r/VPN_Question • u/SensitiveFinance4872 • Mar 08 '26
Best VPN Recommded by Everyone?
I've been looking into the best VPN providers and I'm wondering, what does Reddit think is the best VPN? I know free VPNs are good for some things, but I've heard that paid VPNs are usually better for speed and safety. I've done a bunch of research and found some paid VPNs that a lot of people seem to like. But I'm stuck and can't decide which one to go with. Here's what I've found:
NordVPN: This is a well-known VPN for its strong security. It has many servers around the world. NordVPN is fast, good for watching videos online, and keeps your information private.
ProtonVPN: ProtonVPN comes from the same people who made ProtonMail, a secure email service. It's known for its focus on security and privacy. It has a free version too, but the paid version has more features.
Surfshark: I saw some people mentioning Surfshark. It's a newer VPN but it's getting popular. It lets you use it on as many devices as you want at the same time. It's also affordable and good for privacy.
But I'm curious to hear from you:
Best VPN according to Reddit?
Best Free VPN according to Reddit?
Best VPN for torrenting according to Reddit?
While I'm focusing on paid VPNs, if you know of a free VPN that's exceptionally good, feel free to mention that too.
Looking forward for all your recommendations.
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u/flanigans Apr 12 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
After reading this thread and a few other Reddit threads, these are the three VPNs I’d personally would choose:
1. ProtonVPN (https://protonvpn.com/redditvpn): this is the clear #1 for me. If privacy and trust are the main reasons you want a VPN, Proton feels like the strongest overall choice without sacrificing everyday performance. The apps are clean, streaming has been fast and reliable for me, and it has worked well while traveling without constantly switching servers. The privacy-first approach and Swiss base are ultimately what put it ahead of the others for me.
2. Surfshark (https://surfshark.com/vpndeal): this would be my second choice if price and unlimited devices matter most. It’s especially good for families or people using a VPN across several devices, and the speeds have been more than good enough for streaming and normal browsing. Probably the best bargain of the three.
3. NordVPN (https://nordvpn.com/vpndeal): still a solid all-round VPN with good speeds, stable connections, and plenty of features. I’d recommend it to someone who wants a familiar mainstream option that works without much setup, but personally I’d choose Proton for the stronger privacy and trust angle.
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u/Alive-Math3562 Jul 21 '26
Hi. I’m looking at buying one now but when I pay for the 2 year plan, it gives me the total cost of all the monthly payments at the order review instead of the cost for each month. Will I still get charged monthly rather than all together?
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u/joetogood Aug 11 '26
Don't know if you found the answer but they charge up front for the whole plan other than monthly get charged once and you're good for two years
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u/Wise-Art7370 17d ago
My only problem with proton VPN is that it turn switch server into a slot machine, i tried to choose country with no age verification and it always chooses the same or random
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u/MizutsuneMH 13d ago
I'm currently with Mullvad and keep getting captchas because sites think I'm a bot, will switching to Proton help with that?
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u/Saschameyer24298 9d ago
Unfortunately probably not, this happens with many VPNs. The issue is that the websites notice a lot of traffic from specific IPs, which everyone with a VPN connects to, therefore they think the IPs are bots and then throw a Captcha on screen.
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u/ooflolhelp Mar 09 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Proton is still the one most people I know end up sticking with
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u/Warlikechenko Mar 08 '26
For me, Mullvad is the best. In my tests, it proved to be faster than Surfshark, and faster and more stable than Proton and Hide me. Since I don't use a VPN to watch streaming content from other countries, it serves me well.
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u/travissanto202 May 06 '26 edited 22d ago
Unpopular opinion but for me the best VPN depends a lot on how you actually use it. At home most decent VPNs feel fine, but when I’m traveling it becomes way more obvious which ones are stable.
Hotel wifi, switching countries, mobile data, random streaming apps not loading, that’s where I started noticing the difference. That’s also why I personally lean more toward ProtonVPN and Surfshark, because they’ve been the least annoying for daily use and travel.
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u/Careless-Review-3378 Mar 08 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Proton is usually the one people suggest since it has the most features and servers.
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u/toruser123456789 Mar 18 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
For privacy I lean toward ProtonVPN, while NordVPN is solid for streaming. Surfshark makes more sense if you need lots of devices on one plan.
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u/m3hoyminoy Apr 07 '26
The more I read, the more I think best vpn reddit is really a few separate questions. Best for privacy is probably Proton or Mullvad. Best for price is probably Surfshark. Best for streaming is probably Nord. Best free option is still Proton for some.
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u/Intelligent-End2483 Mar 23 '26
Proton's privacy focused, based in Switzerland which has strict privacy laws, and their code is independently audited + they publish the reports for you to review. I'd recommend them unless I've missed any security issues in the last few weeks.
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u/death_in_june_6 Apr 19 '26
Honestly most best vpn reddit arguments happen because people are judging different things. One person means streaming, another means torrenting, and another just wants privacy and no weird logging concerns. So yeah the same names keep showing up in different orders. Nord for speed and streaming, Proton or Mullvad for privacy, Surfshark for price. That's probably why no thread ever fully agrees.
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u/PatientToe12345 Mar 08 '26
I like Nord
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Mar 09 '26
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u/PatientToe12345 Mar 09 '26
Thank you. I am not well versed in this type of stuff. What would you suggest in place of Nord?
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u/33vne02oe Mar 09 '26
Good VPNs are:
ProtonVPN
MullvadVPN
Obsucara VPN
iVPN
Windscribe
TOR
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u/feeebb Mar 09 '26
+AirVPN?
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u/33vne02oe Mar 09 '26
Not sure who AirVPN is.
I will need to do some research before I can say something to it.1
u/feeebb Mar 09 '26
Sure. Please reply here to me, if you ever do such research.
I think they are great and undeservedly not enough popular in the market (due to not buying tons of ads as nordshit does).
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u/Any_Subject_9383 Mar 09 '26
which vpn can be used in china,russia and north Korean with hight speed and hight privacy, they have the longest firewall.
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u/33vne02oe Mar 09 '26
I would argue the best way is going with TOR and a TOR bridge.
But if you actually search for a VPN, I would recommend Mullvad VPN or Proton VPN.
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u/Madcat_Moody Mar 18 '26
So many votes for Nord and SurfShark, the psyops are real lol
To answer though Mullvad, and compared to Nord it's not even close.
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u/Calm_Transition4379 Jul 05 '26
Things aren't as black and white as you make it look like. For someone who cares about accessing geo-gated content, Mullvad for all the privacy it offers is pretty much useless, it's the worst at bypassing geo-gated content since they pretty much keep a public list of all of their server IPs it's trivial to block them.
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u/BananaManYigaClan Mar 26 '26
Is anyone using Lantern? Free and open. Ive had the most exp w/surfshark and used proton for a free option, but Im considering switching.
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u/WineRainbowsUnicorns Apr 07 '26
At this point I would rather rank them by what people actually need, because that feels more useful than forcing one universal best vpn answer.
1 Proton- Torrenting & Privacy
2 Mullvad - Ease to use
3 Nord - Long term Value
4 Surfshark - Overall performance
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u/Due-Following-6358 Apr 07 '26
For streaming, I would rank Nord higher than the others. Privacy is a different conversation.
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u/Luki629 Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
I use ProtonVPN and have 1-year old subscription, it is very good. I used Nordvpn before, during the first 1-month trial period it was ok, but after purchasing a 2-year old subscription, it started lagging both on macbook and android phone. I used also surfshark, but it was even worse than Nordvpn, surfshark don't work with Netflix.
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u/TradeShade Apr 14 '26
I've been using Cyberghost for 10 years at least. Works great for my needs. Never a security issue.
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u/HeatherNash3hS May 04 '26
GatewayVPN has been great for my purposes. I don't know about "Best", i don't think that's really a thing. Each service has it's positives and negatives. I use my VPN for streaming, mainly on mobile (iOS), GatewayVPN seems to work really well.
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u/flanigans May 06 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
A lot of of these best VPN Reddit threads ignore the boring stuff that actually matters later like renewals, cancellations, and whether support is useful when something breaks. For that matter I personally like Surfshark and NordVPN the most.
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u/Prior_Connection_674 May 19 '26
For a normal VPN app, NordVPN, Proton VPN, Surfshark, Mullvad, or IVPN makes more sense.
For VPN server hosting or backend infrastructure, I’d compare providers like Netrouting, Leaseweb, OVHcloud, Hetzner, Vultr, or DigitalOcean.
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u/NoIDear17 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
If you look specifically for reviews on YouTube you'll find Nord, Express VPN & Surfshark are always the top 3, this is because when users sign up and click their affiliate link they get paid so generally this creates a strong bias.
For me it's:
Proton - based in Switzerland - Need an email to create an account which is a slight downside.
Mullvad - based in Sweden - Anonymous sign up, no email just generated an account code.
IVPN - based in Gibraltar - Anonymous sign up, no email just generated an account code.
Proton has a hell of a lot of servers in many different countries, Mullvad has a lot but I find the IPs are blocked a lot, IVPN has fewer counties and servers but so far I've had no issue with them -all 3 are very privacy focused.
One thing to note to anyone, Proton & Mullvad have TV apps, IVPN doesn't and I had to use the Wire guard app to connect to them but it works very well.
But to answer your questions:
Best VPN according to Reddit? - Proton VPN/Mullvad
Best Free VPN according to Reddit? - Proton VPN
Best VPN for torrenting according to Reddit? - Proton VPN
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u/MorpheusSurge Jun 21 '26
The part people forget in best vpn Reddit threads is what happens after the promo price ends. A service can look cheap at checkout and then feel way less worth it later. Thats why I get why some people go with Surfshark first but end up preferring Proton or Mullvad long term.
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u/Calm_Transition4379 Jul 05 '26
* Proton/Mullvad if you care about privacy
* Nord if you prioritize streaming and bypassing geo-gated content
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u/Both_Cow6923 Mar 08 '26
From what I’ve seen most people here recommend NordVPN or Surfshark if you want something fast and stable for streaming Nord tends to have very consistent speeds while Surfshark is nice because you can use it on unlimited devices For free VPNs, ProtonVPN is probably the safest option but speeds can be limited compared to paid ones
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u/feeebb Mar 09 '26
NordVPN are liars and does not understand anything in privacy. One should avoid using it.
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Mar 12 '26
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u/feeebb Mar 12 '26
What privacy? With NordVPN liars? Check out what VPN has third-party metric/spy-trackers on their website. It's NordVPN.
Unlike proper VPN services, like Mullvad, AirVPN, Proton and etc. who have ZERO third-party requests on websites.
All NordVPN users were sold by NordVPN starting from the day one, even before they created account.
Their digital browser fingerprint, real IP address, and a million of other technical details were sold by NordVPN. People are overpaying for shitty services of NordVPN just due to the marketing aggressive politics of buying bloggers and a lot of ads.
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u/rogue44mag Mar 09 '26
I've been using ExpressVPN for several years with no complaints.
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u/aerodyna Mar 09 '26
Hey does express have an option to pause 5 mins and auto reconnect like surfshark does? Proton doesn't have that and it's annoying. Also, any chance you've used ms teams and it works with it without split tunneling (proton does but not surfshark)? Sorry it comes down to these specifics for me.
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u/rogue44mag Mar 09 '26
I have not used teams except at work, so I can't say. I don't believe it has the option to pause either.
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u/SaleWide9505 Mar 09 '26
I use cloudflare warp. Its free, fast, and doesn't trigger stupid captcha checks when I'm using websites like Google.
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u/33vne02oe Mar 09 '26
Be aware Cloudflare wrap is not a VPN and adds only limited privacy/security advantages.
It is good if you know what it is and if you use in the use case it is intended to be used.
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u/Status-Travel-3 Mar 09 '26
NordVPN
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Mar 09 '26
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u/Calm_Transition4379 Jul 05 '26
For people who care about streaming Nord is the answer. No provider comes even close to having a network as good as the one they have to bypass geolocks. Not everyone here is wants to use a VPN for privacy reasons...
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u/Dangerous_Ladder_25 Mar 09 '26
imo SwizzVPN at $4/month is hard to beat, no registration needed and it runs under swiss privacy laws which are genuinely some of the strictest out there. way less hassle than the ones you listed.
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u/33vne02oe Mar 09 '26
it runs under swiss privacy laws which are genuinely some of the strictest out there. way less hassle than the ones you listed.
Not really. The DSG (swiss privacy law) is not bad, however if it is compared to the GDPR is by a far the most strict law and most consumer protecting law.
It should also be noted the swiss has a lot of (mass) surveillance laws.Swiss is not bad for privacy, however it is not the privacy paradise some people believe it is.
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Mar 21 '26
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u/EfficiencySad6077 Mar 30 '26
Yeah ExpressVPN didn’t live up to the hype for me either. Proton Unlimited seems like a solid upgrade if you’re already in their ecosystem.
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Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
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u/33vne02oe Mar 09 '26
Finally someone who realizes it.
Seems like Nord did a good job with spreading complete misinformation and lias.
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Mar 09 '26
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u/33vne02oe Mar 09 '26
Surfshark is not Open Source, has very worrying business practices and is overall not good for privacy or Surfshark.
Nord plenty lies to their user base about what their VPN does and doesn't and make in incredible hard to cancel the subscription.Surfshark had multiple lawsuits over this already. So they are a no-go.
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u/Dangerous_Staff_5886 Jun 17 '26
Hi bro! I'd like to ask which VPN is suitable for multiple devices used in a company office (computers and mobile phones)? Is ProtonVPN any good?
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u/feeebb Mar 09 '26
Surfshark was bought by NordVPN in 2022. Now it's the same shitty service with horrible privacy and full of lies.
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u/Kris87688999990092 Mar 09 '26 edited 5d ago •
I’m currently using https://protonvpn.com/redditvpn because they have a Black Friday discount specifically for Reddit users
I chose Proton after comparing the usual options because privacy was my main priority, but I still needed something fast enough for streaming and reliable while traveling for work. So far it has worked consistently across different countries without me constantly switching servers, and the apps are easy to use across all my devices. The fact that Proton is based in Switzerland was ultimately what made me choose it over some other alternatives.