It’s no secret that the Australian government takes a keen interest in just about everyone’s online activity, and in recent years the Australia VPN has boomed. Thanks to legislation demanding ISPs track and keep hold of your data, alongside heavy-handed site blocking and its Five Eyes membership, anyone setting foot Down Under would do well to bag the best VPN.
However, staying private and secure online isn’t the only way an Australia VPN can help you out. The best services are perfect for unblocking streaming sites like Stan, Binge and 7Play and whether you’re at home or abroad.
Enhanced privacy combined with streaming and other website unblocking makes an Australia VPN a no-brainer. However, with the vast amount of options out there it can be tricky to pick – so here we’ll outline what makes a good service, and our top five suggestions to test out.
- If you’re after a bargain, check out the best cheap VPN
What makes a great Australia VPN?
Your first priority should be privacy. Thankfully, though, there are a fair few providers that boast no-log policies and great encryption, so any one of our top five will have you covered in this respect.
Then you’ll need to think about your priorities – are you a big streamer, want ultimate security, a keen torrenter, or just want the fastest speeds for gaming? Make sure your choice can do what you need it to, and make use of any money-back guarantee you’re entitled to if it doesn’t live up to expectations.
Overall, we recommend ExpressVPN as the best Australia VPN. That’s thanks to its excellent streaming and site unblocking performance alongside rock-solid privacy features – plus, it’s blazing fast, too. However, there are a number of close rivals, so keep scrolling and take your pick from our top five.
1. ExpressVPN – The best Australia VPN
For the most discerning user, only the best will do – and ExpressVPN is the best Australia VPN on the market today. With an unrivalled combination of speed, streaming performance and privacy, it covers all the bases. And now, Tom’s Guide readers can claim three months free.View Deal
The best Australia VPNs today
If you’re after an Australia VPN you’re likely going to want to do it all – streaming, staying private, perhaps a bit of torrenting or gaming – so you need a service that can keep up. ExpressVPN is the best on the market right now, beating out the competition in all the most important areas.
First up, it’s very configurable and has a ton of security and privacy features that should keep you safe no matter what you’re doing. That includes essentials like a kill switch, split tunneling, and AES-256 encryption, but you’ll also get Perfect Forward Secrecy and ExpressVPN’s own proprietary Lightway protocol.
If you’re not the techy type, though, don’t be intimidated. As soon as you launch ExpressVPN, whether that’s from your living room in Perth or the moment you step out of Sydney airport, you’ll be protected. You can leave the settings as they come and browse safely.
As an Australia VPN, Express delivers locations in four cities Down Under, so you’ll have a fine selection to choose from no matter where you are. Plus, with its excellent streaming performance, you can appear to be located absolutely anywhere and get access to blocked content on Netflix, Prime, YouTube and more.
The only thing that disappoints a little is the meagre five simultaneous connections, although that’ll only be an issue if you’re sharing your plan between family or friends – plus you can download on any number of devices and log in and out at will.
Overall, we reckon ExpressVPN is the best Australia VPN available today, but if you’re not convinced you can take advantage of the risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee that comes with every plan.
NordVPN is well-known as a top-class VPN, and if you’re after an Australia VPN that’s versatile and powerful, you could do a lot worse.
With over 5,000 servers worldwide and five locations in Australia, there’s a good spread to choose from, no matter what you want to access. That’s just as well, too, as Nord provides an excellent streaming experience.
NordVPN really shines when it comes to privacy, however, and delivers all the essentials plus a couple of really neat extras. One of those is Onion over VPN, which reroutes your traffic over the Tor network for ultimate anonymity. That comes with a speed penalty, but is definitely worth it if you want to stay hidden.
In general usage, though, Nord’s incredibly fast, and the WireGuard-based NordLynx is secure and lightning quick. That’s perfect for gaming, streaming and torrenting, and it’ll likely be capable of faster speeds than your base Internet line.
However, on mobile, while the apps are powerful and work well, the interface can be quite clunky. Although that isn’t a deal breaker, it’s not nearly as intuitive or simple to use as ExpressVPN.
Beyond that, though, there’s not much between them, and we highly recommend Nord as an alternative.
Head over to the NordVPN website to sign up
After a cheaper Australia VPN? Give Surfshark a spin. For almost half the price of the previous options you’ll get a very similar experience and five Aussie locations – this is no bargain basement knock-off.
You’ll get great speeds, simple yet powerful apps, and excellent streaming service unblocking performance that’s up there with the best. So much so, in fact, that Surfshark names exactly what you can expect to watch on its site. Not every VPN does that.
Unlike Express and Nord, however, Surfshark hasn’t been fully independently audited, and while it claims to be truly zero-logging, we can’t say for sure until there’s an audit. There’s nothing implying otherwise, but it’s nice to be sure.
For the price, though, Surfshark is ridiculous value, and with a 30-day money-back guarantee backing you up while you test the service, there’s not a lot to lose.
Head over to the Surfshark website to sign up
If you want a fast VPN for Australia, Hotspot Shield will be well worth a look. With its proprietary Catapult Hydra protocol you can get excellent connection speeds, which are perfect for streaming, torrenting, and everyday browsing.
With six Australian servers you’ll have a great range of locations to choose from to max out your connections too, meaning wherever you are, you shouldn’t have to contend with buffering – if your base connection is nippy enough, that is.
A slight drawback is the fact Hotspot Shield doesn’t have such wide device support when compared to the list toppers above, but unless you’re planning on using a device like a PS4 that requires Smart DNS, that shouldn’t be a problem.
What’s a little more concerning is the fact Hotspot Shield does log some minor, non-identifying data about its users, so for those seeking the ultimate anonymity package we’d suggest going elsewhere. But, for raw speed, nothing can match it – and the free VPN version is pretty useful, too.
Head over to the Hotspot Shield website to sign up
CyberGhost is our final pick, and it strikes a happy medium between great value and powerful features.
Possibly the best feature of CyberGhost is its server filtering function. In-app, you can pick what you want to watch – Netflix, for example. Then you can choose a country, and CyberGhost will automatically show you which server will function best as a Netflix VPN. It’s a super smart system that makes it very easy to watch what you want.
The apps aren’t quite as polished as the competition’s, but if you take into account the incredibly low price of the three-year plan, it’s a sacrifice many would be willing to make, although we’d probably go for Surfshark on balance.
Overall, though, CyberGhost is an excellent service which we’re perfectly happy to recommend.
Head over to the CyberGhost website to sign up
Australia VPN FAQs
What is the best VPN for Australia?
We rate ExpressVPN as the best Australia VPN thanks to its excellent content unblocking, class-leading security and super simple apps that offer one-touch protection as well as in-depth customization.
It covers all the bases, and there’s very little we can fault with the service.
Can I get a free Australia VPN?
Free services can be double-edged swords – while they can offer some of the benefits of a paid-for VPN, they’re never the whole package.
One of the best is Hotspot Shield’s free version which, as mentioned above. is nothing compared to the full edition.
While useful for very infrequent use, they’re no good for streaming and torrenting, and you’ll soon find yourself on the hunt for the best Australia VPN – even if it’ll cost you a couple of dollars a month.
What can I stream with an Australia VPN
If you’re outside the country, using an Australia VPN is a super simple way to get access to Aussie content. So, for example, you’ll be able to watch networks like 7Play, TenPlay, 9Now, Foxtel wherever you are – all you need to do is connect to an Australian server.
If you’re in Australia and want to watch blocked content, a VPN can help you there too. You’ll be bale to watch US or UK Netflix just by picking the right server, and even services like the free UK-only BBC iPlayer.