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?

[OpenSourcerer 1488]

On 7/13/2025 at 10:28 PM, F4k3n3ws said:

I'm somewhat tired of this 5, 9 and 14-eye country argument and don't understand why people keep coming up with that.

Me too, but I can see where they come from: Secret services of different countries working together is a bad dream for anyone worried about surveillance and other secret activities. So someone constantly connecting to a VPN server in a country part of such intelligence-sharing agreements will find themselves reeling from paranoia since, no matter where you connect, the "eyes" will always be on you. Those people all ignore one simple prerequisite: The eyes must first be on you. But since it's secret services we're talking about, the paranoid mind will assume constant observation. Which absolutely no human, or even a group of humans, will ever be able to do.
If it were so effective, we'd see massive strides in criminal case clearance rates because, why even take part in intelligence sharing? Alas, clearance rates are all below 50% in the States alone for all categories. For Germany, it's close to 60% on average, highest for generally crimes against humans (murder, insult, etc), lowest for generally crimes against goods (damage to property, theft, etc.).
 

On 7/13/2025 at 10:28 PM, F4k3n3ws said:

But doesn't France and even Germany have a quite bad reputation when it comes to internet privacy

We do debate about data retention from time to time, especially if some big crime happens, but no, data retention is not in effect in Germany. Some conservatives are loud, though, trying to get it back.
 

On 7/13/2025 at 10:28 PM, F4k3n3ws said:

3. Do you think that countries like Iceland or Finland are superior to France and Germany when it comes to a VPN server location?

All servers are setup very similarly, and all locations adhere to AirVPN's standard. AirVPN doesn't even bother looking at datacenters in the countries themselves if their legal framework doesn't allow that standard. So feel free to choose what works best for you latency/throughput-wise, all servers are safe. If things change, the servers might disappear, too, but this is always announced.