The 3 Best VPNs - Spring 2025

Mullvad is the best virtual private network we've tested. It has a great reputation online for its strong privacy practices, transparency, and ethical stance on digital rights. Mullvad has a rather unique registration process. Instead of creating an account with your email address and password, you're assigned a randomly generated account number, which is the only thing you use to log in. This is a secure practice since Mullvad won't have any information to identify you in case of a data breach. If you're particularly paranoid, you can use several anonymous payment methods, like cryptocurrencies and cash. Speaking of payments, Mullvad is one of the cheapest VPNs with a flat-rate pricing model; it's €5 (~$5 USD) per month, no matter how long you subscribe.

Underneath the straightforward and easy-to-use UI, there's some great underlying technology. It keeps your IP address hidden from third parties like your ISP and has measures to protect you from bad actors when you're on public Wi-Fi at a cafe or the airport. It also has some of the best performance we've seen, with consistently great speed and latency, so your downloads will be speedy and stable. On top of that, it sports some additional handy features: Obfuscation can help you get around censors that block access to websites and services that disallow VPNs, and DAITA (defense against AI-guided traffic analysis) that makes it harder for third parties to find identifiable patterns in your encrypted traffic.

While its kill switch effectively protects you if the VPN crashes or your connection drops unexpectedly, it briefly leaks unencrypted data when your computer restarts. Unfortunately, this is the case for nearly every VPN we've tested. Still, you can take measures to minimize leaks, like ensuring sensitive downloads or applications don't auto-start upon boot-up. Another downside to Mullvad is that it doesn't support port-forwarding, which could be a dealbreaker if you need that functionality.

Proton VPN is your next best bet if you need even more features than our top pick. Like Mullvad, Proton has a good reputation for its privacy practices and transparency for the most part. This VPN also has a few more convenient features than our top pick. You can connect up to 10 devices simultaneously, and there are servers in over 100 countries, which is useful since it lets you connect to a server closer to you for a better connection. On top of that, you can configure port forwarding, an essential feature for some who need it for specific applications like game servers or P2P clients. Additionally, like Mullvad, it has obfuscation to make it look like you're not using a VPN, an adblocker, and 'secure-core,' a feature that ensures your connection goes through Proton's own servers before reaching the server in the country you choose.

Proton VPN still isn't perfect, though, as, like Mullvad and most of the VPNs we've tested, it fails the kill switch test. It also has disappointing latency performance, so your connection won't feel as snappy and will affect some activities like gaming. If you pay monthly, it's much more expensive than Mullvad, but it's a few bucks cheaper if you buy a one-year or two-year subscription. It's a good pick if you need those extra features, but if you don't (or don't know), you're better off going with Mullvad.

Hotspot Shield Free is the best free VPN we've tested. You can download the client from their site and start using it without creating an account. This means there's no data associated with your IP address when you download or use the software. It also has no data limits and delivers decent speeds using Wireguard, although its speeds are limited to around 100Mbps. You can technically have it installed and connected on as many devices as you want because it doesn't identify you or your devices with a login. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the same transparency and approach to digital rights as our top picks, and it has a confusing corporate ownership structure. If that's not important to you, this VPN does the trick.

With that in mind, if you don't mind a monthly data limit and are concerned about your VPN provider's privacy track record and transparency, Windscribe Free is the better choice. It's a private, independently owned VPN service with an active user base and has a generally positive reputation. If you make an account with an email address, you get 10GB of data per month. Otherwise, you can just use a username for 2GB per month. You can also access servers in ten countries, more than Hotspot Shield Free's three.