I use windscribe, but I mostly use it to play a game whose servers aren’t running in europe anymore…so I get by with the free version.
I built VPN for self. The weird thing in here is that you need VPN connection in active to use the premium VPN services.
I’ve been using NordVPN for about 2 years. Pretty good speeds most of the time.
Been using NordVPN just over a year now. I like it a lot, no issues at all.
My subscription to PrivateVPN will end in about a month.
Today I signed up for Ivacy, which has a pretty good review here:
https://proprivacy.com/vpn/review/ivacy
I signed up with this link:
https://stacksocial.com/sales/ivacy-vpn-lifetime-subscription
I got a lifetime subscription for $40
There are a couple of catches, however.
Every five years, I have to contact Ivacy to get my subscription renewed for free.
Also, I thought I would be able to set up Port Forwarding on my own without paying for it.
I wasn't able to do that, so I paid another $60 for five years of Port Forwarding.
I haven't set it up yet, but I probably will this week.
If Ivacy is any good, then I got an excellent deal.
I'll report back later on what I think of the service (once I have Port Forwarding set up.)
VPN is mostly unnecessary except for very special situations or if you have more trust in such a VPN company than your internet service provider. When surfing in the WWW most websites use encryption and the only visible metadata from the outside is which server you’re connecting to. So even hotel or other public WLAN is not a problem.
I use VPN when I want to access my home or company network from the outside or for special maintenance purposes. Using a commercial VPN provider is not necessary in most cases (and I don’t trust them more than the network I’m connected to).
By the way, PrivateVPN wasn't too bad of a choice.
It just doesn't have certain features that Ivacy has (that I want).
Also, the way I paid for it, Ivacy is cheaper--and might be faster as well.
I use private internet access and my high speed provider has yet to send me any letters. 
Seems you signed up already but might want to read up on this article. Los of good info that you might be interested in.
Ivacy VPN Review
I frequent a forum that always fails with a 403 error, but only from my home network, wired or wireless. For years it worked normally, but two yrs. ago the 403 error failures began. The mods and Admins either don't know how to fix it, can't, or won't. They claim they don't see any reason for the 403 error failure. Theirs is the only site that has ever failed with a 403 error in my 23 yrs. of browsing from home on dialup, DSL and now fiber. The site works on my cell connection, and works fine from any other network or location. My ISP indicates the problem is on the forum host's end. Swapping routers has no effect, as my internet-facing IP always stays the same. No other forum members report similar failures, but I have to wonder how many potential members are stymied by 403 failures we never hear from.
All that to say I run the free VPN in Opera for access to that site and only that site. It's a clunky remedy, as 95% + of my browsing is on an old iPad that's too old to run the version of Opera needed. That limits me to one PC running Opera & it's built-in free VPN.
slmjim
Those VPN Extensions for browsers like you mentioned work good too. Good to use when you need to hide quickly for a moment. Might not have all the choices for servers but it works for what it is.
Why so many people using VPN? Bank web sites and other high risk web sites are HTTPS anyway.
Thanks!
I just read that review, and Ivacy still looks good to me.
I don't know how good Ivacy is firsthand because I'm continuing to try to figure out Port Forwarding.
There are legitimate uses for VPNs, but many people use them for illegal activities.
Because Mr. Admin doesn't want anyone to discuss illegal activities on BLF, I cannot go into detail.
Because I don’t want my ISP knowing what I do and where I go.
Because I don’t want ads, “tailored” or otherwise, following me around based on my IP address.
Because I don’t want anything linked to my IP address, building a “profile” to be sold to the highest any bidder.
Because I can.
Same reason people lock their doors and draw their curtains.
You have more trust in the VPN provider than your ISP? Also the IP address is very unimportant for tracking and profiling.
Actually, yeah.
You want to find out how to make your car harder to steal, you ask a car-thief.
You want to find out how to make your house harder to break into, you ask a burglar.
You want to find out how to protect your online privacy, you ask a pir8.
Some “2600”-type sites actually contacted every vpn provider they knew about to get their official statements as to whether/not they keep any records, where they’re based (ie, jurisdiction), and so on, and got interesting replies.
Some admitted they kept records but still “value your privacy” (hah!), whereas others simply don’t keep any records at all. Go’head and serve a subpœna for Joe Schmo’s online records, and sure we’ll comply. We have nothing to give you, but hey, we’ll let you look to see for yourself.
There’s a huge difference between keeping records but “valuing your privacy” (ie, we may not collect and sell your info, but wave a judge-signed piece of paper at us and we’ll bend over give them everything they want), and simply not having anything to give.
And they get “rated” each year or so, so in case there are any “policy changes” at Cheep VPN or VPNs’R’Us, they’ll pass along the info.
So which is the highest rated?
The thing with VPNs in general I heard is they will keep out the casual observer but if the government is looking hard they will find it. Ask Snowden.
Unno, goggle it?
I haven’t looked since I latched onto the one I use.
PIA is good, NordVPN is good, buncha others have good ratings (no info collecting, good jurisdiction, no traffic bans/slowdowns, etc.).
NordVPN even had teevee commercials a while back. That surprised me.