Best VPN Service of 2022


All you need to know to find the best VPN for your online privacy needs.A VPN, short for "virtual private network," is a good way to secure your digital information and protect your privacy online. Here's how it works: A VPN encrypts the connection between your device and the internet. This encrypted connection gives you an added layer of security, which is a must-have if you ever send or receive sensitive information over the internet.

The best VPN can also prevent data throttling by your internet service provider and increase your personal safety by making it more difficult for public and private entities to view your browsing and search history. A bonus is that a VPN can help you unblock geographically restricted content online, which can open up your streaming options.

However, choosing the best VPN for your needs can be tricky. Over the past few years, an array of VPN service providers has flooded the marketplace, which comes with benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, the variety of affordable VPN options now available means that -- no matter how casual or critical your privacy needs -- there's a VPN service suited to your purpose. But it also means consumers have to wade through even more VPN advertising hype.

That's why we put each VPN through its paces. Our hands-on testing and review process is designed to cut through the hype. We're not just scrutinizing each VPN for their technical weaknesses; we're also looking for their individual performance strengths. We want to know what each VPN service does best. We test each VPN across over 20 factors and we're always improving our methodology as we learn more.

We test VPNs for browsing and streaming speed in multiple countries as well as their connection stability and even the smallest potential privacy leaks. By testing across multiple devices and platforms, we're able to assess which VPNs are best for gaming versus those best for streaming, torrenting, or sharing sensitive information. Most importantly, we focus on doing the deep-dive research necessary to vet each VPN's historical credibility and its ownership in a notoriously murky market. Based on those continued evaluations, you'll see a few bullet points on each entry in our list, highlighting each VPN's strengths and the uses we recommend it for most. And because we strive to keep on top of a fast-changing market, you'll notice that the rank of each VPN service changes as we learn more and retest.

Editors' note, Feb. 9, 2022: The VPN industry has undergone significant change in the past few months, with all three of our top VPN choices announcing major changes in corporate ownership. In December, ExpressVPN announced that it had officially joined Kape Technologies, a company that already owns several other VPNs and has raised privacy concerns in the past. In February, NordVPN and Surfshark announced the companies were merging, though they'll continue to operate autonomously. We're in the process of re-evaluating all of our top picks in light of these changes. We will update our reviews and, if necessary, our rankings to account for this new competitive landscape.

What's the best VPN in 2022?
ExpressVPN received a CNET Editors' Choice Award for best overall VPN. We evaluate VPNs based on their overall performance in three main categories: speed, security and price. Express isn't the cheapest, but it's among the fastest and, so far, is the most secure. (Note that we're currently re-evaluating ExpressVPN based on the news mentioned above.)
Surfshark, with its lower price, is a close second among our picks, thanks to its impressive performance and unlimited devices.
NordVPN, our third choice, is a die-hard heavy hitter. It costs more than Surfshark but less than Express, has an enormous network that's constantly getting faster and more secure and is easily the most reliable service we've tested.
What is a VPN?
A commercial virtual private network is technology that allows you to create a private connection over a less private network by creating an encrypted tunnel between your computer and the internet. You can install a VPN just like you would any other app or program on your smartphone or computer. A VPN can let you get around censorship in your country or access georestricted media content from another country -- and prevents your internet service provider from being able to intrude on your privacy by snooping on your web browsing. VPNs do this by allowing you to appear as though you're connecting from a different location or country.

A VPN is great for anyone using public, unprotected Wi-Fi, such as what's offered in airports, bars or coffee shops. Your VPN protects your sensitive information -- from your work projects to bank account login information -- from being seen by malicious actors who trawl public Wi-Fi networks. When you browse the internet while on a VPN, your computer will contact the website through your VPN's encrypted connection. The VPN will then forward the request for you and forward the response from the website back through its secure connection.

For more beginner-focused VPN help, we've demystified some of the jargon in our guide to all the VPN terms you need to know.

The best VPN in 2022
Let's look at each of our VPN vendors below in more depth. Keep in mind that this list is constantly being updated. We're actively working on more VPN testing and research, so expect this guide to change throughout the year as we put each VPN through its paces.

The list below presents our favorites overall in 2022 so far. We'll call out when specific traits make for a better choice in a more narrow evaluation.


2022-07-07 23:54:32