They were bought by Kape Technologies in 2019. This drove away a lot of folks because of prior security concerns with another product of theirs. I don’t recall the specifics, but here’s a reddit thread from the time with comments that likely shed some light on the worries from then if you’re curious.

As a practical response, I’ve been with them since years prior to that and didn’t change because I renew 3 years at a time and had 2 years left when they were bought. Figured I’d give them that time to see how things changed. Best I could tell, they didn’t in any way that pisses off my ISP, so I still haven’t bothered switching.

Fair enough, but it’s a good value for the price. Mullvad’s €5/month, and while it’s fallen out of favor I know people who still use PIA and get it for close to $2/month by prepaying for a few years at a time. You could probably pay for it by turning off the laptop a few hours a day to save on electricity.

Worth the price, imo.

What’s the argument for doing this? It looks like media stack includes a vpn, so the effort level isn’t going to be all that different.

Echoing everyone else: definitely use a vpn if you’re torrenting. Strongly consider using a seedbox if you’re on starlink or anything else with poor upload speeds.

This being related to piracy feels like a stretch.