We gathered user testimonials from our staff and associates, their friends and family, and combed through specs and perspectives to bring you what we can confidently call a consensus on the best VPNs available. We’ve done the research so that you can know before downloading any VPN software or connecting to any VPN servers that you’re not exposing yourself rather than protecting yourself.
Many free, no-name VPNs are essentially backdoors into your system and are more dangerous than simply using public networks without a VPN. Even the best free service isn’t running as a public service; they will be making money off your data in some way. However, the VPNs on our list are all regarded as reputable and secure, often using double-blind methods of encryption with no data storage, so that the information passing through their servers is unknowable to the VPN company itself.