Since Private Internet Access (PIA) started to use wireguard I have been amazed at the speeds I have been getting. For the record, I don’t have speed tests ran to compare against openvpn. What I can tell you though is it connects faster and appears to use much less bandwidth.
They also seem to be improving their infrastructure because the reliability I have been getting is significantly improved. I’ve been with them for 3 or 4 years now and just recently started to use it on a near daily basis. I use it mostly to bypass content filters but sometimes it works for geo-filters. You know – because there are a lot of stupid people in IT who thinks the USVI is NOT part of the United States and they block us.
I’ve noticed over the past few months that there are a varying price changes. Their base rates are $9.95 a month down to as low as $2.69 a month if you pay for two years. I am on the yearly plan for $39.95. The 2 year plan didn’t exist years ago. I’m not sure if it was introduced when PIA was sold or I just didn’t pay attention. I do want to mention that I am hesitant to change my plan to the 2 year one. While I haven’t had any issues with PIA there are a lot of bad stories out there for many other VPNs.
Back to WireGuard. WireGuard is only a few years old and only recently was added to the stable kernel for Linux. While more research has to be done on it all signs point to it being faster and possibly eve more secure than OpenVPN. More secure in the sense that the code base is far and away smaller making it harder to sneak in malicious code. Since PIA has had wireguard in beta I have only had a disconnection or two and that was during the beta period. I’ve had no issues since. Normally, I am on the ATL or FL servers. Ping times are around 30 seconds which is really good for me.
I should mention that if you are happy with OpenVPN you don’t have to change. If it works for you then great. Keep in mind that the overhead is significantly more. If you were having troubles maxing out your speed then I would strongly suggest trying Wireguard.