Best VPN for Australia: Best VPN for Australia: Boost Your Privacy and Unblock Streaming Libraries

ExpressVPN is the top VPN option for Australia since it offers servers in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. It has dozens of servers across over 17 US cities. Although expensive compared to other VPN rivals, ExpressVPN has one of the best privacy suites to protect your data while traveling. It’s also extremely user-friendly, great for unblocking streaming services and includes a password manager as well as identity theft insurance.

NordVPN has 190-plus Australian servers in five cities (Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney). In addition to its solid Australian server footprint, you’ll get blazing-fast speeds, unique privacy features and a cheaper upfront price compared to Express.

Surfshark offers 40 servers in five Australian cities (Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney), but provides a large US server network with 22 US locations. Surfshark effortlessly unblocks most streaming sites and has relatively fast speeds.

Exploring Australia doesn’t mean you have to disconnect from all the digital comforts you’re used to at home. All you need to do is download the right VPN so you can bypass geo-blocks imposed by streaming platforms like Netflix, keep your web browsing activity private on hotel Wi-Fi and access your email without triggering a pesky CAPTCHA.

A virtual private network, or VPN, encrypts your web traffic, masking your public IP address, which is sort of like your home address on the internet. With a VPN enabled, your ISP can’t tell what websites you visit or apps you use. When you connect through a VPN server, you can make it look like you’re in a different city, state or country. Because of their privacy and geo-unblocking capabilities, VPNs are great for travel.

Our experts at CNET picked out the best VPNs for Australia from the dozens we regularly test. We comprehensively evaluate VPNs, assessing connection speeds, network stability, privacy features, streaming performance and cost-effectiveness to find the top VPNs.

Using a VPN on your trip to Australia will let you access your favorite entertainment from your home country while traveling. You won’t have access to US-restricted sites like Hulu, Max (formerly HBO Max), ESPN or Netflix’s US library in Australia. A VPN will hide your actual location, making apps and services think you’re located in another area when connected to a different country’s servers, allowing you to watch shows from your home country and listen to music from sites like Pandora or iHeart.

VPNs will also boost privacy and pseudo-anonymity since they encrypt your traffic and protect your data from prying eyes. Your data can be intercepted if you’re on a compromised public Wi-Fi network, and VPNs may help you avoid man-in-the-middle attacks. Additionally, a VPN can let you access your bank account or email without triggering a security lock for your account.

Proton VPN

Proton VPN is the only free VPN we recommend, although we don’t think its no-cost tier is a good option while in Australia. The free version has a US server that allows access to Netflix, Max (previously HBO Max), Hulu and other streaming sites. It also doesn’t impose any data caps, allowing you to use your VPN as much as you want. There aren’t any nearby free servers for Australia (the closest being in Japan), so browsing local content and using a VPN to protect yourself on public networks can severely impact your internet speeds.

The premium version of Proton VPN has 268 Australian servers split between Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. You’ll get 13,600-plus international servers in 122 countries. Proton VPN costs $10 per month, $60 for the first year or $108 total for two years (the one- and two-year plans renew at $80 per year).

Read our Proton VPN review.

IPVanish

IPVanish is easy to use and is an excellent option for first-time VPN users. We didn’t have an issue accessing popular streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu or Disney Plus while in the US. (IPVanish is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.) Still, the inconsistent speeds we got (a whopping 44% speed reduction in the 2024 speed test) would make watching content on these sites difficult without a high internet speed.

IPVanish’s server network features 2,400-plus servers in 108 countries, which is in line with the thousands of servers in 100 or more countries that most of our top VPN providers offer. The VPN has servers in six Australian cities (Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Auckland). It is cheap initially, starting at $13 a month, $40 for the first year or $52 total for the first two years. However, price hikes raise the one- and two-year plans to $90 annually after your introductory term. For the price, it’s hard to justify IPVanish considering its slower internet speeds compared with other VPNs we tested.

Read our IPVanish review.

At CNET, we use a comprehensive review process directed by our in-house experts that covers every part of a VPN. Of course, you won’t want to use a VPN that causes your streams to endlessly buffer, which is why we conduct thousands of speed tests across dozens of VPNs to determine the fastest options each year. While speed is crucial, we also check for DNS leaks, assess how strict no-logs policies are and review the VPNs’ apps and server networks. We pay particular attention to whether a VPN’s no-logs policies have been audited by a third party, too. While there’s no way to know for certain if a VPN is handling your data appropriately, it’s one of the best ways to gauge how seriously a VPN is committed to preserving your data privacy.

We continually refine our VPN testing process to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information. Whether you need a VPN for streaming, security, or bypassing geo-restrictions, our research ensures you get the best option available.

With so many VPNs available for travel, we used our years of privacy expertise and many tests to determine the key factors to look for in a VPN. Here are the top features to look for.

Privacy

No matter what you want to use a VPN for, privacy is one of the most important factors. The best VPNs offer security features such as 256-bit encryption with OpenVPN or ChaCha20 on WireGuard, DNS leak protection, a kill switch and a no-logs policy. VPNs can’t guarantee zero logs, so check the privacy policy and any third-party audits to confirm they are following their claims.

Server network

You should have a wide range of server options in every country you visit or come from. That’s why we considered the server count in the US and Australia during our VPN testing. The more Australian servers, the better chance you have of finding a fast server connection for accessing content like local news, restaurant recommendations and up-to-date events using a VPN. Also, with more US servers, you can easily access streaming accounts you can’t access while in Australia (Netflix’s US library, Hulu, ESPN, etc.) and log in to sensitive websites like bank accounts while circumventing geographical restrictions.

Streaming capabilities

If you’re looking for a simple VPN that gives you access to more streaming options, check out the best VPN for streaming. A VPN that can get around strong geo-blocks will let you access multiple streaming sites to watch from anywhere.

Speed

Every VPN lowers your base speeds, especially the farther away from the server you are. For example, if you’re in Australia trying to connect to a US server, you may face harsh speed reductions. A VPN with the fastest speeds can help you browse the internet smoothly, stream shows without buffering or upload photos and videos from your trip.

Price

We made sure to look at the number of features you get for the price of each VPN to determine its value. Many VPNs on this list cost $10 to $15 a month and up to $100 per year, so our top one will offer the most features at that price. Each VPN typically offers deals to save you even more money.