If you are concerned about your privacy and security online, using a VPN could give you some reassurance. Apple provides various measures in macOS that make Macs more secure, but if you want to ensure that the connection between your Mac and the internet is protected, rather than the computer itself, you need a VPN. Using a VPN essentially makes you invisible on the web–your data is encrypted, your IP address is hidden, and you can even make it look like you are surfing from another country. This latter reason is the key motive many people using a VPN have: they want to access services that are locked to a particular region, such as accessing U.S. Netflix from the U.K or BBC iPlayer from the U.S. While accessing locked content is a bit of a gray area, due to licensing agreements, there’s an argument to be made about the ethics of using VPNs compared to outright piracy.
If you are looking for a VPN to protect your privacy and security online, and to grant you a way to access content as if you are in a different country, the market is filled with providers vying for your business, making finding the best one to suit your needs difficult. To help you sort out the right provider for you, extensive research and testing of VPN services that cater to Mac owners have been conducted. As of April 2024, reviews for NordVPN and Surfshark have been refreshed.
Currently, NordVPN stands out in numerous areas, from speed and privacy to unblocking and ease of use. But the big question remains: Do Mac users even need a VPN? Since Apple introduced iOS 15 and macOS Monterey in 2021, the company has offered a handy private relay service that acts a bit like a VPN because it encrypts your web-browsing traffic and sends it through a relay to hide your location, IP, and any information about what you were browsing. However, iCloud Private Relay has some disadvantages: it only works when using Safari, you need to be a subscriber to iCloud, and you can’t use it to pretend to be surfing from another country in order to access region-locked content.
There are a lot of criteria to consider when choosing a VPN, such as a clear privacy policy, the service provider’s base location, number of servers, payment options, an easy-to-use interface, and protection for all of your devices. Each of these factors plays a critical role in ensuring you get the most out of your VPN experience while maintaining your online privacy and security.
For each VPN service reviewed, tests were conducted at different times of the day to assess their performance accurately, including speed tests through Ookla. These tests provided insights into the potential variability in service quality users might experience throughout the day.
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