The Best VPN For Xbox

1. NordVPN - Best VPN for Xbox Overall

Editors Rating:

9.7 /10

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How We Review

A good balance between speed and security is what we’re mainly looking for in VPNs for Xbox, and that’s exactly what we saw in NordVPN. Although you need to set up NordVPN on your router in order to connect your Xbox to it, the experience is seamless and there isn’t much tinkering needed to start playing. It simply works, which is why it’s our top-pick VPN for Xbox users.

Protect Yourself from DDoS

One of the reasons why gamers use VPNs on their Xbox is to protect themselves from DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. A DDoS attack is when someone uses multiple computers to flood your network with empty traffic. Especially if you’re gaming competitively, a DDoS attack can slow your network down or even kick you out of your game. NordVPN built its servers in a way that can absorb DDoS attacks. Its servers can withstand the flooding of data, so that even during an attack, your gameplay will remain largely the same.

Play In More Competitive Servers

Tired of meeting the same people on your game’s local server? NordVPN has over 5,200 VPN servers in 60 countries, so that if you want, you can make it appear as if you’re in another location and play on a different server. We hear that the European and South East Asian servers on Fortnite are especially competitive, so why don’t you pop on there and test your skills?

Don’t Sacrifice Your Speed

We’ve tested NordVPN ourselves, and we’re impressed by its speeds. On our Mac, we only noticed a 10-percent increase in ping time (latency) when connected to NordVPN, so lags won’t be a problem. As for upload and download speeds, which are also important when you’re gaming, we saw a decrease of no more than 25-percent. (We detailed our speed test results in our NordVPN review, so pop on there to learn more.) With those speeds, raiding bosses and killing zombies won’t be a problem.

2. ExpressVPN - Best VPN for Watching Netflix on Xbox

Editors Rating:

9.1 /10

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How We Review

Aside from working with any type of Xbox, ExpressVPN is one of our top choices for VPNs in general. Trustworthy with a solid logging policy, high-quality encryption and fast speeds on our devices, there’s not much to dislike about this British Virgin Islands-based VPN company. And with over 2,000 servers in 148 locations around the world, it’ll work well for tons of people outside of the U.S, where we’re based.

Support for Multiple Devices

The four Xbox consoles aside, ExpressVPN is a great choice to use on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, Blackberry, Apple TV, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 or Kindle devices. It also works on routers, so if you don’t want to use it directly on your Xbox, you can simply encrypt your router and then connect your Xbox to its network. And with ratings above four stars for its iOS and Android device, it’ll be easy to use on your phone, as well.

Rotating IP Addresses

Every time we connected to ExpressVPN, we were given a new IP address for our Xbox consoles, which is ideal for getting ahead of hackers or government censorship. With rotating IP addresses, we basically put on a new disguise every time we connected, ideal for bypassing firewalls like the Great Firewall of China.1

Good Entertainment Options

Sick of playing on your Xbox? Once we had had our fill, we switched to watching movies and TV shows on Netflix, and when that wasn’t sufficient, through uTorrent. It was nice to be able to stay on both our Xbox and our VPN while enjoying some content, and the fast speeds meant that we never had those frustrating “spinning wheel” moments.

3. Private Internet Access VPN - Best Xbox VPN with Smart DNS

Editors Rating:

9.4 /10

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How We Review

We found Private Internet Access to be an easy-to-use VPN with great features and consistent speeds. It’s affordable, too, which we know many gamers will appreciate with the already high cost of AAA game titles. If you do choose Private Internet Access, though, note that it’s not the fastest VPN we’ve tested, but in terms of latency, it managed to keep our ping low and lags at a minimum while gaming on Xbox.

Smart DNS

A typical VPN setup encrypts your web activity and hides your IP address. That’s great for your privacy, but if you’re gaming and you want to establish a proxy connection so you can join an online gaming server in another country, you probably don’t need encryption. Private Internet Access’ solution is Smart DNS, which you can configure on your Xbox without downloading anything. Just change your Xbox’s DNS settings to the one provided in your PIA dashboard, and you’re good to go. Keep in mind that Smart DNS won’t encrypt your web traffic, but it will let you change your virtual location. And since it doesn’t encrypt data, it’s faster than your typical VPN — a huge plus for competitive gamers.

Dedicated IP Address

Now, if you’d rather use Private Internet Access as a VPN (as opposed to a proxy network or Smart DNS), you can of course set up the VPN on your router and connect your Xbox to it. In addition, PIA sells dedicated IP addresses. Usually, with a VPN, you get IP addresses that are shared between you and other VPN users connected to the same server. This sometimes results in being banned from multiplayer rooms as your online game might think you’re a bot. With a dedicated IP address, you’re paying for the IP address, so only you can use it. This minimizes the risk of being banned.

Good Latency

Lastly, and this comes from our own experience, Private Internet Access is great for gaming because it has low latency, especially if you connect to a nearby server. Low latency means fewer lags and a smoother gaming experience, and aren’t those what we want to see as gamers? In addition, Private Internet Access’ speeds were consistently good. It’s not the fastest, but it didn’t let us down in terms of connection speeds. Overall, Private Internet Access is a solid VPN for Xbox.

4. Surfshark - Best Xbox VPN with Free Trial

Editors Rating:

9.5 /10

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How We Review

For some people, a money-back guarantee won’t be good enough, and they’ll want to try out a VPN without laying down a credit card. Enter Surfshark, one of the best free VPNs. It has a 30-day trial period so you can play Xbox with the VPN connected and see how it works for yourself. And the best part is that, unlike some other free VPNs that shall remain nameless, Surfshark didn’t put any limits on the number of servers we connected to, our browsing speeds, or the amount of data we used. Basically, the service we got in the 30-day trial period was equal to the service we’d get when the trial ended, making it a truly fair trial.

Kill Switch

We were deep into a game of Fortnite on our Xbox One when our new puppy stepped onto our router’s HDMI cable, disconnecting Surfshark. However, in a flash, Surfshark shut down our game and all of the other web activity we had going on on our other devices, a feature called a kill switch. Many VPNs don’t have kill switches, so if they got disconnected, there would go our privacy. We’re lucky that Surfshark has a Plan B in mind.

Unlimited Simultaneous Connections

Most Xbox users aren’t just using their Xbox and no other devices at a time, and with Xbox Live members spending an average of five hours a day on their Xbox One,3 you can bet that they’re using a ton of other devices in that time period. Unlike many other VPNs, Surfshark didn’t limit the number of devices we could connect at the same time, we had them all going; we played Minecraft on our Xbox One, chatted with friends on our iPhones and used an Echo speaker to turn the lights off for maximum TV-viewing. Sure, the more devices we added, the slower our Internet was, but at least we had the option.

Multi-Hop

Using AES-256, Surfshark encrypted our Xbox gaming not once but multiple times through a few different servers. That’s ideal for privacy, although it did slow us down slightly. Again, we like to have options, so we’re pleased that Surfshark gives us this additional privacy.

5. CyberGhost - Best VPN for Xbox One

Editors Rating:

8.9 /10

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How We Review

With 3,157 servers in 60 countries, you’ll have no issue playing Xbox with CyberGhost connected around the world. From the good ole U.S.A to the E.U and Asia, CyberGhost is ideal for traveling gamers, but wherever in the world you are, they won’t log where you go online (although they will log your IP address, unfortunately). Still, for those that aren’t as concerned about privacy, CyberGhost is a solid option for Xbox.

Split Tunneling

One huge issue that gamers run into is lag, otherwise known as ping or latency. Skill aside, lag can really hurt your stats, but with CyberGhost, we directed our non-important web traffic, like our iMessages, directly to the public Wi-Fi network while we were on so we only encrypted our Xbox traffic. This lowered bandwidth and made for faster speeds, which, if you’re as competitive as we are, that’s essential to win. And let’s be honest: it is about winning, not just playing the game.

Quick Support Over Live Chat

When we were having issues configuring CyberGhost on our Xbox one, we decided to ask someone for help over live chat. Much to our surprise, we weren’t answered by a robot but by an actual human, and within a few seconds to boot! With a few messages, we got our answers and were able to connect CyberGhost to our Xbox One and start playing.

Low Prices

Aside from its quick speeds and support, one of the biggest advantages of going with CyberGhost is its pricing, which starts at $2.25 a month with the three-year plan and includes three months for free. That’s the most cost-effective option, but if you don’t feel like making such a long commitment, there’s also two year, one year and one month options. Personally, we paid $12.99 for the month-to-month plan, although we should’ve just bitten the bullet and bought the three-year package; after all, CyberGhost has a 45-day money-back guarantee, so the financial risk was virtually nil.

6. Ivacy - Best Xbox VPN with Split Tunneling

Editors Rating:

9.2 /10

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How We Review

Like we said, split tunneling really helped us out when we were connected to Ivacy VPN. It was especially helpful when we were working from home one day and needed to access an office network. Now, we’re not implying that we were playing Grand Theft Auto during the workday, but let’s just say we had a nice lunch break, routing our Xbox traffic to the VPN and keeping our office network on our Wi-Fi directly. This really reduced our lag so we could steal virtual cars and contribute to a meeting effectively (just kidding, but not really).

Great for Gaming and Entertainment

Aside from working with the four types of Xboxes, all of which we tested out, Ivacy VPN also works on:

• Windows
• macOS
• iOS
• Android
• Kodi
• Linux
• Raspberry Pi
• Smart TVs
• Routers
• Roku
• Blackberry
• PlayStation 4.

For us, that meant that after we were done playing on our Xboxes, we had a ton of options for more entertainment, all of which we connected to Ivacy. In fact, we decided to connect it directly to our router so it could cover the five devices we had on the network. While we wish they allowed for more than five simultaneous connections, we definitely appreciate how compatible Ivacy is across all of the most popular devices.

Dedicated IP Addresses

If you’re located in China, then using a VPN that has thousands of users sharing a single IP address may not cut it, but Ivacy VPN has a solution. For an extra $1.99 a month, we bought a dedicated IP address, meaning that we were the only ones using it. That worked to get the VPN up and running on our Xbox 360, and it’s also available in countries like the U.K, Singapore, Australia, Germany, Canada and Hong Kong. Guess that Great Firewall isn’t so great anymore!

No Traffic Logs

Not that we’re doing anything particularly shady on our Xbox, but we don’t like the idea of our Internet Service Provider (ISP) tracking our every move. We also don’t appreciate targeted ads that follow us from game to game, from site to site as we use the Internet. And if a VPN is tracking us too, then guess what? We don’t want to use it. Well, we’ve read their privacy policy from start to finish, and we can firmly say that Ivacy’s logging policy is pretty minimal, not keeping track of our domain names or IP addresses. Here’s what they did log:

• Name
• Email address
• Payment method
• Crash event reports and performance data
• Failed connection attempts
• Application usage
• Bandwidth usage (aggregated).

Sure, that’s not the most minimal logging policy we’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly on the right side of privacy.

7. Trust.Zone VPN - Best VPN for Xbox 360

Editors Rating:

7.9 /10

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How We Review

Last on our list is Trust.Zone, a VPN company based in the Seychelles Islands. Never heard of them? Just know that they’re non-members to Five Eyes, making Trust.Zone ideal for someone who wants to play privately on their Xbox 360. Plus, the only information of ours they kept was our email address, so even if the government came knocking, they wouldn’t have anything useful to give them, especially if we had created a fake email.

Discount with Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies

If you already use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin on your Xbox 360, then you’re in luck, because Trust.Zone gives 10 percent discounts for these payment methods. While we paid with a typical old credit card, this is a fantastic option for someone that prefers to pay in crypto, and an offer we haven’t seen from any other VPN company.

Only Collects Email Address

Aside from being based in the non-member Seychelles Islands, Trust.Zone didn’t keep much of our data, and none of our traffic on our Xbox or its IP address. Rather, they only kept our email address, and if you’re particularly concerned about privacy, putting down a fake email address is always an option. Combine that with anonymous payment methods and you can stay truly invisible when you play Xbox, or use the Internet at all, with Trust.Zone.

Quick Speeds

Gaming aside, Trust.Zone worked really well on our Macbook Pro and Windows Vivobook, increasing our latency by only 33 and 54 percent, respectively. We also saw our upload and download speeds decrease only by 44 and 34 percent on our Mac and 14 and 13 percent on Windows. These slowdowns were largely unnoticeable, making Trust.Zone one of the fastest VPNs whether you’re gaming on your Xbox or just web surfing on your desktop.