[Sam1789]

I'm looking at changing my VPN service which is now PIA (& my PIA account renews on July 22nd). I am running router based OpenVPN with my dd-wrt router. Thus I have "pretty decent" power available in my internet facing router to handle OpenVPN & a firewall. (WiFi is entirely handled by a 2nd tier router.)

IPVanish has been suggested as a better alternative. And I'd like to know some more about IPVanish. Can people here give me a hand with this?

Basically what are the limitations of IPVanish VPN?
## Do they have a usage cap? How good are their speeds? Do they have a "speed limit"?
## Can I expect to run 250 Mbs & up toward 1 Gbs thru their VPN service?
## Do they allow emails? (esp connections to smtp servers?) How does IPV handle emails thru their tunnel?
## Are there any issues in using Stunnel thru the IPV tunnel?
## Can I use Stunnel with my emails the same way I use it now when not going thru a VPN?
## IPV does seem to have a decent number of servers.
## How well do connections to IPVanish stay connected with router based OpenVPN?
_ _I find that occasionally PIA connections seem to break about once a week or so
_ _& Ovpn "tries but fails to reconnect" until settings are reapplied or the router is rebooted.
## what other aspects might I want to be aware of?

About changing from PIA: One of my main issues with PIA is their handling of emails thru their VPN tunnel. But in addition they seem to be changing other things and have terminated their user forum. Not only did they stop the forum but they blew away everything that was in it. Lots of good technical info lost.

On emails: PIA basically blocks smtp connections. But if you will give them a list of your emails (or at least the email smtp servers that you use, they will let you send smtp traffic to those servers. That seems to present security issues and says they do track what you do?
And their web site says they will be limiting the number of smtp servers allowed to just one + one on their list of 7. And they seem to be obscuring that too.

Presently I run my emails thru Stunnel directly -no vpn. Which does make the SSL connection to my email hosts' smtp servers right thru my ISP connection. But if I try that setup thru the PIA vpn and my email gets blocked.
I want to continue to run my emails thru a VPN using the same Stunnel setup that I use now without a VPN. Which among other things will let me still use my emails if the VPN service is unavailable or fails = no email settings would need to be quickly changed. That's specially important so the wife doesn't lose her email access.

Thanks,
Sam