Approaching a year since the last desktop update, I know I’ve personally experienced plenty of client crashes, more than ever in this period in fact, and this sub is basically filled to the gills with people asking for help with some bug or another. Last news I heard was about their acquisition and the long delayed audit being completed, but besides that it feels like PIA has totally withdrawn in every conceivable way. I’m upset because I’ve been using them for years, and even went for a 3 year subscription because they were so consistently on top of things the entire time I used them. What happened? Does anyone know anything or have suggestions for alternatives?
Edit:
as a side note to being downvoted instead of answered, this is the most astroturfed sub I’ve ever seen, and the mod team seems entirely composed of employees. What the hell happened here?
Edit 2:
just to clarify for any new people, I’m not asking about whether it’s working or not working for you. I’m asking if PIA has been relegated to a skeleton crew, whether that affects its commitment to privacy, and if so is there a better option?
Edit 3:
for the love of god, I don’t care if “it works on your system.” Not my question at all, and not a good response if it was.
Honestly I wouldn’t be able to tell whether they’re actually working on it as normal or just keeping it on for as long as it works with the minimum amount of work needed…
So if most people can’t tell you and the employees /company definitely won’t tell you, I’m not sure what you’re expecting beyond “it woeks for me” anecdotes…
Seems reasonably ok so far, though it’ll likely take significantly longer for anything to break badly enough that people start noticing. Until that day, guess I’m locked in for another year or two regardless
If you’re having crashes, you need to contact support. They can’t fix what they don’t know.
As for them being less active, we have been in a recession for awhile. There’s been lots of tech layoffs for the past 6-12 months, a lot of them have been “quiet” layoffs where they fire people slowly over the course of months to avoid getting bad press like “Microsoft lays off 20% work force!”. No idea if that’s the case with PIA specifically, just a potential reason.
I actually just switched to PIA a couple days ago because my NordVPN expired and their SOCKS5 was barely functional, and that’s what I prefer to use for torrenting as it’s easier and a lot simpler. So far PIA’s SOCKS5 is leagues better than NordVPN’s, and the quick test I ran with their windows client and OpenVPN configuration files support ran great.
Honestly, if you’re having problems with their client I’d recommend just not using it at all and just downloading OpenVPN. The only Apple product I own is an iPhone, but PIA with the OpenVPN Connect app works great. When I was downloading openvpn configuration files from PIA’s website, I think I remember they had configuration files for macOS too so you should try that out.
I hope this helped you more than the brain dead “wOrKs GrEaT fOr Me! ” responses you’ve been getting. I know how frustrating it is to have a legitimate problem and have people like that shout you down lol
It has a major bug on Android that hasn’t been addressed for some time. The Split Tunnelling or should I say per app settings just doesn’t work. The recent update doesn’t capture all your downloaded apps so you can’t actually select what goes through the VPN. If it’s not fixed before the end of my one year sub from January, I am jumping ship.
PIA was once the best VPN around, but sadly, since Kape Technology acquired PIA, nobody should be using it anymore. Kape has a really bad history of spreading malware, buying out once-tryarworthy VPNs, and logging users data. Nothing they touch can be trusted.
What you’re seeing is likely just one step in Kape slowly running PIA into the ground. The best time to bail was before they acquired PIA. The 2nd best time is now. Get out. Consider whatever you spent on the subscription a sunk cost and leave it.
I strongly recommend Mullvad over any other VPN. Not NordVPN, not Express, not any of the ones that spend tons of money on advertising. Mullvad. It gets the job done, it’s proven to have no logs, it’s the most highly recommended VPN for torrenting, the dev team releases updates frequently and is transparent about their actions. It’s 5 euros per month – pricier than PIA, except since PIA is owned by Kape it’s safe to assume any money you spend on it is completely wasted.
well I don’t use the desktop software much since I use there service on my router. an I use it on Android and service and been good no more email about seeding new releases
As a former provider of software that ran in an uncontrolled environment, I didn’t spend much time on bugs reported by one or two users. Bugs reported by many users got my attention. Back then, I would often e-mail registered users asking if they had seen a reported problem. Today, that activity would be mimicked by reviewing support forums to see if other users report a similar problem or, conversely, say they don’t have the problem.
My crowd sourced approach to prioritizing bug responses was mandated by limited manpower and the myriad ways that other software installed on a general purpose platform can affect all software on that platform. Note I also developed custom software running on a PC platform at the BIOS level (no outside operating system), and chased every reported bug down to resolution.
The last big update I remember was adding WireGuard support. I do get periodic update notifications in the Windows App I use on my kids box (locked it down so if they surf stupidly there’s no way the compromised machine is affecting my other network devices. Apple App I use when remote was updated 2 weeks ago.
What is it you are looking for from the development team? Just curious.
I constantly have problems on my Windows desktop if I torrent anything. Always disconnects and turns off my internet. Support is worthless. Sounds like to me the new owners is just milking it with no clear future.
30 days money back guarantee is a lie and a scam. They dont offer port forwarding like they advertised, so I immidiatelly deinstalled it and asked for my money back. Customer service first tried to play out me with requesting various codes, transaction codes and similar. After I have provided them all of the codes, transactions they just stopped responding to my emails. I tried several times to reach them, but no success, they just stole my money.
” responses you’ve been getting. I know how frustrating it is to have a legitimate problem and have people like that shout you down lol