Shop safer this Black Friday with this privacy-first VPN deal

Black Friday is right around the corner, and we think it’s a great time to take the plunge, sign up for a VPN, and take advantage of their security and privacy features during one of the busiest sales seasons of the year.

The best VPNs come with extra tools, and while some of these can be extremely niche, other features are easier to use and have a real impact on your overall online security. Think protection from malicious URLs and phishing attempts. These tools also come in especially handy during the Black Friday sales, when bad actors go out of their way to target shoppers with fake websites and scams.

NordVPN and Surfshark are our two top-rated VPNs, and both VPNs have dropped early Black Friday deals that we think are worth checking out.

Signing up for NordVPN’s Plus or higher subscription tier gets you access to the Threat Protection Pro suite, which includes something that’s valuable all year round, but especially important in the rush around Black Friday/Cyber Monday: a way to detect fake shopping websites.

These are sites designed to mimic real online shops. They often have professional designs, time-limited discounts, and glowing customer reviews, all designed to lure in unwary buyers and prey on their fear of missing out.

The goal of these fake sites is to trick you into making a purchase by claiming that an unbelievable discount is about to expire, or that they only have a handful of items left in stock. The scammers want you to rush, to not consider whether the site is genuine, and hand over your personal details and payment information.

The result is that, at best, orders placed on these fake sites never arrive. Alternatively, what you receive might be nothing like what was promised, especially when it’s now so easy to make convincingly fake AI product images. At worst, your information is stolen, and you’re left dealing with consequences like financial loss, identity theft, and immense stress in the run-up to the festive season.

NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro keeps you safe by warning you away from these sites, including brand new ones designed to take advantage of the hundreds of Black Friday sales.

In fact, AV-Comparatives named Threat Protection Pro one of the best tools for detecting and combating fake shopping scams. In the latest round of testing, Threat Protection Pro was able to successfully identify 81-90% of the 500 fake sites it was presented with.

With more than one in four US shoppers stating they had fallen victim to fake shopping sites, it’s an essential component of your online security toolkit.

Another way to protect your identity and personal data this Black Friday is to reduce how often you give out your real personal information. Surfshark’s Alternative ID feature does all the hard work for you and, even better, it comes with all Surfshark’s subscription tiers.

Alternative ID creates an entirely new online identity for you. It generates a new name, email address, date of birth, and even a real-world address that you can enter into sites, with everything then being forwarded to your real email address.

This means that you don’t need to hand over your real information to sites you’ve never used before, and with the Surfshark browser extension, you can even auto-fill your new details into online forms. Alternative ID can also generate an alternative phone number if you need one, but that is an extra cost on top of your subscription.

This feature comes in especially handy during Black Friday and over the holiday season if you’re doing a lot of online shopping or planning Christmas travel, which might involve opening new accounts on unfamiliar sites.

Not only does Alternative ID protect you from potentially fraudulent websites, it also reduces the amount of personal data that might be leaked if a site is hacked, which can help protect against identity theft and financial fraud as a result of someone imitating you. By filtering everything through a fake email address that you can change anytime you like, you cut down on spam and unwanted marketing emails, too.