Why doesn't PIA use geo-located servers when using the "choose automatically" option in the server list?

Why doesn’t PIA use geo-located servers when using the “choose automatically” option in the server list? FYI: I am talking about using the desktop client on Windows to connect to PIA.

Sometimes when I use that option it shows that there are geo-located ones that are faster, but it still connects me to another non-geo-located one which is slower. Sometimes, not even in my own country. I wish that there was an option to use geo-located servers automatically if they are faster.

On a different note, I wish there was an option to always automatically connect to the fastest server in a selected country. So, if I am on YouTube or Amazon and such, that it doesn’t connect to another country and route me to their version of those sites (ex. sending me to YouTube.ca instead of YouTube.com).

I know there is an option to favorite (with the heart) a specific region by clicking the heart next to it in the server list, and then you can use the shortcut to connect to whatever is currently the fastest server, but that’s not what I mean. It doesn’t work like the “connect automatically” option in that, it only connects you to whatever is currently the fastest option in the selected region once, then it sticks with that server. It will not switch and automatically connect you to another server if that other server becomes faster than the one you are currently connected to, like “connect automatically” does. And again, the favorite shortcut also doesn’t use geo-located regions even if they are the fastest in that region.

After doing a search, I saw a similar post on the topic here, but that was from two years ago and there was still no solution. Is there a way to have PIA auto connect, but ONLY to a USA server?

I wrote my own Linux shell scripts which (given enough shell scripting skill and a Linux host) could be adapted to any criteria you’re able to describe with code.

Windows is hard mode, can’t help you there.

They should change the name of the option to “choose randomly”.

I think the auto is based on ping times?

I wonder if you favourite a number of the servers available if the auto then uses this predefined list in preference for the entire list, for speedy connections?

I don’t know the real answer to this, but the first thing that comes to mind is that some people may prefer it to be random to avoid trackers being able to generalize their region.

It seems like overkill, but I know even some TOR clients recommend to run in a windowed VM to avoid someone being able to fingerprint you from the data of your screen size. Since the NSA is known go gather and store everything in the hopes of pooling it all and hoping to extract it in the future, you might as well randomize as much as possible.

Nice! I do run Linux sometimes, so if I run PIA on it, I may have to try that. Thanks!

I believe you are correct, but it shows (via the green number next to the server in the server list) that some of the geo-located servers have a faster ping than the one it decides to connect to; it just ignores them and connects to the fastest server that isn’t geo-located instead. That’s weird to me and not the behavior from the program that I would expect or like to see.

I don’t believe so, as I have favorited a few and have not noticed this behavior, but I could be wrong.