The VPNs we'd actually trust with our traffic in 2026

Mullvad is the VPN we use ourselves. Five euros a month, flat. No email signup, no account beyond a randomly-generated 16-digit number, repeated audits by Cure53 and Assured. Pay in cash, monero, or card — whatever you want. The apps are open source and the Wireguard implementation is fast (we measured ~7% speed loss on a nearby server).

It is not the right pick if you need streaming reliability — Mullvad is explicitly not in that game and won't promise to unblock Netflix US from abroad. For pure privacy, nothing else is this honest.

Proton VPN Plus is the all-rounder: Swiss jurisdiction, audited no-logs, fast Wireguard, plus a credible free tier you can fall back on. The Plus subscription includes Secure Core (multi-hop through privacy-friendly countries), P2P-optimized servers, and the rest of the Proton suite (Mail, Drive, Calendar, Pass) at the Unlimited tier.

Streaming unblocking is solid (Netflix US, BBC iPlayer, Disney+) and the apps are polished across iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux. If you want one subscription that covers VPN + privacy-respecting cloud, this is it.

IVPN is the connoisseur's choice. A small, Gibraltar-based team that's been running since 2009, with hardened apps that default to good settings (kill switch on, IPv6 disabled, DNS leak protection enforced). Pay anonymously by cash or monero, sign up with a randomly-generated account ID.

Server count is smaller than Proton or Nord (~100 servers, 40 locations) but speeds are excellent on the Wireguard implementation. For someone who actively wants the smaller, hardened option over the brand-name fleet, IVPN is the buy.

NordVPN is the streaming king. If you regularly hop between Netflix UK, US, and JP, or need access to BBC iPlayer from outside the UK, no other major VPN unblocks more reliably. The 6,000+ server fleet is genuinely useful and the Threat Protection feature does decent ad and tracker blocking.

Privacy posture is fine but not best-in-class — Panama jurisdiction is friendly, audits are repeated, but the company markets aggressively and has had one historic server breach (2018, no user data exposed). For streaming and breadth, it's the pick.