Which VPN is most trusted?
Short answer
Mullvad and ProtonVPN consistently rank highest on trust by independent reviewers, including ours. Mullvad accepts cash and assigns numeric account IDs (no email required), ships open-source clients, and was raided by Swedish police in 2023 with nothing to hand over. ProtonVPN is independently audited and based in Switzerland.
'Most trusted' is jurisdiction-specific. A US-based VPN that's perfectly trustworthy for casual privacy may be inappropriate for higher-risk threat models.
What 'trusted' actually decomposes into
Four properties: jurisdiction (where the company can be compelled), audit history (independent verification), open source (auditable code), and court-tested no-logs (the only kind of evidence that proves the architecture works under pressure).
A VPN scoring well on three of four is solid. Mullvad and ProtonVPN are the only providers that score well on all four.
Mullvad in detail
Mullvad accepts cash sent in the mail, Monero, and credit cards. Accounts are numeric — no email required. Clients are published on GitHub for every platform. The company is based in Sweden, which has limited data-retention requirements after the CJEU's 2014 and 2022 rulings narrowed the EU directive.
In April 2023, Swedish police raided Mullvad's Gothenburg office with a warrant. Mullvad's no-logs architecture meant they had nothing to hand over, and the police left empty-handed. This is the strongest privacy evidence available.
ProtonVPN in detail
ProtonVPN is based in Switzerland, outside Five/Fourteen Eyes and outside the EU. The company publishes a transparency report and has been audited by Securitum. Open-source clients on GitHub.
Why we don't rank Surfshark/NordVPN/ExpressVPN first on trust: they're solid (Deloitte audits, RAM-only servers, mostly good jurisdictions) but architecturally less aggressive about minimising what they could log if they were forced to.
Last verified: 2026-05-05
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