The arrival of the UK Online Safety Act's age verification measures has prompted an upsurge VPN (virtual private network) interest among Brits.
A VPN encrypts the online traffic of any device connected to it, reducing – and ideally eliminating entirely – the risk that your data could be intercepted and used maliciously by bad actors when you’re going through age verification checks in order to access your favorite platforms.
While many have turned to the best free VPNs as a quick solution, paid services not only offer higher performance, but also greater reassurance when it comes to your privacy.
We've already seen several unreliable free VPNs top Apple's App Store charts in recent days, and, with interest around VPNs showing little sign of cooling off, it's unlikely that these dubious providers are going to disappear any time soon.
I've spent hundreds of hours testing both the best free VPNs and the best VPNs you need to pay for, and several things stand out. Primarily, paid VPNs offer a much more trustworthy experience, due to both their strict, audited no-log policies and their security features – but there's more to it than that.
One VPN that continues to stand out in my testing is NordVPN. We rank it as the best VPN we've tested on TechRadar – it has a few unique features that make it stand out, and in all my hours of testing, I've never found any true competition for it.
Stress-free browsing
VPNs are no longer merely a tool to encrypt your internet connection, and nothing demonstrates this better than NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro feature.
Built into every NordVPN plan aside from Basic, Threat Protection Pro offers a whole suite of seriously handy tools. There's ad and tracker blocking for everyday internet browsers, malware, phishing, and virus protection for serial downloaders, and scam and fraud alerts are thrown in too.
In our testing of other VPNs we've often found similar protective tools to be ineffective, seeing very low detection rates for critical issues such as malware, failure to block ads, and an inability to detect malicious websites. Threat Protection Pro, however, continues to be the exception to the rule.
Our last round of testing of NordVPN, however, saw the service block almost 80% of malware sites, almost 90% of phishing sites, and 84% of ads – all of which puts NordVPN miles ahead of the competition.
While those numbers aren’t perfect, and the technology isn't remotely as refined as the best antivirus tools, they’re more than good enough to provide everyday reassurance. What's more, aside from its curious tendency to not load certain links and assets from rival VPNs, NordVPN is a breeze to use.
Using every tool is as simple as turning it on and forgetting about it, nothing is inexplicably hidden, and you're given clear instructions should it spot anything concerning. All-around, it's been a seriously handy companion in keeping my devices safe for months now.
Security with little sacrifice
While several top VPNs have security-driven proprietary protocols, none have impressed me quite as much as NordWhisper.
Launched in January 2025, NordWhisper is NordVPN's censorship-resistant VPN protocol. Using the Tor Project's WebTunnel technology, NordWhisper, in essence, hides your encrypted VPN traffic by wrapping it in a standard HTTPS connection – HTTPS being a standard level of security added to platforms, which can be seen on the surface when you expand to a full web URL to look at it.
NordVPN has another proprietary protocol called NordLynx. It's seriously fast, thanks to being built on WireGuard, and offers speeds that make NordVPN one of the fastest VPNs available.
This 'wrapping' hides the traditional indicators countries can use to identify and block VPN-encrypted traffic – meaning you can, theoretically, access the internet seamlessly even in regions with tight internet restrictions.
For most, this technology will never be necessary. As mentioned already, it's really designed for those in very extreme social scenarios, so chances are you'll never need NordWhisper, but nevertheless I was seriously impressed by its performance.
Comparing NordWhisper to the likes of Proton VPN's Stealth protocol and VyperVPN's Chameleon protocol – which are both considered exemplary censorship-resistant protocols – was fascinating. NordWhisper took the least time to connect me to a server, had the least impact on my internet speeds, and never had issues loading a variety of websites and apps on both mobile and desktop.
It's this stellar performance that puts NordVPN among the best VPNs for use in regions such as China and, although it's unlikely I'll need it often, it serves as a superb indicator of the trust users can have in both NordVPN's performance and security.
Seamless connectivity
Before spending the hours I have with NordVPN, I would never have even thought about using a service like Meshnet – now I can’t imagine being without it.
Put simply, Meshnet provides a secure, encrypted way to access all of your devices, no matter where you are in the world. What's more, you can even use it for things such as LAN gaming, or remote access to media servers, home assistant systems, and network cameras.
The real-world applications of Meshnet may, therefore, seem niché, but it's the simplicity with which it works that astounds me. Sending files between devices takes barely seconds, connecting your devices to each other to set up a LAN gaming session is as simple as a few clicks, and, what's even better, you can connect up to 60 devices at once.
Since I began using Meshnet, I no longer find myself piling every document in my life into a cloud storage system just to have access once, all at the expense of my storage limit. Instead, anything I need to send can go specifically from one device to another, in a matter of seconds.
In reality, you may not find yourself using Meshnet as much as Threat Protection, though you'll likely find it more beneficial than NordWhisper. But, as is the case with each of these tools, its capability and simplicity are boundless, and I only find myself using it more as I uncover new use cases for it in different scenarios.
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