Private Internet Access Review 2024

Private Internet Access — known by pretty much everybody as PIA — is a U.S.-based VPN service that has been around since 2010, making it a venerable elder in the space. It has a great reputation as a cheap, fast and trustworthy VPN; we tested it to see if it lives up to that.

In short, it does. Though Private Internet Access won’t be stealing the title of the best VPN away from our reigning champion NordVPN any time soon, it has a lot going for it. Private Internet Access doesn’t excel at anything except price, but it does just well enough in each area to merit attention for anybody that wants a reliable VPN on the cheap.

Cost

Speaking of price, let’s start with Private Internet Access’s strongest point: it is cheap. In fact, we’d go so far as to say it’s the cheapest quality VPN out there, with very few services out there anywhere near as budget-friendly. In most cases, these are nowhere near as reliable, either.

Private Internet Access’ pricing comes in three flavors, monthly, annually and every three years. Feature-wise, all plans are the same, so it’s purely about price — and how long you want to be tied to a single service.

The monthly plan is a lemon, but then again, so are almost all VPNs’ monthly plans. The annual plan is a lot better, costing just $39.95 per year, which is a steal for a VPN as good as Private Internet Access is. Still, though, you can do better and sign on for three years and pay just $79 for that whole period.

Private Internet Access renews at that rate, too, there’s no shenanigans where you suddenly pay more than double when the honeymoon is over — looking at you, NordVPN and Surfshark. You’re paying just north of $25 per year for Private Internet Access on this plan, which is just ridiculously cheap any way you measure it.

Still, signing on for such a long period can be a bit intimidating. Thankfully, Private Internet Access comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can try it out without any real risk.

What Can PIA Do?

Now that we have an idea of what Private Internet Access costs, let’s see what it can do. Put simply, it can do a bit of everything, though you’ll likely find another provider can do some or all of it better. When it comes down to functionality alone, Private Internet Access is a good cut above average, but nowhere near the upper echelons of the industry.

It connects to servers quickly and we had no issues just using it as a background app. The only issue we came across is that it doesn’t always handle switching between servers very well. You’re best off disconnecting from the server you’re currently using and then connecting to the new one.

Private Internet Access and Streaming

In the spirit of doing a bit of everything, Private Internet Access has streaming servers. Currently, it has nine, spread all over the world. There are two in the United States, one in Australia and one in Japan, with the others scattered across Europe.

Testing these servers out to see whether they would actually, you know, stream, we found that we got through to Netflix more often than not, though we had a few moments where Private Internet Access simply did not work. It’s not a big deal, but if you advertise nine servers as purpose-built for streaming, we expect all nine to work.

Server Network

Private Internet Access’ server network is respectable, with servers in 84 countries. Though they don’t have the bajillion locations that ExpressVPN or NordVPN have, the spread is good and most major locations seem to be served.

That said, the distribution favors Europe and North America best, with many countries — the United States, the UK and Germany, to name but three — having more than one location to connect to. However, that’s not too odd and seems to be more or less par for the course with VPNs.

Speed

Another important part of any VPN is performance. In Private Internet Access’s case, there’s not too much to worry here: it’s as fast as greased lightning, especially if you use the WireGuard protocol. We tested Private Internet Access from Cyprus, accessing five locations in increasing distance from use and came up with the following table.

These results are very, very good. Very few VPN services can match this, with only ExpressVPN (read our Private Internet Access vs ExpressVPN comparison for more) and a few others performing this well on a consistent basis.

Though the ping readings — which is the latency, or how long it takes for a signal to arrive to its destination — are a bit high for Canada and Japan, they’re not uncharacteristic, either, it’s just the price of using a VPN.

If you like your VPNs fast, then Private Internet Access is definitely the ticket — and remember, you’re paying less than $30 per year for it, too.

User-Friendliness

One aspect in which Private Internet Access could improve, though, is user-friendliness, particularly its app. At first glance, it doesn’t seem too bad: it’s a fairly standard affair, with a big button to connect and disconnect the app, and a button below where you pick the server you want. The worst thing you could say is that it’s a bit small.

However, if you go to select a server, the app extends to almost twice its length, but staying the same width. It’s one of the few services we come across that does this, and it doesn’t really work, if we’re honest, especially since the connection button disappears, too.

For some reason, servers are ranked according to ping, not by name or function. If you’re looking for a server, the best way to find it is the search function since simply scrolling will likely get a bit frustrating. We wish we could filter a little better here.

We much prefer NordVPN’s approach to its app, with just one big client that contains all information, or ExpressVPN’s, which opens a new window you can move around where you’d like. This extension is annoying, at best. It’s even worse when you click the expand button in the main screen.

Not only does this extend past the reach of many screens, it’s chock-a-block with pointless stuff. For example, why have a quick-selection menu here, and not in the main screen? It makes more sense than clicking tio extend and then selecting your favorite servers.

Though none of this is a deal breaker, we found ourselves getting a little annoyed at times when using Private Internet Access. For a company that has been in business as long as it has, we feel it could do a better job of designing its app.

Thankfully, the settings menu is a lot better. Everything is laid out clearly, like we wish servers and everything else was. We like not just the layout, either: Private Internet Access lets you fiddle with many of your settings, though of course you shouldn’t do so too lightly since a wrong move could potentially put your traffic at risk.

One last thing we like is that Private Internet Access has its kill switch on by default. This feature, which “kills” your internet connection if your VPN fails for any reason, is a vital part of your online security. Despite this, many VPN providers have it off by default for reasons we don’t understand. PIA is on top of the ball in this regard, thankfully.

Compatibility

Even though we’re not huge fans of the app, we are happy to say that it’s available on more systems than you can shake a stick at. Private Internet Access has apps for Windows, MacOS and even Linux — it’s one of the few VPNs to have a GUI for Team Penguin.

On mobile there are apps for Android and iOS, as well as an extension for Chrome-based browsers. You can use PIA on your smart TV as well, great for people that want to use it for streaming.

Support

The final part of any customer experience is of course support, which Private Internet Access does fairly well. The best way to contact the company is through the chat on the site, and there always seems to be somebody on duty since replies come quick.

However, replies aren’t always very complete and you do need to be persistent at times to get what you want. Still, overall we have no real complaints about PIA’s support.

Security & Privacy

When it comes to security and privacy, Private Internet Access is solid. For security, it uses two of the best VPN protocols out there, WireGuard and OpenVPN, by default. Both of these are excellent, and you can opt for either without any worry. WireGuard is generally a little faster, while OpenVPN is the more tried-and-tested of the two.

While testing for speed and everything else we also ran a few leak tests, all of which Private Internet Access passed with flying colors. You should be safe as houses when using this VPN.

However, considering PIA is U.S.-based, you may want to reconsider using it for torrenting since there have been some lawsuits targeting the service, as well as U.S.-based VPNs in general, for facilitating copyright infringement. It’s something to keep in mind if you find yourself sailing the high seas a lot.

When it comes to privacy, so whether or not Private Internet Access could use your data for its own ends, we feel just as confident. Going over the privacy policy there’s next to nothing that raises any concerns, though we do wish we could sign up anonymously for that extra bit of peace of mind.

Though you’ll never be fully guaranteed your data is safe with any VPN, Private Internet Access gets about as close as you can get without poring over the source code yourself.

The Verdict

Private Internet Access is a solid choice of VPN for just about anybody, though it’s ideal for anybody that needs a VPN without paying too much for it. Though it falls a tiny bit short here and there, for the price you simply cannot do better — and it beats even much more expensive options, too.

Still, if you’re not sure, or you have a few extra bucks to spend, you can check out some of the best alternatives to Private Internet Access. Services like ExpressVPN or NordVPN may be more to your liking, especially if you’re a streamer or you want some extra functionality PIA doesn’t have.

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Alex Ion

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