Best VPN for Chrome

Our top picks for Chrome all deliver a smooth, user-friendly experience on both desktop and mobile, making them accessible to experienced VPN users and beginners alike.

They offer excellent performance on both local and international connections and work with popular streaming sites such as Netflix and BBC iPlayer. They also have a robust set of privacy extras (the best include protection against WebRTC leaks) and minimal logging policies to protect your online activity.

We test all the VPNs featured on our site on a regular basis to ensure our reviews and recommendations are as fresh as possible. Our proprietary speed test tool is running 24/7 across loads of countries worldwide, providing us with real-time info about each provider’s performance in a range of locations.

Before you start using a VPN on Chrome, you need to decide whether or not you’re going to sign up to a paid VPN subscription or use a free alternative.

Free Chrome extensions are almost always proxies that don’t encrypt your browser traffic but will simply spoof your IP address and allow you to access blocked content. They’re also (in most cases) subject to very stingy data caps that won’t allow you to do much more than stream a single half-hour show on Netflix, which isn’t very useful. If you sign up to a paid subscription you’ll get access to custom apps for other devices as well as the Chrome extension, meaning you can protect all of the internet-connected devices in your home.

Once you’ve made this decision, installing the Chrome extension onto your browser is simple and takes just minutes to setup- you can check out our setup guide for Chrome here. After that, using a VPN on Chrome is much the same as using it on any other device. Simply choose a location and you’ll appear to be connecting out from that location, so potential snoopers and hackers won’t be able to see where you really are. For the best possible performance, you should choose a server as close as you can to your true physical location.

Once you’re connected to your chosen VPN server, you can continue to use your Chrome browser as normal. Be aware that if you’re just using the Chrome extension and no other form of VPN app, you’re only masking the IP of your browser, so anything you do outside of this (apps such as Spotify or Steam) is visible to your ISP and other third parties. In most cases, we advise using the extension as well as the custom app offered by your chosen provider for the highest level of privacy.