Using a VPN will not keep your browsing habits anonymous, nor will it add additional security to non-secure (HTTP) traffic.
If you are looking for anonymity, you should use the Tor Browser instead of a VPN.
If you're looking for added security, you should always ensure you're connecting to websites using HTTPS. A VPN is not a replacement for good security practices.
If you're looking for additional privacy from your ISP, on a public Wi-Fi network, or while torrenting files, a VPN may be the solution for you as long as you understand the risks involved.
Download Tor Tor Myths & FAQ More InfoPlease note we are not affiliated with any of the providers we recommend. This allows us to provide completely objective recommendations. We have developed a clear set of requirements for any VPN provider wishing to be recommended, including strong encryption, independent security audits, modern technology, and more. We suggest you familiarize yourself with this list before choosing a VPN provider, and conduct your own research to ensure the VPN provider you choose is as trustworthy as possible.
Operating outside the five/nine/fourteen-eyes countries is not a guarantee of privacy necessarily, and there are other factors to consider. However, we believe that avoiding these countries is important if you wish to avoid mass government dragnet surveillance, especially from the United States.
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We require all our recommended VPN providers to provide OpenVPN configuration files to be used in any client. If a VPN provides their own custom client, we require a killswitch to block network data leaks when disconnected.
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We prefer our recommended providers to collect as little data as possible. Not collecting personal information on registration, and accepting anonymous forms of payment are required.
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A VPN is pointless if it can't even provide adequate security. We require all our recommended providers to abide by current security standards for their OpenVPN connections. Ideally, they would use more future-proof encryption schemes by default. We also require an independent third-party to audit the provider's security, ideally in a very comprehensive manner and on a repeated (yearly) basis.
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You wouldn't trust your finances to someone with a fake identity, so why trust them with your internet data? We require our recommended providers to be public about their ownership or leadership. We also would like to see frequent transparency reports, especially in regard to how government requests are handled.
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With the VPN providers we recommend we like to see responsible marketing.
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Responsible marketing that is both educational and useful to the consumer could include:
While not strictly requirements, there are some factors we looked into when determining which providers to recommend. These include adblocking/tracker-blocking functionality, warrant canaries, multihop connections, excellent customer support, the number of allowed simultaneous connections, etc.
Yes, unless you are already using Tor. A VPN does 2 things: shifting the risks from your Internet Service Provider to itself and hiding your IP from a third party service.
VPNs cannot encrypt data outside of the connection between your device and the VPN server. VPN providers can see and modify your traffic the same way your ISP could. And there is no way to verify a VPN provider's "no logging" policies in any way.
However, they do hide your actual IP from a third party service, provided that there are no IP leaks. They help you blend in with others and mitigate IP based tracking.
Encryption offered by VPN providers are between your devices and their servers. It guarantees that this specific link is secure. This is a step up from using unencrypted proxies where an adversary on the network can intercept the communications between your devices and said proxies and modify them. However, encryption between your apps or browsers with the service providers are not handled by this encryption.
In order to keep what you actually do on the websites you visit private and secure, you must use HTTPS. This will keep your passwords, session tokens, and queries safe from the VPN provider. Consider enabling "HTTPS everywhere" in your browser to mitigate downgrade attacks like SSL Strip.
Unless your VPN provider hosts the encrypted DNS servers, no. Using DOH/DOT (or any other form of encrypted DNS) with third party servers will simply add more entities to trust, and does absolutely nothing to improve your privacy/security. Your VPN provider can still see which websites you visit based on the IP addresses and other methods. Instead of just trusting your VPN provider, you are now trusting both the VPN provider and the DNS provider.
A common reason to recommend encrypted DNS is that it helps against DNS spoofing. However, your browser should already be checking for TLS certificates with HTTPS and warn you about it. If you are not using HTTPS, then an adversary can still just modify anything other than your DNS queries and the end result will be little different.
Needless to say, you shouldn't use encrypted DNS with Tor. This would direct all of your DNS requests through a single circuit, and would allow the encrypted DNS provider to deanonymize you.
By using a VPN with Tor, you're creating essentially a permanent entry node, often with a money trail attached. This provides zero additional benefit to you, while increasing the attack surface of your connection dramatically. If you wish to hide your Tor usage from your ISP or your government, Tor has a built-in solution for that: Tor bridges. Read more about Tor bridges and why using a VPN is not necessary.
VPNs cannot provide anonymity. Your VPN provider will still see your real IP address, and often has a money trail that can be linked directly back to you. You cannot rely on "no logging" policies to protect your data. Use Tor instead.
Do not use that feature. The point of using Tor is that you do not trust your VPN provider. Currently Tor only supports the TCP protocol. UDP (used in WebRTC for voice and video sharing, the new http3/QUIC protocol, etc), ICMP and other packets will be dropped. To compensate for this, VPN providers typically will route all non TCP packets through their VPN server (your first hop). This is the case with ProtonVPN. Additionally, when using this Tor over VPN setup, you do not have control over other important Tor features such as Isolated Destination Address (using a different Tor circuit for every domain you visit).
Thus, this feature should be viewed as a convenient way to access the Tor Network, not to stay annonymous. For true anonimity, use the Tor Browser Bundle, TorSocks, or a Tor gateway.
A VPN may still be useful to you in a variety of scenarios, such as:
For use cases like these, or if you have another compelling reason, the VPN providers we listed above are who we think are the most trustworthy. However, using a VPN provider still means you're trusting the provider. In pretty much any other scenario you should be using a secure-by-design tool such as Tor.
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