Trust is a hard thing to find in the Wild West of the web, so knowing that your VPN provider is doing everything in its power to keep your information secure is paramount above all else. Since my time as the top contributor and part-time editor for the website VPNCreative, I’ve seen quite literally hundreds of various services come and go in that amount of time, and the ones that survived did so because they have the trust and confidence of their customers. The more hoops your connection has to go through to get to the server, the slower it’s going to be, so having a server location as near to where you live is key when running a VPN throughout the day.įinally there’s the reputation of each company we chose, which is something that can’t be bought, or even really quantified for that matter. All of the VPNs on this list support at least 10 servers from all corners of the globe, which is important when you want to reduce the number of jumps in the chain from the server back to your computer. Next up is the number of server locations the VPN supports.
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To explain the technical details of each would (and has) taken several encyclopedias to get through, but on a high level, the only thing you need to know is that all the services we’ve recommended in this list specifically use a blend of the top encryption technologies, in order to maintain the fickle balance between being well-protected and still maintaining a decent amount of internet speed. These include PPTP, L2TP, OpenVPN, and IPSec, all of which have their own benefits and drawbacks. In my three years of experience of writing on the subject, I can say confidently that I’ve seen just about everything the latter has to offer, and on the whole, you need to pay attention to three key features to make certain that you get the best service possible: security protocols, server locations, and reputation.Īs far as encryption goes, in general (but not always), a VPN will encrypt the traffic sent over its wires using a number of different protocols, which can vary depending on the service you go with.
When you compare VPN service providers, there are a lot of various factors that set the best VPNs apart from snake oil and that’s “Virtual Private Network” if you don’t know what VPN stands for.
Thanks to its super cheap price, hugely functional desktop client, and download speeds that leave the rest in the dust, it was no wonder we named Private Internet Access as the #1 pick for the best VPN of 2021. But how do you know which services are there to protect you, and which are just trying to sell your info right back to advertisers for a quick buck? VPNs are a great way to throw government agencies, snooping co-workers, and malicious marketers off your scent with the help of internet transmission protocols that protect your identity no matter where you’re browsing on the web. With the NSA spying on everyone and your personal privacy being encroached upon further every day, isn’t it about time you took the initiative to look for the best VPN in 2020?