The answer can be found in our ranking of the best VPN services, which we’ve compiled based on our testing.

Best VPN Services

This year, the following VPN services performed best in our tests:

While there is no one-size-fits-all VPN service that will be perfect for everyone, you can’t go wrong by purchasing one of the VPN services listed above. Any of the recommended VPN services in our review may be the best one for you – it all depends on your unique needs.

The goal of creating this review was to identify the best VPN services on the market that meet at least the following criteria:

• Passed all tests with no data leaks detected (IP address leaks or DNS leaks)
• Excellent performance across the entire server network (connection speed and reliability)
• High quality VPN applications with all functionalities working properly
• Supports WireGuard, OpenVPN and other robust and proven data encryption standards
• Provides a money-back guarantee (from 7 to 30 days)
• Trusted and proven VPN service providers with a good reputation
• Located in a secure privacy jurisdiction (outside of the Five Eyes Alliance countries – USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand)

Here is our ranking of the best VPN services:

1. NordVPN – the current market leader in VPN services

Service name: NordVPN
Jurisdiction: Panama
Logging: none (audited)
Price: from 2,99 €
Support: live chat 24/7
Refund: 30 days
Website: NordVPN.com

NordVPN has maintained its high standards for quite some time, but in recent years it has already firmly established itself as one of the top virtual private networking services and has even increased its lead over a number of competing services.

It was one of the first VPN services to implement the NordLynx protocol into its products, built on the modern and fast WireGuard security protocol. This has given NordVPN (and its users) a huge advantage over other leading services. Unsurprisingly, it was among the fastest VPNs in almost every country in our tests.

NordVPN has many other privacy features (and even higher levels of security) in its offering:

• Threat Protection feature to block ads, tracking codes, malware, and phishing domains
• Double VPN servers for encrypting data transmissions across two servers (without significant loss of data transfer speed)
• Tor-over-VPN servers that add an additional layer of encryption over the Tor network

The service has a very fast and secure server network at its disposal. All servers run in RAM-disk mode (no physical hard disks, only server memory is used).

Another huge benefit is the fact that NordVPN recently announced that it is gradually rolling out high-speed dedicated servers for its entire network. These servers will have up to 10 Gbps of bandwidth assigned to them, and will gradually replace all the servers that the company has been leasing from third parties.

At the moment, NordVPN has around 5,400 servers in 59 countries around the world.

NordVPN has also successfully passed several independent security audits, which have confirmed that its operations comply with the rules it states in its terms of use. It has an ongoing partnership with the auditing company Versprite, which conducts product security audits and penetration tests.

With top speeds and strong security, NordVPN is a top-rated VPN service for torrenting, and it also works very well for all the major streaming services, including Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Disney Plus, and more. You can also use the NordVPN app if you need a VPN for Firestick, Smart TVs, or gaming consoles.

NordVPN also offers a service called obfuscated servers, which obfuscate data traffic over VPNs, much like regular HTTPS encryption does. This is a useful feature for circumventing censorship in countries that prohibit VPN use (for example, when using VPNs in China). However, this functionality can also be used in school networks or in workplaces that try to block traffic over VPNs.

All NordVPN subscriptions come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. In addition, with a long-term subscription, you get a discount of up to 74%, which works out at only 2,99 € per month of use. That’s excellent value for money.

There’s great round-the-clock support via live chat available 24/7.

You can read a detailed review of NordVPN by clicking here.

NordVPN

★★★★★

2,99 € 12,99 €

Discount of 74% for VPN365 readers

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2. Surfshark VPN – rising star among VPN services

Service name: Surfshark VPN
Jurisdiction: British Virgin Islands
Logging: none (audited)
Price: from 1,99 €
Support: live chat 24/7
Refund: 30 days
Website: SurfShark.com

Surfshark VPN, which only officially launched in 2018, has taken the world of VPN services by storm. Despite being a relative newcomer, Surfshark offers a lot of interesting features, great data leak protection settings, access to many streaming services, and excellent performance, all at a great price. What’s more, Surfshark comes with one big advantage you won’t find with most other VPN services – it provides unlimited connections.

Surfshark is based in the British Virgin Islands and logs absolutely no data about your internet activity, which has been officially verified by the independent auditing company Cure53. Surfshark apps include a good data leak protection setup to ensure that data remains encrypted and secure, even in the event of any outages in your connection to VPN servers. There’s also a CleanWeb feature to block ads, tracking codes, and malware domains.

Similar to our other top recommended VPN services, Surfshark now runs all servers in RAM-disk mode (without physical hard drives) for added security. It offers multiple server configurations with dual protection, allowing you to encrypt data traffic across up to two VPN servers simultaneously.

Additionally, Surfshark uses a modern and highly secure version of the WireGuard protocol, and connection and data transfer speeds were at least as good as NordVPN’s.

If you want to stream media or unblock websites, Surfshark is a great choice with over 3,200 servers in 63 countries around the world. It currently supports more than 16 regional Netflix libraries, as well as most other streaming services including BBC iPlayer, Hulu, and Disney Plus. It’s also a great VPN for Android and iOS.

Surfshark continues to gain widespread popularity, and is a strong competitor to the NordVPN and ExpressVPN pair. It is also one of the cheapest VPN services on the market with a long-term subscription. You can get the service with a discount of 87%, which is just 1,99 € per month of use. This is another option offering an excellent performance/price ratio.

All Surfshark subscription plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. There is also round-the-clock support via live chat.

You can read a detailed review of Surfshark VPN by clicking here.

Surfshark VPN

★★★★★

1,99 € 15,45 €

Discount of 87% for VPN365 readers

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3. ProtonVPN – the VPN service with the most progress

Service name: ProtonVPN
Jurisdiction: Switzerland
Logging: none (audited)
Price: from 2,49 €
Support: live chat, email
Refund: 30 days (partial refund only)
Website: ProtonVPN.com

ProtonVPN has had a quality few years since its launch in 2017, regularly ranking in the top ten VPN services we’ve recommended to our readers. In past years, it was the secure email service ProtonMail that always excelled in Proton Technologies’ product portfolio. However, recent years have changed everything, as the service has come up with a number of innovations that have taken it to the highest level.

Right at the beginning of January 2021 came the NetShield function, which is tasked with blocking malware, ads, and tracking codes on websites. NetShield is available on Android, iOS, macOS and Windows, and offers two levels of protection. The first level prevents your browser from loading resources from domains that host malware, spyware, or other malicious software. Malware protection is enabled by default. The second level of protection available blocks ads and tracking codes.

In June 2021, a new application was released for Linux systems. It features a sophisticated and fully-functional graphic user interface that makes it much easier to use. ProtonVPN is the only VPN service that offers a full-featured and free open-source Linux app.

In July 2021 the company launched the VPN Accelerator function, which improves VPN connection stability and can increase data transfer speeds by more than 400% in certain situations. VPN Accelerator is a technology unique to ProtonVPN, and should better leverage the capabilities of the large network of VPN servers at the company’s disposal. If you’re the technical type and are interested in learning more about this service, you can find more information here.

In October 2021, the company incorporated the advanced, fast and secure WireGuard protocol into its products. The benefits of this protocol are faster speeds, near instant connections to servers, better performance, and increased battery life for your devices. WireGuard is extremely fast and lightweight, open source, and, combined with VPN Accelerator technology, is another major performance leap forward. WireGuard is the default protocol via Smart Protocol technology for all ProtonVPN users on Windows, macOS, iPhone/iPad, Android, Chromebook and Android TV.

By the end of October 2021, ProtonVPN had already expanded to 63 countries worldwide, with the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, Nigeria and Georgia being added in succession. For these servers, Smart Routing technology has been used, where the server is not physically in the country, but a virtual location is used. Similarly, connectivity in other problematic countries such as Brazil, South Korea and Taiwan are also being addressed. The network has also been expanded with four new servers at the Limassol data centre in Cyprus.

Also in October 2021, ProtonVPN launched a live chat. Users no longer have to rely solely on an online form and subsequent email communication. Any user with a subscription to the service can now get help and answers to their questions in real-time via a live chat with the support team. Support is available on weekdays from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

ProtonVPN has eliminated almost all of the issues that we have faulted it for in the past, and the VPN apps themselves have also undergone several improvements over the years. They are the best we can currently find among VPN services in terms of functionality, design, and ease of use.

The measured data transfer speeds were competitive with the best players on the market, which was also not the standard in the past.

In April 2022, the service passed an external audit by the renowned Securitum company, which confirmed that ProtonVPN is indeed a service that does not log its customers’ activities.

The service is available for a long-term subscription with a 75% discount, which is only 2,49 € per month of use.

You can read a detailed review of ProtonVPN by clicking here.

ProtonVPN

★★★★★

2,49 € 9,99 €

Discount of 75% for VPN365 readers

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4. ExpressVPN – a quality stalwart among VPN services

Service name: ExpressVPN
Jurisdiction: British Virgin Islands
Logging: none (audited)
Price: from 4,99 $
Support: live chat 24/7
Refund: 30 days
Website: ExpressVPN.com

In a crowded market of VPN providers, ExpressVPN maintains a very high standard and has long maintained a top position in anonymity and security on the internet. While a number of VPN services struggle with multiple bugs and issues, ExpressVPN has been providing consistent quality service for several years now.

ExpressVPN offers its own Lightway protocol, unlike other services that rely on the widely available WireGuard protocol. However, Lightway is open source, so anyone can check it. However, Lightway is open source, so anyone can use it. In benchmark tests, we found that the Lightway protocol offers both higher speed and reliability than OpenVPN, as well as very similar results to the popular WireGuard.

ExpressVPN provides a network of high-security servers in 160 locations in 94 countries around the world (more than 3000 servers). Like NordVPN and Surfshark, ExpressVPN runs all servers in RAM-disk mode (without physical hard drives) with TrustedServer for data security. This technology has been independently audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has also verified and successfully confirmed compliance with the service’s policy of not logging user activity.

In addition to security, ExpressVPN also excels in streaming. It is one of the best VPN services for Netflix and provides uninterrupted access to its many regional libraries. ExpressVPN equally does well with Disney Plus, Hulu, and the BBC iPlayer service.

Additionally, it offers minimalist VPN apps with a clean design that are very reliable. Although ExpressVPN is slightly more expensive than some of our other recommended VPN services, it remains a safe and reliable choice for all users.

All subscription plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. ExpressVPN provides round-the-clock live chat support and many video guides.

You can get a long-term subscription service at a discount 61%, which is only 4,99 $ per month of use.

You can read a detailed review of ExpressVPN by clicking here.

ExpressVPN

★★★★★

4,99 $ 12,99 $

Discount of 61% for VPN365 readers

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ProtonVPN

★★★★★

2,49 € 9,99 €

Discount of 75% for VPN365 readers. The discount coupon is activated automatically by clicking the button below.

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ProtonVPN has made tremendous progress in the last two years. While in the past the service was overshadowed by ProtonMail’s flagship product, it now competes with the best VPN services on the market. The service has improved dramatically in virtually every area – from security to the speed of the servers on the network.

9.2

Verified VPN service

ProtonVPN

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WHAT WE LIKED

• A good jurisdiction for a VPN service
• Possibility to pay in cash
• Large network of servers
• Excellent speeds with WireGuard protocol
• Streaming support
• Multihop and ad blocking
• Open source applications
• The service has undergone third-party audits
• Free program (with restrictions)

WHAT COULD BE IMPROVED

• Lack of an app for routers
• Browser extensions and Smart DNS are missing
• Higher price
• Refund of an aliquot amount only

ProtonVPN is based in Switzerland, which is a great jurisdiction for VPN services. Switzerland is not part of the Five/Nine/Fourteen Eyes alliance and the country is very strict about protecting the privacy of companies and individuals. At the same time, it does not require companies to keep a history of their online activity.

The service was launched in 2017 and is backed by the renowned company Proton AG, which also offers ProtonMail (a secure email client), ProtonDrive (secure file storage, synchronization and sharing) and ProtonCalendar (a secure calendar).

Proton AG was founded in 2014 by a team of scientists, engineers and developers who met at CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research) to create ProtonMail, the world’s largest encrypted email service. In total, its products protect more than 70 million people worldwide.

ProtonVPN is one of the VPN services that has undergone a third-party audit, which has confirmed that the company adheres to a policy of not logging data about its users. The audit was carried out in 2022 by the renowned Securitum company from Poland.

Apps for all operating systems were also audited in 2019. These audits were carried out by SEC Consult from Lithuania. The other good news is that all applications are open source.

Of course, there is also the Bug Bounty program. Proton AG has prepared a reward for every user who finds security holes in their applications.

ProtonVPN has more than 1700 servers in 64 countries around the world. This is a very decent server network that will satisfy even the most demanding users. At the end of 2022, ProtonVPN had servers in every country in the European Union.

In addition, ProtonVPN uses only its own dedicated servers, which are encrypted, but do not operate in RAM mode (they have classic hard drives).

The service also uses virtual server locations, but only for ten countries (Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, South Korea, India, Nigeria, Egypt, Puerto Rico, Ecuador). The company refers to this technology as Smart Routing and states on its website:

In our speed tests, ProtonVPN scored great results, which is an excellent improvement over the past. We tested the service on a Windows system with the WireGuard protocol set up. All tests were performed on a dedicated 500 Mbps network located in Hungary at different time intervals.

Connections were stable, did not fluctuate and worked without interruptions. The connection speed to the servers was very fast. Switching between VPN servers was very comfortable.

Nearest / recommended server (Slovakia)

• Lowest measured speed: 362,73 Mbps
• Highest measured speed: 427,89 Mbps
• Average measured speed: 404,78 Mbps
• Average PING: 40 ms

England, London

• Lowest measured speed: 199,38 Mbps
• Highest measured speed: 374,74 Mbps
• Average measured speed: 353,48 Mbps
• Average PING: 62,43 ms

USA, New York

• Lowest measured speed: 57,71 Mbps
• Highest measured speed: 166,02 Mbps
• Average measured speed: 139,09 Mbps
• Average PING: 133,32 ms

Australia, Melbourne

• Lowest measured speed: 62,87 Mbps
• Highest measured speed: 109,93 Mbps
• Average measured speed: 104,61 Mbps
• Average PING: 318,19 ms

ProtonVPN encrypts all network traffic using AES-256 or ChaCha20 encryptors, both of which are extremely secure. VPN connections that use OpenVPN or IKEv2 are secured using AES-256. While no encryption is unbreakable, it would take billions of years for even the most advanced computers to break AES-256 by brute force attack. With WireGuard, your connection is encrypted with ChaCha20, which is an advanced encryption cipher that is just as secure as AES-256 (and slightly faster).

Proton VPN uses the gold standard protocols – WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2.

OpenVPN

When properly configured, this proven open source protocol is recognized by the cybersecurity community as secure. The advantage of OpenVPN is that it can be used with UDP and TCP. UDP is faster, but with TCP we can configure OpenVPN to use the same port as HTTPS, which secures all sensitive communications on the Internet. This makes OpenVPN effective for censorship, for example.

IKEv2

IKEv2 is a modern, fast and secure VPN protocol that Proton VPN implements at its strongest encryption settings. It uses the Diffie-Hellman process for key exchange.

WireGuard

WireGuard is open source and is also faster than traditional VPN protocols. It uses the advanced ChaCha20 cipher to protect your VPN connection.

ProtonVPN supports a variety of devices/operating systems:

• Windows
• macOS
• iOS
• Android
• Android TV
• Amazon Fire TV
• Linux

There is a lack of browser plug-ins (Chrome, Firefox, Edge) and also a Smart DNS service that would work on smart TVs and gaming consoles. ProtonVPN doesn’t even have a dedicated application for routers.

The ProtonVPN apps are the best-designed apps we’ve ever tested, and they don’t lag behind functionally either. During testing, we did not observe any bugs or data leaks.

Of course, ProtonVPN also has a Kill Switch function, which disconnects you from the Internet in the event of a connection failure via the VPN server.

You’ll also find a Split tunneling feature that lets you specify which apps should go through the VPN tunnel and which shouldn’t.

Virtually all streaming services use software to geo-block content. Proton VPN has many servers that can bypass this blocking. In the past, he has been much less successful in this regard.

There is now an arrow icon in the list of servers to indicate that the server is suitable for streaming. After clicking on the icon, you will even see a list of streaming platforms that you should be able to connect to without any problems.

In the image below, you can see that Germany has dozens of servers that can unblock Amazon Prime Video, DAZN, Disney+, Netflix and more.

We connected to the server in Berlin and all the services worked well. ProtonVPN seems to have done a great job in this respect.

If you’re downloading content from P2P services like BitTorrent, you really need a fast, stable, but also secure VPN. You really don’t want to get in trouble with a multi-billion dollar company for copyright infringement.

ProtonVPN supports torrenting as long as you use one of their P2P enabled servers. To make a connection, find the name of a country that is physically close to your current location and next to it is the icon for P2P (marked in red in the screenshot below).

Given the measured server speeds, ProtonVPN is a great choice for file sharing.

Secure Core (Multi-hop)

ProtonVPN is one of the few VPN providers that offer multi-hop or dual VPN servers. With this connection, your traffic is encrypted through two separate VPN servers. They call this functionality Secure Core. It can be activated on the main screen and provides a large number of connection combinations.

Despite connecting through two servers, the connection speed was not dramatically lower. For example, for the combination of Iceland and Hungary we measured the following values:

• Lowest measured speed: 66,33 Mbps
• Highest measured speed: 144,41 Mbps
• Average measured speed: 136,87 Mbps
• Average PING: 193 ms

Tor over VPN

If you’re looking for an extra level of encryption and anonymity beyond a one-hop VPN server, another option is to use Onion-over-VPN servers (with the onion icon), which encrypt traffic using the Tor network in addition to a regular VPN server.

NetShield

On the main screen, you can enable the NetShield feature with two options:

• blocking malware (malicious software)
• blocking malware, ads and tracking codes

The feature gets rid of annoying ads and improves page loading speed. It also eliminates tracking codes from marketing companies.

Port Forwarding

Port forwarding routes connections through the firewall that Proton VPN uses to protect customers. It’s a feature that’s mainly useful for people who download and share files using P2P protocols like BitTorrent, although it can improve performance for online gamers as well.

Stealth protocol

In October 2022, ProtonVPN introduced a new proprietary protocol called Stealth. It is a protocol that can bypass most firewalls and VPN service blocking methods. This allows you to access censored sites and communicate with people on social networks, even if your government is trying to restrict your access. Stealth protocol is currently available on Android, macOS and iOS.

For live chat support, you must be logged into your account and have purchased a subscription.

For this review, we tried ProtonVPN customer support several times and everything worked well and without any problems.

In all of our interactions, it didn’t take long to connect with a representative (usually less than a minute). The staff answered our questions reliably.

Other users have to use email support or the contact form, which also work very quickly and without problems.

ProtonVPN is certainly not one of the cheapest services on the market. However, with a long-term subscription (given the quality of the service) you get a fair monthly price.

You can request a refund within 30 days of purchasing the service, but you will only get back an aliquot amount (for example, if you used the service for 15 days, you will get back half of the amount you paid).

ProtonVPN also offers a free program, but it is quite limited. You can only connect to servers in three countries, speed is limited, multihop and ad blocking are not available, and there are no servers for streaming and torrenting. If you want to use the full potential of the service, you need to go to the paid Plus program.

Payment is available by credit cards, bank transfer, PayPal and cryptocurrencies. If you are looking for total anonymity, you can also send money by post in cash.

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