My Two Favorite VPN Services

Two VPN Services I’ve Used and Trust

I started my “Faceless” branding back in 2008 for two reasons: to bring the focus on my body where the fat loss results are, with the huge added side bonus of maintaining my privacy. Privacy is a lifestyle for me, as the powers that be have always, and will always, attempt to intrude into our lives on an on-going basis.

While a VPN is never perfect, it still helps tremendously at maintaining as much privacy as possible. I do absolutely nothing illegal online. I’m pretty much a goody-two-shoes. But whatever it is I do do, it’s no one else’s business. And I think we can all agree that the lengths that the powers that be are going to, right now, to try to intrude into our lives, has never been more threatening.

So years of research and experimentation brought me to two VPN’s I could refer people to, that I feel good about, for different reasons. Both make top ten lists on security and tech review sites, are well established, and used by millions of people. Here’s some notes on each:

Both Are Extremely Fast; a Must For Seamless Usage:

–NordVPN has 5,500+ servers in 59 countries

–TorGuard has 3,000+ servers in at least 50 countries (although they don’t fully disclose how many or where all their servers are, in my opinion in the best interest of security).

Both use Wire Guard Tunneling Protocol (sp) BUT, in Nord’s case they use NordLynx, which is even faster than Wire Guard

Nord tends to perform slightly faster when testing was done in the US and UK, but they’re both in the top five for speed amongst their competitors. The difference is so little, that in my opinion, most users of either would never know any different.

Encryption and Stealth

Both have military grade encryption (AES 256-BIT), IP leak protection and Kill switches.

Each have stealth modes but Nord offers a few extra features you can check out when you click below.

TorGuard and Nord say they have no virtual servers, and Nord states that they also use ram-only servers. The no-virtual-servers feature is important to people who deal with sensitive info, be it businesses or where ever proprietary information is being transferred.

TO CUT TO THE CHASE:

Often, especially for newbies, what I’ve found is that since both of these are great services and will provide what the customer wants in a VPN, the deciding issue often comes down to where each are located:

TorGuard is in the US.

NordVPN is in Panama.

This boils down to how much you trust government when it comes to your privacy.

Many US citizens may prefer supporting a US-based company. The concern that some people have however is that the US is not, and hasn’t been for quite some time, privacy-respecting.

In other words, if the authorities want to check in on you, the question is will a US-based company fork over your records if they’re asked? Perhaps even without a court order?

TorGuard is plenty aware of this concern and has addressed it:

“TorGuard does not collect or log data from its VPN or Proxy services” is written into their terms.

So, if they were asked by authorities, they’re stating they would have nothing to provide, because it wouldn’t exist.

And when it comes to NordVPN, Panama has no information-sharing arrangements (no intelligence alliance, the “14 Eyes, 9 Eyes, 5 Eyes”); hence part of the point of having it in Panama.

Nord’s terms also reference Requests for Data, and they state that they “keep no logs of users’ online activity…” including no IP addresses, browsing data, traffic, etc. stating that they are “unable to link an individual user to a specific IP address…”

They have also been third-party independently audited to prove security.

MOST IMPORTANT TO ME: SUPPORT.

Support is absolutely vital. If we’re using a service, we MUST feel confident help is there if we need it. So here’s a breakdown of what each service offers:

NORD:
-24/7 live chat
-Email tickets
-Tutorials

TORGUARD:
-24/7 toll free calls (USA)
-Live chat during work hours
-Email tickets
-Tutorials
-Forum

FOR THOSE WANTING TO STREAM:

NordVPN wins in this area. If you’re after Netflix, Twitch, Hulu, etc…and yes, this is perfectly legal based on established jurisdictional privileges…Nord is the choice. I have friends that use it almost solely for this purpose and it’s super-fast and Nord just has this part of their service perfected.

I personally have had my own Netflix subscription so I don’t really use VPNs for that, but I certainly understand people wanting to take advantage of this added benefit.

TORRENTING:

I personally don’t torrent, but both rank equally on this front.

USER-FRIENDLY-NESS:

Like anything, interfaces are something we get used to regardless of which service we use.

I would say TorGuard is slightly more suited to more advanced users who like to have more options to play with and fine-tune. And that’s where the above support can be helpful, whereas Nord’s support doesn’t include phone support because the platform is a bit more newbie-user-friendly.

CHINA: Using a VPN in China or other censoring country:

Nord is superior as far as extended features for preventing detection, but TorGuard is better if you’re using iOS in China.

COST:

Currently TorGuard is just a bit less in cost.

Nord has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
TorGuard has a 7-day money-back guarantee.

Endorsements:

Always helps to have some established/credentialed proof that the services are valued.

For TorGuard, they have been featured in:
-Forbes
-Wired
-The Guardian
-Cnet
-PC magazine

For Nord, they have some well known youtubers endorsing them:
-PewDiePie
-Philip DeFranco
-Casey Neistat

I mention them not because I’m necessarily a fan or follower, but simply because they all have millions of followers (PewDiePie over 100 million) and they directly endorse Nord as a great product.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT:

For fine-tuning apps and overall cost, TorGuard.
For streaming, simplier interface and 24/7 support, Nord.

And regardless, both are the best two VPN services currently available in my opinion. Having researched and shopped them extensively, it’s become easy to support these two as my top picks.