The Best VPNs for USA

What we love about ExpressVPN is how easily it can get round US content geo-restrictions and on all popular devices, too.

We unblocked every American streaming service from abroad, including the US content libraries of Netflix, Prime Video, Disney, and Paramount+.

Also, the VPN unblocked HBO Max, bypassed Hulu’s VPN blocks and accessed Peacock TV from outside USA.

One of the great benefits of using ExpressVPN is that it delivers exceptionally fast and unrestricted access across an incredibly wide range of devices.

On top of its standard computer and mobile apps, ExpressVPN has also developed equally streamlined Android TV, Fire TV and Apple TV software. It also offers a Smart DNS proxy (called MediaStreamer), and a dedicated app for routers.

The router app is unique among VPN services, and makes it infinitely easier to access geo-restricted content on game consoles and Roku Stick, which don’t support direct VPN installs.

ExpressVPN provides IP addresses from 57 different US cities, including popular locations like Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York.

ExpressVPN has always had a highly dependable server park in the US and, over many years, we have rarely experienced unexpected internet slowdowns, which are typically linked to server congestion.

With thousands more US-based servers in its arsenal, with regularly-refreshed IP addresses, we’ve seen further improvements in speed stability and IP location accuracy.

Plus, these servers connect near-instantaneously, which significantly outperforms the multi-second delay we found with both PIA and NordVPN.

ExpressVPN performed exceptionally well in all our tests, but this high level of performance does come with a price tag to match.

At its cheapest, it costs $2.79/mo over 28 months, substantially more than Private Internet Access on multi-year pricing plans.

That said, there are ways for you to try ExpressVPN for free before committing.

You can either sign up to a 7-day free trial via iOS or Android, or take advantage of the provider’s 30-day money-back guarantee, which the company has always honored in our experience.

Private Internet Access is almost as good as ExpressVPN when it comes to its range of American IP locations, with 50 on offer.

If you’re often abroad and want to access specific region-restricted content, such as local sports and news broadcasts, then PIA VPN is an excellent choice, especially if you’re on tighter budget.

Additionally, the VPN’s US speeds are among the fastest we’ve ever recorded. When connecting into locations like New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, our download speed decreased by only 14%.

Throughout many years of testing, we’ve never experienced traffic congestion thanks to the sheer amount of servers on offer.

PIA is an effective streaming VPN, able to get around the geo-blocks of platforms like Netflix, YouTube TV, HBO Max, Hulu, and ESPN+.

That said, PIA’s streaming compatibility isn’t as reliable across different devices as ExpressVPN’s or NordVPN’s.

For instance, the Fire TV Stick app only works with Hulu and Peacock, but no other major American streaming apps.

Moreover, PIA’s Smart DNS proxy doesn’t work with streaming apps at all, which is bizarre.

On devices that don’t support VPN apps, like on PlayStation and Xbox, you’ll therefore have to set up PIA on your router, but it’ll be a painful experience versus using ExpressVPN’s router app.

For a very affordable cost, you can get one of the safest and most trustworthy VPNs with a verified no-logs policy.

Every subscription plan comes with extra features like an ad and tracker blocker (MACE), split tunneling, port forwarding, and various encryption options. There’s also a SOCKS5 proxy included with the VPN.

PIA’s apps are also compact and user-friendly, which makes them suitable for beginners and experienced VPN users alike.

All of the above is available for just $2.03/mo over 39 months, making PIA one of the cheapest VPNs on the market.

You can also take advantage of a 7-day VPN free trial, available via the Apple and Google Play app stores.

NordVPN is a great solution if you want to watch US streaming services from anywhere in the world. Everything ExpressVPN unblocks in the US, so can NordVPN.

You can unblock US Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, Prime Video and all other American content platforms on the VPN’s US servers.

The only issues arise if you need to access content from one of the states that NordVPN doesn’t currently offer.

You can do this on its intuitive computer and smartphone apps, via its Fire TV Stick and Apple TV apps, and using its Smart DNS service, which worked well on our PS5 and Xbox consoles.

NordVPN runs 3,125 servers located in America, giving its customers access to one of the widest range of US VPN IP addresses.

While its city and state coverage isn’t as extensive as ExpressVPN or Private Internet Access, it still provides enough geographic variety to satisfy most users.

Most major cities and states have servers, but there are important omissions such as Detroit, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and Portland (Oregon).

Putting the coverage shortcomings aside, NordVPN’s Nordlynx protocol performed amazingly and slowed our internet speed by only 14% connecting from abroad.

This excellent speed result is marginally better than both ExpressVPN and PIA, with all US connections maintaining a high speed throughout each session, and ensuring maximum resolution streaming.

NordVPN and ExpressVPN are almost equal but, outside of seasonal promotions, the former is slightly cheaper when you first sign up to its service.

It has to be said, though, that NordVPN’s apps aren’t as well designed. The desktop UI in particular can’t be resized, and it gives way too much prominence to useful but non-indispensable add-ons, such as Threat Protection and Dark Web.

This makes the UI bigger than necessary, and distracts from the core use of the software.

We’ve also had occasional issues using the Firestick app to unblock US streaming apps. There is no router app, either, therefore using NordVPN on devices like Roku is considerably trickier.

Windscribe lets you connect to eight US cities in seven different states for free:

• Atlanta, Georgia
• Chicago, Illinois
• Dallas, Texas
• Los Angeles, California
• Miami, Florida
• New York City, New York
• Seattle, Washington
• Washington D.C.

For a free VPN, this is a very generous amount of US server locations, with options on the East Coast, West Coast, and in the South.

You can also connect into 9 other countries, with fast UK VPN servers and Canadian VPN addresses also available.

While this is a small selection of countries compared to the paid version of Windscribe, it’s still an impressive and diverse range of free locations to connect to.

Windscribe’s free VPN can surprisingly access most major US streaming services. It’s not quite as good as PrivadoVPN in this area, but it comes very close.

We found it to be an exceptionally effective free VPN for Amazon Prime Video as well as HBO Max, Disney+, and Hulu.

Sadly, the service’s free US servers no longer work with US Netflix, though. They used to work smoothly in the past, but for some time now Netflix blocks all of Windscribe’s free US IP addresses.

As with any free service, Windscribe has its drawbacks. The key one being its 10GB monthly bandwidth limit, which will frustrate frequent VPN users.

The other limitation concerns the VPN’s streaming performance. Despite clocking fast internet speeds, we regularly experience fluctuations that lead to picture degradation and, sometimes, even buffering.

PrivadoVPN is the only secure free VPN that unblocks US Netflix. All other free services we tested couldn’t do it, not even Windscribe.

On top of that, PrivadoVPN unblocks a variety of other major US streaming services, including HBO Max’s, Paramount Plus’s, and Prime Video’s American content library.

PrivadoVPN has also fixed its previously-faulty Fire TV Stick app, so you can now use it to stream geo-restricted content on your TV.

PrivadoVPN has free servers in four US city locations: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington D.C..

We always appreciate a good coast-to-coast reach, although it’d be even better if there were servers in the flyover states and in the South.

Windscribe does offer more free US server locations, but in general we’ve found PrivadoVPN’s server speeds not only faster but more stable, too.

In fact, our speed tests data revealed an impact on download speed of just 8% while connected to PrivadoVPN’s free US servers.

We connected quickly to each server location, with no noticeable delay to page loading times.

As with Windscribe, PrivadoVPN limits free use of its service to 10GB per month.

While this is restrictive for regular VPN users, it’s still more generous than the allowances of most other trustworthy free VPNs, like TunnelBear’s 2GB data allowance.

One thing that we found very annoying about PrivadoVPN is that it requests you manually refresh your free data each month, and which you can do only do in your online account. This is frustrating and unnecessary.