You can create a favourite servers list by clicking the heart icons, and these will be added to the ‘Quick Connect’ menu at the top of the main panel. The latter is handy for anyone not living there but wanting to watch K-drama and other Korean TV. In total, PIA has servers in 91 countries, recently adding new servers in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nepal, Peru, Uruguay, and South Korea. It’s good that there are options in all 50 states, something not many VPNs can boast. All of these are clearly indicated by the globe icon, and if you don’t want to see them, you can remove them from the list by heading to General > Show Geo-Located Regions.īeing a US-based VPN, it’s not too surprising that a lot of servers are in the US. This allows you to seem to be in countries such as India, say, where VPN services can’t operate because they would have to log user data. PIA does have virtual locations (which it calls ‘geo-located regions’) that aren’t in the places they say they are. Unlike many VPNs, PIA by default ranks servers in terms of latency, putting the fastest connections at the top of the pile, although it’s easy to search for and select servers from specific countries. It would be better if you could also set it to connect when you launch specific apps (such as a BitTorrent client) but it’s a good feature to have all the same. That’s handy if your primary reason for buying a VPN is security when you’re working remotely. The automation tool, for example, can have PIA automatically connect you to your chosen server whenever you join an open Wi-Fi network. It’s just as well that PIA uses a simple colour scheme and layout, because there is lot of information and customisable settings at your disposal here. When you first install the PIA app, you’re presented with a small floating window which has a large ‘connect to VPN now’ button, which automatically connects you to the fastest server.Ĭlicking on the menu dots on the top right of this window sees you opening the Settings page, which launches a slate grey control panel with white text and bright green accents. Sadly, without a machine running Linux to hand, I wasn’t able to verify this. PIA promises parity for its Linux app as well, which boasts the same kill switch and split tunnelling features as its Windows and macOS counterparts.

Pia private internet access review