Netflix actively hunts down and blocks proxy services and VPN services, and getting a stream varies wildly among services, countries and even times of day. The latter doesn't quite explain how we were able to stream either 'Star Trek: Discovery' or 'Doctor Who.'ĭespite the vagueness about the location, OperaVPN's Netflix connection rate was much better than those of many paid VPN services.

Google Search seemed to think were in Ukraine, but an IP address locator put 'Europe' in Sweden, 'Asia' in Singapore and 'Americas' in Virginia. We couldn't tell exactly which country we were connected to in each instance. A true VPN would encrypt every piece of internet data going to and from a device, no matter the application handling the data. Opera won't protect other web browsers or stand-alone email clients. It encrypts only the Opera browser's traffic and routes it through a server operated by Canadian VPN provider SurfEasy.

The Opera 'VPN' is technically a secure proxy service. For that, we recommend a fast, unlimited, paid service such as Private Internet Access or Windscribe. Paid VPNs: Which Should You Choose?īecause this service doesn't protect anything but the Opera browser's data, it's not feasible to use the built-in VPN-like service as a full-time home VPN solution. Most of these plans limit your data usage or network speed Opera's browser VPN does neither, but it's not really a VPN (explained below) and its network performance has become far worse than even the throttled speeds of some other service's.

It's better to use the free plans the best VPN providers offer as samples of their services.

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