You can read a more detailed breakdown of our testing categories below, alongside the percentage of the overall France rating each category represents:
France Server Locations: 30%
Minimum Requirement: A server location in France.
We Recommend: Multiple servers in France, ideally located in multiple French cities.
The most important attribute for a top France VPN is a large number of French VPN servers that will assign you a French IP address from anywhere. We look for VPNs that distribute their French servers evenly across the country.
We examine each VPNs server list and check the IP address they assign with our own IP address checker tool to confirm their authenticity.
The more French VPN servers the better, as it leads to faster speeds and smoother connections for connecting into France over long distances.
France Streaming: 30%
Minimum Requirement: Unblocks Netflix France & France Télévisions (France TV).
We Recommend: Unblocks every French & Belgian streaming service.
Although most VPNs have servers in France, not all VPNs can unblock French streaming sites and TV channels.
We tested every major VPN with 11 popular French streaming sites to determine which VPNs are best for bypassing French geo-blocks and streaming French-language TV.
The streaming sites we tested include:
- Arte
- Canal+
- France Télévisions (France TV)
- Gulli
- M6 (6Play)
- Molotov
- MyCanal
- Netflix France
- RTBF
- TF1
- TV5Monde
You can see the full results of our streaming tests in the table below:
The VPNs that unblocked the most streaming services are rated the highest.
Speed: 20%
Minimum Requirement: An average international download speed greater than 60Mbps and a ping lower than 100ms.
We Recommend: An average international download speed above 80Mbps and a ping lower than 50ms.
Using a VPN will slow down your internet, but the best VPNs only slow down your internet marginally. We reward VPNs that deliver speeds as close to your normal internet connection as possible – even if you’re connecting to France from as far away as the US.
We manually test every VPN’s connection speeds and gather an average international speed figure. This provides us with an accurate insight into how every VPN will perform when connecting into France from abroad. The faster the VPN, the higher it is rated.
Security & Technical Features: 10%
Minimum Requirement: Industry-standard, open-source protocols like OpenVPN and WireGuard, and AES-256 encryption cipher.
We Recommend: Additional security features, such as a kill switch, leak protection, and double VPN.
We run every VPN through a series of security tests to ensure that the VPNs we recommend are safe to use, free of malware, and are working to protect your data.
We use Wireshark to check if the VPN is actually encrypting your traffic. We then run each VPN through our own leak test tool to inspect for any IP, DNS, or WebRTC leaks. We also test each VPN’s kill switch to ensure that it works and guarantees your security.
Extra points are given to VPNs that have additional technical features, like rotating IP addresses, double VPN (multi-hop) servers, and ad-blockers.
Privacy & Logging Policy: 10%
Minimum Requirement: Privacy-friendly logging policy, evidenced by an independent audit.
We Recommend: No-logs privacy policy confirmed by a real world court case, a trustworthy ownership, and diskless RAM-only servers.
We only recommend VPNs that are safe to use and protect your privacy. We never recommend a VPN that gathers or sells your data for its own purposes.
We follow a strict testing criteria for evaluating a VPN’s privacy credentials. This involves examining its logging policy in detail, assessing its company history, legal jurisdiction, and any evidence it has to support its privacy claims — such as independent audits or court cases.
Data Cap Reduction: Up to 50%
Free VPNs can be useful, but their usefulness is limited by data allowances.
To account for this, we attach penalties to free VPNs that enforce data caps, with the harshest penalties reserved for the most restrictive data caps. Here’s a breakdown:
- 10GB per month: -20% to the overall rating
- 500MB per day: -25% to the overall rating
- 5GB per month: -30% to the overall rating
- 1GB per month: -35% to the overall rating
- 200MB per day: -40% to the overall rating
- 500MB per month: -50% to the overall rating
Windscribe Free has a 10GB per month data cap, so we’ve taken 20% off its overall France rating to reflect its limited capabilities.
