Server location. Does it really matter?

[F4k3n3ws 0]

Hello,

I have had this discussion for quite a while with more than one person. Since you are the only proper VPN service that has a discussion board, I will drop this one here.

Of course, we are not talking about countries like India or Russia, but countries other privacy focused VPN provider offer.

I'm somewhat tired of this 5, 9 and 14-eye country argument and don't understand why people keep coming up with that. I can understand why people suggest that avoiding picking a server in the United States might be a good idea after reading about Team Cymru and the Netflow data issue. But doesn't France and even Germany have a quite bad reputation when it comes to internet privacy? There is no perfect defense against Port Mirroring, mass acquisition or website fingerprinting. And I assume most people should not care too much about that.

Since I'm located in Europe, I only really avoid my own country and different continents. The later simply for performance reasons.

So my two questions would be:
1. Do you have any country that you avoid when it comes to picking the server you connect to?
2. Is there a country you prefer when it comes to picking the server you connect to?
3. Do you think that countries like Iceland or Finland are superior to France and Germany when it comes to a VPN server location?