VPNs are becoming increasingly popular choice for those who are looking to keep their digital information secure and their online activity safe from prying eyes. If you’re new to the world of VPNs, here’s how it works in a nutshell: A VPN, or virtual private network, encrypts the connection between your device and the internet. This encrypted connection helps to protect your data, which is a must-have if you ever send or receive sensitive information over the internet.
A VPN can help you connect more securely to shared Wi-Fi, avoid data throttling by your internet service provider, and boost your personal safety by making it more difficult for private and public entities to view your browsing and search history. A bonus is that a VPN can also help you unblock geographically restricted content online while evading political censorship.
However, choosing the best VPN for your needs can be tricky. A flood of VPN providers has entered the marketplace over the past few years, which comes with benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, the array of affordable VPN options now available means that — no matter how critical or casual your privacy needs — there’s a VPN service suited to your purpose. But it also means consumers have to wade through even more VPN advertising hype. That’s why our hands-on testing and review process is designed to cut through the hype by putting each VPN through its paces. We’re not just examining VPNs for their technical weaknesses; we’re also looking for their individual performance strengths. We want to know what each service does best. We test each VPN across over 20 factors and we’re always improving our methodology as we learn more.
We test VPNs for browsing and streaming speed in multiple countries as well as their connection stability and even the smallest potential privacy leaks. By testing across multiple devices and platforms, we’re able to assess which VPNs are best for gaming versus those best for streaming, torrenting, or sharing sensitive information. Most importantly, we focus on doing the deep-dive research necessary to vet each VPN’s historical credibility and its ownership in a notoriously murky market. Based on those continued evaluations, you’ll see a few bullet points on each entry in our list, highlighting each VPN’s strengths and the uses we recommend it for most. And because we strive to keep on top of a fast-changing market, you’ll notice that the rank of each VPN service changes as we learn more and retest.
Editors’ note, Feb. 9, 2022: The VPN industry has undergone significant change in the past few months, with all three of our top VPN choices announcing major changes in corporate ownership. In December, ExpressVPN announced that it had officially joined Kape Technologies, a company that already owns several other VPNs and has raised privacy concerns in the past. In February, NordVPN and Surfshark announced the companies were merging, though they’ll continue to operate autonomously. We’re in the process of re-evaluating all of our top picks in light of these changes. We will update our reviews and, if necessary, our rankings to account for this new competitive landscape.
What’s the best VPN
- ExpressVPN received a CNET Editors’ Choice Award for best overall VPN. We evaluate VPNs based on their overall performance in three main categories: speed, security and price. Express isn’t the cheapest, but it’s among the fastest and, so far, is the most secure. (Note that we’re currently re-evaluating ExpressVPN based on the news mentioned above.)
- Surfshark, with its lower price, is a close second among our picks, thanks to its impressive performance and unlimited devices.
- NordVPN, our third choice, is a die-hard heavy hitter. It costs more than Surfshark but less than Express, has an enormous network that’s constantly getting faster and more secure and is easily the most reliable service we’ve tested.