Since demand peaked for streaming and gaming services during the coronavirus lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, we’ve seen a marked increase in the use of VPNs across the globe.
As a result of this, the global VPN market is forecast to achieve a value in excess of $107.6 billion by 2027, continuing to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.2% over the next five years.
Of course, this has also created an increasingly competitive marketplace, in which a growing number of VPN service providers strive to achieve a viable market share. But what are the key considerations when choosing your VPN client?
1. What Protocols Do They Use?
VPN protocols effectively describe a unique set of rules or instructions that dictate how your data is routed between your device and the provider’s virtual server.
While it’s these protocols that enable VPN clients to establish secure and reliable Internet connections, there are a number of different options used and each one offers their own set of advantages and potential drawbacks.
Ideally, you should identify VPN service providers that employ multiple protocols, in order to create reliable alternatives depending on your device type and usage requirements.
If you check out a Surfshark VPN review, for example, you’ll see that this client deploys IKEv2, OpenVPN and WireGuard protocols simultaneously. These are three of the best and most effective protocols available, especially from the perspective of ease of use and speed of operation.
WireGuard is something of a game changer in the world of VPN protocols, as it only supports UDP (User Datagram Protocol). This uses no handshake protocols at all, ensuring that WireGuard is incredibly fast and capable of skipping the checks commonly performed by the similarly popular OpenVPN.
Ultimately, if a VPN client operates WireGuard and OpenVPN protocols alongside other options, you can rest assured that it’s likely to establish secure, private and functional connections online.
2. How Many Server Locations Do They Operate?
If we refer back to the aforementioned Surfshark review, we can see the client operates more than 3,200 servers in 65 countries across the globe.
This translates into a large number of international server locations, optimizing the core functionality of the VPN and its ability to ensure superior speeds regardless of your precise geographical location.
In simple terms, operating a large number of servers and locations means that each one will have fewer users, translating into faster (and more consistent) connection speeds and a much broader selection of IP addresses.
This makes it much harder for platforms such as Netflix to block individual VPN clients, as the process of matching unique IP addresses with DNS servers becomes far more challenging.
Because of this, VPN clients with multiple server locations tend to be the best for streaming geographically restricted content, through platforms like BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus and, of course, Netflix.
3. What’s the Service Providers Country of Origin?
When you compare different VPN reviews, you’ll see that service providers exist in countries across the globe. This is because the use of VPNs is perfectly legal in the vast majority of jurisdictions, although there are notable exceptions to this rule.
Both Russia and China have aggressive anti-VPN legislation in place, for example, while the Indian government has recently introduced a mandate compelling clients to collate and store data pertaining to users for a minimum period of five years.
These are important considerations, as all VPN companies are required to operate legally and follow the individual laws laid out in their home country.
These include data collection mandates and operational restrictions, which can impact negatively on your privacy and the overall efficacy of your chosen VPN.
So, in addition to ensuring that your chosen VPN service operates in a country where such technology is lawful, you’ll also have to review any specific laws that control the collation, storage and usage of private data if you’re to optimise your overall experience.
4. What’s Your VPN Client’s Privacy Policy?
While the vast majority of VPNs claim to keep no logs or user data at all, this is often untrue.
More specifically, most clients are required to keep at least basic connection legs in order to maintain their service, while some may even retain browser history data and more sensitive snippets of information.
In most cases, you’ll probably want to keep this information private, so it’s important to review a VPN client’s privacy policy in detail before determining whether or not you’d like to use it.
There are a couple of key considerations when reviewing a VPN client’s privacy policy. Firstly, it should ideally be clear and concise and broken down into digestible chunks, as opposed to being overly detailed, packed full of jargon and difficult to understand. It should also make overt references as to what data is logged over time, allowing you to make an informed and insightful decision.
Secondly, you should note that some less reputable VPN clients will look to create a privacy policy simply by copying and pasting content from more established service providers.
This typically means that the VPN client has little or no defined privacy policy of its own, and you can check this simply by copy and pasting a paragraph or two and entering this into Google.
Then, see if there are any other service providers that feature an identical privacy policy or the same terms and conditions of usage, as this suggests that the content has simply been lifted to create a sense of credibility.
The Last Word
So, there you have it; some of the key considerations when looking to choose a reputable VPN service provider.
Of course, there are other factors to keep in mind too, depending on your precise usage, the device that you use and how frequently you connect to public networks.
The key is to understand your needs in detail, before determining which VPN client is best-placed to meet these effectively!
