Top 5 Best VPNs for Android

The growth of different content restrictions have made VPNs mainstream. But while we may assume they are for laptops, tablets, and desktops, we couldn’t be more wrong.

VPNs for Android are alive and kicking and ready to protect your smartphone right now. So there’s no need to leave any chink in your armor. You can protect your cell phone and Android devices, giving them the same level of protection as your other devices.

VPNs have not been slow to pick up the challenge. They most now offer dedicated apps for Android in conjunction with all their other major platform offerings. So there is no excuse for leaving yourself exposed when investing in a VPN platform for peace of mind. Not piping your Android devices through a VPN is like locking the doors and windows in your house and forgetting about the back door.

As there are legions of Android VPNs, we have picked out the best VPN for Android to save you considerable time wading through them all. Some are better than others. So we have whittled them down to this select showcase of the top five Android VPNs for you.

Benefits

• Simple and effective to use
• 24/7 live chat support
• Ultra-fast servers located in 94 countries
• No activity or connection logs are kept
• Apps for Android and more

As ever, ExpressVPN is at, or very near, the summit of almost every ‘best of’ review about VPN. Just as it should be, to be frank.

It is known for its speed, simplicity, and security measures. And everything is just as seamless and effortless on Android; you will be glad to hear. Getting up and running on any Android device is easy and a great way to cover your digital footprint. It’s easy to overlook your smartphone and leave yourself open to intrusion. But with the ExpressVPN Android app, you can bolt the stable door before the horse escapes.

Tortuous metaphors aside, ExpressVPN has you well and truly covered for Android and Android TV. You can traverse the internet with impunity as their app is compatible with Android 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Pie, Oreo, Nougat, Marshmallow, and Lollipop. What sweet-toothed genius took over the naming?

Thanks to ExpressVPN’s hard work, you can do everything on your Android device in complete safety, including browsing, SMS, and sharing photos.

Compatibility with both phones and tablets is extensive. Basically, every brand you can think of and some you may not be familiar with.

Of course, if you need the same protection level for your laptop or desktop, you can download VPN for both Mac and Windows. Right now, you can get started with ExpressVPN for $6.67 per month. This is a year’s contract with three months thrown in for free, which is nice. And in common with all their packages, this deal is covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee. You can effectively check out their wares for free, then cancel before the month is up and walk away with all your cash, no questions asked.

However, ExpressVPN has their smart money on you wishing to stay. They are probably right.

Benefits

• Private browser wherever you are
• Servers in 59 countries
• First-class encryption and connection speeds
• Obfuscated servers for heavily censored countries
• Protection against malware and the gamut of online threats

If you trawl through online reviews of VPN services, you will notice two names that are always neck and neck – NordVPN and ExpressVPN.

They are well-matched competition for one another. There is only a hair’s breadth separating them usually. And one only emerges over the other depending on what subjective measurement the review happens to be taking. Who gets out in front as much down to the reviewer’s personal bias than overall performance. Each could equally be justified for the top spot no matter the VPN subject under debate.

And the same holds when it comes down to Android. Like most other VPN Android offerings, their app can be downloaded from Google Play or directly from the NordVPN website.

As everyone has come to expect from NordVPN, their Android app is super-quick and easy. A single tap is all it takes to get you onto NordVPN’s network of robust servers powered by the company’s own brand protocol, NordLynx. You don’t have to fiddle about selecting a server; NordVPN does that for you. It removes the elimination process by hooking you up straight away with the best available VPN server.

The interface is clear and intuitive. It’s also thumb-friendly to be as simple to use as possible in today’s hyper-connected wireless world. Toggle a switch once, and NordVPN will kick in as soon as you connect with a WiFi hotspot. Handy if you are a forgetful type and use public hotspots frequently.

Therefore, you can reclaim your privacy online. You can relax knowing that all your internet traffic is encrypted, putting it entirely out of reach of snoopers, cyber-criminals, governments, and ISPs.

Benefits

• Protection for your online activity, including payments
• WiFi protection
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• Killswitch and whitelisting
• End-to-end encryption and no activity logging

Surfshark has been attracting the attention of many consumers and VPN industry commentators of late. And for all the right reasons, you will be glad to discover.

They have been hitting everything out of the park recently. Both in terms of performance and price point. When it comes to Android, Surfshark is doing a sterling job on that front too.

Since its desktop app is so easy and transparent, they did not have much work to port it over to Android. If you have used the Surfshark device before for your other devices, the Android version will look strikingly familiar. Hats off to Surfshark for resisting the all too common temptation to tinker with things for the sake of tinkering.

It’s a testament to their original product’s strength that it can so easily be translated to fit on a phone’s screen and still be easy to use. If you run into a problem – and chances are you won’t – you can get help from within the Android app by raising a support ticket. In our experience, that will be a pleasingly neglected feature as the mobile iteration of Surfshark is is super easy.

And, of course, it’s not just your smartphone that is covered by a Surfshark subscription. You can connect all your devices and protect them like your laptop, tablet, smart TV, router, and all the other gadgets in your household.

Surfshark can do this as they have a colossal 3,200 plus servers located in 65 countries across six continents.

You may also see a slight increase in your Android device’s internet speed. Surfshark don’t give you more bandwidth; what they do is block ads to help you download pages faster. The happy by-product is you are using less data.

Benefits

• Servers in over 75 locations globally
• No speed limits for browsing or downloading
• Fast, safe access to censored websites and apps
• Advanced encryption
• User-friendly for Android

The Android app is free with any IPVanish subscription plan you care to choose. It’s quite definitely one of the better apps for Android.

It comes fully featured with some neat and useful visuals giving you a heads up on your IP address, location, and the server you are using. Not strictly speaking crucial to the plot, perhaps, but very handy nonetheless.

Download speeds are impressive enough, and there’s now the inclusion of a much-awaited kill switch. This is a standard-issue feature that immediately drops your connection should your VPN tunnel collapse to avoid revealing your real IP address. Obfuscation servers, which you need in heavily censored countries like China and Saudi Arabia, are also available.

In addition, there is a no-logging policy. This has not yet been externally audited, plus being US-based, IPVanish isn’t precisely in the most privacy-friendly jurisdiction. You may wish to consider this.

The other issue is the price. IPVanish is not the cheapest. Therefore, you have to weigh this against the service quality, speed, and the option to add 250 Gb of storage for not a lot more cash. The storage means you are protecting all your digital devices, but you can back them up too for less than a similar Google Drive storage upgrade. Tricky, eh?

This storage is one of the major reasons IPVanish made it onto our best VPN for Android review.

Take into account that you can protect unlimited devices, access 24/7 live chat and phone support, and you have quite a compelling proposition.

Price is an issue, admittedly. The headline deal of $3.49 only applies for the first month before reverting to the regular $9.99 per month price. However, all their annual plans come with a 30-day guarantee, so you can try the service out before committing to a long-term contract.

Benefits

• Super-fast connections
• Supports up to 10 devices
• Well established support for Android
• Over 23,000 servers in 77 countries
• Free email breach monitoring

PIA, as it is shortened, has been growing exponentially for several years now. That’s heartening to know as it is a weather vane as to how the Private Internet Access VPN network is doing.

People are clearly voting with both their feet and wallets. Draw your own conclusions on that one. Further evidence is to be found in Google Play, where it scores four and a half stars out of five, off more than 31,000 reviews.

Credentials inspected, the Private Internet Access version for Android is a very worthy contender for your attention. It comes with a rich list of options and settings you can tweak if you want to.

Performance is speedy enough for most folks, and it is straightforward and intuitive to operate. There’s a large on/off button bang in the center of the screen. You will always know its status while the server location is displayed at the bottom of the screen. There’s plenty of features for advanced users to fine-tune their configuration too.

While it may feel like Private Internet Access is lacking in some areas – live chat support is tucked away in the help center, not front and center – they do have great features to boast. Among the many highlights are auto-connection for your Android devices, a kill switch, and an option to have your handset vibrate to confirm when you are connected.

There’s also the WireGuard protocol for Android, an extensive knowledge base and help center where you can directly contact the support team.

Private Internet Access compares well on price. There’s a three-year contract that’s equivalent to $2.19 per month. However, at $3.33 per month, the yearly contract is quite affordable if you don’t want to be tied into a multi-year contract.

Yes, VPN services will protect all your Android devices from intrusion and cyber-threats. Generally speaking, Android devices will be as safe and secure as desktops. Mobile VPNs typically use the same network infrastructure, so you have the same level of protection.

The general consensus is ExpressVPN. But that’s not to say there are not others snapping at their heels for the top spot. We have identified five VPNs that have strong proven track records for Android devices. In reality, any of the five we have highlighted in our review could have just as easily snatched the top spot.

Best is a very subjective concept. One person’s best might not seem like that to someone else. It comes down to how you wish to use your VPN. Is it solely for torrenting? Or are you a Netflix addict? Or do you want to browse, stream and torrent?

This best business is elusive. We can only point you in the direction of the five we think are the best. However, bear in mind that with most offering 30-day money-back guarantees, you could, in theory, test drive them till you found one to suit. It is, after all, not just about the price tag. It’s about the kind of service and usability you are happy to pay for and live with for a year or more.

Yes, there are a lot of freebies around. But they are not worth the hassle unless you are a very light user that doesn’t get through much data in a month. Otherwise, you will quickly hit your data allowance. As well as a miserly data allowance, you may be speed throttled, and have access to a limited number of servers. You may not even be able to stream video. For the hassle value, a paid-for service is worthwhile to keep you protected 24/7 365 days a year.

All the top VPNs like those we have reviewed here are reputable and deploy class-leading encryption and security to anonymize your internet traffic. While it may be possible to detect you are using a VPN, the government will not be able to tell what you are doing. However, you can add a further layer of protection by using an obfuscation server. This scrambles your VPN signature and disguises all your internet traffic to resemble normal internet traffic. This scrambling effect is how VPNs can breach the Great Firewall of China, for instance.

To an extent, yes. But you can minimize your exposure by logging out of your Google account while browsing. You can also use a cookie blocker in conjunction with a privacy-oriented web browser such as Brave or Tor.

There’s no need to make your Android handset or device your security’s Achilles Heel. VPNs for Android are widely available and comparable to the level of protection you can expect for your desktop.

In this review, we have highlighted five VPN service providers we reckon have admirable Android chops. While ExpressVPN is marginally ahead, there isn’t much in it. Someone has to be the best, but our investigations have revealed that the race to be the top dog for Android is a photo-finish.

All five of these Android providers offer fast connection speeds, privacy, and security. They are also easy to use and have gone to pains to ensure your Android experience is as pain-free as possible. Price-wise, they are mostly on the same page.

What are the main differentiators are customer service availability and features. You will not need most of them; others can be filed under cute gimmicks I might use. Regardless of what you want to do with your Android device, we are confident you can find a VPN service to suit you. And at a price you want to pay.

Still unconvinced? Then take these VPNs out on approval by using their 30-day money-back guarantees to see if they are all you are expecting. We are quietly confident they will deliver for you.