The Black Friday sales are fast approaching, and while it’s great to have tons of bargains to choose from, picking out products can be tricky – and the same goes for today’s best VPNs.
Proton VPN jumped out from the crowd in our most recent tests, however, with a rapidly growing network of VPN servers. With more servers in more underserved locations (think Africa and Asia), Proton VPN is one of the most accessible providers available today.
So, if you’re on the hunt for a VPN deal to pick up during the seasonal sales, it could be your perfect match. Keep reading, and I’ll dig into why such a massive spread of servers is good news for users.
Global domination
Part of our regular VPN testing process involves figuring out how many servers a VPN has and where they are. We were pleasantly surprised to see that Proton VPN’s server network has increased massively over the last year or so – and is now bigger than the likes of NordVPN and ExpressVPN.
Paid users can take their pick of 8,291 servers in a downright impressive 112 countries. Even better, a lot of Proton VPN’s server growth has taken place in countries that other VPNs typically gloss over.
Private Internet Access (PIA), for example, primarily focuses on its USA and European coverage – but Proton VPN’s scope is more global. Here’s a handy breakdown:
| Area | # of server locations |
|---|---|
| North America | 21 |
| South America | 7 |
| Europe | 43 |
| Asia | 42 |
| Oceania | 6 |
| Africa | 22 |
| Middle East | 14 |
| Total | 141 |
This spread of coverage is pretty awesome – especially if you consider that many VPNs don’t have any servers in Africa. In fact, during our tests, we checked out 235 VPN location lists and couldn’t find a single African server on a whopping 104 of them.
Proton VPN also has plenty of servers in the most popular VPN destinations – so you’ll have no trouble finding a nearby server. Connecting to a local server means that your data doesn’t have to travel as far when it leaves your device and heads to the server (before going on to the site you’re trying to access). So, you’ll be able to protect your day-to-day browsing without slowing down.
It is worth noting that Proton VPN doesn’t have any servers in Russia – though this is pretty much par for the course. Proton VPN’s peers, including NordVPN, Surfshark, and PIA, don’t have servers in the notoriously privacy-unfriendly Russia, either.
The total number of servers a VPN offers isn’t a massive differentiating factor between providers. CyberGhost boasts a massive count of over 11,000, but we rank ExpressVPN and Surfshark higher in our overall shortlist of services, despite each having around 3,000 servers. So, it’s not the overall quantity of servers that matters, but where they’re located and how well spread out they are.
Goodies galore
Proton VPN has carved out a long-standing reputation as a privacy-oriented service – and for good reason. The VPN was developed by the good folks behind the encrypted mail service Proton Mail, and was initially designed to shore up the digital privacy of anyone dealing with strict censorship, bans, and geo-restrictions.
So, in addition to servers in every corner of the world, you’re also getting access to the following features:
- Proven no logs policy: Proton VPN isn’t interested in keeping tabs on what you do whilst connected to a server – and invited independent auditors to verify these claims earlier in the year.
- Awesome unblocking power: Proton VPN aced our streaming tests and achieved a perfect score, able to unblock Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime, and a whole heap of platforms – thanks to that massive server network.
- Serious speeds: nobody wants to be slowed down by a sluggish service, and Proton VPN actually maxed out our connection line during testing, reaching 950+ Mbps when using WireGuard, making it one of today’s fastest VPNs.
- Apps for everything: you’ll be able to install Proton VPN on every device you have – desktops, mobiles, tablets, and even routers.
- A free plan: Some free VPNs are poorly disguised scams – but Proton VPN Free is the real deal. It’s unlimited, with no data caps or ads, and gives folks dealing with censorship and bans a way to fight back and reclaim their privacy without parting with a penny.
We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
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river.hart@futurenet.com (River Hart)
