the market right now. At $2.00 per month, I’m prepared to forgive a lot, especially at a time when all our wallets are squeezed.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/private-internet-access-vpn-review-both-more-and-less-than-a-budget-vpn-120033882.html?src=rss