The Best VPN Service in 2020 and 2021

- Back again with another tech comparison

and this week in "What The Tech",

we are looking at the best VPN for you to use.

But before we start that, firstly, a question,

why do you need to use a VPN service?

Well, number one, and the main reason I guess,

is that it provides security and privacy

when using public networks.

You know, that free hotel wireless or Starbucks Wi-Fi,

Well, since they're open to everybody,

they're actually super insecure.

It doesn't actually take much for someone

to track everything you're doing, steal your passwords

and even replace legitimate websites with fake ones

that might contain like malware.

So you should probably know that when in a public space

it's more secure to not use the public Wi-Fi

and just even use 4G or 5G tethered from your phone,

but it's even more secure to use a VPN.

And then number two is it can have other benefits of course,

if you use a VPN to another country,

since you're now essentially browsing the internet

from another country,

it can unlock experiences which are locked by region

from your own country, think more Netflix or Amazon choices.

And then lastly, before we compare, what is a VPN?

And VPN stands for virtual private network,

and it's kind of what it says on the tin.

It's a private network between you and the end network

and it's secure so that nobody else can see

what you're doing on the web.

So today we are looking at the best VPN provider for you,

whether that is for business or personal use.

And as always,

we'll be covering a few key areas for each provider,

speed, security, privacy, ease of use,

streaming services and pricing.

Now I won't be covering any additional features

in this video, so do let me know in the comments below,

if you want me to make more to cover that,

but we're just gonna focus on the core VPN feature itself.

And, so well, here's the issue,

there are just so many VPN providers out there

that it's just impossible to review them all.

So what I've done here is looked at seemingly

the most popular options that are out there,

throw in a couple of other options in there as well,

and we'll see where we end up pretty much.

If you do want me to do a second round of VPN providers

and maybe compare them

against whoever comes out on top of this review,

then drop something down below in the comments.

Now these videos are never sponsored.

Nobody's paid to be in these videos

as I think it's important for these reviews

to stay sponsorship free.

But with that said,

if you did want to sign up for any of these services,

links are in the video description below.

And some of those I do make a small commission for,

but this in no way skews my opinion,

I basically just signed up for any

that had affiliate schemes as it helps just cover the cost

and time that it takes to put these things together.

Any who, onto the list of who made the cut for this video.

And they are Nord VPN, ExpressVPN,

Surfshark, CyberGhost, and Private Internet Access.

And you can jump to them

by following the timestamps right here

and down below the like button.

First of all,

do head over to the comments

and let us know exactly where you're watching this from,

given the subject,

it would be awesome to know like exactly where you're based

and I respond to each and every comment,

so challenge me, hey,

and also don't forget to subscribe for more VPN videos

if that is something you wish to watch

or tech or business related things,

then it'd be cool for you to hang around for a while.

Right, let us begin with Nord VPN.

Now Nord VPN is pretty much the go-to

when it comes to VPN services,

they're seemingly everywhere when it comes to marketing

and have no spool celebrity endorsements

from the likes of Casey Neistat

and a fairly high in the rankings

when looking at the app store on the iPhone

or VPN services like Amazon Fire TV, when it comes to speed,

I'll be downloading some large test files through a system

which I know will max out my connection speeds

because speed test websites aren't always that reliable.

Whereas this way will give us a consistent figure

for the duration of a download.

Now I have a one gig connection here,

so I should be able to download

a maximum of well 100 megabytes.

Well, it's actually 125 megabytes because well,

bits and bytes gets confusing,

but so as not to confuse things,

let's just say that one gigabit per second

is the same as 100 megabytes per second.

And we can all move on with our lives

without boring you with all the geeky details.

Now, these tests were all done from an isolated machine

that was hardwired into my internet connection.

A lot of the reviews I saw were using like mobile

or wireless devices, which isn't a problem

if you wanna use a VPN

base you're testing speed and performance,

then doing tests over wireless

can give you just dramatically different results each time.

And also something I noted

that lots of other reviewers we're doing,

they were testing the speed from already slow connections.

So they can't really comment on how well VPNs perform.

I also ran the same tests a couple of other times

at different times of the day,

just to make sure the results weren't a one-off

and to factor in things like

when kids come back from school here in the UK,

and when the U.S. wakes up later in our afternoon

and so forth.

Now, when it comes to Nord VPN,

this performed pretty well,

but being the first one I've tested

it will be interesting to compare.

When connecting to nearby locations like in the UK

and France, I've got around 500 to 600 megabits per second,

which is pretty good,

halfway across the world to the U.S.

is about 300 megabits per second,

and going all around the globe to Australia or New Zealand

reduced those speeds down

to roundabout 30 megabits per second,

which I was surprised at,

but I'd be interesting to see how that compares

when we look at others.

When it comes down to security and privacy,

well, in October, 2019,

a report emerged that one of its rented servers

was accessed without authorization

though no user identifying information was present,

which supports the statement that no user activity

is logged on their systems.

And secondly,

they then follow this up with multiple audits

a bag bounty of programme,

a big investment in service security.

And more recently when filming this video,

they announced they were moving their entire infrastructure

to co-located servers,

which for the non-peak people accessed

means that they will own the underlying hardware

that everything sits on

rather than renting them from other providers,

which is good.

Also I know that Nord VPN operates in Panama

outside of the 14 Eyes Alliance,

which basically means that Nord VPN

can be forced to hand over your data to the government.

This is one to watch for those of you,

particularly security conscious about your data.

And also Nord VPN were ordered here to confirm

their essential privacy protection measures

and the no logs policy is actually true.

And they also commit to an annual third-party audits

with independent specialists and conduct security audits

and pen testing so they really do take this seriously.

So in summary,

Nord VPN seems to be committed to improving their security,

which is good because, well,

that's kind of what a VPN is all about.

In terms of ease of use, well,

things in my opinion are great in this department,

the apps are all around great and simple and easy to use

and really I've got no complaints here.

You fire up, choose a location and connect, your done.

In terms of streaming services

a well-known feature of VPN services

are that it can unlock services like Netflix

and Amazon Video and a whole host of other video content,

because it thinks you're physically sat within that country.

And therefore that unlocks a tonne of content

that would otherwise be restricted from being viewed.

When it comes to which streaming services you can watch

whilst pretending to be in whatever country

you're connected to,

then you should be able to get things like Netflix,

Hulu, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer, HBO and Disney Plus,

being completely open in this review

I've tested some of these,

but I don't have subscriptions for all of them

so I can't be 100% sure.

So my advice would be to test it before committing

and all of the tests to VPN providers offer

money back guarantee so well worth using those.

Pricing wise there aren't really any different features.

It's just a two year plan,

or a one year plan or one month plan.

It's 2.86 pounds per month on the two year,

3.79 on the one year and 9.20 on the one month.

Obviously the two year plan provides the best value here

and for that price, you can add up to six devices.

Something's right in here,

and as I always do is that I contacted Nord

to see if I can offer any extras

for people watching this video.

So click on the link below and use the coupon code Pete,

to purchase a two year plan

and you'll receive four months for free and a surprise gift.

No idea what that is,

though I know that these videos say live for a long time,

so this might change over time.

Overall impression well,

this is a really strong contender to begin with,

seems to be priced reasonably and it's secure.

And it doesn't still user data, speed seems pretty good

unless perhaps you're in the UK

and want to VPN to New Zeal and Australia.

So let us continue

and obviously one of the mostly highly rated VPNs

that I've seen in other online reviews, ExpressVPN.

When researching which VPN providers

I should be trialling as part of this review,

ExpressVPN was one that always came out on top,

though I'd never actually heard of it before.

In terms of speed well,

UK to UK hit 500 megabits per second,

UK to U.S.. around 60 to 100 megabits per second.

I wanna try that again to Washington DC,

it was even worse at half the speed

of even the last test.

Results for UK to Australia

were between 26 to 40 megabits per seconds.

And then UK to New Zealand

ranged from a whopping half a Meg,

but did go up to 130 meg at different times of the day.

So pretty mixed bag,

some good speeds in New Zealand and some of the time.

I'd probably say that Nord VPN

definitely takes the medal on reliable speed so far,

but let's continue.

In terms of security and privacy well,

I couldn't find any reported breaches.

Then my searches were just full of news articles

about how they're partnering up with other companies

like LastPass.

The fact that it hasn't been a breach

that I can tell is good news,

and in terms of that whole five Eyes 14 Eyes thing,

well ExpressVPN are based in the British Virgin Islands

and they prove that it doesn't retain any data logs

and unable to provide any identifiable is that word,

any identifiable data on its users to governments,

which still good stuff, so let's move on.

In terms of ease of use and as with Nord VPN, it's easy,

choose a location, hit connect and you're in.

When it comes to streaming services as with Nord, Netflix,

Hulu, Amazon Prime, iPlayer, HBO and Disney Plus

should all work just fine.

But again, if you're unsure, then test this first,

they do have a 30 day money back guarantee

if you have any issues.

And then on to pricing, which is 10.9 pounds per month,

7.78 pounds per month if you sign up for six months

and then 4.48 pounds per month,

if you sign up for 12 months.

Now, except for the one month,

those prices are significantly more expensive than Nord,

almost double, but also the price has changed a few times

when making this video.

So one, those prices may not be right and two just why.

So some great speeds, great security, pricing is a bit off.

However, again, after getting in touch with ExpressVPN,

there is a link down below beneath that like button

that will give you three months free

when you sign up for 12 months.

Now onto Surfshark.

Surfshark is also one of the ones that crop up

after all of these top reviews

and particularly from what I read,

one of the fastest VPNs around so let's see.

Okay so for speed,

we ran the exact same tests,

UK to UK 600 to 700 megabits per second,

UK to France, nearly 500 megabits per seconds,

UK to U.S. 200 to 400 megabits per second

in some other tests.

And then UK to Australia was between 30 to 40 Meg,

as well as put about 140 meg as some other tests.

Then from UK to New Zealand,

20, nearly 30 megabits per seconds.

And then again,

around about 140 megabits in other tests done

in like the early hours of the morning here in the UK.

So just, wow, that's pretty great on speeds.

So far, that's definitely the best overall that we've seen.

For security well,

Surfshark are one of the only ones

where I could find that they have actually invited

an independent company into vet them

and produce a security port,

which is really good to see,

though I did notice the report

only really covered the Google Chrome and Firefox extensions

rather than the actual clients themselves,

and so not an internal security assessment.

So whilst that is great,

the browser gotta a clear bill of health,

is not really what most of us are interested in

in terms of knowing how safe our data is,

but there are no real reasons to raise a concern here.

There's no reports of breaches, but equally again,

no independent verification that they don't store that data.

One thing worth noting here is that

Surfshark does have the option to use multi hop VPNs,

which means it will literally jump from one country

to another probably useful for maybe like journalists

who are travelling through countries

with certain restrictions,

but just be aware that

since you're jumping across two VPN connections,

that this will impact your speeds further.

Surfshark are also based in the British Virgin Islands,

which is friendly to privacy so again, no issues there.

Again, as with ease of use, it's easy to use,

select a server, click next and just write in,

also personal opinion here

but I'd say the interface on Nord

is slightly nicer than shark,

Nord gives you a nice map that you can zoom in and out

and decide what you wanna connect to,

though that's just a personal opinion.

And realistically,

you're just gotta be searching for the country,

hitting connect, be done with it.

Last couple of things,

and this one is really good

is that you can hook up to unlimited

simultaneous connection.

So you could technically connect

and use this VPN on say your laptop,

your desktop, Amazon Firestick, Chromecast,

games console, mobile phone, all at once,

maybe for friends and family too.

For streaming services and as in the previous two,

all the usual suspects in terms of streaming,

so no concerns here at all either.

With that said,

I did find the app a little bit awkward to navigate

and search on the Fire TV,

so it was just worth a mention.

In terms of pricing,

you can sign up for seven day trial

if you sign up using the mobile app,

and then for one month, it's 9.78 per month,

six months, it's 4.90 per month.

But if you wanted to sign up for 24 months,

then you can pay 45.14 pounds,

which comes into just 1.67 pounds per month,

and you get a further three months for free,

incredibly low price.

Again, I contacted Surfshark to see if there's any deals

and using the coupon code of Pete Mathison,

see the link below,

which will give you a 84% discount

plus four months for free.

So that's incredibly aggressively priced, wow.

Payment is also worth mentioning here

as Surfshark also allow you to pay in cryptocurrency,

so for those of you who wanna stay completely anonymous,

then you can pay using that.

Overall Surfshark actually seems like

a really, really strong contender.

I mean, it's slightly cheaper than other VPN.

It has some incredibly fast speeds.

Well, it seems to work pretty well

aside from being awkward to use on TV,

plus it does have that unlimited devices thing.

This could well be a great option.

Next up, CyberGhost.

Getting straight into CyberGhost in terms of speed,

UK to UK hit 750 megabits per second,

UK to France 600 to 700 megabits per second,

UK to U.S. 160 ish here, but 340 meg,

other tests that I did UK to Australia,

nearly 300 megabits per second, just wow.

And then UK to New Zealand, 170 megabits per second.

So, well, speeds are definitely improving here.

I'd say that between CyberGhost

and Surfshark for pure speed.

If you're looking to use a VPN,

particularly for Australia and New Zealand VPN services,

then this so far,

this is definitely one of the best choices.

Security well they reported a data breach

due to a third party service called Typeform,

which had compromised summer surveys,

which were sent back in 2018,

they did report the information unconfirmed

that it only affected 120 email addresses

and then 14 CyberGhost users.

So I would say that's a good response,

I mean, they communicated it well.

The only other concern here

is that the company has gone through some changes

over the years

and previously it was bought by a company

that was pretty much infamous for bundling in dodgy stuff

into its downloads.

That's probably not a reflection on who they are now,

of course, but yeah, things can change,

but something to be aware of at least.

Privacy is the same on paper as everywhere else.

They don't have any independent audits.

However, they do release a transparency report

every three months to chat about key stats

and the people behind the company,

malware activity seen on its network.

So that's kind of nice and transparent.

They are also based in Romania

again outside of the 14 Eyes things

so there's no risk their having being forced

to share user information with the governments.

And then ease of use, well, yeah, easy to use.

One thing I do like here is that you can see how congested

each of the servers are that you're connecting to,

which you can see on some of the other ones that we tested,

but that makes you wonder

if the other VPN providers I was using

and seeing much slower download speeds

just happened to be on the servers that were too busy,

but we just never knew and we'll never know.

When using it on the Fire TV,

the sign-on was actually simple

and huge congratulations to them here for

'cause they kind of taken the same approaches

like the likes of YouTube,

where you visit website, enter code,

and then it links to your accounts

without having to type on your using password

onto the screen or use the remote control.

For streaming services well,

it seemed to be a bit of a mixed bag in all honesty,

it should support everything,

but I've seen reports that Amazon Prime TV won't work,

but my experience was just fine,

and again, just test this out first.

But one thing I did like here is that on Amazon Fire TV,

it had specific service for streaming services.

So whilst on one hand there are reports of issues streaming,

well, I kind of liked this implementation if it works.

On pricing, it's 10.89 pounds per month,

3.45 pounds per month if you sign up for one year,

and then 2.89 pounds per month for two years

or 1.99 a month for three years and three months.

Pretty good on the pricing front

than in comparison to the others

and they give you a 45 day money back guarantee,

which always helps.

Overall CyberGhost seems to have a really good product.

And the speeds on sort of my tests

have been almost unbeaten so far,

but personally with the questionable ethics

in previous years,

as well as the odd reported hiccup in Amazon Prime streaming

and pricing, which is kind of middle of the road,

I guess, for all the providers, it's not great,

it's not bad,

but when there are other options available like Surfshark,

which has almost as good speeds,

but none of those questions hanging over it,

then I probably only recommend this

if it's the slightly fast download speeds

to Australia and New Zealand,

one of the only things that you're bothered about.

And then finally onto Private Internet Access.

Private Internet Access is one that I see

crops up on some of the YouTube reviews

and videos of sponsors,

but isn't really widely reviewed

and certainly not ranked in many of the VPN compares

that I've looked at.

So let's give this one a try and just see how it compares.

In terms of speed,

UK to UK hit almost 400 megabits per seconds,

UK to France, 300 megabits per second,

UK to U.S. 250 megabits per seconds,

UK to Australia, 50, 60 really took ages to ramp up.

And then in other tests I did, it went up to 160,

and then UK to New Zealand

topped out around about 150, 160 ish,

but it did almost reach 200 in some other tests.

So overall pretty okay results.

Privacy again, this seems all above board,

though it is worth mentioning that PIA is in the five Eyes

or rather now the 14 Eyes country,

which means they could be forced to give up information

to the government, if so, requested.

However, they have confirmed

that they don't store any local user data.

And in fact, a post from Reddit

claims that when Russia tried to force their hand

and make them log all of the Russian internet traffic

for up to a year, they stopped doing business in Russia.

And they've also shut down all their VPN services in Brazil

and South Korea,

and more recently in July of 2020 in Hong Kong.

So that's kind of nice to know.

Ease of use well, no issues using the client

though on the Mac, there sits in the menu bar at the top

rather than a standalone application

like all the other clients I use.

And in terms of streaming with a Fire TV app,

no issues there.

And the one of the companies

that haven't really got a clever pin or login system.

So you do have to sit there

and talk in using those remote controls,

but they don't have, but Hey,

once we're in the interface, it is super clean and simple.

It does seem to struggle

with many of the streaming services.

Netflix and iPlayer are just a few that I had issues with.

And so you would likely need to choose

an alternative VPN provider

if this is the main reason you're signing up for.

And something, I noticed it might've just been on mine,

but when I connect to the VPN on Fire TV,

went to watch something and came back,

it looked like it was disconnected,

so not quite sure what's going on there.

In terms of pricing

and for those of you who do just want a good VPN service,

then you can pick up one month for 8.9 pounds,

one year for 2.71 pounds per month

and two years for 2.19 pounds per month

with two months free.

Just pretty good pricing to be honest.

So which one is it?

There are so so many great services available.

And to be honest,

the results are just pretty much too close to call.

I think for me I would say

it's probably gonna be Surfshark

as the overall winner,

with Nord VPN as a very, very close second overall,

because Nord is a well-named brand

and the software it's clean and easy to use

and reliable and just works with good speeds to boot.

But with Surfshark,

they simply had incredible speeds at incredible prices.

Plus it has that unlimited devices thing,

which means you can instal

and use Surfshark VPN on multiple devices

and be connected like wherever you want.

Whereas Nord is limited to six devices,

ExpressVPN to five devices,

CyberGhost is seven and PIA is for 10 devices.

For the best New Zealand and Australia speeds

but at least half in the UK,

then CyberGhost is definitely worth looking at,

and I always suggest that

you pick one that's the best suits your needs

and make use of any of the free trial periods

or money back guarantee periods

as you'll be able to make sure that it's fast enough

and works with your streaming services.

And we're done for you.

Phew, that is everything for this video.

This one was super difficult to make

as you can go into so much detail on the VPN services

and everything that's involved,

but then each services would need its own video

and it would just be a monster of a video to shoot.

So hopefully this fairly high level overview of each service

has done its justice.

Of course, subscribe to the channel for more,

comment below with any questions,

and I'll do my best to respond to each

and every single one of them.

Otherwise like, subscribe all the things

and see in the next video.

Thank you, bye, bye.