If you’ve watched my stuff before, you’ll know I normally use Surfshark because it’s genuinely one of the best and it’s stupidly affordable. But it made me think: I avoided free VPNs for years because, honestly, they all used to suck. So in this video I tested what free VPNs look like now and ranked my top 5 based on the stuff that actually matters in real use: speed hit (download/upload), ping, locations/servers, whether they work with Netflix, and—big one—data caps. I start at #5 with TunnelBear, which is brilliant for locations (47) and only a 14% download reduction, but the 2GB/month cap is a proper deal-breaker for anything beyond light browsing—and it won’t run on TV sticks like Fire TV, which I personally want. Proton VPN comes in at #4 because unlimited data is massive, but you’re basically stuck with a single location and it had the worst ping of the bunch (plus speeds varied wildly depending on time/day). Hotspot Shield is #3: also unlimited, more locations than Proton, but around a 50% speed drop. Windscribe takes #2 with low ping, 10GB/month, solid server/location choice, extra features like ad/malware blocking, and it actually worked with Netflix for me. My #1 is Privado VPN: same 10GB cap and 10 locations as Windscribe, but with the best overall speeds (only 16% download and 9% upload reduction) and very low ping—plus it also worked with Netflix in my tests.