VPN Report - 2026
Our 2026 VPN Report examines more than 80 consumer VPN applications and their parent companies, assessing the critical impacts of corporate consolidation and legal jurisdictions on user privacy and network security.
Privacy vs Security
Consumer Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have become an essential tool in an era of pervasive data collection and growing privacy concerns. They protect users by encrypting internet traffic and shielding online activity from ISPs, advertisers, and other third parties.
However, the same technology that enhances personal privacy also creates challenges for business, educational, and industrial networks. By encapsulating and encrypting traffic, VPNs provide an ideal channel for network abuse and stealthy data exfiltration. An insider or compromised system can tunnel sensitive information through an encrypted VPN session, bypassing many traditional firewall and perimeter security controls. For businesses, schools, and organizations responsible for protecting intellectual property, student records, customer data, or critical infrastructure, VPNs represent a security risk.
The Decade of VPN Consolidation
The consumer VPN market has undergone aggressive consolidation over the last decade. Brands that once championed independent digital privacy are now operated as subsidiaries of a few large, centralized holding companies.
To analyze the implications of this corporate concentration, we have separated our interactive ownership graphs into two distinct categories: VPNs based outside the USA and VPNs based inside the USA. This jurisdictional divide is not just geographical - it is a critical distinction designed to help administrators and privacy researchers evaluate the structural risks of legal mechanisms like the US CLOUD Act.
US Cloud Act vs Privacy
If a VPN provider is owned by a US company, the physical location of its servers may offer less legal protection than you expect. Under the US CLOUD Act, US authorities can require US companies to provide customer data or logs - even when that information is stored outside the United States. For users relying on the privacy protections of another country, this creates a serious risk that local privacy laws may not provide the level of protection they expect.
VPNs Based Outside the USA
VPNs with Parent Companies
Many of the largest consumer-facing VPN clusters are operated by holding companies located outside of the United States.
BiScience
- Parent
Bright Data
- Parent
Certida
- Parent
Edelino Commerce
- Parent
Free Connected
- Parent
IC VPN
- Parent
Kape
- Parent
Nord Security
- Parent
Proton
- Parent
PureSquare
- Parent
Secure Signal VPN
- Parent
Independent VPNs
The following non-US VPN providers are independent companies or organizations whose primary focus is providing VPN services.
Legacy ETC
Netify's Network Intelligence engine moves beyond legacy Encrypted Traffic Classification (ETC) by combining machine learning, behavioral analysis, and real-time contextual data - such as IP ownership, ASN characteristics, hosting infrastructure, and inter-application flow relationships. This multidimensional approach enables Netify to accurately identify encrypted and obfuscated traffic, even when legacy ETC methods fail.
VPNs Based Inside the USA
VPNs with Parent Companies
VPN products operating under a US corporate umbrella fall directly within the legal scope of the CLOUD Act. For school and enterprise network administrators, knowing when an encrypted tunnel terminates inside a US-registered infrastructure is a vital part of compliance auditing, risk profiling, and policy enforcement.
Parent Company -
Apple
- Business
Parent Company -
Cloudflare
- CDN
Parent Company -
Fastly
- CDN
Parent Company -
Parent Company -
Parent Company -
KeepSolid
- Cybersecurity
Parent Company -
Malwarebytes
- Cybersecurity
Parent Company -
McAfee
- Cybersecurity
Parent Company -
Mozilla
- Business
Parent Company -
Point Wild
- Cybersecurity
Parent Company -
Ziff Davis
- Business
Independent VPNs
The following US-based VPN providers are independent companies or organizations whose primary focus is providing VPN services.
