The Best VPNs for Windows PCs

It’s straightforward to start using ExpressVPN on Windows. You simply need to launch the app and click the power button to connect to a nearby server.

We found this process near-instantaneous and the app changed from red to green to confirm the VPN connection. If you’re unsure about your connection status, ExpressVPN also updates you through your Windows notifications.

In particular, we liked how minimal and simple the app’s user interface is with all of the essential features present on the home screen. This was much more accessible than competing services, like Surfshark and NordVPN, which tend to clutter its app interface with extra features.

ExpressVPN also uses a slick red, green, and white color palette which stood out on our Windows display and made the text within the app easy to read.

ExpressVPN is an excellent choice for unrestricted streaming on Windows. It works to access US Netflix from overseas, as well as 17 other regional Netflix libraries.

It also unblocks popular content platforms like HBO Max, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, and more.

In each instance, ExpressVPN almost always assigned us a working server for the streaming service, at the first time of asking. Its fast Lightway protocol also ensured that we streamed in maximum video quality with no buffering whatsoever.

Exclusive to Windows, you can also manually enable ‘Lightway Turbo’ in-app for even faster speeds. This innovative feature spreads your internet traffic over multiple tunnels, increasing your bandwidth and maximizing your video quality.

You can activate Lightway Turbo in the Windows app settings.

Likewise, ExpressVPN was one of the best performing torrenting VPNs, slowing our file-sharing speeds by just 2%. In our personal experience, ExpressVPN worked well with qBittorrent’s Windows client and we never had any issues with stalled or blocked downloads.

ExpressVPN remains one of the fastest VPNs available, due to its proprietary Lightway protocol.

As part of our regular testing, we recorded an average download speed loss of just 2% while connected to a local ExpressVPN server. Regardless of your location, you can expect similar speeds when connecting to a nearby server.

For added context, you can use the chart below to see how ExpressVPN’s local speed performance compares to other leading Windows VPNs:

As shown above, ExpressVPN is faster than most of its rivals over short-distance connections. However, ExpressVPN registered an average speed loss of 15% on international connections which is still excellent but falls short of rivals like IPVanish and PIA.

NordVPN’s Windows app is a double-edged sword: it includes more advanced features than almost every other VPN, but comes at the cost of an enjoyable user experience.

Starting with the positives, we loved the range of features, toggles, and specialty servers that were made available to us. You can encrypt your internet traffic twice with multi-hop, connect to a dedicated IP address, block ads with Threat Protection, and more.

This felt like a premium VPN product, and it meant we could tailor NordVPN to our exact needs.

However, the trade-off is a user interface that feels overwhelming, even for VPN experts.

We don’t love how much NordVPN pushes its paid features.

Threat Protection Pro and Dark Web Monitor dominate half of the app’s interface. While we liked using both features, given neither is part of the VPN’s core functionality, this amount of space felt like an odd and unnecessary design choice.

We used NordVPN to unblock 17 Netflix libraries, including US Netflix, HBO Max, BBC iPlayer, and many more.

NordVPN automatically assigned us a server that always worked with the streaming platform, resulting in the perfect user experience. This is much better than our experience with PrivateVPN which sometimes required us to switch servers before the stream would load.

With a speed loss of just 4% on a local server, the stream loaded in HD or 4K quality without fail.

NordVPN offers IP addresses from 127 countries, more than any VPN we’ve reviewed except HMA. For example, it has servers in 15 more countries than IPVanish and 58 more than Windscribe.

This ensures you’ll always have a server close by to connect to, even during periods of peak usage.

We also tested our connection to NordVPN’s servers by running our Windows traffic through a packet analyzer. Our results indicated that NordVPN successfully encrypted our traffic with AES-256 encryption, backed by first-party DNS servers:

NordVPN successfully encrypted our network traffic on Windows 11.

PIA has one of the most technical Windows apps we’ve used and we struggled at times to navigate its menus. We think the app would benefit from copying PrivateVPN’s of including a ‘Simple’ and ‘Advanced’ view to simplify its UI, especially for beginners.

That said, we liked that we could customize our VPN encryption beyond just selecting a protocol, with the option of different ciphers. We also loved how easy it was to set up VPN port forwarding: you just need to tick a checkbox within the app’s Network settings.

You can easily enable port forwarding in PIA’s Windows app.

This is far less time-consuming than Windscribe’s setup which makes you activate port forwarding on its provider’s website.

PIA’s proven no-logs policy, robust security, and fast download bitrate make it the best VPN for torrenting.

From a baseline of 10.0MiB/s, we recorded an average download bitrate of 9.6MiB/s with PIA. This is exceptional and allows you to download HD movies, e-books, and software in minutes.

You can use PIA to torrent risk-free on Windows.

For added privacy, PIA also comes with an effective kill switch which has never failed in our testing. As such, your torrents and real IP address will remain anonymous even if your VPN unexpectedly cuts out.

Unlike most VPNs, PIA is a genuinely no-logs VPN service. This means that PIA doesn’t collect any information about you when you use its Windows app.

PIA’s transparency report verifies that it’s never provided logs for a court order, subpoena, or a warrant.

This has been proven by real-world court cases as well as PIA’s quarterly transparency report.

PIA also uses diskless VPN servers which automatically delete your data on a regular basis. This makes it virtually impossible for anyone to view your browsing activity or connection logs.

As with all the VPNs on this list, PIA uses industry-standard WireGuard and OpenVPN protocols. These protocols are open-sourced and can be trusted to keep your traffic secure.

You can use Proton VPN for free on your PC with no payment details needed. It also doesn’t sell your data to third-parties or use in-app ads to monetise your usage, like SkyVPN and VPN Proxy Master do.

Another way Proton VPN stands out from most free VPNs is its unlimited data. This is unlike Windscribe which caps you at 10GB monthly, TunnelBear at 2GB, or Betternet at 500MB.

Starting with the positives, Proton VPN’s Windows app looks great. Unlike most VPNs that use a map interface, its map element feels bespoke and can also be easily hidden by resizing the app.

The Windows app has broken with the usual Proton purple branding by adding a red background gradient that changes to green when connected. We like this bold choice in color palette and appreciate another connection status indicator.

Moving from design to user experience, we didn’t love that the free version of Proton VPN’s PC app doesn’t let you pick a server location. Instead, you are randomly assigned a server from one of 10 locations.

Even worse, you have to wait 45 seconds before switching servers so you can’t keep quickly cycling through until you get a location that suits you.

Further attempts to change servers causes the timer to extend to ten minutes.

While this wasn’t terrible for anonymous browsing, it made it impossible to unblock geo-restricted content.

Windscribe’s desktop app uses a simple and condensed design, making it accessible to all users.

You just need to click the power button to start your VPN connection and you can activate the kill switch by toggling the widget – there’s no need to go into the settings.

We also liked that you can toggle between a windowed or system tray app, though we prefer the latter.

You can tailor the Windscribe desktop app to your needs.

However, we found it difficult to read some of the in-app text and UI elements, especially the tool tips. We’d like to be able to resize the Windows app to mitigate this issue.

Windscribe also accommodates the default Windows browser, Microsoft Edge, with custom VPN extensions. Like the VPN app, it’s free to use and offers up to 11 different locations to connect to.

Unlike most free VPNs, Windscribe unblocks multiple Netflix libraries, HBO Max, Hulu, and BBC iPlayer.

We used Windscribe’s free UK server to unblock its Netflix library in 4K quality. The stream loaded almost immediately and we rarely had to change VPN servers to get the service to work.

We did notice buffering on occasion, especially when streaming live content. We found this quite frustrating, particularly after multiple hours of testing.

It’s also worth taking Windscirbe’s monthly 10GB data cap into consideration. While this may be enough for everyday browsing, it limits you to around 90 minutes of 4K Netflix streaming on desktop.