| Provider | Description | Costs | Payment Methods |
|---|---|---|---|
| ProtonVPN | Excellent VPN provider from Switzerland. Also available free of charge in a very limited version. | $0-24 / month | PayPal, Credit Card and Bitcoin |
| NordVPN | NordVPN probably has the best price/performance ratio. Affordable and reliable. | $10.50 / month | Credit Card, Amazon Pay, Bitcoin and other crypto currencies |
| Hotspot Shield | Good performance and good software, but this service is relatively expensive. | €15.99 / month | PayPal and Credit Card |
| Surfshark | Very reliable and fast network with over 800 servers worldwide. | €9.89 / month | Credit Card and crypto currency (including Bitcoin) |
| VyprVPN | Secure VPN network with over 200,000 IP addresses. | $80 / year | PayPal and Credit Card |
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a technology that makes it possible to use the Internet anonymously and encrypted. The own computer connects to the server of the respective VPN provider. All online communication will now first run via this proxy server. This makes your computer invisible to the outside world and gives you the opportunity to use the Internet anonymously.
VPN technology is used in various fields, for example for company networks. However, the most common area of application is anonymizing and encrypting the Internet connection. For example, you can access websites that are blocked for certain countries. Some VPN providers also offer fixed or dedicated IP addresses. Of course, a dedicated IP address does not offer the advantage of anonymity, but can be useful in various applications.
The most important factor for assessing a VPN provider is security. This does not only concern the effective encryption of data, but above all the so-called "leaking" of the own IP address or the DNS server addresses. This makes any VPN concept useless. That there are no such leaks is therefore the basic requirement for a good VPN provider.
The differences between the VPN providers are mainly in the number of server locations and in which countries these servers are located. There are also significant differences in the transfer and reaction speed (ping), although these are often related to the server locations. There are also differences between the providers in network utilization and possible connection drops. Accordingly, the prices are also different. It is noticeable that almost all providers use a similar discount system. The prices drop significantly if you pay a whole year at once and they drop again significantly if you buy a VPN for three years. The prices in the list above do not include any discounts.