Reading the comments here, it's clear that many have a less than favorable view of NordVPN. With that said, what VPN provider would readers here recommend? I don't know if there is a consensus for a "good VPN provider" that respects privacy, etc or if they are all shitty in one way or another.
They make an effort to store as little customer info as possible, including getting rid of subscriptions to reduce payment information they have to keep [1]. Despite subscriptions being a great way of getting consistent revenue.
As well as card, they allow payment in cash, crypto and quite a few others.
They have open source clients and are one of few providers with an official client on F-Droid.
They don't try to lock you in for years. It's €5 per month no matter how long you pay for.
They have regular external audits. [2]
If you read their website you'll find they focus on privacy rather than 'watching TV while you're on holiday'. [3][4]
Mozilla use Mullvad for Firefox VPN. Tailscale have partnered with Mullvad. [5]
Also many people forget its not just the VPN, its the combination of the VPN and your browser. There are many ways to unmask you even if the provider does everything right. They can't protect against attacks like dom battery monitoring, complex fingerprinting, UDP timing attacks, etc... read the Mullvad audit for more details. They cite the need to enable DAITA by default as a shortcoming. https://www.x41-dsec.de/static/reports/X41-Mullvad-Audit-Pub...
You can even buy them from Amazon. The cards don't have any sort of exposed code to scan when it gets sold to activate it like other gift cards. Nothing on them makes one identifiable from another until you scratch it off.
