We’ve all been tempted to download a torrent file at some point in our lives. Today, however, the laws and enforcement surrounding torrents are significantly stricter than in the past and may lead to a legal penalty of $150,000 and even jail for the convicted infringer.
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As a result, users are quite concerned with finding a way to stay below the radar of authorities keeping an eye out for anyone who might be guilty of downloading torrents.
These concerns are the reason behind why more and more people are considering torrenting with VPN.
Although there is no question about a VPN’s ability to enable users to keep their identity hidden and thus stay safe from legal notices, not all VPNs are secure or suitable for the purpose of torrenting.
We have reviewed over 123 VPNs over the years, but only a few fall into the criteria to be considered as the best VPN for torrenting.
These criteria, in order of importance, are:
- Torrenting policy – Whether torrenting is allowed by a VPN provider on their servers
- Jurisdiction – Torrent friendly VPN jurisdiction is an absolute must. The importance of a VPN with jurisdiction outside the 5, 9, or 14 Eyes is paramount for safe torrenting.
- Logging Policy – What types of data are logged by the VPN?
- IP leaks – Does it leak a user’s real IP address?
- Speed – Is it the fastest VPN torrenting?
In this article, I will go into the depth of 5 torrent VPN providers that meet all the criteria outlined above.
But first, let’s see exactly what makes VPNs for torrenting so essential in the modern day and age. If you’re new and don’t know how to torrent with VPN, or how to use a VPN torrenting, you might find our torrent guide useful.
Why torrenting without VPN is NOT safe
If you’re wondering is torrenting safe, it is but only if you’re properly safeguarding yourself.
In literally every part of the world, there are laws protecting copyrights of the individual who owns a product or intellectual property (IP).
But on the Internet, it gets really tricky to protect copyrights because of how easy it is to download, share, and exchange files without obtaining the permission of the file’s owner.
To protect the right to ownership of content creators, the US enacted the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) in 1998.
Under this law, if you’re the owner of an IP that is being distributed on the web through torrents or any other filesharing method, then you can send a DMCA notice to the concerned parties and ask for a cessation of the activity and removal of the content.
The increasing pressure from IP owners from various industries (primarily music, film, and gaming) has led to an increase in such infringement notices.
Here’s a user who got a notice from their ISP for torrenting the movie Justice League:
This user’s tenant got a similar notice for downloading certain files via torrents:
In almost all such cases, there is one thing in common: the user downloaded and seeded the torrent without turning on a VPN.
Do you really need a VPN for Torrenting?
Although most you do know what is torrenting and all the risks associated with it, however, I’m still going to briefly discuss the need for a torrent VPN.
A torrent VPN routes all your traffic to a remote VPN server owned by the provider who is ideally under the jurisdiction of a country with laws that protect the online privacy of users.
Some of these countries even have more relaxed legislation for online piracy compared to countries like the US and UK.
For instance, in order to provide users access to torrenting, VPN providers use virtual servers in countries with few or no restrictions on torrenting.
Since a VPN transmits your data packets to a VPN server before it reaches your ISP, your online activities are effectively cloaked from the view of the ISP.
This action also leads to your IP address is changed to that of the server you are connected to (which may be from anywhere in the world).
So if third-party tries to hack or track your activities, they won’t be able to pinpoint your exact location or your real identity.
But getting caught downloading torrents red-handed can have repercussions far worse than simply receiving legal notices.
In fact, many individuals have been penalized with hefty fines in the USA as well as other countries for downloading torrents without the use of a torrent VPN.
Note: We strictly discourage any activity involving copyright infringement and urge readers to ONLY download legal torrents.
Copyright Infringement Penalties for Downloading Torrents around the World
The legal penalties for copyright infringement via torrents or any other digital means vary for each country. Countries like Switzerland is considered one of the best VPN location for torrenting.
Let’s see some recent legal cases relating to torrenting and the laws that apply to some of the countries that are the worst places to be download torrents in without a torrent VPN.
United States
Is torrenting illegal in US?
Well in the United States, copyright infringement is penalized by law. Anyone found guilty of downloading copyrighted material without the permission of the authors can be jailed for up to five years and/or fined a maximum sum of $150,000 per file [Source].
Last year, more than 1,000 lawsuits were filed against people in the United States against users suspected of downloading copyrighted material via torrents.
Copyright enforcement in the US is considered the strictest in the world for this reason. Hence knowing how to torrent anonymously is absolutely crucial.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom enacted the Digital Economy Act which increased the maximum prison sentence for copyright infringement from two years to 10 years.
Although it is unlikely that you, the average user, downloading movies or songs through torrents will face such a harsh penalty, even a day in prison isn’t a risk worth taking.
All popular torrent websites are blocked in the UK, so you can’t even access these without a VPN.
But a VPN that grants you access to torrent sites isn’t necessarily secure enough to hide your identity and prevent receiving dreaded legal notices.
Canada
The Copyright Modernization Act (aka “Bill C-11”) passed in 2012 requires ISPs and even VPN providers in the Canadian jurisdiction to forward legal notices to their subscribers downloading torrents.
The providers will face a fine of up to $10,000 for failure to comply with this requirement.
What’s worse, the law demands VPNs to retain logs of subscribers for a minimum of six months, which is another reason why it is a bad idea to use a VPN service that is within the jurisdiction of Canada.
For copyright infringement for non-commercial purposes (which is the case for most people downloading torrents), a copyright owner can press for charges between $100 to $5,000s.
Australia
Online pirates in Australia can face fines up to AUD 117,000 as well as five years imprisonment. The government is now passing even stricter anti-piracy law to protect copyright holders.
The maker of the Hollywood film Dallas Buyers Club reported identifying 4,726 IP addresses who illegally downloaded the film, many of whom were Australians.
The case was dropped by the filmmakers, but if they had pursued, a lot of Australians would have been in trouble for it and would have had to pay some fine.
Since the Australian government is on the verge of completely banning torrenting, it makes all the sense in the world to use a VPN. If you’re like me and hate restrictions, you might find our best VPN for torrenting Australia useful.
Germany
Online piracy is prohibited in Germany, with first-time offenders legally required to pay $200 in fines, with the maximum penalty being $1,300 for an individual, non-commercially motivated pirates.
However, the country is much harsher for operators of online piracy and torrenting sites, as when it sentenced the owner of torrent.to to 3 years and 10 months in prison.
All these instances show that piracy is taken very seriously in most leading nations of the world and the repercussions of getting caught can be severe.
This is the ultimate case for why it is important to use a VPN service for torrenting.
5 Best VPN Services for Torrenting
So, what is the best VPN for torrenting?
Well, the 5 VPNs described below are evaluated on the level of privacy, security, and speed that they offer.
In addition to that, the VPNs discussed below offer powerful VPN obfuscation to bypass even the most robust firewalls.
One thing which is not covered here is VPN transparency, but you can learn more about that in our transparency guide.
Anyways, now its time to see which VPNs have the capabilities necessary (on the basis of the criteria outlined at the start) to ensure a safe torrenting experience.
Note: These VPNs are tested much more rigorously on a wider range of parameters in our dedicated guide on the best VPNs of 2019.
1. ExpressVPN for Torrenting
ExpressVPN has satisfied millions of users with its smooth service around the world. It covers all the bases that you should expect from a top-rated premium VPN in the line of protecting your torrenting activities. To sum it up, ExpressVPN is perhaps the best VPN for downloading torrents in the market right now.
Torrenting policy: The provider supports torrenting on all its servers and is compatible with all popular P2P (peer-to-peer) clients.
Jurisdiction: ExpressVPN lies in the offshore jurisdiction of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), which is a state favored by privacy advocates for their lack of mandatory data retention laws.
These states didn’t even shy away from putting John Lennon under surveillance, to speak nothing of what they could do to the average user (read the blog of FVEY and its impact on privacy for more information on this).
But that is only one factor of importance when it comes to maintaining strong torrent privacy, which brings us to the next important point…
Logging Policy: ExpressVPN has an excellent logging policy since it doesn’t keep any information about you that could trace back to your real identity or physical location.
Even if law enforcement authorities wanted to investigate you, they won’t be able to find anything if the VPN provider truly keeps no logs.
This is in fact what happened in 2017 when Turkish authorities scoured ExpressVPN’s servers for information about a suspect but ended up with nothing.
To be exact, the provider keeps no records whatsoever of the highlighted data below:
Not sure what these terms mean? Go through this extensive guide on VPN logging to educate yourself on these terms.
Coming back to ExpressVPN, the logging policy is extremely reassuring. You’d have to be extremely unlucky if you get any legal notices while torrenting with a VPN as committed to your privacy as ExpressVPN is.
IP Leak Test: A leaking IP can jeopardize all your effort to stay hidden and protected on the web while torrenting. ExpressVPN is equipped with the security features that ensure your IP doesn’t leak through the VPN tunnel, allowing you to securely torrent files.
This provider easily proved its ability to secure the IP of users from leaking, as our in-depth VPN leak test guide demonstrates.
In addition, the Network Lock (which is basically ExpressVPN’s built-in kill switch) disconnects you from the web immediately in case your VPN connection suffers a hiccup or is momentarily unavailable.
This event can easily expose your real IP address. With Network Lock, this VPN guard against such eventualities, reducing the legal risks associated with P2P filesharing.
Speed: ExpressVPN has a robust server network that delivers fast speeds with a high degree of consistency. On a 30 Mbps connection, it delivers speeds upwards of 25 Mbps.
Summary: ExpressVPN has everything it takes to be a sophisticated online privacy tool. The excellent combination of a privacy-friendly jurisdiction, great logging policy, IP leak protection, and fast speeds establishes this VPN as the best there is for the purpose of torrenting.
Read our ExpressVPN review to inform yourself further about the capabilities of this VPN.
Pros
- Outstanding server speeds
- Network Lock (kill switch) and IP leak protection
- Based in the British Virgin Islands (no data retention laws)
- Does not keep connection or usage logs
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- Expensive packages (but it is up for 49% discount on the 15-month deal)
2. Surfshark for Torrenting
Surfshark made its entry into the competitive industry of VPNs last year but has rapidly climbed to the top. Let’s see what makes it a good choice for secure and private torrenting:
Torrenting policy: Most Surfshark VPN servers support P2P sharing/torrenting.
Although the provider doesn’t prohibit the use of its servers for torrenting, does it actually have the mechanisms to cement your security and rule out the possibility of your identity leaking into the hands of law enforcement?
The next points will clarify this.
Jurisdiction: Like its counterpart ExpressVPN, Surfshark is headquartered in the BVI and is thus the recipient of the same jurisdictional benefits, allowing it to be free from any requirements for keeping user data logs.
This, of course, means that the provider can actually deliver on its promise of staying away from any sort of logging activities, enabling you to download torrents
Logging policy: The logging information that Surfshark keeps a record of is limited to your email address and registration-related information. The VPN does not collect logs of any data that can be used to compromise you on the web.
For any privacy-oriented user that wants to download torrents (let’s say, to try out a new video game to see whether you like it enough to then purchase it the legal way), Surfshark’s no-logging stance ensures that your safety is in good hands.
IP leak test: The strengths of Surfshark do not end with its jurisdiction and logging policy, it is also quite capable of consolidating your privacy further by preventing IP leaks.
The Windows, Mac, and iOS apps of Surfshark have a kill switch that you can enable to keep your web security from falling through the digital cracks, elevating your overall security considerably.
As such, if someone asks you what is the best VPN service for torrenting, then Surfshark has you covered on every front. Find out more in our detailed analysis of the VPN in Surfshark review.
Speed: The servers of Surfshark lack the consistent speeds that you might expect from say, ExpressVPN, but they’re still good enough to allow torrent downloading at decent speeds.
Summary: Surfshark is an excellent all-around VPN service that has all the important security, privacy, and speed factors that a VPN should possess to enable users to get around all P2P obstacles safely.
Additionally, it has a great range of extra features such as the ad-blocker (CleanWeb), split-tunneling (WhiteLister), and VPN chaining (MultiHop).
What’s more, it is currently available at the cheapest industry rate of $1.99/month. Believe it or not, Surfshark is by far the best cheap VPN for torrenting out there.
Pros
- P2P optimized servers
- Unlimited simultaneous connections
- Supports multi-hop for added security
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- Slightly inconsistent speeds
3. NordVPN for torrenting
If you’re like me and wondering how good is NordVPN P2P feature? Let me tell you it is beyond good.
NordVPN is one of the best VPN that allows torrenting on its servers. I’ll now show you why exactly it is held in such high esteem and whether it can serve the needs of the common NordVPN P2P users.
Torrenting policy: NordVPN has dedicated servers reserved for P2P networking. The provider offers a server recommendation page which you can use to find out the best server for torrenting in the location of your choice.
It is important that you only perform P2P on these recommended servers, as any other server won’t have the security and speed optimization that torrent-specific servers guarantee.
Jurisdiction: This VPN provider enjoys the great advantage of being under the jurisdiction of Panama, which is a that actually respect the online privacy of users.
With no obligation to retain user data, the company can truly follow a zero-logging policy without any pressure from government authorities.
Logging policy: There are no personally identifiable logs that NordVPN keeps that can be used to compromise your real identity. With no traffic, browsing, timestamp, or IP logs, there’s no way that anyone can investigate your activities on the web.
The combination of a safe jurisdiction and the commitment of NordVPN to protecting user privacy with no logs is what makes this VPN an ideal choice for safe torrenting.
IP leak test: It is harder for a VPN to ensure no IP leaks when the server network is as vast as NordVPN’s. However, it is a testament to the quality of this VPN since it keeps your IP from leaking effectively as evidenced below:
NordVPN’s kill switch technology for Windows and Mac has to be configured by the user by specifying which applications should automatically be shut down in case the VPN connection is interrupted.
Currently, it doesn’t have the capability to terminate Internet connection on a system level on Windows and Mac, which is a more efficient and convenient technique than individually terminating applications.
This feature, however, is much smoother on iOS and Android versions of NordVPN apps, which disable the Internet on a system level in the event of an interruption in the VPN connection.
Learn more about this VPN’s strengths and weaknesses in our NordVPN review.
Speed: Using a VPN torrenting often negatively impact speeds. However, this is not the case with NordVPN. In fact, the reputation of NordVPN as a high-speed VPN service is not without basis in reality. Most servers deliver fast speeds with a good degree of consistency.
Summary: NordVPN offers a lot of valuable features in addition to its outstanding core capabilities. Some of these extra features include Double VPN, which is basically the name given to the technique of VPN chaining – the process of moving user traffic through 2 distinct VPN servers – for added privacy and encryption.
Other than that, it has a built-in ad blocker (CyberSec) and Onion over VPN to layer your traffic through a maze of nodes and networks for greatly enhanced web anonymity and privacy.
It also has some servers primed for obfuscation that enable access to heavily restricted websites or services.
When you sum all these benefits together along with the fact that the 3-year plan is selling for $2.99/month, it is hard to find a better deal for users seeking a strong privacy solution for their torrenting needs.
Pros
- Dedicated servers for torrent filesharing
- No data or connection logs
- Jurisdiction in Panama
- Refund window of 30 days
Cons
- Technical errors with apps
4. PureVPN for Torrenting
VPN and torrenting go hand in hand. As long as I can remember, I’ve been using VPNs for torrenting anonymously.
PureVPN has an interesting history as a VPN provider, from being embroiled in and then revamping the privacy policy to avoid future mishaps of this sort.
The service has made enough improvements over the years to make into this list of best torrenting VPN. I’ve personally used PureVPN to download torrents anonymously and have never encountered any issues.
Torrenting policy: PureVPN supports P2P filesharing on a wide range of servers as highlighted by the provider.
As long as you are connected to these servers, you’ll face no obstacles when downloading torrents and also boost your privacy.
Jurisdiction: Hong Kong is a country with minimal censorship and pro-privacy digital laws. The headquarters of PureVPN is in Hong Kong, which exempts it from any obligations to retain user information of any kind.
Logging policy: No records of data that pose a threat to your online privacy are stored by PureVPN. The privacy policy statement of the provider starts right off by highlighting data they do not keep.
However, the provider does contradict its statement, later on, mentioning that they log bandwidth and IP address (for their Gravity feature only). Find out more about this VPN’s privacy policy in our detailed
IP leak test: As with other top-rated VPN services, PureVPN does not suffer from the problem of leaking IP address, making it fit as a torrent VPN.
The Windows app of PureVPN contains an Internet Kill Switch to automatically kill your VPN connection if it encounters temporary disconnection, keeping your real IP address from leaking to the regular web.
Unfortunately, this feature isn’t available on Mac, smartphones, and other platforms.
Speed: The high server speeds supported by PureVPN is one of the primary reasons that this service is so well-suited for the purposes of downloading torrents.
Summary: PureVPN doesn’t leave much to complain about, especially for Windows platforms where all its features are enabled including a kill switch and built-in ad-blocking.
You can avail this VPN to protect yourself while torrenting at only $2.95/month for a whole year. That is way cheaper than most alternatives.
More well-rounded coverage of this VPN is available on our PureVPN review.
Pros
- Hundreds of P2P-enabled servers
- Cheap pricing
- 31-day money return guarantee
- Reasonably good logging policy
Cons
- Occasional connectivity issues
5. CyberGhost for Torrenting
CyberGhost has been around for almost a decade and is a reputed service, especially among people who frequently perform P2P activities. In fact, calling it the best VPN for torrents wouldn’t be an overstatement. If you’re wondering how to torrent safely, go and grab yourself a subscription plan of CyberGhost.
Torrenting policy: CyberGhost has special servers dedicated to P2P. In the Windows and Mac versions of the app, these dedicated servers can be searched
Jurisdiction: CyberGhost is under Romanian jurisdiction which is another country that is free from the clutches of any data retention law.
Moreover, Romania is one of the countries in the Special 301 Watch List due to lax online piracy laws and poor enforcement against online copyright infringement through P2P.
This is one of the main reasons why CyberGhost enjoys high popularity among online pirates.
Logging policy: The provider has a clear logging policy which mentions all the data that they do or do not keep logs of as shown below:
With no obligation to store logs under Romanian law, it is easy for CyberGhost to truly avoid any type of logging that could harm the online privacy of users.
IP Leak test: CyberGhost has strong IPv4, IPv6, and DNS leak protection built into its apps. This enables the VPN to keep the real IP address of the user hidden, so users can stop worrying about getting exposed while they go about downloading torrents.
In addition, CyberGhost has an automatic killswitch that is enabled by default (with no apparent way of disabling it) for all major platforms including Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.
This feature further consolidates the ability of this VPN to keep you secure and protected while torrenting.
Speed: The speeds usually delivered by CyberGhost are noticeably slower than its competitors, but they’re not TOO slow. In fact, the speeds are sufficient for performing tasks like streaming and torrenting.
Summary: CyberGhost is a capable VPN service that has earned a slot in the top 5 VPNs for torrenting courtesy of its ideal jurisdiction for this purpose, no logs policy, and protective features that guard against IP leaks.
Go in the depth of this VPN in our CyberGhost review.
Pros
- P2P supported servers
- Up to 7 simultaneous connections
- Always enabled killswitch
- Blanket LeakProtection for IPv6 and DNS
Cons
- Average speeds (but reasonable enough considering the $2.75/month price tag)
VPNs that Support Torrenting
There are a lot of VPN services that support torrenting. But care should be taken by the user when choosing a VPN that they must have jurisdiction outside the 5 Eyes, keep no IP or traffic logs, and contain a kill switch and other mechanisms for IP leak protection.
Use the chart below to decide for yourself if the VPN you’re using deserves to be labeled as the best torrent VPN.
Note: You may also like to see our detailed VPN comparison table for 2019.
The Best Free VPN for Torrenting?
Free VPN services are always a dangerous business. Even though using a VPN is the best way to download torrents, opting free VPN is not recommended.
It is inconceivable that any company could bear the cost of servers, customer support, and the bandwidth to serve a large number of customers without charging any money.
So, what many VPNs with a “free torrent VPN” tag do is that they sell your private information which they gather through the VPN app along with advertisements.
This could be especially dangerous if your primary purpose for getting a VPN is to indulge in a legally ambiguous activity like torrenting.
Nonetheless, there are some reputable free torrenting VPN that work transparently on the “freemium” business model which is legitimate and inspires trust.
We have covered such best VPNs for torrenting in our free VPN for torrenting guide.
What affects the speeds of any best VPN service for torrenting?
Slow downloading speeds when torrenting can occur because of many different factors, however, before delving down into the reasons it is important that you first check your promised bandwidth to make sure you are getting what you paid for.
Online tools like speedtest.net should help you conduct a thorough evaluation.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, it is time to discuss the reasons.
Limitations of a Wi-Fi connection
Plugin LAN connections are always going to be faster than Wi-Fi connections even though they might be using the same network connection. This is because direct connections do not require any sort of routing, which can substantially enhance the performance of your internet connection.
Another reason why your internet speeds suffer over the Wi-Fi connection is due to many physical obstructions for example distance from the router will also cause speeds to fluctuate drastically. Besides that, physical hindrances like walls and other furniture can also impose a negative impact not to mention interference from radio waves emitted by so many electronic devices in your vicinity.
Poor seed ratio
Torrent speeds heavily rely on the number of seeds, the higher the number of seeds a torrent file has the faster it is going to download. Since seeding refers to the number of people sharing the file for other torrenters. If a torrent file has a low ratio of seeders then your downloading speed is definitely going to suffer regardless of how fast your internet connection is.
Bandwidth throttling
Have you ever encountered bandwidth fluctuations of more than half of your allocated speeds? Surprise surprise welcomes to the world of bandwidth throttling. ISPs around the world have ridden their hands in this nasty business all in the name of providing good service.
Bandwidth throttling occurs when ISPs detect you of consuming too much of your allocated bandwidth. Torrenting, streaming or downloading large files can set off red flags for ISPs.
Whether you like it or not bandwidth, throttling is a reality and unfortunately, torrenting has to suffer because of it.
Fortunately, however, a simple anonymity tool like a VPN can result in a major lifesaver as it encrypts your entire network connection making it impossible for ISPs to throttle your bandwidth.
Unadjusted upload speed
Downloading torrents involve peers since it is different from traditional file downloading. Whenever you are downloading a torrent file through the BitTorrent protocol you are also uploading (seeding) the same amount for other peers.
When you leave your upload speed unadjusted, you are essentially negatively affecting your downloading speeds. This issue can be easily negated by first identifying your allocated upload speed and then adjusting the upload speed of your torrenting client. Generally, you should limit your upload speed to about 80% of your actual bandwidth.
Finally, it also helps to understand how a VPN basically works because the very action of VPN tunneling and encryption leads to an unavoidable loss in speed.
But a good VPN will usually be fast enough to work comfortably for your torrenting needs.
Reddit VPN for torrenting
Even though the VPN I’ve listed above are perfect for torrenting, I still wanted to see what the folks over at Reddit had to suggest.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the Reddit users suggested either using NordVPN or ExpressVPN.
Comment from discussion cornpeeker’s comment from discussion 'What’s the best VPN for torrenting?'.
Comment from discussion ccduke’s comment from discussion 'What’s the best VPN for torrenting?'.
FAQs Section
Here are some frequently asked questions about P2Ptorrenting:
If it’s not obvious by now, using a VPN can easily help perform anonymous torrenting. By having your IP masked, no one can trace your torrenting activities back to you.
No there a number of approaches you can take for ultimate torrent anonymity. For instance, using a VPN before torrenting, enabling Kill switch and using a reliable Antivirus program is just some of the ways you can remain anonymous on the web.
This is a tricky question and depends on which county and website you download torrent from. Some countries have strict laws against torrenting which can get you in a lot of trouble. Similarly downloading torrents from an untrustworthy website can not only damage your computer, but also enable hackers to steal your confidential data.
Finishing Up
The penalties and enforcement against online piracy have gradually gotten stricter over the past two decades.
Although every copyrights owner has the right to sue an individual who accesses their material for free without their permission, the aggressiveness of certain countries towards anyone who downloads torrents can often spill over to those cases where the downloaded file may actually NOT be illegal.
With the best VPN for torrenting, you enable yourself to keep such eventualities at bay and download legal torrents with the assurance that you are beyond the vigilant eyes of authorities.
I hope the above mentioned VPNs help you decide what is the best VPN service for torrenting. Please do let me know if I should add more VPNs to my list.
If you’re looking for the best VPN for torrenting, privacy, bypassing censorship, staying anonymous online, getting around geographic restrictions, or just location shifting, you’ve got a lot of confusing choices. Keep reading as we help you pick the right VPN for you.
VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks, are a quick and easy solution to making your computer appear to be coming from a different location. They accomplish this by creating a virtual network that routes all of your PC or smartphone’s network traffic through an encrypted tunnel and out the other side, making it seem to the world that you’re actually in whatever location the VPN server is located. This can help you bypass geographic restrictions, avoid censors, or keep you (relatively) anonymous online.
The problem is that there are scores of different VPN providers out there, and a ton of different reasons to use one — so which one do you choose?
Don’t Feel Like Reading Everything? Here’s the TL;DR Version
This article has a lot of information, and you probably just want to install a VPN so you can try to watch your favorite TV show or movie on a streaming service on the other side of the world that’s unfairly been geographically restricted, or you’re looking for something that can protect you while you’re torrenting.
So here are our top choices and why we picked them:
- ExpressVPN is our top choice if you’re looking for simple, easy-to-use clients for every Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, or Linux, blazing fast speeds that can handle torrenting or bypassing geographic restrictions, and just a generally pleasant experience. They have a 30 day money-back guarantee as well.
- StrongVPN is a great choice if you’re looking for blazing fast speeds, and a VPN that can handle torrenting and bypassing geographic restrictions. The clients are a little outdated in comparison, but since it’s a lesser known service it sometimes is less likely to be blocked. They have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Tunnelbear is a solid choice if you’re looking for a quick VPN connection to use at the coffee shop — they have a limited free trial tier and cheap prices, and while they aren’t quite as powerful or fast, they have a really nice service.
Again, if you’re looking for a VPN to bypass restrictions, try out one of the services above. They’ve all got cheap prices and a 30 day money-back guarantee, so you’ve got nothing to lose.
What Is Virtual Private Networking, and Why Do People Use It?
Through the use of software (and sometimes, at the corporate and governmental level, hardware) a VPN creates a virtualized network between two physically separate networks.
VPN use, for example, allows an IBM employee to work from home in a Chicago suburb while accessing the company intranet located in a building in New York City, as if he was right there on the New York office’s network. The same technology can be used by consumers to bridge their phones and laptops to their home network so, while on the road, they can securely access files from their home computers.
RELATED:What Is a VPN, and Why Would I Need One?
VPNs have other uses cases, though. Because they encrypt your connection, VPNs allow users to prevent others from seeing the data they’re transferring. This keeps data secure, particularly on public Wi-Fi networks in places like coffee shops and airports, ensuring no one can snoop your traffic and steal your passwords or credit card numbers.
Since VPNs route your traffic through another network, you can also make it appear as if it’s coming from another location. That means if you’re in Sydney, Australia, you can make your traffic appear to come from New York City. This is useful for certain sites that block content based on your location (like Netflix). It also allows some people (we’re looking at you, Australians) have to deal with insanely high import taxes on software that see them paying twice (or more) what US consumers pay for the same products.
On a more serious note, an unfortunately large number of people live in countries with high levels of overt censorship and monitoring (like China) and countries with more covert monitoring (like the US); one of the best ways to get around censorship and monitoring is to use a secure tunnel to appear as if you’re from somewhere else altogether.
In addition to hiding your online activity from a snooping government it’s also useful for hiding your activity from a snooping Internet Service Provider (ISP). If your ISP likes to throttle your connection based on content (tanking your file downloads and/or streaming video speeds in the process) a VPN completely eliminates that problem as all your traffic is traveling to a single point through the encrypted tunnel and your ISP remains ignorant of what kind of traffic it is.
In short, a VPN is useful anytime you want to either hide your traffic from people on your local network (like that free coffee shop Wi-Fi), your ISP, or your government, and it’s also incredibly useful to trick services into thinking you’re right next door when you’re an ocean away.
Assessing Your VPN Needs
Every user is going to have slightly different VPN needs, and the best way to pick the ideal VPN service is to take careful stock of what your needs are before you go shopping. You may even find you don’t need to go shopping because home-grown or router-based solutions you already have are a perfect fit. Let’s run through a series of questions you should ask yourself and highlight how different VPN features meet the needs highlighted by those questions.
To be clear, many of the following questions can be satisfied on multiple levels by a single provider, but the questions are framed to get you thinking about what is most important for your personal use.
Do You Need Secure Access to Your Home Network?
If the only use case you care about is securely accessing your home network to, then you absolutely do not need to invest in a VPN service provider. This isn’t even a case of the tool being overkill for the job; it’s a case of the tool being wrong for the job. A remote VPN service provider gives you secure access to a remote network (like an exit node in Amsterdam), not access to your own network.
To access your own home network, you want a VPN server running on either your home router or an attached device (like a Raspberry Pi or even an always-on desktop computer). Ideally, you’ll run the VPN server at the router level for best security and minimal power consumption. To that end, we recommend either flashing your router to DD-WRT (which supports both VPN server and client mode) or purchasing a router that has a built in VPN server (like the previously reviewed Netgear Nighthawk and Nighthawk X6 routers).
If this is the solution you need (or even if you just want to run it in parallel with remote solutions for other tasks), definitely check out our article How to Set Up Your Own Home VPN Server for additional information.
Do You Need Secure Casual Browsing?
Even if you aren’t particularly security or privacy conscious, everyone should have a VPN if they regularly use public Wi-Fi networks. When you use Wi-Fi at the coffee shop, the airport, or the hotel you’re staying at while traveling cross-country, you have zero idea whether or not the connection you’re using is secure.
The router could be running outdated and compromised firmware. The router could actually be malicious and actively sniffing packets and logging your data. The router could be improperly configured and other users on the network could be sniffing your data or probing your laptop or mobile device. You never have any guarantee whatsoever that an unknown Wi-Fi hotspot isn’t, either through malice or poor configuration, exposing your data. (A password doesn’t indicate a network is secure, either–even if you have to enter a password, you could be subject to any of these problems.)
In such scenarios, you don’t need a beastly VPN provider with massive bandwidth to secure your email, Facebook, and web browsing activities. In fact, the same home VPN server model we highlighted in the previous section will serve you just as well as a paid solutions. The only time you might consider a paid solution is if you have high-bandwidth needs that your home connection can’t keep up with (like watching large volumes of streaming video through your VPN connection).
Do You Need to Geo-Shift Your Location?
If your goal is to appear as if you’re in another country so you can access content only available in that are (e.g. BBC Olympic coverage when you’re not in the UK) then you’ll need a VPN service with servers located in the geographic region you wish to exit the virtualized network in.
Need UK access for that Olympic coverage your crave? Make sure your provider has UK servers. Need a US IP address so you can watch YouTube videos in peace? Pick a provider with a long list of US exit nodes. Even the greatest VPN provider around is useless if you can’t access an IP address in the geographic region you need.
Do You Need Anonymity and Plausible Deniability?
If your needs are more serious than watching Netflix or keeping some war kiddie at the coffee shop from snooping on your social media activity, a VPN may not be for you. Many VPNs promise anonymity, but few can actually provide it–and you’re still trusting the VPN provider with access to your traffic, which isn’t ideal. For that, you likely want something more like Tor, which–while not perfect–is a better anonymity solution than VPNs.
Many users do, however, rely on VPNs to create some plausible deniability when doing things like file sharing on BitTorrent. By making their traffic appear as if it’s coming from a different IP address, they can put one more brick on the wall obscuring them from others in the swarm. Again, it isn’t perfect, but it is helpful.
If that sounds like you, you want a VPN provider that doesn’t keep logs and has a very large user base. The bigger the service, the more people poring through every exit node and the more difficult it is to isolate a single user from the crowd.
A lot of people avoid using VPN providers based out of the United States on the premise that US law would compel those providers to log all VPN activity. Counterintuitively, there are no such data logging requirements for US-based VPN providers. They might be compelled under another set of laws to turn over data if they have any to turn over, but there is no requirement they even keep the data in the first place.
In addition to logging concerns, an even bigger concern is the type of VPN protocol and encryption they use (as it’s much more probable a malicious third party will try and siphon up your traffic and analyze it later than they will reverse engineer your traffic in an attempt to locate you). Considering logging, protocol, and encryption standards is a great point to transition into the next section of our guide where we shift from questions focused on our needs to questions focused on capabilities of the VPN providers.
Selecting Your VPN Provider
What makes for a VPN provider? Aside from the most obvious matter, a good price point that sits well with your budget, other elements of VPN selection can be a bit opaque. Let’s look at some of the elements you’ll want to consider.
It’s up to you to answer these questions by reading over the documentation provided by the VPN service provider before signing up for the service. Better yet, read over their documentation and then search for complaints about the service to ensure that even though they claim they don’t do X, Y, or Z, that users aren’t reporting that they are in fact doing just that.
What Protocols Do They Support?
Not all VPN protocols are equal (not by a long shot). Hands down, the protocol you want to run in order to achieve high levels of security with low processing overhead is OpenVPN.
RELATED:Which is the Best VPN Protocol? PPTP vs. OpenVPN vs. L2TP/IPsec vs. SSTP
You want to skip PPTP if at all possible. It’s a very dated protocol that uses weak encryption and due to security issues should be considered compromised. It might be good enough to secure your non-essential web browsing at a coffee shop (e.g. to keep the shopkeeper’s son from sniffing your passwords), but it’s not up to snuff for serious security. Although L2TP/IPsec is a significant improvements over PPTP, it lacks the speed and the open security audits found with OpenVPN.
Long story short, OpenVPN is what you want (and you should accept no substitutions until something even better comes along). If you want the long version of the short story, definitely check out our guide to VPN protocols for a more detailed look.
There’s currently only one scenario where you would entertain using L2TP/IPsec instead of OpenVPN and that’s for mobile devices like iOS and Android phones. Currently neither Android nor iOS supports native OpenVPN (although there is third-party support for it). Both mobile operating systems do, however, support L2TP/Ipsec natively and, as such, it’s a useful alternative.
A good VPN provider will offer all of the above options. An excellent VPN provider will even provide good documentation and steer you away from using PPTP for the same reasons we just did. You should also check the pre-shared keys they use for those protocols, since many VPN providers use insecure and easy-to-guess keys.)
How Many Servers Do They Have and Where?
If you’re looking to access US media sources like Netflix and YouTube without geo-blocking, then a VPN service with the majority of its nodes in Africa and Asia is of very little use to you.
Accept nothing less than a diverse stable of servers in multiple countries. Given how robust and widely used VPN services have become it isn’t unreasonable to expect hundreds, if not thousands, of servers across the world.
In addition to checking how many servers they have and where those servers are located, it’s also wise to check into where the company is based and if that location aligns with your needs (if you’re using a VPN to avoid persecution by your government, then it would be wise to avoid a VPN provider in a country with close ties to your country).
How Many Concurrent Connections Are Allowed?
You might be thinking: “I only need one connection, don’t I?” What if you want to set up VPN access on more than one device, for more than one family member, on your home router, or the like? You’ll need multiple concurrent connections to the service. Or, perhaps, if you’re particularly security oriented, you’d like to configure multiple devices to use multiple different exit nodes so your collective personal or household traffic isn’t all bundled together.
At minimum, you want a service that allows for at least two concurrent connections; practically speaking at the more the better (to account for all your mobile devices and computers) and with the ability to link your router to the VPN network is preferable.
Do They Throttle Connections, Limit Bandwidth, or Restrict Services?
ISP throttling is one of the reasons many people turn to VPN networks in the first place, so paying extra for a VPN service on top of your broadband bill just to get throttled all over again is a terrible proposition. This is one of those topics some VPNs aren’t perfectly transparent, about so it helps to do a little digging on Google.
Bandwidth restrictions might not have been a big deal in the pre-streaming era, but now that everyone is streaming videos, music, and more, the bandwidth burns up really fast. Avoid VPNs that impose bandwidth restrictions unless the bandwidth restrictions are clearly very high and intended only to allow the provider to police people abusing the service.
In that vein, a paid VPN service restricting you to GBs worth of data is unreasonable unless you’re only using it for occasional, basic browsing. A service with fine print that restricts you to X number of TBs of data is acceptable, but really unlimited bandwith should be expected.
Finally, read the fine print to see if they restrict any protocols or services you wish to use the service for. If you want to use the service for file sharing, read the fine print to ensure your file sharing service isn’t blocked. Again, while it was typical to see VPN providers restrict services back in the day (in an effort to cut down on bandwidth and computing overhead) it’s more common today to find VPNs with an anything-goes policy.
What Kind of Logs, If Any, Do They Keep?
Most VPNs won’t keep any logs of user activity. Not only is this of benefit to their customers (and a great selling point) it’s also of huge benefit to them (as detailed logging can quickly consume disk after disk worth of resources). Many of the largest VPN providers will tell you as much: not only do they have no interest in keeping logs, but given the sheer size of their operation they can’t even begin to set aside the disk space to do so.
Although some VPNs will note that they keep logs for a very minimum window (such a only a few hours) in order to facilitate maintenance and ensure their network is running smoothly, there is very little reason to settle for anything less than zero logging.
What Payment Methods Do They Offer?
If you’re purchasing a VPN for securing your traffic against snooping Wi-Fi nodes while traveling, or to route your traffic safely back to the US, anonymous payment methods aren’t likely a very high priority for you.
If you’re purchasing a VPN to avoid political persecution or wish to remain as anonymous as possible, then you’ll be significantly more interested in services that allow for payment through anonymous sources like cryptocurrency or gift cards.
You heard us right on that last bit: a number of VPN providers have systems in place where they will accept gift cards from major retailers (that are totally unrelated to their business) like Wal-Mart or Target in exchange for VPN credit. You could buy a gift card to any number of big box stores using cash, redeem it for VPN credit, and avoid using your personal credit card or checking information.
Do They Have a Kill Switch System?
If you are depending on your VPN to keep your activities even mildly anonymous, you need some sense of security that the VPN isn’t just going to go down and dump all your traffic out into the regular internet. What you want is tool known as a “kill switch system”. Good VPN providers have a kill switch system in place such that if the VPN connection fails for any reason it automatically locks down the connection so that the computer doesn’t default to using the open and unsecured internet connection.
Our Recommendations
At this point, your head might be understandably spinning at the thought of all the homework you’ve got ahead of you. We understand that selecting a VPN service can be a daunting task and that even armed with the questions we outlined above you’re just not sure where to turn.
We’re more than happy to help cut through all the jargon and ad copy to help get the bottom of things and, to that end, we’ve selected three VPN service providers that we have direct personal experience with and that meet our VPN selection criteria. In addition to meeting our outlined criteria (and exceeding our expectations for quality of service and ease of use) all of our recommendations here have been in service for years and have remained highly rated and recommended throughout that time.
StrongVPN
StrongVPN is a great choice, as it meets the needs of both power users and casual users alike. Prices start at $10 a month and drop quickly, when you purchase a year of service at a time, to $5.83 a month. The ease of setup is fantastic–if you’re new to VPNs and/or don’t have extra time to fuss with manual settings, you can just download their setup app for Windows, OS X, iOS, and Android to automate the setup process. If you want a more granular control or need to manually configure devices like your router, you can follow one of their many guides for different operating systems and hardware to do it manually.
StrongVPN has exit nodes in 43 cities, 20 countries, and supports PPTP, L2TP, SSTP, IPSec, and OpenVPN protocols–you’ll be hard pressed to find a device you can’t configure to use their service. There are no bandwidth caps, speed limits, or restrictions on protocols or services (torrenting, Netflix, you name it, they don’t care). Additionally, StrongVPN maintains no server logs.
Although StrongVPN does limit you to two concurrent connections per account (not installation on two devices, mind you, two different connections at one time), you can configure your home router to connect to their service, so it’s really more like you have a connect for at home and a connection for your device while you’re out and about.
ExpressVPN
If you’re looking for a VPN that has it all — easy-to-use client applications for every single platform, 2000+ servers across 94 different countries, blazing fast speeds, and security — you’re probably going to choose ExpressVPN. They’ve got plans that start as low as $8.32 per month as of this writing, with a 30 day money-back guarantee.
ExpressVPN doesn’t log, they don’t block anything, and they have no bandwidth restrictions or limits. There are servers in basically any country you can imagine, and they are big enough to be able to handle a lot of customers.
Besides fast speeds, which are the most important factor in choosing a VPN, ExpressVPN definitely has the nicest clients across the widest array of devices — Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, Linux, and they even sell routers pre-loaded with their VPN configuration.
TunnelBear
If you’re looking for something free, look no further. If StrongVPN and SurfEasy are like like a solid mid-class sedan, TunnelBear is more like the econo-car (if you buy a TunnelBear subscription) or the city bus (if you use their generous free program). That’s not a knock on TunnelBear, either–they’ve been around for years and their free service tier has been of great utility to people in need all over the world.
The free TunnelBear service offers up to 500MB per month. That’s not a whole lot of data, but it’s enough for occasional light browsing on public networks. If you need more data than that, you can upgrade to their professional accounts for $7.99 per month or $4.16 per month if billed annually.
The free account is limited to a single user, while the premium account enabled unlimited bandwidth for up to five computers or mobile devices. TunnelBear doesn’t list the total number of servers on their site, but they do offer servers in 20 countries. Their Windows and Mac OS X client is based on OpenVPN and their mobile VPN system uses L2TP/IPsec. Unlike the previous two recommendations, however, TunnelBear has a firmer stance against file sharing activities and BitTorrent is blocked. Their speeds also aren’t quite as fast as the others, so you might experience a slower connection with TunnelBear.
From a feature-to-dollar standpoint, TunnelBear’s premium offering doesn’t beat out our two previous recommendations. StrongVPN and SurfEasy are better bets if you’re willing to pay. But, TunnelBear does offer a free tier, doesn’t maintain logs, and it is extremely easy to get up and running with their dead-simple apps for desktop and mobile users alike.
Whether you’re you’re sick of your ISP throttling your connection, you want to secure your browsing sessions while on the road, or you just want to download whatever the heck you want without the man on your back, there’s no substitution for a securely deployed Virtual Private Network. Now that you’re armed with the knowledge necessary to pick a good VPN (and with three solid recommendations at that), it’s time to secure your internet traffic once and for all.
Image Credits: Jared Scheel; Mike Mozart.
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