{"slug": "nordvpn", "name": "NordVPN", "category": "networking", "category_name": "Networking and VPN", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 14, "warners": 3, "score": 1.875, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-11-12", "latest": "2026-10-06", "why": "VPN'd traffic to a reputable provider (Nord, Express, or Proton)", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 6, "compare": 2, "warn": 3}, "spark": [0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "VPN'd traffic to a reputable provider (Nord, Express, or Proton)", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "nordvpn.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://nordvpn.com", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["NordVPN"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 756032896, "item_id": 47252056, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252056", "by": "ethbr1", "date": "2026-03-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VPN'd traffic to a reputable provider (Nord, Express, or Proton)", "excerpt": "Sounds like your carrier is abusing STK to display ads. See https://www.browserstack.com/guide/stop-popup-messages-in-android Caveat: if they're doing that, then they're almost certainly data mining your data streams (e.g. dns lookups etc.) I wouldn't feel secure on such a carrier unless I also VPN'd traffic to a reputable provider (Nord, Express, or Proton) and forced DNS over TLS to known servers.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Motorola GrapheneOS devices will be bootloader unlockable/relockable"}, {"id": 740436578, "item_id": 46277286, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46277286", "by": "gruez", "date": "2025-12-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "PIA and nordvpn work fine for me.", "excerpt": "Of the largest providers[1], PIA and nordvpn work fine for me. [1] https://ipinfo.io/tools/vpn-providers-detected", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "SoundCloud has banned VPN access"}, {"id": 740138896, "item_id": 46258681, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46258681", "by": "Deathmax", "date": "2025-12-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "they are at least transparent about it", "excerpt": "NordVPN calls out when a location is virtual, so unless ipinfo is claiming they have virtual locations that are not labelled as such, they are at least transparent about it. They did document the physical server locations of their virtual locations at launch, but I'm not sure if there's a live doc for new locations. https://nordvpn.com/blog/new-nordvpn-virtual-servers/", "context": "", "use_case": "VPN service", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 779600432, "item_id": 48725027, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48725027", "by": "netsharc", "date": "2026-06-29", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "In reality they're based in Panama, and their parent company is Dutch", "excerpt": "I think they're relying on the fact that \"Nord\" sounds like \"Nordic\", so consumers think \"they must be a Swedish company, I hear some Swedish techies are hardcore on freedom, e.g. the PirateBay is Swedish!\". In reality they're based in Panama, and their parent company is Dutch: https://support.nordvpn.com/hc/en-us/articles/19441152966161-Where-is-NordVPN-based", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the far-right Swedish \u00d6rebro party"}, {"id": 751859362, "item_id": 46991210, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46991210", "by": "y-c-o-m-b", "date": "2026-02-12", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "NordVPN creeps me out with aggressive advertising practices", "excerpt": "Most popular platforms are tracking and spying on you. My friends and I also believe Slack private DMs are compromised as we often times see ads directly pertaining to oddball discussions we don't have outside of Slack. Most people here probably know this already, but you can minimize some of this by using privacy browser extensions [1], containerized browsing [2], a good VPN [3], and/or Pihole [4]. 1: https://duckdu", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "TikTok is tracking you, even if you don't use the app"}, {"id": 734434530, "item_id": 45902158, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45902158", "by": "mschuster91", "date": "2025-11-12", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "NordVPN (and VPNs in general) should be outright banned.", "excerpt": "> YouTube barely works in a full-on browser these days Agreed. Shorts about half the time don't display comments, the back button breaks in mysterious ways. And I use Chrome on both Intel and M macOS machines, so the best in class there is, but my Windows Chrome doesn't fare much better. And Adblock ain't at fault, I pay for premium. And that's just the technical side. The content side is even worse, comments section", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["private peer-to-peer network", "vpn service"], "compared": [{"slug": "mullvad", "name": "Mullvad", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "proton-vpn", "name": "Proton VPN", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46257339", "title": "VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49983647", "title": "System-level ad-blocking in Android", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807003", "title": "Obscura: VPN that can't log your activity", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717469", "title": "The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the far-right Swedish \u00d6rebro party", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48269493", "title": "S there room for a VPN with zero Five Eyes servers and RAM-only infrastructure?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48257612", "title": "Your Dotfiles Are Not a Distro", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"warn": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 2}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"warn": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 3}, "2026-06": {"warn": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"compare": 1}, "2026-10": {"compare": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 799746800, "item_id": 49984175, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49984175", "by": "Cider9986", "date": "2026-10-06", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "it's weird to use it as an example over better options", "excerpt": "One time I saw someone trying to hide an Amazon affiliate link in a post by putting the link text as amazon.com/dp/12345 but the link was amazon.com/dp/12345/ref=tracking. There's no affiliate link for Nord here but it's weird to use it as an example over better options: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/vpn/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "System-level ad-blocking in Android"}, {"id": 796931698, "item_id": 49808231, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49808231", "by": "dongcarl", "date": "2026-09-22", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "You're giving both Mullvad and Nord some payment information", "excerpt": "(Carl from Obscura here) Other than the obvious hassle? XP If you connect to Mullvad over NordVPN: - You're giving both Mullvad and Nord some payment information (with Obscura you only give that to us, Mullvad has no idea) - You don't get our QUIC-based obfuscation (see more here: https://obscura.com/blog/bootstrapping-trust/)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Obscura: VPN that can't log your activity"}, {"id": 779600432, "item_id": 48725027, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48725027", "by": "netsharc", "date": "2026-06-29", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "In reality they're based in Panama, and their parent company is Dutch", "excerpt": "I think they're relying on the fact that \"Nord\" sounds like \"Nordic\", so consumers think \"they must be a Swedish company, I hear some Swedish techies are hardcore on freedom, e.g. the PirateBay is Swedish!\". In reality they're based in Panama, and their parent company is Dutch: https://support.nordvpn.com/hc/en-us/articles/19441152966161-Where-is-NordVPN-based", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the far-right Swedish \u00d6rebro party"}, {"id": 772670258, "item_id": 48291891, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48291891", "by": "austin-cheney", "date": "2026-05-27", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "NordVPN is based in Lithuania.", "excerpt": "Host your own VPN with WireGuard https://www.wireguard.com/ Tailscale is a commercial solution with centrally managed clusters based on WireGuards point to point tunneling https://tailscale.com/ NordVPN is based in Lithuania. https://nordvpn.com", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "S there room for a VPN with zero Five Eyes servers and RAM-only infrastructure?"}, {"id": 772160145, "item_id": 48260009, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48260009", "by": "joe_mamba", "date": "2026-05-24", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": ">I love it when I buy a computer pre-installed with windows and it has a bunch of extra software bundled in like norton antivirus, dropbox, and opera. This has got to be satire. There's no way.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Your Dotfiles Are Not a Distro"}, {"id": 771957840, "item_id": 48247365, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48247365", "by": "swiftcoder", "date": "2026-05-23", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "> What dev tools are you talking about here, that depends on remote Cloudflare IPs? It's never just been Cloudflare. There's even a blogpost from Vercel[1] about it when they had their exit nodes banned during the biggest outage last year: > This issue isn\u2019t isolated to Vercel. Cloudflare, GitHub Pages, and BunnyCDN are also affected. [1] https://vercel.com/blog/update-on-spain-and-laliga-blocks-of-the-internet", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Spanish Court Declines to Fine NordVPN over LaLiga Piracy Blocking Order"}, {"id": 758972752, "item_id": 47435797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47435797", "by": "DaSHacka", "date": "2026-03-18", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I remember Nord had a private p2p network", "excerpt": "Depends on the VPN, I remember Nord had a private p2p network that allowed users of their VPN service to communicate directly with each other without exposing their p2p services to the greater internet. Granted, its been a lomg time since I used Nord, not sure if they still offer that service.", "context": "", "use_case": "Private peer-to-peer network", "switched_from": "", "story": "Mozilla to launch free built-in VPN in upcoming Firefox 149"}, {"id": 756032896, "item_id": 47252056, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252056", "by": "ethbr1", "date": "2026-03-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VPN'd traffic to a reputable provider (Nord, Express, or Proton)", "excerpt": "Sounds like your carrier is abusing STK to display ads. See https://www.browserstack.com/guide/stop-popup-messages-in-android Caveat: if they're doing that, then they're almost certainly data mining your data streams (e.g. dns lookups etc.) I wouldn't feel secure on such a carrier unless I also VPN'd traffic to a reputable provider (Nord, Express, or Proton) and forced DNS over TLS to known servers.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Motorola GrapheneOS devices will be bootloader unlockable/relockable"}, {"id": 751859362, "item_id": 46991210, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46991210", "by": "y-c-o-m-b", "date": "2026-02-12", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "NordVPN creeps me out with aggressive advertising practices", "excerpt": "Most popular platforms are tracking and spying on you. My friends and I also believe Slack private DMs are compromised as we often times see ads directly pertaining to oddball discussions we don't have outside of Slack. Most people here probably know this already, but you can minimize some of this by using privacy browser extensions [1], containerized browsing [2], a good VPN [3], and/or Pihole [4]. 1: https://duckdu", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "TikTok is tracking you, even if you don't use the app"}, {"id": 741226528, "item_id": 46326658, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46326658", "by": "yjftsjthsd-h", "date": "2025-12-19", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "sees to have at least the bones of a decent solution", "excerpt": "Can you use user namespaces to create a network namespace with the VPN active and stick applications in that namespace? From a quick search, https://blog.thea.codes/nordvpn-wireguard-namespaces/ sees to have at least the bones of a decent solution, though I've not had a chance to dig very far. A lot of results use root to set up the namespace, but I was pretty sure that shouldn't be needed with a new kernel and user ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GotaTun \u2013 Mullvad's WireGuard Implementation in Rust"}, {"id": 740436578, "item_id": 46277286, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46277286", "by": "gruez", "date": "2025-12-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "PIA and nordvpn work fine for me.", "excerpt": "Of the largest providers[1], PIA and nordvpn work fine for me. [1] https://ipinfo.io/tools/vpn-providers-detected", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "SoundCloud has banned VPN access"}, {"id": 740165793, "item_id": 46260362, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46260362", "by": "balder1991", "date": "2025-12-13", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "seems like NordVPN also has a page explaining that", "excerpt": "It depends on whether the VPN is lying to you. Proton, for example, makes them quite explicit in the software and even lists them for you here: https://protonvpn.com/support/how-smart-routing-works and seems like NordVPN also has a page explaining that.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits"}, {"id": 740138896, "item_id": 46258681, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46258681", "by": "Deathmax", "date": "2025-12-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "they are at least transparent about it", "excerpt": "NordVPN calls out when a location is virtual, so unless ipinfo is claiming they have virtual locations that are not labelled as such, they are at least transparent about it. They did document the physical server locations of their virtual locations at launch, but I'm not sure if there's a live doc for new locations. https://nordvpn.com/blog/new-nordvpn-virtual-servers/", "context": "", "use_case": "VPN service", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits"}, {"id": 734434530, "item_id": 45902158, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45902158", "by": "mschuster91", "date": "2025-11-12", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "NordVPN (and VPNs in general) should be outright banned.", "excerpt": "> YouTube barely works in a full-on browser these days Agreed. Shorts about half the time don't display comments, the back button breaks in mysterious ways. And I use Chrome on both Intel and M macOS machines, so the best in class there is, but my Windows Chrome doesn't fare much better. And Adblock ain't at fault, I pay for premium. And that's just the technical side. The content side is even worse, comments section", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support"}]}