Best VPN for Windows PC and laptops in 2026, tried and tested by an expert

NordVPN is a popular choice for some very good reasons. It’s fast, hitting around 500Mbps from a UK server (about a six per cent drop from the maximum speed of the fibre connection being used to test VPNs), and it has an excellent Windows app.

Not only does the app launch quickly, but it also displays plenty of useful information. You can auto-connect to what it detects as the fastest server – for me in the UK, this was a UK server, though it offered a US server, too. This provided a download speed of about 340Mbps, slower than the UK server but definitely useful if attempting to access US services. There are plenty of other options, too. While connections via Bogatá in Colombia and Lagos in Nigeria saw the connection drop below 200Mbps, these are still excellent speeds.

Most streaming services, when connected via the UK server, were happy to provide video, with BBC iPlayer, Netflix and Disney+ all firing up their shows with no judder or interruption. Only Amazon Prime Video threw an error – the service is sensitive to VPNs and will often refuse to play, even if the VPN server is in your home country.

Nord offers a range of extras with its VPN subscription, and provides apps for many other devices apart from Windows PCs and laptops. If you can configure your own router – meaning it’s not managed by your ISP – you might be able to set up NordVPN there, so every device that connects to it is protected. This is something of an advanced feature, and, for most users, the Windows and mobile apps will be enough, with up to 10 simultaneous devices supported.

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Ideal for anyone who only needs to use a VPN occasionally on a single device, Proton’s free VPN service lives up to its name by not charging you a subscription. There are downsides to this, however – mainly, you don’t get to choose where your VPN server is located. Instead, the app automatically picks what it considers to be the fastest one. During my tests, this jumped from the Netherlands to the USA and back again the first three times I pressed the ‘change server’ button, which has a timer that must tick down before you can change again.

As a result, streaming services can be hit or miss. BBC iPlayer wasn’t happy with an Amsterdam IP address, as you’d expect, being a platform that’s region-locked to the UK, but Netflix streamed perfectly well. Disney+ showed nothing but an error page, while Amazon Prime Video would allow browsing of its titles but displayed a message about disconnecting the VPN before it would play anything.

There's a simple Windows app to download, and, while it will attempt to install additional services, such as anti-malware, you can untick the boxes if you don’t want them. Many of the features in the app are, likewise, gated behind a subscription and marked with a little icon that tells you they’re paid-for options. Despite this, I saw speeds of 400Mbps on my 600Mbps fibre connection during testing, and the free VPN uses the same secure Wireguard protocol and strong encryption as the paid-for version. The only major security feature that’s missing is the ability to route traffic through multiple servers.

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This offering from the anti-malware company costs £29.99 a year, or can be bundled with Malwarebytes’ broader security software for £49.99/year. It uses 256-bit AES encryption and the Wireguard protocol to protect your privacy on PC and laptop, and the firm says it will never track, store or share your network data (though there is a statistics collection option in the settings, which can be turned off). The Windows app has a kill switch feature that will block all internet traffic if the VPN is disconnected, and you can configure it to block specific applications from accessing the net unless the VPN is switched on.

While Malwarebytes has servers all over the world, they’re concentrated in certain areas: 19 in the USA, for example, against just two for the whole of Africa, one of which, Lagos, Nigeria, was extremely slow during my tests, starting out with a transfer rate of less than a megabit but rising to 30Mbps with sustained use. There are three UK servers, and the rest of Europe is well provisioned, too. I logged 200Mbps speeds when connected via Zagreb, Croatia. BBC iPlayer seemed happy to play while connected to the London server, but Netflix only got as far as starting a show before grinding to a halt with a spinning icon. Amazon Prime Video would play, as would Disney+.

Malwarebytes privacy has options for starting up at the same time as Windows and connecting automatically, which can be useful if you tend to forget to turn it on. While the single-server VPN is recommended, it does have a switch for enabling multi-hop connections, which will decrease the likelihood of your traffic being intercepted, at the cost of slowing down your data.

If it’s only a VPN you’re after, without any bundled antivirus, Surfshark is well worth a look. Its starter package is its cheapest, and offers a secure VPN with multi-hop routing on unlimited devices (itself a standout feature, if you’ve got a lot of PCs and laptops), plus ad and pop-up blocking and a masked email generator for anonymous sign-ups. Packages further up its tiers add more options, but if it’s a pure VPN you’re after, the starter package has you covered.

Surfshark uses the same Wireguard protocol as many other VPNs to protect your internet traffic from prying eyes, and it remains fast and reliable. Encryption is to the AES-256 standard, which is the same standard used by banks and online stores to protect credit card numbers. You get the ability to choose which apps are covered by the VPN and which can bypass it, a feature known as split-tunnelling, and there's an internet kill switch, which cuts your connection off when the VPN isn’t running, so no data can be transferred without being encrypted.

The Windows app itself is easy to use, taking you through a few questions to begin with, to ascertain your level of familiarity with VPNs, then providing you with a quick connect button that, for me, connected immediately to a UK server. This provided the fastest download speed of all the VPNs I tested, hitting more than 500Mbps on a 600Mbps line. Switching to Bulgaria yielded a slower, but still nippy, download speed of a little more than 400Mbps. While connected to the UK server, the iPlayer, Netflix and Disney+ streaming pages were happy to provide video, but Amazon Prime Video returned an error.

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ExpressVPN is notable for the unfussy design of its Windows app. There's very little to it, apart from a big ‘connect’ button and a choice of server locations in a separate window. In the ‘options’ screen, accessed from a three-line menu button at the top left, you’ll find common choices such as a kill switch, the ability to have it launch when you start your PC or laptop, manage connections on a per-app basis, and toggle on useful internet ad and tracker blocking under the ‘advanced protection’ tab.

Using the proprietary Lightway protocol – you can change this to OpenVPN, if you want to – and AES-256 encryption, ExpressVPN offers fairly good speeds and has a no-logging policy, so there's no record made of your internet use. I saw transfers of 160Mbps when connected via New York, which rose to 230Mbps using a London-based server that was closer to my physical location, which is a bit less than half the theoretical maximum available to me. With the latter server selected, I was able to stream video from BBC iPlayer, Disney+ and Netflix, while Amazon Prime Video stopped on an error page.

ExpressVPN has recently overhauled its pricing tiers. There are now three tiers to choose from – basic, advanced and pro. Each is available on one-month, one-year or two-year plans. The basic plan includes the VPN itself, lite protection (which blocks ads and malicious sites) and support for up to 10 devices. The advanced tier adds a password manager, stronger ad- and tracker-blocking, identity monitoring (in the US) and three days of unlimited eSIM data. The top pro plan has a built-in dedicated IP, credit and ID monitoring, monthly credit reports and five days of eSIM data.

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