| Updated: November 26, 2024
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This blog explores how to select the best VPN server for privacy, speed, streaming, and torrenting. Here’s a quick overview:
If you have landed on this page, I am assuming you have already purchased a premium VPN and wondering which VPN server to connect to get the best online speed, privacy, security, or all three.
Countires like Iceland, Switzerland offer the best online security because of their law on online privacy. If you are looking for streaming then the US server has the fastest and most reliable connectivity, but it also depend upon your location and distance from the United States.
This article will discuss which countries you should connect to get the best out of your VPN subscription. I will also highlight the VPN servers I tested for streaming, torrenting, privacy, unblocking OTT and social media.
Changing your IP address is easy if you have a VPN. However, changing your IP address for your desired country and city can be done with a premium VPN. A premium VPN enables you to select any city or country from its application and allot you an IP address from its pool.
This feature is not available in free VPNs because, first of all, it’s free, and second, those free VPNs that offer a variety of servers come with a monthly data cap. Therefore, you can change your IP address to any country with a premium or freemium VPN, and this won’t be possible with VPN software.
A premium VPN service like ExpressVPN or NordVPN has thousands of servers placed globally. They gave you the choice to connect to any country or city and take full responsibility for deleting your logs. With the immense choices of VPN servers, you might be wondering about the best country to connect your VPN to get optimum results.
It totally depends upon your usage and what you are up to. For example, I used ExpressVPN’s Australian server to connect to the Australian Netflix library and watched Oppenheimer movies. Just a week before that, I used the British server to watch the latest episodes of Big Brother UK from Canada.
I will give you a generic overview of the top countries’ VPN servers I use for speed, security, privacy, and streaming.
There are multiple factors affecting a VPN connection, which makes it fast and slow. These factors can be the country’s infrastructure, the quality of VPN servers, the number of servers in a country, and the distance between you and the server you have connected to.
We tested ExpressVPN’s NewYork server on a basic internet connection of 30Mbps, and here are the results.
Before VPN
After VPN
Our download speed declined by 32%, and ping increased by 500 milliseconds. However, 17.4Mbps is enough to stream content in HD and play online games.
The browsing experience was completely fine because 17Mbps is enough to load the heaviest websites. Ping increased due to the distance between our device and the VPN server, which is fine because 507 milliseconds of ping will not hurt your streaming or browsing experience but can affect gaming.
To get the fastest VPN server, I performed the speed test for more countries, and here are the results. We used a 30Mbps broadband connection for these tests.
| VPN server | Ping (ms) | Download Speed (Mbps) | Upload Speed (Mbps) |
| No VPN | 10 | 25 | 19.6 |
| UK – Tottenham | 274 | 14.5 | 14.2 |
| Germany – Frankfurt | 258 | 20.4 | 9.3 |
| Netherlands – Amesterdam | 260 | 19.5 | 13.3 |
| US – New Jersey | 487 | 22.3 | 15.4 |
| Singapore | 245 | 20.5 | 14.6 |
The reduction in internet speed is one of the known disadvantages of VPN, and that is because it adds an extra layer of security that encrypts your data and sends it through a secure tunnel to the VPN server you have selected before it reaches the internet.
Premium VPNs like ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and Surfshark do their job of protecting you from online threats without reducing your internet speed. However, there are VPNs in the market that reduce internet speed by up to 70%. Here is a complete guide on increasing your internet speed with a VPN.
I tested ExpressVPN, and its highly optimized servers, capable of speeds up to 10Gbps, caused only a minor reduction on our 30 Mbps connection. The US server delivered a speed of 22 Mbps, while the Singapore server provided 20 Mbps. I will also add a speed comparison of free VPNs to this article later.
As mentioned above, countries like Switzerland, Panama, and Iceland are best known for their privacy laws and strict no-log policy. VPNs based in these countries don’t have to keep and share their user’s data, which is why I recommend all of you to check where a VPN is registered before making your purchase decision.
For optimal privacy and security, I recommend VPN users connect to servers in Switzerland. The country enforces no logging policies and is not part of any surveillance alliances like Five Eyes or Nine Eyes.
Here is a list of countries in which I prefer a secure and private VPN server.
The choice of the best VPN country server for streaming depends upon what you want to watch. I remember using the British VPN servers to watch the Qatar World Cup on BBC iPlayer. Additionally, I frequently use the Japanese servers to watch anime on Netflix, which is not available in the United States.
It ultimately depends on your needs. I recommend NordVPN, as its highly optimized servers can effectively unblock any OTT platform or website from your country. However, I wouldn’t recommend ExpressVPN for streaming, as I had a poor experience trying to unblock the Malaysian, Singaporean, and Taiwanese Netflix libraries.
Besides your specific needs, servers in the United States and the UK are considered the best for streaming. They are fast and reliable and unlock Hulu, BBC, ITV, American Netflix, and other websites and OTT platforms.
Users who are tight on budget can also use proxies and Smart DNS to unblock restricted content. But keep in mind that these OTT platforms use a sophisticated system of IP detection, and proxies won’t be able to bypass it. Here are more details on the difference between VPN, proxy, and Smart DNS.
Sharing legal P2P files is legal in most parts of the world. However, things can go out of hand when torrent users share copyrighted materials using P2P technology. Downloading movies, music, and software is illegal and unethical.
For those of you who want to download copyright-free material using torrent, I would recommend connecting to an American or Canadian server. NordVPN and ExpressVPN have several servers in both countries, which will allow users to download torrents quickly and safely.
Some countries have banned VPNs or heavily regulated them. They did this in the name of national security, and the countries with these laws are China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, etc. Don’t use servers in any of these countries because VPN providers may share your data with the government.
Instead, I recommend choosing a Swiss or Icelandic server for optimum security and fast speed. For those of you who reside in these countries, get a premium VPN with obfuscated servers or build your own VPN.
Most VPN providers don’t offer server locations in these countries, but they do offer these servers via another country. For example, after the Indian government announced the new data collection policy, many VPN providers removed servers from India. But they still offer an Indian server via another country. In ExpressVPN’s case, it offers an Indian server via the UK and Singapore.
Connecting to an Indian server via another country offered by a reliable VPN provider is still safe, and I recommend doing so. However, there are VPNs with physical servers in India that share user data with the Indian government on demand; please avoid those VPNs.
Internet speed and ping are crucial when you are gaming online. It can make or break your game and gaming experience; therefore, follow our advice on connecting to the fastest VPN server for optimum internet speed and low latency.
You can also use other methods like using an ethernet cable to connect your PC, closing unused applications, restarting your router, etc, to lower your ping for the best gaming experience. Some additional tips can be choosing a VPN server close to your gaming server to reduce latency.
Upon testing, I found out these country servers work best with these games.
A VPN helps hide your IP address and lets you access restricted content online. You can enjoy American content from anywhere in the world or can stream your favorite football game for free with the assistance of a VPN.
Each time you connect to a new server, you will be assigned a fresh IP address. You can also evaluate your VPN’s performance using our VPN test.
What else should you read?
Upon testing I found the United States, Canada and Australia to have the fastest VPN servers that you can use for streaming and torrenting.
Connect to a server in Switzerland or Iceland for the best online privacy and security. These countries have strict laws against user data retention and are not part of any surveillance alliances.
The server will depend upon which country library you want to unblock. I used ExpressVPN’s British server to watch Brad Pitt’s Bullet Train from the United States.
Mustafa is a cybersecurity analyst and a co-founder of VPN for What. Since 2017, Mustafa has gained international experience, working with governments, NGOs, and the private sector as a cybersecurity and VPN expert and advisor.
