Hi there,
I’m weighing up my VPN options and after countless hours of research I’m now torn between PIA and SurfShark.
Can anyone help me make a decision? 
Most reviews say to go with SurfShark however I’ve seen that PIA offers better speediest results than SurfShark.
For a two year subscription the price is about the same. If you care about geohopping to stream popular services from other countries, go with Surfshark (PIA is awful at it). If you care about port forwarding, choose PIA (SurfShark doesn’t do it).
I’ve been with PIA for 6 or 7 years but I’ve switched to SurfShark. When my PIA subscription is over I’m done with it.
Surfshark keeps the connection logs and time stamps:
To prevent service abuse, our servers store your user ID and/or IP address, and connection time stamps, but this information is automatically deleted within 15 minutes after termination of your session.
Whereas PIA doesn’t store anything, that’s why I cancelled my sufshark subscription and took PIA
Does surfshark work well on the firestick?
I am not sure how
familiar/knowledgeable you are with VPN’s as a whole but in any case I will
break down what I know of them as I have been using a VPN or so for a number of
years now. I believe this review might help you out…. When considering a VPN
you want to keep a few things in mind when considering a company worth its
weight in service and security when dealing with a VPN… VPN’s should have very
high standards as countless people rely on them for security and reliability. There
is no room for either to falter…
So I broke it down like this… these are they key features ANY
good VPN should have. Some of these following features should be considered FAR
more important than others… no less, these are what I would look for when Getting
a VPN… also I am NOT paid nor endorsed by PIA… I love Networking and doing
research in this field, that is all…. Like everyone else I have to pay for what
I use in regards to these services.
1.
LOGS
2.
Kill-switch
3.
Audit(s)
4.
Reviews/News Stories (if available)
5.
Server Speeds/Bandwidth they offer
6.
Pricing
Ok, lets begin this break down in the following order….
1.Logs…. this should be undisputed, no questions not even a 2nd
thought… NO LOGS IS A MUST!!! Buying a VPN that keeps logs would make no sense
for a common user (non-commercial use I mean). DO NOT BUY a VPN that keeps
ANY…A-N-Y type of log ever. Now since you are asking about PIA…. This is their
stance of LOGS……
And I quote: THEY DO NOT LOG/KEEP RECORDS OF: Your IP Address,
Browsing history, VPN Session Timestamps, Bandwidth consumption, DNS Inquiries
or Connection Logs. Here is the link for reverence/proof as well
The Best No-Logs VPN Service: Stay Secure Online | Private Internet Access.
Killswitch…. This is vital. A killswitch is a failsafe in terms
of your vpn connection getting disconnected. You should always keep this
on/enabled. Without a Killswitch… in the event of a disconnection your true IP
address WILL be exposed. As far as torrenting, I have read that Qbittorrent is
the way to go… just make sure you BIND YOUR VPN. You can google this and learn
how to do it. Again QBITTORREN + BIND YOUR VPN with it.
ANY good, reputable VPN will have an audit to back up their
claims, such as NO-LOGS. If you are not familiar what an AUDIT is in terms of
VPN’s and what that entails…. This is what I mean, and what it is in a
nutshell… an Audit is where a outside party/Network Firm/Company comes in and
tests the VPN out NO-LOGGING POLICIES, (especially in terms of NO-LOGS and
whether they really do not keep logs or if they do) and Security (I
think/believe as well in some cases possibly). Once an audit is complete… then
the results are published online… as for PIA… here is a link for their June 30,
2022 Audit Report….
Private Internet Access No Logs Policy Reviewed by Independent Firm
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/audit/DeloitteNoLogsAudit.pdf
News stories/Reviews…. This is a tricky point to tackle as
countless people have mixed reviews about VPN’s as a whole and not just PIA,
but here is something to think about and consider… PIA was bought out by Kape
Technologies In November 2019. While some people found this to be a bad
business move on PIA’s part… keep this in mind… Kape Technologies also owns
CyberGhost VPN, ZenMate VPN, Private Internet Access (PIA), as well as
ExpressVPN…. Also, the PIA Audit report was published Nov. 2022… just something
to keep in mind. To me this is a win-win.
Speeds/Bandwidth…. I didn’t really put as much weight in this
before in life until this last year but keep this is mind… Before I switched
back over to PIA I was using a vpn (Torguard) that was using 1GB servers. While
the speeds were descent… they weren’t nearly as fast as Private Internet
Access. PIA states that ALL Severs are 10GB servers. Using a VPN with 10GB
servers means FAST download speeds, very fast download speeds as well as
STREAMING…. PIA even offers servers just for streaming(Netflix for example). As
stated earlier, ALL Servers are 10Gb Speeds, Netflix isn’t the only thing you
can use to stream on FYI. I used other means to streaming…and let me tell you
it is awesome!!! As for my own experience with the Speeds…it has maxed out
my connection at 95-99% speeds… if not over 100% at times as
well(downloads)… I am even talking about severs as close to where I live as
well as servers far away.
Also, as an added benefit for security… PIA uses
RAM-Based-ONLY-Servers. NO-Hard drive servers in other words. MORE SECURE!!
The 5 Best VPNs With RAM-Only Servers (Update 2023)
Behind the Scenes: 50 Servers in 50 States
https://www.vpnbrains.com/blog/best-ram-disk-servers-vpns/
6.Pricing…. Pricing is something to definitely take into
consideration but not as important as a NO-LOGS per say. Pricing does matter,
lets be honest who in their right mind doesn’t take pricing into consideration
when purchasing anything?? LoL. PIA is in fact not the cheapest VPN however it
is AMONG the MOST AFFORDABLE VPN’s I have come across. Right now and for some
time you can get 3yr + 3 months of service for 80$. It’s honestly one of the
BEST deals I have found online. When getting my list of points I wanted to
cover I also wanted to mention that PIA allows UNLIMITED [as of
3/16/2023]…(When asked They mentioned I could use up to 100 active devices if I
wanted in 1 account) simultaneous connections at any given time. What’s nice
about this is you can share your plan with friends or family…. You could even
split the plan with friends or family.
In closing keep in mind that EVERY Connection is SOLID/SECURE……
Since purchasing PIA and using it 24/7 quite literally…. I have only had 1
connection drop where it had to re-connect( which it did automatically on it’s
own as per settings on the desktop client) and in which case this is where the
KILLSWITCH helps.
Closing thoughts…
Again I am not paid by PIA… just a very big fan of networking
and I find VPN’s fascinating… I have done a lot of research about various
vpn’s. It is said online that ExpressVPN and Nord-VPN are the best but it seems
like PIA offers close to everything the top 2 VPN’s offer with more than half
the cost $$… so why not get the benefits/security and save as much $$ as you
can along the way?? Ya know…
I hope this helps out…
A few months ago I thought of switching from PIA to Surfshark, this was my PERSONAL conclusion back then.
When I looked online and mainly on reddit, PIA had more product-complains than company-complains. such as some features not always working or that websites blocks PIA.
On the other hand, for surfshark it was the opposite when I noticed more company-complains like removing bad/negative posts from reddit or re-enabling auto renewal without user permission.
Personally I had very good experience with PIA support when I needed them, although I understand it’s not the case for everyone.
For surfshark I saw it recommend multiple times on Mr.Mobilee youtube channel when I mostly trust his reviews and that what made me decide to check surfshark in the first place.
At the end I decided that when my PIA subscription will almost runout I will try a one month of surfshark and then decide if I should switch or not.
Surfshark reddit is full of complaints too, and prices are similar, I think they are about the same, it is like choosing in between Coke or Pepsi.
I have had Surfshark and I noticed there are plenty of dissatisfied people among them my issues of not being able to connect FREQUENTLY. They respond to complaints but send generic emails which didnt solve my connection issues. I can only hope PIA is better. BTW, connection was good for the trial period. I think they all probably make sure you get a better connection at first if possible.
I know this topic is a year old, but things change all the time and to keep current I thought that I would add to this thread. I have been using PIA for years, and the only trouble I ever had was when getting my email. All Microsoft hotmail, outlook, and gmail addresses would close down thinking fraud and I’d have to jump thru hoops to get them working again, all the time. I still have PIA paid for another year but recently bought SurfShark for 2 years, mostly for my Firestick and the fact that recent tests by various online sources chose it over PIA. I’ve been using Surfshark all the time since I got it 2 weeks ago and it’s been really great, UNTIL TODAY. I went to my car dealer who has internet access in the customer lounge, and I always use a VPN when out of my house. I could connect to it and when I turned on SurfShark, the connection died, over and over. I switched to PIA that was still on my laptop and connected flawlessly. Of course my email was disabled in minutes, but I was able to do everything else, so in this case I was glad to have PIA. Every other time SurfShark was better. I’d like to figure out that email issue. Using SurfShark, I had no email issues.
It all comes down to what works for you and a personal choice. Best thing to do is take advantage of the 30 day period or sign up for a month. I sign for a month to test VPN’s and base my purchase on how it works for me
I have tried NordVPN a few times, and honestly I hate their business model. They are based on getting people to pay incorrect currencies, and not cancelling. The last time my family member signed up, they chose their country, and the only part that said the amount was not in their local currency, was a tiny notation at the bottom of the final page below other notations. I understand they are a business trying to make money, but tricking people to hope they are lazy or not comfortable cancelling is a scum move IMO.
Could you please elaborate on the advantages of surfshark and it’s pricing? I am looking into a new VPN but not sure where to go.
the latest pia app doesnt work on the firestick and you have to load an older version. 13 worked for me. but if the firestick is an issue might be better to go with surfshark.
Torguard is also us based. lol
u/maestrosteve18 - I use the Outlook app on my computer when using PIA and have had no such issues - this was on macOS however, so unknown as to whether it would be the same on Windows.
Have you tried using OpenVPN and using one of the PIA connections profiles via OVPN to see whether you experience the same issue? If ok with OVPN then it could be the PIA app at fault maybe?
Internet prices are almost always usd, are you and your family member new?
As I said, for a 2-year subscription the price is almost the same, with SurfShark very slightly higher at the time I subscribed late last year.
PIA is great is all you want it for is to hide what you are doing from public hotspots, government snooping, and copyright hounds. It does all those things well for the best price in the industry (although others like SurfShark are now only barely more expensive). Speed is adequate. PIA gave up on geohopping many years ago. Last year they made noises about re-entering the battle with a few “streaming” endpoints, such as London, UK, but it still doesn’t work well.
Surfshark OTOH works perfectly with Netflix, BBC iPlayer, etc, allowing you to watch the streaming catalog of other countries you normally wouldn’t be able to see. Speed seems on par or slightly better than PIA to me over the six months or so I’ve had both.
I like the SurfShark Android and Windows connection apps better than the PIA ones.
SurfShark has said they will never provide port forwarding since it weakens the obscurity protections a VPN should provide. PIA has had port forwarding since “forever”, so if you want that tool for torrenting then PIA is your only choice of the two. I use a debrid service these days which works much better for getting torrents anonymously than using a bittorrent client, so I don’t care about port forwarding anymore.
There might be other differences between the two that would matter to you, but other than that IMO they are pretty much equivalent for the base VPN features and performance.
I also use both of those VPN apps on a Mac. My problems with PIA was when using OpenVPN to get my email. I didn’t have that problem using the Wireguard setting to get my email using SurfShark. After thinking about why SurfShark could not connect at my car dealer, I wish I thought of it at the time, but maybe changing SurfShark to OpenVPN would have allowed me to connect, and I could have tested if there were any email issues at that time.
Bottom line for me, is that I have 2 VPN apps, and I think I will continue to experiment with the email issues using different settings. It’s just such a pain to have to go back online everytime I get locked out of the emails, use my browser to access my email and settings, they make me change my password over and over, won’t allow previous used passwords, etc… I’ve used some common sense using a local, very close city so it could look like I was local and not have a NYC location one minute and then Scottsdale, AZ another minute.
That aside, glad it works for you.
Internet prices is USD? Not here in Australia. If you type in Amazon.com.au, it’s an AUD and that’s an American company. Basic stuff really. Assuming you live in America?
Here’s an example of how terrible Nord Is.
You go to your local country Nord website. It says the price is $50 per month. You sign up. Deducted in your local currency. Then a month later you get an email saying a special sign up deal of $35 is available. You click the link and sign up, suddenly $58 is deducted and listed as a different currency. See how they tricked you? Then you have to call up or message to fix. They bank on people not doing this. Which works.
I personally use PIA to access BBC iPlayer and have no issues with Geo-hopping (to the US, UK and Canada at least)