The title of fastest VPN isn’t just about bragging rights – speed is a crucial element in your choice. We take a look at the top VPN performers when it comes to raw speed.
Sometimes it’s hard for a VPN to stand out from the crowd. All of them claim watertight security, website unblocking skills, and an array of easy-to-use apps and clients. Some of those boasts are pretty subjective – but figuring out and ranking the fastest VPNs is way more clear cut. And it’s a very important metric for these services, too. Because VPNs work by sending all your internet traffic via your chosen provider’s secure server (twice, in some cases), that’s a lot of extra potential latency. Thankfully, by going for one of the best fast VPNs, you can pretty much avoid any slow down completely. Depending on the robustness of the company’s network and the number of servers it offers (with closer servers generally providing better speeds), some VPNs barely impact your connection. And we’ve tested all the top providers out there on their speed to make sure that you can confidently pick out a provider that won’t slow you down – especially if you’re using your service to unblock sites or services and perhaps stream video, where having the fast VPN speed is obviously a priority. Today’s top 3 best fast VPNs NordVPN is fast becoming one of those brand names that’s just synonymous with the product itself – a bit like Hoover or Tannoy. And a good reason for its huge popularity (as well as all the advertising it does) is because of its speed. When we tested it via US servers, we found connections speeds of up to 880Mb when you use its very own (well, WireGuard-based) NordLynx protocol. Now, there aren’t too many homes around that have broadband as fast as that anyway, so don’t expect your streaming or downloading speeds to suffer very much at all if you have NordVPN switched on in the background. We also found that NordVPN has nailed things in terms of consistency on global servers, too. The UK speeds we saw, for example, were pretty much on a par with the US. That’s great news for travellers or people trying to access streaming feeds from other countries. Outside that, NordVPN really comes good in terms of security and privacy. Its no-logs policy is independently audited and it brings features like Double VPN and Onion Over technology to the table to ensure that your private details will never be leaked. And if you’ve got the need for speed, we reckon it’s because you’re probably looking for a top streaming VPN. Nord has you covered on that front, too – it nails US Netflix, unhooks Hulu, delves into Disney+ and unblocks BBC iPlayer. And there’s some really attractive pricing options available, too – especially if you up your subscription to a multiyear plan. ExpressVPN comes in just below NordVPN in our chart – although we ummed and ahhed about putting it all the way to the top.
