Surfing the web through a virtual private network (VPN) can keep your identity and data safe and secure online. We show you what to look for in a VPN and help you pick the best one for your needs.
Choosing the right virtual private network (VPN) service is no simple task. A VPN should keep your internet usage private and secure, but not every service handles your data in the same way. Our quick-hit recommendations Rest assured, we’ve done the legwork to determine if a VPN service has a history of good or bad behavior. A service has to protect online privacy; allow you to keep anonymity; offer a good variety of locations from which to direct your traffic; offer fast, reliable performance; and provide an easy-to-use interface. Scroll to the bottom of this article to learn more about VPNs and what to look for when choosing one. Sweden-based Mullvad is like the Swiss Bank account of VPNs. Instead of attaching your account to an email address, the company auto-generates an account number for you, which is all that’s required to log in. Mullvad now offers a much improved and user friendly interface, its speeds are good, and the company takes privacy very seriously. It’s hard to select the best overall VPN. Some services are weaker on privacy, but are significantly easier to use, while others could stand an interface redesign. Nevertheless, the point of a VPN is to remain private and to have your internet activity kept as private as possible. For that reason, we’re choosing Mullvad as the best overall VPN (see our full review of Mullvad). The company recently released an overhauled desktop client, and the VPN does a great job at privacy. Mullvad doesn’t ask for your email address, and you can mail your payment in cash if you want to. Like many other VPNs, Mullvad has a no-logging policy and doesn’t even collect any identifying metadata from your usage. Mullvad is also fast, though not the fastest VPN we’ve tested. Last year, we said if Mullvad added a more user-friendly interface it would be nearly unbeatable and that is definitely the state of affairs at this writing. OVPN is a relatively small VPN service that takes privacy very seriously. It’s on the expensive side at $84 per year, and the country choice is also limited to 14, with less than 100 servers in the network. The good news is the speeds are much better than they were, it now supports U.S. Netflix streaming, and multi-hop is free for six-month and annual subscribers. If you like Mullvad’s focus on privacy, but want a service with more features take a look at OVPN. This service offers solid speeds, and it has excellent methods for protecting user privacy. On top of that, OVPN officially supports Netflix streaming for the U.S., Germany, and Sweden, and annual subscribers get its multi-hop feature for free. It’s expensive, and the country list is smaller than many services, but its approach to privacy is very interesting and hard to beat. (See our full review of OVPN). Windscribe won’t win any speed showdowns compared to other VPNs we’ve looked at, but it’s still got some great servers in Europe and North America. The service also has added extras like a link shortener with warnings about ad trackers on the destination page, and it currently works with U.S. Netflix. If you live outside the U.S. (or are a U.S. resident and traveling abroad), a VPN is the only way to access Netflix’s US library. But ever since Netflix began blocking VPNs, few services even bother to do battle with the streaming behemoth. Fortunately, there are some brave companies that are still trying to stay one step ahead of Netflix’s VPN catchers. Currently, Windscribe Pro is our top choice. The service delivers good speeds on its U.S. servers, and has a very simple approach to Netflix: Just select the “Windflix” connection from the desktop app or browser extension and you’re good to go. Windflix is still technically in beta, but it works well and there’s even a Windflix U.
