I shouldn’t need to warn anybody here not to trust these bastards, but if you have friends or family who are less tech-savvy and might fall for it (hearing that VPNs are good)…
I have also heard not-so-good things about Gizmodo’s pet PIA, but that doesn’t negate the main message of the article.
It gets lots of recommendations from articles like this and such (and therefore is the best well known), but I have also heard that it’s not the best. How valid that is, I don’t know.
Here’s a good article with some tips of what to look for, plus a link to some side-by-side comparisons:
According to the analysis, PIA is generally good, but the biggest risk is that their servers are in the US, which brings the Patriot Act and the increasingly unstable situation into play.
I use PIA and have never had any issues with it. My big concern was that they are in the US so it was possible that they could get jammed by the Feds. So far it hasn’t happened though. If I have to change, I’ll have to find another outside of the US.