5 Best Android VPN Apps Reviewed

Protecting your internet connection while you’re at home or on your laptop on the go is important. But why protect just one part of your internet use, If you’re using an Android phone, you should be using a VPN whenever you connect to the internet. Let’s talk about why that’s a good idea, then discuss the best VPNs for Android phones. We’ll go over our selection criteria, then provide our recommendations. Why Use an Android VPN, Just like the internet traffic that you send from your home or work computer, the traffic you send from your phone should be protected. A VPN provides that protection. For a detailed explanation, check out our full beginner’s guide to VPNs. You might not think that you have any reason to hide the internet traffic coming from your phone, but remember that you send texts, photos, and emails from it. Would you want someone spying on those, Even if you’re not sending anything particularly private, you still don’t want anyone snooping. The Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends using VPNs to avoid surveillance by your ISP. The same is absolutely true of your mobile data provider, and for all the same reasons.

There are certainly other reasons you might use a VPN, but these are the most popular. Protected browsing is crucial for streaming and torrenting from your phone, but the security benefits alone are worth setting up a VPN. ExpressVPN is one of the fastest providers that we’ve tested, clocking over 83 Mbps download speed on our 100 Mbps connection. While the speed you get on your Android phone will vary largely based on your phone and your connection, you can be confident that you’ll get about as fast a speed as possible with ExpressVPN. The Android app works with a variety of Android installations, from the latest version, Oreo, all the way back to Jelly Bean. Even if you’re running an old version of Android, your VPN will work and be secure. One of the great features included in ExpressVPN’s Android app is the recommended location; as soon as you fire up the app, it will recommend servers to you based on where you’ll get the best connections. With a tap, you can connect to their fast servers all over the world. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

You can also save your favorite servers for faster access. We also like that the app defaults to OpenVPN, the most secure VPN protocol. And the 4.1 rating is confidence-inspiring, as well. The only place ExpressVPN falls notably behind its competitors is in price. That’s on the more expensive side of top-tier VPNs. That being said, if you’re going to use your Android VPN a lot—which we recommend—it’s worth it. In addition to one-tap access to over 2,000 servers in 60 countries, the app also has a built-in adblocker so you can browse the internet more freely and use less data. All you need to do is tell NordVPN where you want to connect, and you’ll be instantly connected to their network. We also love that they offer a free seven-day trial, so you can check out the Android app to see if you like it. If you don’t, all you have to do is cancel the service.

We think you’ll like it, though; with solid speed scores (74 Mbps download on our 100 Mbps connection), industry-standard encryption, and a mind-boggling number of servers, there’s not a whole lot more you could ask for. It’s not the fastest out there, but it should be plenty fast for anything you’re doing from your phone. Another great feature is NordVPN’s extra-secure Double VPN. It routes your traffic through two VPN servers instead of a single one to give you doubly encrypted data. This feature might slow down your connection, but if you need to be absolutely sure that no one knows what you’re doing online, you can be confident in Double VPN. When you top all of that off with a very affordable pricing structure, you get a winner. 3.29 per month. Not many VPNs charge less than that. Despite their questionable logging policy (which you can read more about in our full review), VyprVPN makes a great VPN for your Android device. If you’re not worried about your VPN provider keeping some of your information, it’s definitely worth downloading. One of the big advantages of VyprVPN is its Chameleon encryption.