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I frequently rely on public wireless connections when I'm on the road, so to minimize the risk of session hijacking and packet sniffers I would like to start routing all of my connections through a private VPN.

Aside from price, what factors should one consider when shopping for VPN providers?

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Consider setting your own up using a server/machine on your home Internet connection. OpenVPN, Adito, and SSH tunnels are all great solutions. – ultrasawblade Aug 26 '11 at 2:24
Why shop? OpenVPN is free and open source (+1 to @ultrasawblade for mentioning that and many other solutoins), and works very well as a solution in the business world as it provides excellent security, is very reliable, and highly configurable, plus it's not limited to a maximum number of users like most commercial products are (well, limited by your budget anyway -- you can usually buy additional licenses). – Randolf Richardson Aug 26 '11 at 4:09
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The six most important factors in my opinion are:

  • Speed - You want to make sure they can guarantee a decent speed.

  • limits - If they have either bandwidth or time limitations on the service, make sure it fits in to how/when you want to use the service.

  • Location - If you ever plan on using internet streaming services, or other sites that are region restricted, make sure you pick a VPN service located in the correct country (or has an IP for that country)

  • Cost - leading on from the three above, is it too cheap for what they are promising? If you are being offered 1GB uplink, no limits, in a top quality DC for 50p a month... something isn't right!

  • Encryption - VPN is about tunnelling a network connection, believe it or not, not all VPNs have (good) encryption, check what the maximum level they offer.

  • Contract terms - Unless it guarantees a lower rate and you really are happy, try to get a one month rolling contract, and possibly a trial first... You don't want to be locked in to a year contract on a rubbish service.

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