The best Black Friday VPN deals still available

Surfshark is constantly featured as one of ZDNET’s favorite affordable VPNs, and deals on its VPN subscription plans are now available. 

Surfshark offers excellent value for money, and at the moment, you can sign up for a two-year subscription for the equivalent of $1.99/month. As a bonus, you will receive three months of free access added to your plan’s term.

It should be noted that ExpressVPN’s Black Friday deal, at $6.67/month for a one-year plan, often appears during the year at the same discounted rate — suggesting this is often the typical price. 

In saying that, we would be remiss to ignore ExpressVPN, as it is one of our favorite VPN providers with a vast server network, rapid speeds, robust security, and excellent streaming capabilities. While we often see this discount, ExpressVPN is also offering three months of free access and a year of unlimited cloud backup services courtesy of Backblaze. 

Private Internet Access (PIA) is one of ZDNET’s favorite mobile and travel VPNs, and at the moment, you can sign up for a plan that is good value for money.

PIA is offering two-year subscriptions at $2.03/month. Four months of access will be added to the term of your plan for free.

IPVanish is a solid VPN for desktop and mobile, with an excellent server range and rapid connections. It’s not too often that IPVanish offers noteworthy discounts, but following Black Friday, the VPN provider’s one and two-year plans are still on sale.

12-month subscriptions begin at $2.99/month (with three months free), whereas two-year plans are set at the best price available: $2.49/month, with three months of free access also thrown in. 

CyberGhost is still offering a great deal. A VPN that offers protection for up to seven devices on a single subscription, over 6800 servers, and a 45-day money-back guarantee, CyberGhost is a great choice ahead of the holidays if you want a VPN solution with a long trial period to test it out.

The deal on offer is for a two-year plan: you will pay $2.03/month — a saving of 84% — and you will also receive four months of free access, added to the length of the contract.

In the United States, the popular shopping day known as Black Friday takes place the day after Thanksgiving. 

This year, in 2023, Black Friday falls on November 24. And don’t worry if you aren’t able to keep an eye on digital sales events or make it to a store in person: many retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart extend sales and deals events through the weekend and into the Monday or even Tuesday after Thanksgiving. 

ZDNET only writes about deals we want to buy — devices and products we want, need, or would recommend. Our experts looked for deals that were at least 20% off (or are hardly ever on sale), using established price comparison tools and trackers to determine whether the deal is actually on sale and how frequently it drops. 

We also looked over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the deals we’re recommending. Our recommendations may also be based on our own testing — in addition to extensive research and comparison shopping. The goal is to deliver the most accurate advice to help you shop smarter. 

VPN is an acronym for virtual private network. These services allow users to browse the internet privately and securely connect to open or public Wi-Fi networks. VPNs allow users to change their virtual location by redirecting the connection through one of its servers located around the world. A VPN will also encrypt all of your traffic, so you’re hidden from hackers, your internet service provider, and governments.

However, if your online activities are being monitored at the ISP level — say, by a government — they may recognize the signature of a VPN in play, even if exactly what you are doing is hidden.

VPNs are useful in unblocking geo-restricted content and can be a vital tool for accessing information in countries with repressive governments. They are important services for anyone who wants to maintain a high level of safety and privacy online. However, because they are anonymous (or at least should be) they can also be used to hide illegal online activities such as pirating content.

If you’re traveling or using the internet in a public place like a coffee shop, that data encryption is critical, since most public Wi-Fi hotspots are open and unencrypted — which means anyone on the network can see what you send and may be able to eavesdrop on your activities and steal passwords. 

If it’s your data and you want it to be secure, yes. The same choices are valid regardless of what kind of device you use to transmit and receive data over the Internet.

Yes, in most countries, including the US, the UK, and the majority of Europe. Some countries, however, have made VPN use illegal, or they are severely discouraged and limited to state-approved software. 

At the moment, countries including North Korea, Iraq, and Belarus have reportedly banned the use of VPNs entirely. As noted in NordVPN’s country guide, others — like China, Russia, and Egypt — discourage VPN use and try to stop new adoption by demonizing VPNs as software widely used for criminal activity. 

Workarounds do exist, but they may come with risks.

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