Full disclosure, I don't use Nord so I am not an authority. The following is just what I have been told. Take from it what you will, and research what you like. I believe Nord has a somewhat checkered history, including a security mishap that caused privacy concerns amongst users, making it harder than necessary to delete your account, and even charging for renewal after canceling the sub because they kept the card on file (happened to a mate from work). They opted to leave Nord a while back when their split tunneling broke or something like that. I also heard Nord was purchased by a company (name escapes me atm) that was buying up other VPN services and also had their hands in selling targeted ads. 🤷

Proton or Mullvad are typically my 2 recommendations. If you also have a desire for an entire ecosystem, Proton will provide that as well for marginally more than the price of just their VPN (mail, cloud storage, calendar, password manager, email aliasing). I have also had nothing but good experiences with Mullvad VPN and they come at a consistent price of $5/mo.

Helped my coworker (mentioned above) make the leap from Nord to Mullvad and they seem very pleased with it. Easy to use and very affordable. Mullvad also has a very functional Linux client if interested. Proton's Linux GUI is very lackluster, but their CLI is reliable if I remember correctly.

Hope this helps! 🍻

Edits: spelling and links.

VPNs don’t guarantee anonymity. There’s no reason they cannot sell your data. Last I heard there isn’t any contractual obligation. Organizations like nord and surfshark are fully capable of saving your data, as well as selling it off to the highest bidder, if they choose to do so. Only services like Mullvad can guarantee anonymity because even they don’t know what you’re doing with their service.