Mullvad VPN

Using a VPN isn't the magic bullet that some people make it out to be. It doesn't make you anonymous. Without a VPN your ISP can see every site that you visit and most of them build a profile of you to sell to advertisers. Using a VPN just moves that trust to the VPN provider. Mullvad makes trust almost irrelevant. You don't even need an email address to sign up. They give you a randomized 16-digit account number, you pay, and then you connect. They accept cash and cryptocurrency if you want to take all personally identifiable information out of equation.

The technical fundamentals are strong too. Mullvad runs entirely on WireGuard since they dropped OpenVPN support in January 2026. They own and operate most of their own server infrastructure rather than renting it. All of their servers are RAM-only so nothing is written to disk, meaning there is nothing to hand over to anyone looking to get information on a subscriber. The service has been independently audited multiple times by four different firms.

They've also built something called DAITA, or Defense Against AI-guided Traffic Analysis. Standard VPNs encrypt your traffic so nobody can read it, but the pattern of it is still visible. Every website has a recognizable shape, the size and timing of the packets coming back and forth and AI can match those patterns to specific sites, even if you're using a VPN. DAITA scrambles that by making all packets the same size and throwing in random background traffic, so the shape of what you're doing becomes unreadable. Most VPN providers haven't even acknowledged this problem exists, but Mullvad built a peer-reviewed solution for it.

The app is clean and straightforward. You connect, it works. There's no upselling, no dashboard full of features you'll never use. There's no affiliate program pushing it into every VPN review you've ever seen. The VPN industry is absolutely overloaded with paid recommendations that skew the "Best VPN" articles and videos to the ones that pay out the most. Mullvad does not participate in that.

Pricing is flat at €5/month, or roughly $5.80 USD at the time of writing. There are no annual plans, and no discounts for committing longer. Some people find that annoying. But it just means that their business model doesn't depend on locking you in for multiple years.

One important note: Mullvad is not a "streaming" VPN. Most streaming services actively block Mullvad's servers, and it doesn't offer dedicated streaming infrastructure or Smart DNS. Mullvad knows this and doesn't pretend otherwise. Their own workaround is to route streaming services outside of the VPN entirely. If unblocking geo-restricted content is your main reason for getting a VPN, look elsewhere. If privacy is your reason, Mullvad is the the way to go.

One last thing: if you're using a Mac and/or an iPhone, I would recommend Obscura over Mullvad. It uses Mullvad's servers but works in more privacy. (Read Review) They have stated they are working on an Android version, and possible Windows too, but it's currently only available for macOS and iOS.