
US speeds peaked at 348 Mbps, but averaged just 183 Mbps overall. , torrenting, browsing, streaming - speed-dependent services won't be slowed down for Hotspot Shield users in the UK.Īs usual with European connection speeds, high scores in France were balanced by low scores in Germany for an average of 203 Mbps. If my tests were solely based on connections to servers in the UK, we'd have a new speed champion: Speed loss on London connections was under 8%, with a satisfying 230 Mbps average download speed and a peak speed test of 349 Mbps. A 26% speed loss puts it in second place in our speed rankings, falling behind Surfshark - which lost just 16.9% of its speed the last time I tested it - and knocking ExpressVPN down to third place with a 51.8% speed loss at last measurement. As of May 2021, it's the second-fastest VPN I've tested, effortlessly delivers on smooth-streaming media, and can dance between server connections without missing a beat, no matter how many interruptions you throw at it. Its TLS-based Hydra Catapult protocol, US jurisdiction, 128-bit AES encryption support, and large percentage of virtual servers might strip away my trust in its privacy protections - but I'm not here for the buffet, and those questionable components are exactly what give this service its core prowess. We will update our reviews and, if necessary, our rankings to account for this new competitive landscape.Įnter Hotspot Shield VPN. We're in the process of reevaluating all of our top picks in light of these changes. In February, NordVPN and Surfshark announced the two companies were merging, though they'll continue to operate autonomously. In December, ExpressVPN announced that it had officially joined Kape Technologies, a company that already owns several other VPNs and has raised privacy concerns in the past. 9, 2022: The VPN industry has undergone significant change in the past few months, with all three of our top VPN choices announcing major changes in corporate ownership.
