The Best and Most Secure VPN Services in 2024 - 56juqingba: How-to instructions you can trust

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There are hundreds of commercial virtual private networks, making it difficult to choose one, as they all seem to offer nearly identical features. Each buyer has preferences on which VPN capabilities are most important to them. To make this decision easier for you, this list includes the best and most secure VPN providers in 2024.

Table of Contents

1. Best Overall Secure VPN: ExpressVPN

Price: $6.67/month

When it comes to blazing-fast speeds and guaranteed customer satisfaction, there aren’t many close competitors to ExpressVPN. We consider it the best overall VPN, as, despite having more than 3,000 remote servers across 94 countries, it gives consistent performance in any location. This top-ranked VPN has proven to work well in countries that restrict VPNs.

ExpressVPN is pretty nifty at unblocking streaming content for the most geo-restricted of services. Over 80 percent of its global bandwidth is routed through 10 Gbps servers, which helps unblock US TV channels, such as Netflix, Hulu, Pluto TV and Crackle. Although ExpressVPN doesn’t support WireGuard, it has its own proprietary Lightway protocol, which is just as good.

Headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, ExpressVPN has the best overall security, as it uses what it calls “TrustedServer” technology. Instead of storing user data on VPN hard drives, it’s run on volatile RAM. Every time the server reboots, all the user information is wiped out. Also, ExpressVPN very rarely disconnects you: when it does, the kill switch will ensure that none of your ISP data is exposed.

Tip: it is not enough to use just a VPN. You need to know which country to connect to for the best data protection.

2. The Safest, Fastest VPN: NordVPN

Price: $3.59/month

NordVPN is one of the fastest and most popular VPNs. It has several 10 Gbps servers – but with only 20 percent global coverage. However, what makes it incredibly fast is its proprietary NordLynx protocol. It can deliver consistent speeds – even if the VPN server is thousands of miles away. In our own benchmark test on Windows, NordVPN lost just 4 percent of the ISP Internet speed.

Based in Panama, NordVPN takes user security very seriously. It supports 4096-RSA, and it would take brute force attackers many years to crack a single 4096-bit key. Additionally, you can create your own trusted Wi-Fi networks at home or in the office to bypass VPN restrictions. NordVPN is a great fit if you’re looking for a no-logs VPN provider.

We tested and found that NordVPN is almost as good as ExpressVPN at unblocking content across different geographical locations. It supports double VPN, onion over VPN, obfuscated servers, and P2P servers. It also offers the widest network of US-based servers, which is nearly 2000-strong. Despite being the safest, fastest VPN, NordVPN offers a 24-month plan at a very low monthly cost.

Tip: find out more in our review of NordVPN.

3. Best Value for Money VPN: Surfshark

Price: $2.19/month

With a full set of anonymity and performance features and an unbelievably low cost, Surfshark is our most affordable VPN. It lets you connect to unlimited devices at the same time, while most VPN providers limit how many devices you can connect simultaneously. Also, share your Surfshark subscription with family members.

Surfshark brings excellent performance with its bundled static IP servers. It also ranks among the best VPNs for speed, having recently upgraded to 10 Gbps servers from 1 Gbps. It supports WireGuard and AES-256-GCM encryption. Users can benefit from split tunneling via the Bypasser feature.

The British Virgin Islands-based Surfshark has a fantastic no-logs policy that doesn’t require your identity. The secure VPN provider can help you go truly anonymous via its “Alternative ID” feature that does not require personal details from you when you register. To go completely off the grid, create custom multi-hop connections across multiple countries, similar to a Tor network.

4. Best Free VPN: Hotspot Shield

Price: Free with premium options

Most free VPNs have problems. They can collect your data, give you slower speeds, or run out of data quickly. But there is a strong exception: Hotspot Shield. It has a free VPN that delivers what it promises. Although it shows ads and limits your daily data intake to 500 MB, your quota is replenished in 24 hours. A credit card is not needed for the free plan.

While there are other VPNs with free offerings – such as TunnelBear, PrivadoVPN, and ProtonVPN – none of these enjoy the secure VPN reputation that Hotspot Shield does. We were especially disappointed with the Swiss-based ProtonVPN. Its free servers just don’t work that well anymore.

In contrast, Hotspot Shield is a highly reputed VPN provider based in Menlo Park, California. Its free servers give you the same fast speeds and military-grade security as the paid plans. They run on Hydra, Hotspot Shield’s proprietary VPN protocol and a connection that avoids buffering in streaming and gaming. Even with a free VPN connection, you don’t experience a downgrade in content quality.

Tip: learn how to remove ads from Windows for a cleaner experience.

5. Best VPN for Gaming: Private Internet Access

Price: $2.19/month

Nothing ruins a player’s gaming experience like geo-restrictions. To play safely at high speeds, you need a dedicated VPN that enables the lowest latency and provides strong security on gaming sites. Private Internet Access (PIA) is the best VPN for gaming – especially mobile gaming on handheld devices and consoles.

The Denver, Colorado-based Private Internet Access VPN supports OpenVPN and WireGuard, and is the only VPN that lets you vary the maximum transmission unit (MTU). For example, with Farmville 2, you could quickly increase the MTU to quickly populate the large screen elements. The VPN also has a strong security suit. Using the “PIA Mace” feature, you can instantly block ads, trackers, and malware. It further supports multi-hopping and obfuscation and offers a split tunnel VPN capability.

Good to know: we answer whether VPN is better than Tor, or vice versa.

6. Best VPN for Browsing Dark Web: Cryptostorm

Price: $4.33/month

Browsing the dark web can be dangerous because of the many security threats. While a VPN can help protect you, the dark web may need something extra. Cryptostorm, a VPN from Iceland, is great for safe dark web browsing. It uses a special hashed token system: before you connect, a hash is created that is impossible to decrypt to identify you.

Cryptostorm uses very strong 8192-bit RSA authentication, which is twice as strong as NordVPN’s. The user interface looks a bit old-fashioned, with just a small widget for connecting to servers using tokens. However, it performs very well on the dark web.

Unlike most other VPNs, Cryptostorm ensures no data is recorded on their servers. It also has extra DNS encryption and anti-leak protection. The only downside is that it can be slower than other VPNs. But if you often use the dark web, you may be used to slower speeds. Don’t choose this highly secure VPN if you just want to browse the regular web.

Related: “Visible”, “Deep” or “Dark” web? Learn the differences between these.

7. Best VPN for P2P: IPVanish

Price: $2.19/month

Many countries and ISPs try to restrict or block torrent networks, so you need the best P2P VPN to unblock their content. With IPVanish, each and every server is designed to tackle the immense bandwidth requirements of P2P websites. This secure VPN provider, based in Orlando, Florida, comes with a unique SOCKS5 proxy that is designed to work well with torrenting sites.

Under its network, you get more leeway to download torrents. On that note, we tried testing on BitTorrent with different IPVanish servers in different countries and did not face any restrictions. The service supports AES-256 encryption and WireGuard for faster download speeds.

Many P2P sites are harmful, though, and IPVanish uses its zero-log policy and kill switch to block malicious adware links. Besides, it also uses multi-hopping to make your identity anonymous to phishers and other dangerous elements.

FYI: find out more about Trend Micro VPN in our review.

The good thing about these top VPN services is that they easily fulfill considerations for all kinds of VPN users. But security and performance are the main reasons these are the best. If you have trouble connecting to a VPN, try some of these fixes. Also, give decentralized VPNs a try, as they’re big on privacy.

Image credit: DALL-E 3. All screenshots by Sayak Boral.