Update: I would strongly recommend against using VipyrVPN or Giganews. VipyrVPN does per-session logging which it maintains for up to 90 days which renders it useless as a VPN in my opinion. I would not put much trust in Giganews (run by the same company) to maintain privacy and not log activity. There are better, cheaper options out there that actually respect the privacy and security of users.
Many months ago, I started using Giganews to download, uh, Linux distros (yeah, that’s it) over Usenet. Then a few months ago I saw some email cross my account from Giganews describing how they had added access to VipyrVPN for free to everyone subscribed to their highest level Usenet product, which I was.
I didn’t really pay much attention to the VPN partly because I didn’t have much of a use for a VPN at that time, and in the past I haven’t found such solutions very helpful — specifically, my previous attempts at using commercial VPNs was that they were too slow.
Anyway, a couple months ago I bought myself a new ultraportable and very quickly found a use case where I really needed to encrypt the traffic going to and from my new computer. So I configured my system to use VyprVPN and have been very pleasantly surprised.
I haven’t actually done much in the way of speed comparisons, but at least for the sort of activities I normally do, I hardly notice any difference in speed or latency. And I feel a lot safer at reducing the risk of someone snooping on what I’m doing on the unsecure WiFi networks I need to use fairly regularly.