Private Internet Access (PIA) : Is This Cheap VPN Really Safe and Fast?

We personally read through PIA’s privacy policy and confirmed that it’s a genuine no-logs VPN, meaning it doesn’t store anything that can be used to identify you.

All PIA collects is your email address and payment details at sign-up, which is standard practice and kept separate from your online activity. If you’re uncomfortable with this, you can use an anonymous payment method, like Bitcoin, and an email account with an alias.

Its logging policy has been verified on several occasions. PIA had no data to hand over to the FBI following a court case in 2016, and the Russian government was unable to retrieve any user data during a server seizure in the same year.

Moreover, PIA’s privacy policy was audited by Deloitte in April 2024 and found to store no data or activity that could be used to identify PIA users.

PIA also releases regular transparency reports that detail the number of requests for user data it has received from government agencies, along with how many it has complied with. At the time of writing, that number is zero.

Jurisdiction & Ownership

PIA is incorporated in the United States, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance and a nation with invasive data laws. Thankfully, PIA’s proven no-logs policy largely neutralizes this risk, as it has nothing to hand over to US authorities.

PIA was originally developed by London Trust Media Inc. (LTMI), a company with a history of creating privacy tools, before being acquired by Kape Technologies in November 2019.

At the time, this acquisition attracted some controversy due to Kape’s past association with an SDK platform that third parties used for ad injection. That platform shut down in 2016, and PIA has actually improved its privacy under Kape’s ownership, with multiple Deloitte audits and the introduction of transparency reports.

How Private Is Private Internet Access Compared to Other VPNs?

In the table below you can see how PIA compares to five other private VPNs in key areas like logging policies and jurisdictions:

Despite offering streaming-optimized servers in 11 countries, we found that PIA is a poor choice for global streaming. This was most evident in our Netflix testing, where PIA unblocked 11 fewer libraries than NordVPN and 12 fewer than ExpressVPN.

Keep reading for a detailed analysis of Private Internet Access’ streaming performance:

Consistently Unblocks US Streaming Services

If you’re only interested in accessing American platforms like Hulu or Max, then PIA is a cheap and reliable option. We found that all of its US servers work for streaming, but its streaming-optimized servers had the highest success rate.

We’d much prefer that PIA optimized its entire server network for streaming, like ExpressVPN does, instead of having two separate server types. This distinction is unnecessary and isn’t immediately obvious to new users.

On the rare occasion we were blocked from a site, we switched between PIA’s servers across all 50 states until one worked — usually on the second attempt.

PIA Streams Some UK Content

In our testing, PIA only worked with BBC iPlayer when we connected to its UK streaming-optimized server. We were never able to get its standard UK servers to work, which left us frustrated at the inconsistency.

Similarly, we could only access ITVX and Channel 4 when we selected an optimized server. The one noticeable exception is Sky Go, which we couldn’t access on any of PIA’s servers, including its Irish server location.

Avoid PIA for International Streaming

As part of our review process, we test every VPN with the most popular streaming services from around the globe. Sadly, PIA struggled to unblock the vast majority, including DAZN Canada and RaiPlay.

That said, we were able to access more niche platforms thanks to PIA’s large server network. For instance, it’s our top choice for watching Champions League games cheaply on tabii in Turkey and for watching blackout NHL games.

PIA’s Streaming Performance Compared to Other Top VPNs

The table below compares Private Internet Access to other streaming VPNs based on Netflix and BBC iPlayer access, and whether streaming with Smart DNS is available:

We connected to PIA servers across six different continents from our testing location in New York, US. We use a 100Mbps internet connection, similar to what your baseline speed at home might be.

Here are PIA’s full speed test results:

Testing PIA’s speeds, we recorded 96Mbps (4% loss) on short-distance connections — an incredibly fast result.

Its long-distance connection speeds were less impressive, but still fast enough for streaming, torrenting, and web browsing.

As expected, the servers located furthest from our testing base in the US recorded the largest speed losses.

However, even over the longest possible distances PIA is still quick. If you need to connect to the other side of the world, you can count on PIA to affect your download speeds as little as possible — we still routinely hit speeds of 82Mbps when connected to a server in Australia.

The main drawback we noticed in our speed testing is that PIA lacks the week-to-week consistency of some of its fastest rivals. There can be noticeable swings, which holds it back slightly — but not enough to be a dealbreaker.

PIA Has Ping Times Low Enough for Smooth Gaming

We also measure ping times while testing VPN speeds, and PIA impressed us. You can leave PIA connected while gaming and you shouldn’t notice any difference to your gameplay — not just when connected to a nearby server, but also when using a server in another country.

PIA delivered a ping of 6ms when connected to a server in the same city as us — almost identical to the 4ms ping with no VPN at all.

If you like to play games like World of Warcraft or League of Legends on servers in a different region, PIA is still a great choice: it only raised our ping to 75ms when we were connected to the UK (about 3,500 miles away), which is still very playable.

Encryption & Tunneling Protocols

We tested PIA’s encryption by analyzing our web traffic while connected to a nearby PIA server. Our browsing activity was fully encrypted throughout the VPN session.

You can choose between OpenVPN with AES-256 encryption or WireGuard with ChaCha20. These are both secure configurations that passed our Wireshark testing.

We were also pleased to see that the obsolete IKEv2 and L2TP/IPSec protocols have been removed from PIA’s apps. That said, the VPN defaults to the less secure AES-128 encryption, so we suggest you immediately select the AES-256 cipher in your settings, or switch protocols to WireGuard.

Dependable Leak Protection

PIA provides built-in protection against IPv4, IPv6, and DNS leaks. All of this works automatically, except DNS leak protection, which must be manually enabled in the Windows app.

We also tested PIA using our self-developed leak test tool and detected no vulnerabilities whatsoever. As such, you can use PIA online without fear of your IP address, DNS, or WebRTC leaking.

Security Features

PIA is one of the safest VPNs to use, due to its wide range of security features and safety measures. We’ve explained each feature in the sections below so you know how it protects you online and whether you need it enabled.

While PIA is safer than most VPNs we’ve tested, it’s still missing some advanced security features. We’ve covered the most important ones below, along with an explanation of how they work and why they matter:

Installation & Setup

We didn’t encounter any issues installing PIA, with setup taking less than two minutes. This was consistent across all platforms we tested.

When first launched, the Windows app runs in the system tray by default, meaning it’s pinned to the bottom-right of your device’s screen. The option to detach the app from the tray is hidden in the ‘General’ section of the app’s settings, which is neither obvious nor easy to find.

Similarly, the PIA Mac app launches as a menu bar app by default. Even once detached, traditional keyboard shortcuts do not work with the app.

In contrast, we had no difficulties setting up PIA’s iOS or Android apps. Simply add the VPN configuration to your device and you’re ready to go.

Interface & Ease of Use

PIA’s apps are compact and stylish, featuring a simple dark-gray background with white text and green and orange highlights to indicate connection status. We found this very easy to read, and we didn’t notice any eye strain when testing, even when switching to its lighter theme.

We were most impressed by the level of customization offered within the apps, allowing you to tailor the home screen to your needs and level of technical experience. To do so, click the downward arrow on desktop or the top-right button on mobile, where you can choose to add or remove a number of features or displays.

For example, we added a selection of popular server locations for quicker access and removed our current IP address from the default display.

This level of customization also applies to PIA’s individual features, with options to change DNS servers, switch encryption ciphers, and edit split tunneling rules.

Day-to-Day Experience

Our user experience with PIA steadily improved over time as we became familiar with all of its extra features and settings.

This learning curve was shortest with the iPhone app, as PIA works with all the iOS shortcuts. For example, we loved that you could toggle the VPN on and off from your iPhone’s lock screen. This was not only convenient but made PIA’s iOS app feel tailored to the platform instead of just a port of its desktop client.

However, using the apps regularly also exposed some minor pain points. For instance, tapping ‘VPN Kill Switch’ under ‘Quick Settings’ on the Android app doesn’t actually enable the kill switch. Instead, it displays a wall of text explaining how to activate it. We found this a needless extra step and especially unintuitive given its label as a ‘quick’ setting.

We were also surprised to learn that PIA’s iOS app doesn’t include the MACE ad-blocker. This felt particularly disappointing when switching from the Android or desktop apps where MACE is readily available.

You can see a full overview of the features available on each platform, and any disparities, in the table below:

As shown above, PIA is compatible with almost any device. It is one of only 10 VPN services to provide an Apple TV app, and its Smart DNS tool lets you change your IP address on devices that don’t support VPNs, such as game consoles.

PIA can also be installed on DD-WRT, Merlin, Pfsense, and OpenWRT/LEDE routers. However, it doesn’t have a dedicated router app like ExpressVPN, and its performance in this setup is limited. Installation is slow and the interface isn’t very intuitive, so we don’t recommend using PIA at the router level (and PIA itself doesn’t strongly recommend it, either).

PIA also provides browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox that secure your traffic using Squid HTTPS. Many VPNs, like PrivateVPN, don’t offer browser extensions, so we’re pleased to see that PIA does.

PIA’s Shadowsocks Beats Censorship

We test PIA VPN’s performance in China weekly using our test server in Shanghai. We connect to it remotely from our test office to see if PIA can consistently unblock websites inside China.

Over the past three months, PIA has recorded 50% uptime in China. That’s not quite reliable enough to rank it among the very best VPNs for China, but it comes close to the top five.

To bypass the Great Firewall with PIA, use the OpenVPN protocol and enable the Shadowsocks proxy in the app’s settings.

We successfully accessed censored websites in China using PIA 32% of the time.

PIA uses Shadowsocks, a third-party proxy developed specifically to help users in heavily censored regions like China.

Although Shadowsocks is not as safe or effective as proprietary VPN obfuscation tools, it can access popular apps and websites like Instagram, Facebook, Gmail, and WhatsApp.

Customizable Split Tunneling for Advanced Users

Aside from iOS, all of PIA’s apps include split tunneling. This feature lets you choose specific apps to route through the VPN tunnel and also offers ‘inverse split tunneling’ if you want to select apps to exclude instead.

PIA is also unusual in that it allows you to route traffic through the VPN tunnel not only by app (which is common) but also by IP address, similar to what AirVPN offers.

This level of customization and ease of use is rare.

Multi-hop Uses an Encrypted Proxy Server

PIA lets you route your traffic through a VPN server and a proxy to create a multi-hop connection.

While we’d prefer a second VPN server as the extra hop, using a proxy IP has the added benefit of hiding the fact that you’re using a VPN. This can be useful if you need to conceal your VPN usage from local or national censorship systems.

You can choose either a Shadowsocks or SOCKS5 proxy as the additional “hop.” Your connection remains encrypted end-to-end, keeping your personal data secure.

Dedicated IP Addresses

PIA also offers dedicated IP addresses. These IPs are unique to you and stay the same every time you connect.

They cost an extra $5.00 per month and, disappointingly, they don’t work with any major streaming services.

Instead, PIA’s dedicated IP feature is designed for accessing sites that use IP allowlists — for example, online banking, corporate networks, or remote servers.

Because the use cases are so specific, we recommend avoiding this feature unless you have a clear need for it.