VPN advice (UK)?
I've been advised by a internet whiz kid acquaintance that one way to prevent your ISP from keeping a full record of all your internet activity is to use a VPN. Sadly the acquaintance is just a chap in the local pub who isn't the easiest person to have a meaningful conversation with, or ask questions of directly, as he's a bit of an odd bloke really (likeable enough, but what I think many might call a bit of a nerd).
Anyway, although I don't think I've done anything unlawful whilst browsing the web, I have encountered some odd effects from "adult site blocking" options from my mobile ISP. They block PPRuNe by default, for example, as being a "site that contains adult material". Having looked at the amount of tracking, privacy intrusion etc in newer operating systems and software, and the apparent ineptness of ISP blockers to work properly, I'm quite keen to keep what I do online my business, and my business only, purely for the reason that I value my own privacy highly.
The "Snoopers Charter" is going to make ISPs keep records of everyone's internet browsing, and frankly I consider that to be an intrusion into my privacy, equivalent to the state opening my personal mail. Having spent most of my working life in the public sector, I'm well aware that the government is pretty hopeless at anything that involves data and privacy...............
So, I've done a fair bit of internet searching, and found that there are loads of companies offering VPN services, at reasonable prices. I've read many reviews, but frankly I'm even more confused than I was when I started!
At first, I considered using my low-power, always-on, Linux home server as a VPN, using OpenVPN. The snag with this is the asymmetric speeds of my connection, where my upload speed is capped at only 2Mb/s, which I believe would make browsing through my own VPN pretty slow (happy to be corrected if I have misunderstood this).
My needs are modest, I rarely stream video, don't use peer-to-peer sharing, don't use music from the web (like Spotify or similar) and mainly use the web for general browsing, trying to start a blog (still going up the learning curve with that!) and occasionally using BBC iPlayer for radio and even less often for TV. I rarely exceed around 10Gb per month download in total, on all devices (PCs, laptop, iPad and an Android tablet). I have two internet services, one mobile on the Android tablet (which I sometimes use as a wifi hotspot) and a fixed FTTC VDSL2 home connection, that's not spectacularly fast, as we're a fair way from the fibre cabinet (around 27Mb/s DL, a capped 2Mb/s upload). If I REALLY want to communicate with securely (only with three former colleagues who are friends and paranoid about privacy, IMHO), then I very occasionally use the TOR Browser, but that's very slow.
The simple question is: "Has anyone got any recommendations for a reasonably affordable VPN, with a good track record for security and that won't slow my internet use down to any great degree, please?" I should add that I'm in the UK, so the VPN servers would have to be based somewhere outwith the reach of UK/US law.