With VPNS i usually vouch for two services: Mullvad and Proton.

Mullvad is a no-bullshit VPN as described before, it just works and it's cheap as hell. It'll let you do your netflix hopping, but for any skullduggery I believe they're killing their port forwarding, so I wouldn't really recommend it for that front. You'd be better off subscribing to a usenet index for that and then using mullvad on the side instead of ARRing.

Proton is amazing but only truly worth it if you're using the suite-- Emails, drive, VPN, the whole 9 yards. It's a bit costly but no one does it like them. They also have a solid free tier for the VPN if you'd like to try them. And they do port forwarding (as of this comment).

Haven't tried expressVPN but I've heard lots of good things about their audits. I'd feel comfortable with them but I can't give any pointers.

TL:DR: Mullvad for simplicity and price, Proton for features & using their Suite, something like Express for something that just does VPN and nothing else.

I steer clear of Nord & Surfshark for personal reasons. VPNS that do too much sponsor marketing outside of network/privacy communities strike me as suspicious IMO.

MullvadVPN is great. It's a no-bullshit VPN.

I have used ProtonVPN and ProtonMail for years now and I absolutely love their service.

I use the free tier of Proton VPN primarily for travel. Probably the only free VPN I trust, but there is a paid version for faster speeds and more features.

I use Proton. May be a bit overkill for what you're looking for if you want just a VPN - Proton includes email, a calendar, and cloud storage - all encrypted. Their VPN client supports port forwarding and split tunneling. They categorize their servers to show which are best for torrenting and/or streaming. Some of their servers also serve as end points for the TOR network.

I had a few different ones (Surfshark, Mullvad, Vypr), but in the end I just really liked Proton the most. It is not the cheapest, but the UI of their software is easy, I can use it on all my devices (including fire stick), it works well with streaming services like Netflix and I recently upgraded to pay 2€ more per month and now I got a cloud drive of 500GB, some mail adresses and other stuff on top. I can recommend it because for me it just works flawlessly and the speed is good.

In terms of privacy, Mullvad VPN is the one that considered the most private by the community.

A. WireGuard.

B. Cross-platform.

C. No need for Email to register.

D. Let you pay with cash.

E. Don't have affiliated videos amd commercials.

~~F. Support port-forwarding.~~

G. Had no scandals over the past decade.

Stolen from Reddit - link to archive.org - to make sure that Reddit won't make money out of it :3

E: unfortunately F is no longer true :/

Can anyone comment on NordVPN?