- There are seven things that make a good VPN
and in this video, I'm gonna be evaluating
the most popular VPNs to see how they stack up
in each of these categories.
Jumping in, I wanna start with pricing as this is one
of the most important aspects when shopping for a VPN.
I'll have links to all the VPNs
in the description below because some of them
will offer you a discount or extra months for free.
The best bang for your buck is gonna be Surfshark
where you can get a 27-month account for $60,
which breaks down to about $2.21 a month.
I'm gonna be highlighting each VPN's one to two-year account
because for whatever reason,
the entire VPN industry just wants you to subscribe
for one to two years, and if you try to subscribe monthly,
you're gonna be paying way more per month than you should.
Surfshark is a fast VPN.
It's great for streaming and I'll talk more about it later
but it really is a great value.
Private Internet Access technically offers
the lowest pricing of any VPN in this video.
You can get a 39-month account for $80, which breaks down
to just over $2 per month.
NordVPN falls somewhere in the middle
at about $60 for a one-year account.
It's not the cheapest VPN, but it does have some advantages.
By far, the most expensive VPNs are ExpressVPN
and Proton VPN.
ExpressVPN is charging $100 for a 15-month account,
so it needs to have some impressive speed
and features to be worth the cost.
If you're looking for a month-to-month VPN,
Mullvad takes a very different approach.
It's just five euros per month for unlimited access.
They don't offer any annual or two year discount.
It's five euros per month pay as you go
and there's a lot of things
about Mullvad that make it unique, but more on that later.
So next, taking a look at speed.
ExpressVPN and Surfshark
both offered impressive performance.
I saw download speeds as high
as 795 megabits per second on Surfshark
on my gigabit fiber connection.
ExpressVPN was close and they topped out
at about 734 megabits per second on the download.
However, ExpressVPN consistently had higher upload speeds.
NordVPN also performed well, offering download speeds
in the 500 megabits per second range
and upload speeds around 200 megabits per second.
PIA, Proton VPN and Mullvad all struggled with speed.
All three of them sometimes gave me double digit numbers,
like 17 megabits per second, 64 megabits per second,
even 15 megabits per second download speeds.
Next, let's look at streaming.
Streaming functionality is an important feature of any VPN
because it's a big reason many people get a VPN.
If you're looking to access region-locked content
in other countries, a VPN is how you do that,
so you're gonna wanna make sure that a VPN plays fair
with streaming services and the IPs aren't blocked.
I had great results with Surfshark, ExpressVPN, NordVPN
and Proton VPN.
All of these VPNs work perfectly on Netflix,
Disney+ and Hulu,
and I was able to access region-locked content
when connected to servers in the UK and Canada.
So I definitely wouldn't recommend PIA for streaming.
While they do claim to support it on their website,
I had a lot of issues accessing Disney+ and Hulu
and while I was able to access Netflix,
for some reason it didn't load any region-locked content
in the other countries that I would connect to.
So that's definitely out
of the picture if streaming is important.
Mullvad VPN also didn't work for Disney+ or Hulu
but Mullvad does not make any claims
that their VPN is optimized for streaming,
so definitely not a good pick if that's important to you.
All these VPNs offer a great variety of server locations
but some VPNs stand out
for having server locations that other VPNs don't.
Every VPN except Mullvad offers locations
in India via virtual IP addresses.
Since India announced a regulation that all VPNs stored
in the country must log data, the industry has pivoted
and found nearby servers with Indian IP addresses
so you're still able to have a similar browsing experience.
Private Internet Access is the only VPN
in this video to offer server locations in China.
PIA is also the only VPN I tested to offer servers
in each of the 50 US states.
This could be useful
if you want your browsing activity to appear
from your home state or if you just want a VPN server
to be located as close to you as possible.
Proton VPN is the only VPN I tested
offering servers in Russia.
And other than that, every VPN in this video
offers a variety of server locations
in common places like the US, the UK, Japan and Switzerland.
Finding the right server location
greatly affects your VPN experience,
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is the strength of your passwords.
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And now let's take a look at the mobile apps for each
of the VPNs.
The desktop apps are all decent and pretty straightforward
and the mobile apps are too.
One thing I look for in a VPN's mobile app
is the ability to turn on auto connect
so that way when I leave the house,
I don't have to think about it, my phone just connects
to the VPN and when I'm back home connected
to a trusted network, it disconnects from the VPN.
NordVPN, Surfshark and PIA all do this well.
ExpressVPN does offer an auto connect feature
in the Android app, but for whatever reason,
it's not present in the iOS app.
Proton VPN and Mullvad don't offer any sort
of auto connect on mobile.
Private Internet Access has the most advanced version
of this feature,
allowing you to create specific rules
on when it will automatically connect to a VPN,
like only connecting to a VPN on specific Wi-Fi networks
or only connecting on cellular or open Wi-Fi networks.
If you're going for simplicity,
ExpressVPN and Mullvad both have easy-to-use apps.
This is largely because they don't have many settings
for you to mess with, so you pretty much open the app,
connect to the VPN and go about your day.
This is great if that's what you like
but if you want auto connect and some of the other settings,
you're gonna wanna pick a different VPN.
Now let's talk privacy.
This is arguably the most important aspect
of choosing a VPN because one of the main use cases
of a VPN is to protect your browsing data
and make sure that there's no logs
of it so nobody could ever see what you're doing.
All of these VPNs have no logs policies
but there's also other considerations
like where a VPN company is based
and what the company's reputation
and history is for protecting user data.
ExpressVPN and Private Internet Access are both owned
by Kape, a security company that owns quite a few VPNs
and antivirus softwares.
In past content,
I've talked about how I'm not the biggest fan of Kape
but I can say that ExpressVPN has really stepped up
the amount of third-party audits they're doing
and the $100,000 bounty program does show
that Kape cares about security and they wanna make sure
that their VPNs are as strong as possible.
I think Kape is starting to show
that they care about privacy and security
with the decisions they're making.
The original co-founders
and senior leadership from when they were a Crossrider
left the company when they rebranded to Kape,
and they might as well be a totally different company.
But I'm still cautious about VPNs that are owned
by a big company, and I would still prefer VPNs
that are independently owned and operated.
But speaking of big companies,
Nord Security is the parent company of NordVPN
and they recently merged with Surfshark.
NordVPN is based in Panama
and has suffered a security incident back in 2018.
I've talked about this before on my channel
so I'm not gonna cover it again
but there's been no notable security incident since.
Now I wanna take a look at Mullvad's privacy
and this is the most unique VPN I've ever seen
from a privacy perspective.
That's because Mullvad does not collect any email addresses,
passwords, usernames, anything that could be tied back
to the user.
Instead, Mullvad generates a random account number
and that account number is the only thing you need
to use the VPN.
You're able to pay for your account with crypto.
So it's possible to remain completely anonymous
and have no way that Mullvad could ever tie data back
to a specific user.
Mullvad is based in Sweden, and honestly,
if privacy is your number one concern with a VPN,
I think Mullvad is hands down the best choice.
Last, we have Proton VPN.
Based in Switzerland,
Proton VPN is known for its strong commitment
to privacy thanks to its forever free VPN.
Unfortunately, Proton VPN's sister company,
Proton Mail, experienced a security incident
where they shared a user IP address with French authorities.
Now, Proton's CEO said that they were just complying
with law enforcement's requests,
and while any VPN company should respond
to law enforcement requests, the idea here
is that they don't have a log
or any record of a user IP address or browsing data.
So why did Proton Mail magically have that user's IP address
when they said they weren't logging it?
Because of this, I remain skeptical of Proton VPN's privacy.
You can say you have a no logs policy all day long
but if law enforcement gives you a request for data,
are you just magically gonna come up with data
that you claim you're not logging?
I'm a little bit sketched out.
So in order to evaluate which VPN is truly right for you,
we need to know what sets each VPN apart.
Every VPN has a different set
of unique features like built-in ad blockers,
dark web monitoring, and even password managers.
For example, Surfshark is a VPN
with quite a few extra features.
They have a built-in ad blocker,
tracker blocker and malware blocker.
And if you're gonna be subscribing to the two-year plan,
you can get Surfshark One included,
which has extra features
like dark web monitoring, a search engine by Surfshark,
which is kind of interesting.
They say it's more private than incognito mode,
and you get access to Surfshark antivirus.
Surfshark One is also available
as a separate plan if you choose to subscribe
to the VPN for one year or monthly.
Similarly, NordVPN offers a built-in ad blocker
and tracker blocker, and they recently announced
a new feature they call Meshnet.
This allows you to route browsing traffic
through your other devices, so you could have your phone
on the go and route your browsing traffic
through your home IP address via your desktop.
You can also use Meshnet to host virtual LAN parties
with multiplayer games or access files remotely
from your home computer when you're on the go.
NordVPN also offers bundle plans
with Nord Security's other products,
like NordPass and NordLocker.
If you're looking for a VPN with a lot of advanced settings,
Private Internet Access is for you.
They have a built-in ad blocker and tracker blocker known
as PIA MACE but unfortunately, MACE is not available
on the mobile apps.
On iOS, they do have a Safari content blocker,
but this is only gonna block ads
when you're browsing in Safari.
Other features you'll find
in PIA include the advanced automation
with auto connect rules,
split tunneling capability and multi-hop.
PIA is also the only VPN I tested to offer dedicated IPs
as a paid add-on.
Proton VPN and Mullvad do offer built-in ad blockers
and tracker blockers
and ExpressVPN does have a threat manager
but this is only a tracker blocker and malware blocker.
It doesn't have any ad blocking capability.
ExpressVPN is in the process of launching ExpressVPN Keys,
which is their new password manager they're going to include
with every ExpressVPN subscription.
But unfortunately, Keys has not rolled out to me yet
so I wasn't able to test it
and I don't know if it's really worth using.
My recommendation for the best budget VPN
is going to be Surfshark.
It's priced very competitively at $60
for a 27-month account, and you're not gonna find a faster,
more capable VPN at that price point.
If you're looking for a privacy-first VPN,
definitely go with Mullvad.
There's no doubt that they have a unique radical take
on how they handle user data
with not requiring personal information.
And I think Mullvad is also unique thanks
to their month-to-month pricing models.
So Mullvad could also be a good budget VPN
if you're not ready to commit
to a one to two-year account.
And if you're looking for an advanced VPN
with things like a dedicated IP address and split tunneling,
Private Internet Access is a great choice.
I was really impressed with the automation rules they offer
and all the different things you can do, and the fact
that they offer a server in each of the 50 US states.
I really like what PIA is doing
and if you're an enthusiast and you're looking
for a lot of different things you can configure,
PIA is a great choice.
And that leads me to the best overall VPN,
my personal favorite VPN,
and the one that I'm recommending in this year's comparison.
And that is Surfshark.
Yes, that's right.
The best budget VPN
is actually the best overall VPN this year.
I didn't expect that because last year I was a fan
of NordVPN, but looking at the data, there's no denying
that Surfshark has stepped their game up.
It's blazing fast, it works great with streaming,
it has all the same auto connect features,
the built-in ad blocker, tracker blocker.
Surfshark really is great value
but it's not just great value, it's great functionally.
I do wanna say that if you've watched my past comparisons
and you bought a multi-year subscription to NordVPN,
that's still a fantastic option.
I don't want this to come across as me bailing
on NordVPN after a year and implying that it's a bad VPN.
It's still very competitive,
it's a great choice, but I think
that Surfshark is offering a better value.
And each year I wanna give you my honest opinion
on who I feel is the best VPN that year, and I find
that quite a bit changes with these VPNs from year to year.
I don't think you can go wrong
with any of the VPNs in this video,
though I will say I just don't think Proton VPN
is worth the price
and the functionality overall is pretty poor.
And ExpressVPN is a bit on the expensive side.
But seriously, all the VPNs mentioned
in this video do a great job at protecting your privacy.
Another great way to protect your privacy
is by using strong, unique passwords for each login.
So don't forget to check out 1Password
and get 25% off at this link.
And if you wanna know what the best password manager is
for you, I have a whole comparison video
on that you can check out here.