Independent VPN research.
No compromise.
Built by analysts who test before they write — not marketers who write before they think. Every review, ranking, and recommendation on this site is earned through hands-on infrastructure testing.
Founded 2021 · Independent Editorial · Affiliate Disclosed — Never Ranked · Real Speed Data · Court Records & Audits Cited
Why we built VPNHB
In 2021, the VPN review space was — and largely still is — dominated by sites with a single editorial priority: affiliate commission. Providers with the most generous referral programs occupied the top spots regardless of technical merit. Privacy claims went unchecked. Speed numbers were copied from press kits.
We built VPNHB.COM to do the opposite. Every provider goes through the same testing pipeline — live protocol benchmarks, leak testing, jurisdiction mapping, no-log audit verification — before a single word of copy is written. Our rankings follow the test data, not the commission rates.
The site covers the full spectrum: entry-level budget VPNs, privacy-first tools for high-risk users, IPTV and streaming setups, torrenting configurations, and the growing market of business-grade remote access products. If it touches your network, we’ve tested it.
How We Test
The VPNHB Testing Methodology
Every review on this site follows the same structured pipeline. No shortcuts, no exceptions — the methodology is identical whether the provider pays us affiliate commission or not.
| Test Category | What We Measure & How |
|---|---|
| ⚡ Speed & Protocols | Symmetric 1 Gbps fiber, five consecutive runs at 8am / 1pm / 8pm. WireGuard, OpenVPN UDP, OpenVPN TCP, and IKEv2 tested separately. Results averaged; outliers noted, not discarded. |
| 🔒 Leak Testing | DNS leaks, IPv6 leaks, and WebRTC exposure via ipleak.net, dnsleaktest.com, and custom network capture. Kill switch verified through simulated drops. Partial failures documented — no conditional passes. |
| 🧾 No-Log Audits | Certificates verified against the issuing firm’s public record. One-time audits, KPMG-style ongoing programs, and court-proven records are treated differently. A privacy policy alone is not cited as evidence. |
| ⚖️ Jurisdiction | Legal headquarters mapped against Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, and Fourteen Eyes. Data retention directives, national security letter exposure, and warrant canary status all evaluated. |
| 📺 Streaming | Netflix US/UK/JP/AU, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime, Hulu, ESPN+, and HBO Max tested per review cycle. Results recorded per server — dedicated and general servers always distinguished. |
| 🌐 Infrastructure | RAM-only server claims verified, virtual server practices reviewed, physical location accuracy checked. Partial RAM rollouts distinguished from full fleet transitions. |
| 🔄 Update Cycle | Major reviews re-tested quarterly. If a provider’s circumstances change materially — ownership, jurisdiction, security incident — the review is updated within 72 hours. |
Our Editorial Promise
The rules we follow — every time, on every review.
The VPN industry gives reviewers a lot of reasons to cut corners. Affiliate commissions are generous. Providers are aggressive with outreach. Here’s what we hold ourselves to instead.
The Editor
The analyst behind the reviews
Simon Fischer is a Zurich-based cybersecurity analyst who has spent the last four years working at the intersection of network privacy and infrastructure security. Before co-founding VPNHB, he worked in infrastructure consulting — evaluating network configurations for financial services clients in Switzerland, where the regulatory bar for data handling is about as high as it gets anywhere in the world.
— Simon Fischer, Editor, VPNHB.COM
When Simon evaluates a kill switch, he’s not checking whether a button exists in a UI — he’s simulating failure conditions and watching for traffic exposure at the packet level. When he writes about jurisdiction, he’s mapping legal obligations against actual compellability of data, not repeating a provider’s marketing copy about “no surveillance alliances.”
Holding certifications from CompTIA (Security+) and Cisco, his specializations include VPN protocol optimization, zero-trust network architecture, and the practical application of Swiss data privacy standards. He contributes every primary review and all technical analysis on the site.
Prior to VPNHB, Simon spent three years advising financial institutions on secure remote access architectures — work that exposed him to the gap between what VPN marketing promises and what VPN infrastructure actually delivers under regulatory scrutiny. That gap is what this site exists to close.
Core Expertise
What Simon tests & how
| Area | Detail |
|---|---|
| Tunneling Protocols | Deep evaluation of WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2/IPSec, SSTP, and the emerging VLESS / XTLS stack used in high-censorship bypass scenarios. |
| No-Log Audit Analysis | Forensic examination of VPN no-log claims, RAM-disk server architectures, and independent audit trail verification — because a privacy policy is not a guarantee. |
| Kill Switch & Leak Testing | Hands-on testing of IPv6 leak prevention, DNS leak protection, WebRTC containment, and split-tunneling behavior under real failure conditions. |
| Jurisdiction & Legal Risk | Mapping provider headquarters against Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, and Fourteen Eyes alliances, plus GDPR overlap, data-retention directives, and warrant canary analysis. |
| Obfuscation & DPI Evasion | Analysis of obfsproxy, Shadowsocks, and stealth-mode tunneling designed to defeat Deep Packet Inspection at the ISP and state level. |
| Server Infrastructure | Evaluating bare-metal vs. virtual deployments, diskless node configurations, multi-hop routing, and the security implications of shared vs. dedicated IP pools. |
Reference
The language of this site
VPNHB does not dumb things down — it makes complexity accessible. Here are the technical terms you’ll encounter throughout Simon’s writing, explained plainly.
| AES-256-GCM | The authenticated encryption standard underpinning most enterprise-grade VPN sessions. The “GCM” mode adds integrity verification on top of encryption. |
| Perfect Forward Secrecy | Session key rotation ensuring past sessions can’t be decrypted even if long-term keys are later compromised. Essential for any provider claiming durable privacy. |
| Multi-hop / Double VPN | Routing traffic through two encrypted servers in different jurisdictions for layered anonymity. Adds latency; warranted for high-risk use cases. |
| TLS Fingerprinting | A method ISPs and censors use to identify VPN handshakes by their cryptographic signature. Obfuscation tools are specifically designed to defeat this. |
| Zero-Trust Architecture | A security model where no device or user is trusted by default, even inside a private network. Increasingly relevant as remote work blurs network perimeters. |
| RAM-Only Servers | Infrastructure storing all data in volatile memory — wiped completely on every reboot, leaving nothing to seize. A meaningful privacy upgrade over disk-based servers. |
| BGP Hijacking | A routing attack that redirects internet traffic at the infrastructure level. A growing threat to VPN integrity that operates entirely below the application layer. |
| Post-Quantum Cryptography | Next-generation encryption algorithms adopted ahead of quantum computing threats. NordVPN and ExpressVPN have already begun deployment; most providers have not. |
| CGNAT | Carrier-Grade NAT — an ISP practice that complicates P2P traffic and VPN routing at the network edge. Relevant for users on mobile or budget ISP connections. |
| Warrant Canary | A mechanism providers use to signal (by its absence) that a government data request has been received. Useful but legally contested in some jurisdictions. |
| Tor-over-VPN | Combining Tor’s anonymity layer with a VPN exit for defense-in-depth privacy routing. Adds significant latency; overkill for most users, essential for a few. |
| SNI Spoofing / Domain Fronting | Techniques used to disguise the true destination of encrypted connections in restrictive environments. Widely used in anti-censorship tooling. |
Transparency
What we don’t do
Most VPN review sites publish what they omit without naming it. We’ll name it directly.
- Accept payment for a ranking position or score
- Copy speed data from press kits or provider dashboards
- Omit or soften a negative finding because of an affiliate relationship
- Cite a privacy policy as evidence of a no-log claim
- Publish a review without a hands-on testing period
- Update reviews on a provider’s request without reverifying independently
- Use “best VPN” claims that aren’t grounded in scored criteria
- Disclose all affiliate relationships on the relevant page
- Document historical incidents — data breaches, ownership changes, court cases
- Verify audit certificates against the issuing firm’s public record
- Test both dedicated streaming servers and general servers separately
- Note when a provider underperforms its own marketing claims
- Update reviews when material facts change
- Give a clear “not recommended for” category alongside recommendations
Beyond the Terminal
The person, not just the analyst
When he isn’t auditing server configurations or reverse-engineering VPN client behavior, Simon can be found restoring vintage mechanical watches in his Zurich flat — an obsession with systems that demand absolute precision, where a misaligned component of 0.01mm means the whole mechanism fails. The parallel to network security, he’ll tell you, is not accidental.
He’s also a committed hiker of the Glarus Alps, where the terrain is unforgiving and signal coverage drops to zero. There, he notes, is the only place where a total lack of connectivity is something to seek out rather than harden against.
That grounded perspective — the belief that good tools should disappear into the background and let you live your life — is what drives the editorial direction of VPNHB. The site isn’t built for people who want to read about VPNs. It’s built for people who want to stop thinking about them.
Get in Touch
Contact & partnerships
Have a question about a VPN, a privacy tool, or something in the site’s methodology? Reach Simon directly.
VPNHB works with a small number of aligned partners. Sponsored content, banner placements, and editorial collaborations are considered on merit.
Journalists, researchers, and podcast producers covering internet privacy or VPN infrastructure are welcome to reach out for comment or contribution.
Affiliate Disclosure: VPNHB.COM earns commission when readers purchase services through links on this site. This compensation never influences rankings, scores, or editorial content. All testing is conducted independently on our own infrastructure. Commercial relationships are disclosed on every relevant page.