PIA is not the best VPN out there, but it is one of the more popular. If it works for you and you have tested it that is fine. It is just that they are known for shilling each and every single thread on the internet that mentions VPN.
Not casting any aspersions at all on the good members of this community. Just talking generally in a wider sense. It certainly is very popular and many people are happy with it, having said all that.
I think it's good to have a few VPN's set up and ready to go on your machine. I use a few, from the very most popular (see that one privacy site I link to), to some lesser known and obscure ones that I will never mention to anyone.
Nord, Mullvad, Air - all top notch. You might need to research a bit more and test a bit though if you want to get one of the more obscure ones to fit your needs.
And there are other ways to go about this. Different kinds of anonymisation services (JonDonym, Proxomitron), but really a VPN is easier to deal with - once set up properly you can pretty much forget about it. Though I test every single time I connect to the net just to be sure. I trust nothing. I also assume it is a total waste of time and all the VPN companies are lying, that they are run by the CIA and FBI and live stream all of my activity goes back to the person at GCHQ that is assigned to me and monitoring my internet connection in real time.
I don't do anything naughty and there isn't a single thing I would be ashamed of if my entire browsing history got dumped. But it would be foolish in the extreme to not go through a VPN with the fascist totalitarian laws that are now the order of the day in my country. I am taking the fight to the pricks, and the first thing they will do is download my browsing history to silence me. If you fight on any kind of political level where you force real change, you are a target. Maybe you don't do that. Maybe you don't live in a country with draconian fascist censorship and stiff prison terms for using certain words. Also, just by being on this site, would you be happy for all and sundry to know that you post here? Fine. How do you feel about them being able to read every single one of your posts? Still happy?
Make the most of it. VPNs will be made illegal in a few years time. Child porn, terrorist incidents etc. etc. - all in the name of. Of course you can't ban VPN for business, but it would be plausible to do for home users. Some debate this, but this doesn't mean that they will not try, that they are not working right now, just how they solve this little problem. Once VPNs are banned it will then be illegal not to have an internet connection, citizen, and a camera in your living room, because, eh, you don't have anything to hide do you?
So far, I've been right about the way this all goes, from 10 years back even. I've been fighting this fight a long time. So far I have been vindicated on every single one of my paranoid fantasies. But the funny thing is, even in my wildest dreams, there are things that I just couldn't see. But the evil paranoid bastards the other end have whole teams of people working on this. I've been surprised but not shocked. These people will stop at nothing. They allow and perpetrate child pornography to further their agenda. They bomb innocent civilians with false flags. To further their agenda. And they will win, because not only do people not fight back, they are so punch-drunk with what is happening to them, that they can not even think straight. As long as they have their bread and circuses, they are happy. And the powers that will remain for the next 200 years know that. But most people are naive, especially the clever and the sophisticated ones.
I take no comfort in the fact that I was right. I've severely alienated myself. People have openly laughed in my face and mocked me.
But they aren't laughing now.
I'm wide open anyway. I do all kinds of silly things that get me tracked and put on databases. Like posting on threads like this on this forum for example. I know I'm on a list. I have been for years. I expect the knock on the door any day now. I genuinely believe it is coming. But I won't cower in fear.
I use a VPN for certain purposes, and for those purposes, that work for ME - they work just fine. I have 99 percent confidence that it does exactly what I want it to do. One of the major ones being, my neigbours not being able to access my browsing history because they work for a council department and I am a strange single Man in their community who keeps himself to himself. Must be a pedophile right? All single men are assumed to be pedophiles in the UK now, just about. By someone anyway.
And the other major reason is I'm going head to head with some heavy people that crush those that come up against them. I've been crushed by them before. I know they mean business. And they are the very people who will have the power to access my browsing history, and use it to full effect. And still I do not cower.
I have no interest in children. I have no interest in violence. But I fight for a better day, not accepting the status quo, trying to bring together people of all colours and genders and religions. And that is what makes me a threat. That is why I get shadow banned on youtube, and the other hate-mongers do not.
I have enough meta cognition to realise that this reads like a paranoid rant. Fully aware of that. But again, everything I said can be backed up by verifiable fact. We live in a paranoid age. And like Andy Grove said: only the paranoid survive. That's why they planted those chips in your computer that spy on you. And if you don't realise that they want to plant them in your head, then you are gullible and living in la la land.
I'll just finish off with a little 'wake up sheeple'! (plausible deniability that I'm not a 'subversive', just another ranting loon on the internet)
No, they aren't laughing any more. But I am. Having a good chuckle today in fact about the latest revelations from the Vault on wikileaks. Obfuscation techniques to make it look like the Chinese/Russians did the attack, but then other obfuscation techniques on top to make it look like they were trying to cover their tracks! All the while it was the USA that did the attack. This is a full time job for some people. This is what we have become. And this is what we allow. I'm laughing alright - tears of laughter.
VPN won't save you. But it might buy you some time. Don't be low hanging fruit.