Downloading a VPN app, creating an account, choosing a plan and connecting to your VPN shouldn’t take longer than a minute or so.
With so many iPhone VPN apps available, it can be difficult to choose the right one. Based on our extensive research and hands-on testing of VPNs over the years, these are the factors to look out for when choosing the best VPN for iPhone:
Privacy
The most important factor to consider with any VPN is privacy. You should never use a VPN provider if you can’t trust that it’s taking your privacy seriously. Every VPN worth its salt should provide AES 256-bit encryption over either OpenVPN or IKEv2 VPN protocols at the bare minimum. If it also offers ChaCha20 over WireGuard, you’ll get all the protection you expect plus a nice speed boost over most other protocols.
Your VPN should also have basic privacy features such as a kill switch, which protects you if your VPN connection unexpectedly goes down, DNS leak protection to stop your ISP from reading your website requests and a solid no-logs policy that is regularly audited. We recommend checking any provider’s privacy policy and reading its audit reports closely, as it’ll give you a good understanding of whether a VPN provider is serious about your privacy. If you notice a mention of data collection or sharing practices in a VPN’s privacy policy that don’t sit well with you, then it’s best to trust your gut and look for a different provider.
If your privacy needs are critical, then you’ll need to look for a provider that goes above and beyond the standard privacy considerations. Your VPN should be based in a jurisdiction that has strong privacy laws that don’t mandate data retention or logging. Choosing a provider that offers obfuscation is also necessary if you’re in a region or network that restricts or bans VPN use outright because it can help hide the fact that you’re using a VPN in the first place.
Many of the best VPNs are also rolling out post-quantum protections that help protect against potential future threats from quantum computers, which is essential for privacy-critical users now and moving forward. Finally, your provider should offer either a RAM-only server infrastructure or employ full-disk encryption on its hard drives, both of which can help ensure that your data remains secure. There are also some other privacy features that aren’t as vital but still useful, such as ad-blockers, Tor over VPN and multi-hop connections.
Speed
Your VPN’s connection speeds can have a major influence on the quality of your streaming, downloading, video conferencing, gaming and general web-browsing activities. All VPNs slow down your internet somewhat, simply by nature of encrypting your traffic and routing it through one or more remote servers. To keep things running as smoothly as possible, you’ll want a VPN that will have as minimal an impact on your regular internet speeds as possible. Generally, we’ve found that the best VPNs for iPhone only drop your internet download speed by an average of 25% or less. In our testing, we’ve seen as low as an average 3% internet download speed loss. For bandwidth-demanding applications like competitive gaming or video streaming, you’ll want a fast VPN.
ProviderSpeed loss Surfshark 21%ExpressVPN 18%NordVPN 3%PIA 49%
Usability
A good VPN for iPhone should run smoothly and be easy to use, regardless of your technical expertise. It should have all of the features you need easily accessible with a tap of your finger. Many of the best iPhone VPN apps also include an easy way to get in touch with support directly from the device, which can be helpful if you need assistance on the go. Basically, your VPN app should be as easy for you to use as your iPhone itself. It should have a large network of servers around the world so you can connect easily and reliably from wherever you may be traveling and be able to help you access geo-restricted content from various regions.
Cost
Depending on your budget, you may want to take into account the cost and overall value of your iPhone VPN before making a purchase. VPN pricing can vary greatly from provider to provider but you can typically expect to spend about $5 to $15 per month for a monthly VPN subscription plan. If you want to save some money, you can choose an annual subscription, where prices can range from roughly $30 to $100 per year.
You’ll want to be careful with free VPNs because you may end up risking your privacy instead of protecting it. Many free VPNs have slow speeds or have unreliable connections that frequently drop because of overloaded servers. Some even actively degrade your privacy, logging any internet activity through the VPN for sale to third parties or injecting ads into your browsing sessions. Even paid VPNs have varying degrees of usability, privacy protections, speeds and streaming capabilities. Proton VPN is currently the only free VPN that CNET recommends.
Most premium VPNs offer a money-back guarantee anywhere from a week to 45 days. You can also get a seven-day free trial with many VPNs when you sign up through Apple’s App Store, so you have options to try various iPhone VPNs risk-free before you decide whether to fully invest in one.
Device support
While you’ll want a VPN for iPhone that works well on iOS, you may have other devices that you want to run a VPN on. Most VPNs work on Windows, MacOS, Linux PCs and Android devices. While Android TV and Fire TV apps are common for use on streaming devices, Apple TV apps are still on the rise. Providers like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Proton VPN, Surfshark, PIA and IPVanish offer Apple TV VPN apps. (Disclosure: IPVanish is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.) Think about the devices you want to install a VPN app on and make sure your desired VPN provider supports those gadgets.
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