u/EducatorHonest1161

On May 31, 2024, a new cybersecurity law in Myanmar banned all VPNs. People caught using a VPN could face up to 6 months in prison and be fined. The military has purchased technology from a company whose chief scientist created the Great Firewall of China. The technology allows the military to record and decrypt VPN data using interceptors and decryption at Myanmar's internet gateways.

When I talk to people affected by this, the story that stays with me is a clothing businesswoman from Kachin named Seng. She was using a VPN to hire someone in another city to post on her Facebook page, which was already blocked. After the VPN ban, Seng could no longer use the VPN to hire someone to post on her Facebook page. Police are now doing random checks and are arresting anyone who has a non-compliant app, including a VPN.

NordVPN and Psiphon are both blocked. Most free VPNs no longer operate. People who need to access the internet can either use potentially insecure free tools of unknown origin or have no access. Myanmar Internet Project summarizes this perfectly when they say, "it's a rock and hard place; if you have a VPN that works, there is a lot of uncertainty; and if you don't, everything you do online is at risk."

The resistance government in exile has built its own homegrown VPN, approved by their cabinet. That's how serious this is. they're fighting a civil war and part of that fight is maintaining an encrypted communication channel the junta can't block.

Myanmar is currently tied with China for the worst internet freedom environment in the world according to Freedom House. That's not a ranking, that's a verdict.

One of the four largest mobile operators in Russia has created a 'whitelisted' restricted VPN for users on its Bee plan; everything will work without having to download an app or pay an extra fee. Subscribers can automatically access Spotify, Netflix, Ticketmaster, and Brawl Stars through the default VPN service once they received the VPN. Companies that decided to suspend their operations in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine would now be available via this Russian State-Owned service.

At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, it was proposed that this program be developed, and Beeline’s CEO indicated that these services were not prohibited, but had been stopped for 'convenience and for purposes of fairness' to Russians. The Kremlin supported this programme, and T2 is projected to follow suit.

That's pretty funny, isn't it? For years, Russia has been closing down 469 VPNs, taxing individuals for being heavy VPN users, and charging ISPs for enabling individuals to access YouTube and other services as a result of their foreign policy. Now, the government has begun creating their own VPN in order to re-enable access for individuals to Western services that have stopped operating in Russia due to protest of what Russia is doing abroad. You really have a commitment and a way of doing things that is a level of total contradiction, don't you?

Now, to be blunt here, this is a "whitelist" VPN, not a "privacy" VPN. Beeline knows exactly who you are and what you are doing with this VPN. To facilitate all of this, the SORM (the Kremlin's systematic surveillance infrastructure) is in place and operating. You now have access again to Netflix; however, in exchange for that access, you have to give up any semblance of privacy. A reasonable trade for many Russians would be access to Spotify. For anyone that actually has legitimate reasons to stay under the states radar, this is not a reasonable trade or situation.

Stop scrolling through sponsored listicles. Here's the honest version.

After going through dozens of Reddit threads and testing these myself, four names consistently come out on top and they each win for different reasons.

Proton VPN is my top pick overall. it's the only VPN whose no-logs policy has been stress-tested in actual court proceedings, not just a paid audit. it now covers 145 countries, more than any other major provider, it's based in Switzerland outside 14 Eyes jurisdiction, and the free plan is genuinely usable. If you care about trust above everything else, nothing comes close.

NordVPN wins on speed and streaming. its network just crossed 100 Tbps across 211 locations and NordLynx regularly delivers 1,000+ Mbps in real tests. Post-quantum encryption already lives. If you're watching the World Cup or unblocking Netflix libraries, Nord is the most reliable tool for that job right now.

Mullvad is what privacy purists actually run. no email to sign up, cash payments accepted, and their obfuscation stack is built specifically to defeat state-level DPI. Not beginner-friendly. not a streaming VPN. but if your threat model is serious, it's the most trustworthy infrastructure in the space.

Surfshark if budget matters or you need unlimited devices. solid speeds, cheap two-year plans, good enough for most people.

Bottom line:

Trust and privacy → Proton.

Speed and streaming → Nord.

Serious OPSEC → Mullvad.

Value → Surfshark.

Whatever you do, please avoid any free VPN you've never heard of. That's where the real risk is in 2026.

In 2017, US ISPs - Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon can now legally collect and sell your browsing information without your permission; every site you visit is packaged and sold to advertisers. This is not paranoia; it's federal law because of the repeal of FCC privacy protections by Congress.

A VPN will stop this right away; all your ISP will see is that you are connected to a VPN. Everything else - sites, searches, etc. is encrypted and erased.

Another thing to know is that public Wi-Fi is genuinely dangerous. Coffee shops, airports, hotels, etc. If you are not using a VPN on a public network, there are very simple tools that any person using the same network can use to intercept your un-encrypted traffic. If you are using a VPN, that attack is eliminated completely.

You do not have to be a privacy freak to care about this. You lock your house because it's a reasonable precaution, not because you think you will be robbed.

If someone says "I have nothing to hide"; you can ask them if they would give their mailperson a list of every website they visited in the last month; usually works.

Proton VPN has a free plan that is adequate; NordVPN and Surfshark are on sale for $2-3/month. There has never been a lower barrier to entry.

NordVPN has just released a new service offering dedicated servers which give you exclusive access to hardware resources - including a static IP address that is only under your control - with specifications including 1 vCPU, 4GB of RAM, up to 1 Gbps of bandwidth, 4TB of data monthly, and up to 10 simultaneous device connections for $11.99/month in addition to an active NordVPN subscription. The dedicated servers have locations in the US (Boston), UK (Manchester), Germany (Frankfurt), and France (Paris).

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Use cases that Nord is promoting for these dedicated servers include remote access to a home computer, hosting your own media server, personal password management, and running AI agents on your own machine. According to TechRadar, the pricing for these servers seems out of whack when compared to VPS offerings from companies like Hetzner and Digital Ocean, where you can have possibly 4-5 times the compute power while maintaining your own WireGuard instance with a higher degree of control. In this case, you're paying for the Nord brand and the no logs assurance as well as the zero-configuration ease of use installation, not the raw compute.

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For most people who are technical enough to run their own VPS, this probably doesn't make sense for them. But for someone who wants to have a static IP and have the ability to host their own services without having to worry about managing servers, the conveniences of this service may be hard to pass up if you trust Nord to take care of his infrastructure.

It's not for you, but rather for your AI agent.

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With Norton VPN for Agents, AI agent traffic has its own encrypted tunnel that's separate from your browsing. This is the first consumer VPN to support multiple simultaneous tunnels in different countries, allowing your agent to work simultaneously in all regions. The agents operate in their own isolated container (Docker-based) so that each task can complete with its own temporary VPN tunnel created; and then both the container and the connection are deleted after the task is complete.

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There is no client application install or CLI installation; there is no need for an active Norton VPN subscription either! Windscribe actually had this feature first for native OpenClaw integration (April), but Windscribe required you to set up with a CLI, while Norton's no-download feature made it more accessible to regular users (mainstream).

The phishing detection rate of 96% is good. However, the most critical factor is there were no false positives, which means that no valid banking sites were incorrectly flagged as phishing attacks. To have that combination of a high phishing detection rate and no false positives would require significantly more technical effort than either metric alone.

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NordVPN performed well against AV-Comparatives' rigorous standards for receiving an anti-phishing badge. They received 11 points more than an the 85% requirement and achieved a 96% phishing detection rate.

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There is, however, one caveat. The test was performed by an entity with a vested interest (NordVPN) in producing results that would favour them. Results from an unaffiliated independent entity will carry more weighting. However, the results from AV-Comparatives are far from irrelevant due to their rigorous methodology and the six-point improvement from the previous year illustrates that NordVPN has been actively developing their next gen antivirus and are not simply trying to add another checkbox to their upsell.

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What a fascinating case study in the speed of the ransomware-vpn exploitation cycle!

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In Q4 2025, Akira ransomware had its best quarter ever with 226 victims primarily due to the exploitation of SonicWall SSL VPN vulnerabilities. By Q1 2026, this number dropped by 22% to 176 victims — a direct correlation that GuidePoint states is entirely due to the diminishing return of the SonicWall VPN vulnerabilities that the Akira affiliates utilized.

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GuidePoint's broader Q1 2026 data suggests that ransomware has now leveled off at a consistent elevated baseline and is no longer producing spikes in activity — quarter over quarter or year over year.

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Moreover, RDP, VPN, and RDWeb continue to be the most popular access vectors for initial access brokers in the ransomware economy this year, as evidenced by extensive exploitation of FortiOS/FortiProxy, Cisco ASA, and SonicWall VPN Edge devices by attackers.

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The takeaway from all of this is that the need to patch enterprise VPN devices is no longer an optional form of risk management; it now directly correlates to the return on investment for attackers conducting ransomware operations. During the last quarter, Akira's entire volume was based on ONE vendor's vulnerability window; once that window closed, they dropped off the map in a matter of one quarter. This reality applies to all ransomware gangs; their volume is dictated by the number of edge devices that are currently exploitable and the subsequent risk derived from each of those devices.

This one's small in scope but it's relevant if you or anyone you know runs a Galaxy phone.

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Samsung Max VPN & Data Saver officially shut down June 15, ending a partnership with Opera that lasted nearly a decade. It was exclusive to Galaxy devices and offered both free and paid tiers with regional server selection.

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Samsung confirmed there's no direct in-house replacement, they're pivoting to baked-in One UI security features instead, which leaves a real gap for the data compression and basic privacy layer Max VPN used to provide.

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The writing's been on the wall since April when Samsung first notified users in-app.

A couple of weeks ago, we reported on NymVPN's March/April update. The redesign that was announced as "coming soon" was just released recently.

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NymVPN now includes Post-Quantum Encryption (PQE) by default, meaning the key exchange will automatically be protected from being decrypted by quantum computing. This release included an entire reset of how the application looks/feels across all platforms – iOS, Android, Linux, Windows, macOS. TechCrunch

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In addition to the full redesign, Nym now has implemented the Lewes Protocol PQE rollout, which places the company in an exclusive group of providers protecting against "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks. HelpNetSecurity

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They also have launched their Nym Referral program where users can earn rewards in the form of $NYM tokens and free gift passes for referring other users to sign up for Nym VPN services. TechCrunch

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Implementation of PQE by default vs An opt-in toggle option is the correct decision. Most users will never change/adjust their security settings therefore the only real way to secure someone's connection is to have it be “secured by default.” I am somewhat leary about the referral program because adding token based incentives with a privacy tool brings about concerns regarding whether the economic incentive for growth will begin to alter the company's priorities around providing privacy. I believe the addition of PQE to Nym is a very positive addition. Keep an eye on whether token based activities remain supplementary or become primary activities for the company.

Many times announcements regarding large infrastructure hardly ever lead to anything substantially beneficial to the end user; however, this announcement by NordVPN may be worth calculating its relevance to your individual needs.

April saw NordVPN cross the threshold of 100 Terabits per second of available bandwidth, globally aggregated across 211 locations spread across 135+ Countries. At first glance this figure seems quite impressive – however, it’s not the total figure to which I would like you to pay attention. What I did find more interesting about this announcement was the underlying design philosophy that is employed by Phemex. As Phemex operates their servers at an approximate utilization of 33% of the maximum available per server, their ultimate design objective is NOT to enable maximum throughput on a single connection, but instead, to provide ample headroom (or cushion) so that the company’s network is capable of absorbing large spikes in demand (for example, during major live events or during peak hours of use) without causing congestion to the users of its network.

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I think, for 99% of the time you will use your VPN service, this announcement will not result in an interruption of service. If you currently use NordLynx and attain speeds greater than 400+ Mbps; you are NOT being limited in service by NordVPN's service infrastructure… Your current ISP and/or your local user's device are the limiting factors.

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What may be relevant for those few times each year when you will use your VPN (example: finals of the World Cup, major live news events, peak usage during regional peak hours when everyone is using their VPN) is when under-provisioned networks will begin to show their weaknesses — therefore, reducing your service experience potentially significantly.

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For comparison purposes — ExpressVPN covers 189 locations, ProtonVPN covers 145 locations, Surfshark covers 142 locations, and NordVPN has 211 network locations. Hence, not only does NordVPN have significantly more capacity than its nearest competition but, as a result of exceeding that competition's current capacity, the performance gap between NordVPN and the lesser competitors will be increasingly more difficult to reduce.

I've been through more VPN threads than I care to admit. every site has a different "#1 vpn" and half are just sponsored. So here's what actually holds up.

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five names keep coming up: Proton VPN, NordVPN, Mullvad, Surfshark, ExpressVPN. they're not interchangeable, they serve different needs.

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Proton VPN is my top pick for 2026. it now covers 145 countries, more than any other major provider, it's based in Switzerland outside 14 Eyes jurisdiction, and it's the only VPN whose no-logs policy has survived real court scrutiny, not just a paid audit. The free plan is also actually usable. hard to find a more complete package.

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NordVPN is the best for speed and streaming. just crossed 100 Tbps in global network capacity across 211 locations, post-quantum encryption already live. if Netflix unblocking and raw performance matter more than privacy depth, Nord wins.

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Mullvad for serious OPSEC. no email required, cash accepted, best obfuscation stack in consumer VPNs. not for streaming or beginners.

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Surfshark if you're on a budget or need unlimited devices. ExpressVPN if you want zero setup friction.

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bottom line: privacy and trust → Proton. speed and streaming → Nord. anonymity → Mullvad. value → Surfshark.

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Reddit users, which VPN do you think stands out as the best in 2026, and what makes it your top choice? I’d love to hear about your personal experiences, recommendations, and any pros or cons you’ve come across.

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April 2026 will go down as a historic date in the evolution of GFW due to events that transpired this month, which are anything but ordinary, as the recent tightening measures occurring throughout China were without precedence compared to those in prior years.

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In early April, there was a coordinated effort by several different agencies of the government, all at once. The Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and all of the major telecommunications companies — China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom — all acted together. Authorities sent out notices instructing them each to immediately remove all Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), all proxys, and all connections to cyberspace that were deemed "abnormal," and that all individuals with VPNs or any form of proxy would have their service shut off immediately and their devices would be blacklisted (with an IP address ban).

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Then a group of users began referring to as the "Great Unplug" took place. Authorities physically disconnected domestic relay server infrastructure utilized by the overwhelming majority of Shadowsocks, V2Ray, and Trojan based proxy services, which resulted in thousands of users losing access to their proxy services overnight, with the exception of those that were able to connect directly to servers located outside China with a native TLS 1.3 obfuscation.

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Enforcement actions then began to occur against individuals, with police in Hubei going into residential homes and issuing fines to individuals for accessing TikTok and Twitter (X) through VPNs; one person was fined ~$29 and another was fined ~$73 for "illegally" using and registering VPN software. This marks a departure from the past practice of attempting to block access to infrastructure and moves towards directly punishing individuals.

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In my opinion, the technical lesson here is that blunt relay-dependent services are dead in China. Shadowsocks, V2Ray, standard WireGuard: all fail near-100%. What survives is direct overseas connection with real obfuscation. If you're advising anyone heading to China, "just use NordVPN" is no longer an answer.

Consumer VPN threat blocking has always been a bit of a black box. Blocklists of unknown quality, unclear update cadences, vague claims about "millions of threats blocked." Nord just changed the underlying feed significantly.

In February, NordVPN integrated CrowdStrike Threat Intelligence into Threat Protection Pro. The feed is powered by CrowdStrike Counter Adversary Operations, which actively tracks more than 265 nation-state, eCrime, and hacktivist groups. Same intel that governments and Fortune 500s pay serious money for, now running under a $4/month VPN subscription.

Practically: NordVPN now uses CrowdStrike's real-time indicators to decide what to block, scanning threat data from their global sensor network and matching it against traffic in real time.

This matters more than Nord's marketing makes it sound. Most consumer VPN threat blocking is reactive blocklists updated periodically, flagging known-bad domains after the fact. CrowdStrike's whole model is adversary-driven and forward-looking. The gap between "we block malware" and "we block infrastructure being set up by the same groups targeting the Pentagon" is meaningful.

The privacy angle is still worth thinking about though. more intelligence integration = more signals flowing somewhere. Nord says it's privacy-first by design and it's probably true. But if you're running a tight threat model, it's worth understanding what you're trading for better blocking coverage.

If you've been following Mullvad's changelog, you probably already know this stuff. If not, you're probably wondering why the last few releases are important.

In version 2025.9 (the latest release), QUIC obfuscation was introduced on desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux). This form of obfuscation makes it possible to tunnel WireGuard traffic over HTTP and have it appear as normal web traffic. HTTP is the same transport method used for all Google products and services (including YouTube). Since state sponsors of censorship don't want to disrupt the majority of the internet, they cannot block HTTP. Therefore, using QUIC obfuscation is the main reason you would have a Mullvad account.

The second major significant addition of importance came in November when LWO (Lightweight WireGuard Obfuscation) was added to both the desktop and mobile applications. Unlike QUIC (which tunnels), LWO functions by scrambling the packet header of your WireGuard packets so they can not be easily fingerprinted. Because the process of scrambling has a very low computational cost, LWO creates minimal overhead and can work with low power devices.

By the end of 2025, both QUIC and LWO will be available for desktop and mobile devices. Copying is expected to be added for iOS in early 2026.

So what does having both QUIC and LWO mean for end users? They each fulfill a different need. QUIC is designed for advanced DPI (deep packet inspection) used by countries like China, Iran and Russia. LWO was designed for less intrusive DPI used by networks that perform just basic VPN fingerprinting. Both options allowing the system to determine which option is best suited for the situation they are in, is a nice layer of protection.

Mullvad's not the flashiest name in the space but their obfuscation stack right now is genuinely one of the most thoughtfully built. no drama, just shipped.

As you probably know, Australia has been rolling out some of the most aggressive age verification laws we've seen from a democratic country, and VPN behavior there this year is genuinely interesting data.

When Australia enforced its age assurance codes on March 9 requiring hard ID verification for adult sites, R18+ games, and social media for under-17s VPN Super Unlimited Proxy jumped from #40 to #7 on the iOS App Store. Proton VPN went from #174 to #19. NordVPN from #189 to #13. overnight. 

Reuters reported Australian VPN downloads nearly tripled to 28,722 on March 8, the day before the deadline, compared to roughly 10,000/day the week before. 

PornHub now serves only SFW content to unverified Australian users. RedTube, YouPorn, and Tube8 stopped accepting new Australian registrations entirely. GTA Online's 400K+ Australian players hit new verification walls for the R18+ title. 

Here's the thing though — most of those VPN downloads aren't teenagers. It's adults who don't want to hand government ID, face scans, or payment data to adult platforms. Which is a completely reasonable position. 

This is the pattern we keep seeing: UK age verification → VPN spike. US state-level porn laws → VPN spike. Australia → VPN spike. The more governments mandate identity checks on sensitive content, the more normal people reach for privacy tools. at some point regulators have to grapple with that tradeoff instead of pretending VPNs don't exist.

I've been doing all this research for weeks regarding testing and comparisons to all the options available. I've spent far too many hours reading audit reports, checking jurisdictional information, and running speed tests at various times of the day with multiple servers....things that most people simply do not have time to do.

Most importantly, I thought I would spare you all of the trouble of looking up what I found and outline it for you so that you can make a better decision when selecting one.

So here's my actual honest breakdown:

best VPN overall: Proton VPN Swiss jurisdiction. open-source. 4 independent audits. The only provider where you can literally read the code yourself. Free tier with unlimited data, no other VPN does this. if you want one answer, this is it

best VPN for streaming + speed: NordVPN NordLynx protocol is genuinely fast. Unblocks Netflix, Disney+, ESPN+ reliably. 211 server locations including every US state. If streaming matters more than anything else, Nord wins.

best cheap VPN: Surfshark $1.99/mo, unlimited devices. If you've got a household of people or 12 devices you're not paying per device. best value in the market

best free VPN: Proton VPN free tier unlimited data, no ads, no data selling. every other free VPN is compromised in some way. this one isn't

best for torrenting: Mullvad no account, no email, pay cash if you want. Port forwarding on WireGuard. Built different.

The short version: pick Proton if you want to sleep easy. Pick Nord if you want to stream. Pick Surfshark if you're broke. Pick Mullvad if you're serious serious about privacy

Drop your comments and questions below.

According to Cybernews, Windscribe just posted its lowest price since Black Friday. While that sounds like a simple price cut, it speaks to where the mid -tier VPN market is today.

Windscribe has always been the little guy scrapping around in Canada, led by an extremely transparent founder who has been known to argue with his customers late at night on Reddit, providing a great free tier, and building R.O.B.E.R.T., an ad blocker that still ranks among the best-in-class DNS ad blockers you can find.

However, Windsribe is being threatened with significant competition from other providers in this segment in 2026. ProtonVPN continues to grow its free client offering, Surfshark has partnered with Amnesty International to enhance its brand trust, and is currently offering a $1.99/monthly service, NordVPN is moving towards becoming a full-fledged cybersecurity business, and PrivadoVPN is also priced at $1.11/month this week.

Windsribe is trying to position itself to compete on price which is a viable solution to their immediate competition yet doesn't resolve Windsribe's fundamental position problem: they are located in Canada, five-eyes (FIVE-EYES) members have become more trusted for privacy-conscious users than are companies located outside Canada.

If you're looking for a great mid-tier VPN that offers a free version, it's worth your while to check out this week's sale by this date. Just put a reminder in your calendar before this sale ends!

We have looked at the story of First VPN from different perspectives previously this week: Europol’s operation, the 25 groups using ransomware and the 4.5 years it took to investigate this event.

However, something that I continue to think about since I read the full report from Europol is that First VPN was marketed directly to the Russian speaking cyber-crime forums such as Exploit.in and XSS.is where zero-day exploits, stolen credentials as well as “Ransomware as a Service” packages are purchased and sold on a regular basis.

This means that First VPN was manufactured with criminal usage in mind and was designed from the beginning to conceal the command and control traffic from security researchers of ransomware.

Understanding this distinction is important because when politicians and regulators label 'VPNs used for crime' as a reason for imposing regulations on VPN use, they never refer to services like Proton, Nord or Mullvad that have the potential to be used for criminal purposes because of their design/functionality.

The criminal VPN ecosystem is not connected to consumer VPNs, instead it uses dark market forums and accepts anonymous payment through cryptocurrencies.

Knowing this distinction is how you push back when the next legislation drops citing First VPN as justification for regulating the providers you actually use.

While everyone has been watching the drama of VPN regulation unfold in Utah, Canada and the European Union, at the same time there has been something else happening very quietly at the state level that affects most Americans and hasn't gotten much coverage in media.

Over the last 18 months, 12 more states have either weakened or failed to pass any meaningful form of ISP data protection. This means your internet service provider can legally collect and then sell your browsing history, app usage, location data and device identifiers to data brokers without having to give you much (if any) notice or permission before doing so.

The rollback of Federal Net Neutrality in 2025 eliminated the last remaining barrier to prevent ISP data collection at the federal level.

This is fascinating in terms of VPN use cases: This is precisely what VPNs were designed for - not to bypass age confirmation sites, not to torrent, not for geo-blocking etc. but simply to prevent Comcast from knowing what web sites you are visiting and then selling that information to insurance companies!

Yet, nearly nobody mentions ISP's data collection within their VPN marketing materials, and instead focus all their efforts on the ability to stream video or protecting themselves from hackers while using public WiFi.

The humorous part is that your home broadband connection, which is the connection you are using right now, is probably the least private connection you make throughout the course of your day and you likely have no idea what is happening.

A VPN on your router fixes this entirely. For everyone in the house. Simultaneously .