Top 5 VPNs

All the VPNs in our top 5 list work with Netflix, allow torrenting/P2P traffic, support the safest encryption protocols, are compatible with all major operating systems, and have headquarters in countries that have beneficial privacy regulations.

These providers all meet the highest privacy and security standards and are reliable services with great reputations.

Each VPN service on this list offers a unique deal with its own set of advantages. While compiling our top 5, we closely studied the following factors:

• Security & reliability
• Privacy & logging
• Number of servers
• Cost
• Speed
• User-friendliness
• Customer support

VPN providers regularly offer special discounts on their packages. Each month, we look at the most attractive discount deals among the best VPNs. Currently, there are some great deals available at NordVPN and Surfshark, among others.

Perhaps the most competitive deal of this moment can be found at NordVPN. You can try out this top VPN with 63% off, for just $2.99 per month. It’s a fantastic deal that gives you the best VPN in the world at a very affordable price.

Surfshark also has a sharp offer for you. You can try this VPN for just $1.99 per month, making it one of the cheapest premium VPNs around. It’s discounted by up to 85%, so claim this discount today by clicking below!

1. NordVPN: The best VPN overall
2. Surfshark: The VPN with the best bang for your buck
3. ExpressVPN: The best VPN when money isn’t an issue
4. CyberGhost: Good VPN with the most extensive money-back-guarantee
5. Private Internet Access: Great VPN with the largest server network

Each VPN has its own unique advantages, such as specialized servers or high levels of encryption. We’ll shortly explain why each of these VPNs performed so well in our vigorous tests.

There are many VPN providers out there that will try to get you to subscribe to them. Therefore, most people have considerable difficulty picking a good service. There are just so many to choose from, and they all claim they’re the best. To make things a bit easier, we’ve summed up some of the most important considerations we made when creating this list. You might want to take these into account when choosing a VPN for yourself as well.

Many VPNs have paid subscriptions, but not all of them. Some won’t cost you any money. However, there’s no such thing as ‘free’ in the world (of VPNs). In other words, even the best free VPNs will cost you something, although not in the way you might expect. After all, companies want to make money, so they’ll have crafty revenue models hiding behind their free VPNs. Most of the time, these companies attempt to acquire your personal data as part of this revenue model – so they can use it for commercial purposes, for instance.

Past studies of over 300 free VPN apps have shown that free VPN providers often request access to all kinds of unnecessary information, such as your contacts, media files, and social media handles. On top of that, the encryption and security features of many free services turned out to lack in quality and effectiveness. A substantial part of free VPN services (about 35%) even installs malware on your device, endangering your online safety. In other words, free VPNs can be very dangerous to you and your device.

Moreover, many free VPNs limit their users in all kinds of ways, including data limits, speed restrictions, download caps, ads, and long waiting times when connecting to a server. For that reason, it’s usually a better idea to choose a paid VPN. Over the last few years, the prices of these services have gone down considerably, as illustrated by newcomer Surfshark. For just a small price, you’ll have a fast, reliable, and high-quality VPN service for your whole family. If you’re looking for the best VPN services on the market, a free version will inevitably let you down.

VPN providers don’t all have to abide by the same laws and regulations. Some providers are obliged to keep certain logs on users’ activities or to limit or even prohibit certain types of online traffic (such as torrenting). Among other factors, the country in which a VPN’s head offices are situated determines the laws that a provider has to take into account. After all, local laws, rights, and obligations regarding the internet and privacy vary per country. As you may have suspected already, most VPN users wish to hide their online behavior. In these cases, mandatory logging of all user data makes a VPN pretty much useless.

Luckily not all VPN providers are obligated to follow such laws. NordVPN, for example, scores some extra points because they’re based in Panama, where the legislature benefits consumers and companies when it comes to internet privacy. NordVPN isn’t obligated to keep logs, whereas some providers in other countries are.

When it comes to logging, it’s important to consider exactly which information is being logged about you. None of the providers in our top 5 are obliged to keep any logs. We have made this a requirement to qualify for a place in our top 5 VPN providers of 2022. You can be sure that your online behavior and browsing history won’t be saved as long as you use their servers correctly.

While compiling our top 5, we also asked ourselves: Is the price a VPN is asking reasonable considering their features? VPNs aren’t super expensive, but you still want to find the best deal. It’s important to check if you are getting value for money. We believe that a higher price doesn’t always equal better quality.

The general rule with most VPN providers is that the longer the subscription you choose, the cheaper the price per month. It’s therefore often smart to protect your devices with the same VPN for a longer period of time. As a result, it becomes even more important to choose the best VPN provider for your situation right from the start, if you really want to save money.

Almost all VPN services we’ve tested offer multiple simultaneous connections. This means you can activate and use the VPN connection on multiple devices at the same time. Having this possibility is very useful. After all, you don’t want your phone to suddenly be unprotected the moment you turn on your VPN on your laptop. An extra factor to keep in mind, however, is the compatibility of the VPN you choose. Of course, it’d be convenient if your VPN actually works on all your different devices. When we made our selections for our top 5, we awarded extra points to VPN providers that work well with multiple operating systems, most importantly Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and even Linux when possible.

When assessing the different providers, we paid special attention to the server network and the number of servers every VPN provider had to offer. How many servers and server locations does a VPN provider offer? A server network with good coverage around the world is important for good connection speed, but also for ultimate freedom. If you want to view specific streaming services or unblock sites from a specific country, it is often necessary to connect to a VPN server from that specific country. That is why it is also important that all VPN providers have enough servers in the right places.

It is generally a good sign if a VPN service offers multiple VPN protocols. This provides you with more options for unblocking and security. Though it’s also important to look at the quality of the protocol. Some VPN providers only focus on one or two protocols, but they make sure they’re the safest they can be. Others might opt for a wider variety of protocols, to aid with unblocking the internet in certain regions. We make sure to look at both of these aspects when determining whether a VPN is safe or not.

If a provider has a kill switch, it also earns extra points. If you have an activated kill switch, your internet activities will automatically be interrupted if the connection to the VPN server is lost. This means you never accidentally lose your secure connection without realizing it.

In addition, it is good to look at what exactly the company behind a VPN service does with your data. Can the company behind the VPN be trusted? In the past, some VPN providers have not been completely truthful about logging user data. That is why we pay close attention to this issue.