// WIRED US/UK — CYBERSECURITY
6 Best VPN Services (2026), Tested and Reviewed
Hundreds of VPNs are at your disposal. They all want you to believe they’re the best VPN you can buy. All of them claim to have the biggest network or a no-logging policy. And they all promise your internet traffic is safe on the network of servers they’ve rented. Only some of them are telling the truth.
VPNs are only growing in popularity due to age-verification laws in the UK and in several states in the US. Even if you don’t want a VPN, you might need one. If you’re hesitant, I get it. VPN providers have been deep in murky waters for years, constantly caught lying about their practices, handing over user data that was never supposed to be logged, and serving as safe havens for large cybercriminal organizations.
I wanted to find the VPN services that actually work; the ones that keep their promises even in the face of potential prosecution, and the ones that have a proven track record of reliable performance. Some of the picks in this guide aren’t conventional, and some of the services I suggest you avoid might be controversial. But these are the top VPNs I’d use day to day.
Read our other VPN guides, including how to set up a VPN on your router and how to use a VPN to watch Netflix when you travel abroad.
If your looking to get a VPN deal, Proton, our top VPN pick (read more below), is running an early Black Friday sale: 75 percent off the regular price for two years. You can get Proton VPN Plus for $2.49 a month (regularly $10 a month); billed at $60 for 24 months. VPN Plus protects up to 10 devices and gives you access to more than 20,000 servers, plus it blocks ads, trackers, and malware. You can also snag one year of Proton Unlimited for $6.50 a month (regularly $13 a month); billed at $78 for 12 months, which adds Proton’s mail, calendar, and password manager software, plus 500 GB of cloud storage. We don’t know when this deal expires, but we imagine it will last through Cyber Monday.
VPN stands for virtual private network. A VPN provides a tunnel through which all of your internet traffic passes. Instead of connecting to your internet service provider's servers, you connect to a VPN's server before connecting to the broader internet. Because most VPN services operate this way, your browsing data isn't stored, essentially making you anonymous online.
The linchpin in this system is a VPN protocol. Today, nearly all internet traffic is encrypted, but that encryption happens only after you've established a connection with a website. A VPN protocol encrypts traffic before it reaches the VPN server, adding extra security on untrusted networks like public Wi-Fi at a coffee shop or airport. It doesn't help much on your personal network unless there is an intruder.
Although VPNs are often marketed as security tools, they serve a better purpose for privacy and bypassing geo-restrictions. By anonymizing your traffic through a VPN server, your browsing can't be traced back to you. The internet is full of cookies, and you might be surprised by how much of your traffic online is tracked via browser fingerprinting. That includes hiding what sites you visit (and what you do on those sites) from your internet service provider (ISP).
By routing your traffic through a server in another location, you can also bypass geo-restrictions online, such as the content libraries available in different countries on Netflix or checking product availability in other regions of the world.
VPNs can also be important when connecting to public Wi-Fi. If you're doing anything remotely sensitive on your computer at a coffee shop, a VPN is a good idea to protect your personal data.