VPNs You Can Really Trust in 2025 | An Honest Review

0:00 This is not a sponsored video. I am not being paid by any of these companies to promote their products, and I have politely declined sponsorship offers from a couple of these companies. Virtual private networks, commonly called VPNs, are among the biggest sponsors of YouTube content creators. In the third quarter of 2022, both ExpressVPN and NordVPN spent well over $3 million a piece and were among the top five companies paying content creators to promote their products. According to a study published by the influencer marketing platform Neo Reach, those VPNs were not alone in paying influencers. Surf Shark has paid over 2,000 YouTube influencers to promote their VPN. I do not mean any disrespect toward the creators who accept those sponsorships. I'm not opposed to sponsorships, but the reason I decline those VPN offers is simple. I value the trust my audience puts in me, and I am extremely selective about who I will accept sponsorships from. They must be

1:03 companies that I truly believe in, and I do not use the VPNs that offered me sponsorships. Additionally, the VPN that I do use has a strict policy that prohibits them from paying content creators or even engaging in affiliate programs. In 2024, the global VPN market was valued at over $44 billion. And that number is expected to nearly double by 2027. If that prediction is accurate, by 2027, the VPN industry will generate more revenue per year than the global pet food industry. This is a list of the top 20 VPNs in the United States as of October 2025. There is no one definitive source of information about VPN. So this list was aggregated from rankings on CNET, PC Mag, Techraar, Security.org, and Tom's Guide. Collectively, these VPNs represent approximately 60% of the VPN market. Out of those 20 VPNs, 14 of them claim to be the fastest. So, it's obvious that many VPN claims are based more on promotion than on precision. In

2:14 this video, we will briefly discuss what VPN do and don't do, my criteria for choosing a VPN, the two VPNs I recommend, and the configuration settings I recommend for the VPN I use. Then I will wrap up the video with a preview of upcoming videos and my live speaking events. I am Dr. John Padfield, an engineer turned state representative turned business professor and this is business reform where we discuss issues at the intersection of business technology and society. If you would like to support my work in bringing you informative, unbiased videos, I invite you to buy me a coffee using this QR code or the link in the description. What VPNs do and don't do. There is a lot of confusion about what VPNs do, and I believe most of that confusion is caused by the marketing departments at several of the largest VPN companies. The Electronic Frontiers Foundation published a great article in January of this year discussing how to choose a VPN. They stated, quote, "VVPN providers

3:20 often overpromise security benefits in advertisements, but these advertisements vastly oversell the benefits of VPNs." Likewise, an article published in the IVPN blog echoed that warning about misleading promises made by VPN companies. It is standard marketing hyperbole to describe your product as the best. So, I won't argue over those types of statements. However, I take exception to the claim Cyber Ghost makes on their website, which states they offer quote complete privacy on all devices. I find the term complete privacy to be extremely misleading, as no VPN can make that claim, and Cyber Ghost themselves essentially admit that in their frequently asked question section. Let's look at a simplified diagram of how data moves between your device and a website when you do not use a VPN. Generally speaking, your smartphone connects through a cell tower to your internet service provider known as an ISP, such as AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, or your laptop connects

4:25 through a router to an ISP, such as Comcast, Xfinity, or Spectrum. The ISP then connects to whatever website you wish to visit, which gives your ISP visibility to all the websites you visit because they are the link that connects your device to those websites. According to the Federal Trade Commission, ISPs collect troves of your personal data and sell it to advertisers. Vice characterized what the ISPs were caught doing as quote routinely collecting an ocean of consumer location, browsing, and behavioral data. In other words, your ISP knows how often you are visiting WebMD and they may sell that data to pharmaceutical companies or data brokers who are constantly expanding their dossier on you because your personal business is their business model. Another problem with accessing the internet without a VPN is that every website you visit can see your internet protocol or IP address. The IP address identifies the network endpoint, such as a wireless router rather than an

5:30 individual. The owner of a website you visit can easily use your IP address to determine what city you live in, and sometimes they can even find your physical home or work address. VPNs solve both of these problems. When you access the internet using a VPN, your data is encrypted between your device and the VPN. Your ISP does not see the website you visit. They only see that you visited the VPN. And the websites you visit do not see your IP address. They only see the IP address of the VPN. This prevents your ISP from collecting and selling data about the websites you visit. And those websites are unable to collect your IP address. In addition, sometimes you can bypass location restrictions by appearing to access the internet from a state or country other than the one in which you currently are located. While VPNs are an important part of protecting your online privacy, there are other ways you can be identified, such as browser fingerprinting. So, any VPN claiming to

6:31 make you totally anonymous or providing you with complete privacy is misleading at best. You need a fingerprint resistant browser. and I will discuss how to choose the best privacy browser in an upcoming video. My criteria for choosing a VPN. While VPNs protect your ISP from collecting data about your internet usage, your VPN can still see and potentially log everything you do online. That means you want a VPN you can trust. What does that mean? 19 of the top 20 VPNs claim they do not keep any logs about your internet usage, but I am a big believer in President Reagan's famous line, "Trust, but verify." Only 11 of the top 20 VPNs have undergone a full third-party audit in 2025 to verify they are not keeping any logs of user activity. Personally, I would not trust any VPN that does not have a recent full third-party audit. When it comes to privacy, I also like to look at corporate ownership to ensure there are no conflicts of interest with companies that will have access to

7:39 sensitive data and to ensure there are no red flags in their past. Both NordVPN and Surf Shark are owned by Nord Security and that really doesn't bother me at all. However, ExpressVPN, Cyber Ghost, and Private Internet Access are all owned by Cape Technologies and that does cause me some concern. Cape Technologies was founded in 2011 in Israel and was originally named Crossrider. One of the co-founders who served as the first CEO of the company is a veteran of Unit 8200, an Israeli intelligence agency often described as Israel's version of the NSA. Crossrider made browser extensions that were flagged by malware Bites, Semantic, and Microsoft Defender as security threats. In 2018, Crossiter changed their name to Cape Technologies to distance themselves from their controversial past. I am not accusing ExpressVPN, Cyber Ghost, or Private Internet Access of doing anything sketchy, but with their parent company's ties to Unit 8200, and their history of making browser extensions

8:48 that were flagged as ADWear and malware, I personally would not use them. Next, for ultimate privacy, I like a VPN that allows for completely anonymous accounts, and only two of the top 20 VPNs allow that. Molvad and IVPN do not ask for a name, email address, or phone number to create an account. To create an account with Molvad, you click a button to generate a 16-digit account number. You then add time to that account number by mailing them cash, paying with crypto, or paying with a credit card. You then download their app and enter your account number and you are good to go. Obviously, if you choose to use a credit card, you will need to provide a name and address, but they give you options other than a credit card. And you can always buy and use a prepaid Visa you purchase with cash from a convenience store to keep your account anonymous. My last criteria is I want a VPN that is constantly on the cutting edge of privacy protection. Governments

9:48 and data brokers are constantly developing new techniques to defeat the privacy offered by VPNs. One of their newer techniques uses AI to analyze encrypted data packets passing through your internet service provider to your devices. Even though the data itself is encrypted, AI can often determine what website the data was sent from based on the exact size and frequency of the data packets being sent to your device. In May of this year, Mulvad introduced a new feature called defense against AIG guided traffic analysis, which makes all the data packets the same size and injects dummy packets of data into the traffic stream. This distorts traffic patterns and helps defeat the AI traffic analysis. Other VPNs are probably also working on privacy enhancements, but from everything I have read and the professional cyber security experts I have spoken with, Mulvad is the industry leader when it comes to developing new techniques to protect your privacy. The two VPNs I recommend to me a recent

10:52 third-party no logs audit, no red flags and ownership, the ability to create completely anonymous accounts and state-of-the-art anti-tracking technologies are the most important criteria for choosing a VPN. I don't do online gaming, so I am willing to sacrifice a little speed for better security. Based on these criteria, the VPN I personally use and recommend to people who prioritize privacy over everything else is Mulvad. If you've never heard of Mulvad before this video, that is probably because they do not pay content creators to promote them and they do not have any affiliate programs. Don't feel bad if you haven't heard of them before. I only learned of them earlier this year when I had dinner with a cyber security professional and he told me why he uses Mulvad and explained to me in detail how some of their cutting edge privacy enhancing technologies work. Since that dinner, I have spoken with two other cyber security professionals who also told me

11:55 they use Mulvad. Mulvad cost $5 or about $5.80 80 cents in US dollars per month, regardless of how long you want to pay in advance. While Mulvad is my recommendation for the best VPN, I do have a runnerup recommendation for people who want a good VPN with a suite of other privacy apps. In addition to paying $5.80 80 per month for Molvad. I also pay $9.99 per month for Proton Unlimited, which includes ProtonVPN, Proton Mail, Proton Password Manager, and Proton Drive, which is a private alternative to online storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft One Drive. I used ProtonVPN until earlier this year when I switched to Mulvad, but I kept my Proton Unlimited account because I still use Proton Mail, Proton Drive, and Proton Password Manager. Of the three cyber security professionals I have spoken with about VPNs, two of them told me Proton was their number two recommendation to their families and friends, but the third one told me he

13:04 did not have a number two recommendation because he only trusts Mulvad. Configuration settings. If you decide to use Mullevad, there are several settings you can adjust, and there is no absolute right or wrong way to set them. They are simply a series of tradeoffs between speed, convenience, and privacy. Here are the settings I normally use, but keep in mind, some websites may not operate like normal when using these settings. I leave DAITA, which stands for defense against AI traffic analysis, turned on. This increases your privacy, but it also causes the VPN to operate a little slower. I also leave multihop turned off. While turning it on would further enhance privacy, it would also further reduce the speed of the VPN. When you click on VPN settings, you get another menu. I leave launch app on startup, autoconnect, and local network sharing turned on. When you click on DNS content blockers, you get another menu showing what you can block. I block everything

14:10 except social media. And blocking ads works pretty well as both Wall Street Journal and Daily Mail usually have large distracting ads at the top of their screen if I am not blocking them with my VPN. However, some websites might not function properly and you may have to turn off ad blocking to get them to load. Also, when you block trackers, you may find that you have to log back into certain websites more often than when you are not blocking trackers. These are some of the trade-offs I mentioned earlier. I leave IPv6 disabled, the kill switch enabled, and lockdown mode disabled. Again, you can set these however you want, but this is how I set my VPN. You can scroll down the VPN settings to get to these other options. Mulvad works with WireGuard and OpenVPN tunnel protocols and I prefer WireGuard. Clicking on the WireGuard settings, I leave port and obfuscation set to automatic. And scrolling down, I leave quantum resistant tunnel and IP version set to automatic. Going back to

15:16 the main settings menu, I turned on notification and turned off monochrome tray icon, but this is purely personal preference and I like seeing the green padlock at the top of my screen to know my VPN is working. I leave split tunneling turned off and I leave all API access options turned on. If you would like to dig deeper into what some of those settings do and or learn more about how to minimize your digital footprint and better protect your privacy, I recommend you check out Privacy Academy. They offer self-paced online classes for privacy-minded people. I paid full price for my subscription to Privacy Academy because I wanted to check them out for myself. After watching and evaluating their content, they are one of the very few companies I am comfortable recommending to my audience. I have an affiliate link to their website in the description of this video, and I will earn a commission on any sales made using that link. To get the most out of whatever VPN you

16:17 choose, you will need to use it with a good privacy browser. That is why I will soon be posting a video on choosing the best privacy browser for you and I expect to release that video by the end of this month. If you enjoyed this video, please be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications so you do not miss any of these upcoming videos. I will also soon begin making some videos about business, technology, and society as depicted in movies and shows. My first video in this series will examine the 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone called The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street. And finally, I have several live speaking events coming up in November. On Saturday, November 1st, I will be speaking in the Chicago area at 502 West Uklid Avenue in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Doors open at 5:45 p.m. and the event starts at 6:00 p.m. On Tuesday, November 4th, I will be speaking at the Kentucky Family Association at 1404 Browns Lane Sweet F

17:18 in Louisville, Kentucky. That event starts at 6:30 p.m. On Saturday, November 8th, I will be speaking at the Great Create Freedom Festival at George Washington Carver Park in Aworth, Georgia. And on Wednesday, November 19th, I will be speaking at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, but the exact time and room are still pending. Please visit brushfiresour.com for more details on my speaking events or to invite me to speak to your group or association. I have several more events in the early planning stages and I hope to meet you in person at an event near you.