Best Opera VPN Alternatives in 2026 for Your Whole Device

Opera’s free VPN is one of the easiest ways to start using a VPN. It’s already in the browser, there’s no account to create, and one click hides your IP address from the sites you visit. For checking email on hotel Wi-Fi or reading a news site that’s blocked where you are, that’s often enough.

The trouble starts when you want more than a private browser tab. Your other apps, games, and torrent downloads ignore it, you can only pick between three broad regions, and most streaming services detect it. That’s when a full VPN app makes sense. We’ve tested 20+ VPNs, and the paid and free ones we’d switch to protect far more than Opera’s browser VPN. Here’s our shortlist.

What Opera VPN Can’t Do

Opera’s free VPN is an encrypted proxy built into the browser. It protects what you do in Opera, but other apps and browsers on the same device keep using your normal connection. In our leak tests, it hid the IP address in Opera, while the same checks outside the browser showed our own IP address.

There’s no kill switch either, and you can’t choose a country. The free VPN offers three regions, the Americas, Europe, and Asia, which Opera lists as servers in the US, the Netherlands, and Singapore. Our Asia connection ended up on a European server instead. Speeds dropped sharply in every region:

• Europe: 41.88 Mbps, a 78% speed loss (base: 190.36 Mbps)
• Americas: 1.90 Mbps, a 99% speed loss, barely enough to load a web page
• Asia: 79.95 Mbps, a 58% speed loss

Even the European result is slow for a nearby location, and our guide to the best VPN for Europe covers faster servers there. Streaming went no better: Opera’s US IP address didn’t unblock Netflix US, and its Dutch server failed with the Dutch library. For that, see our list of the best VPNs for Netflix. To be fair, Opera does some things well.

The free VPN has no data cap, works wherever Opera does (it was blocked in China, though), and Deloitte audited its no-logs policy in 2024. Opera also sells VPN Pro, a device-wide app with 48 locations and six connections. It costs about $4 a month on a yearly plan, which is more than the long-term plans of NordVPN, Proton VPN, and ExpressVPN.

How Opera VPN Compares With Its Alternatives

Opera’s free VPN falls behind the five alternatives on speed, protection, and streaming. Its one advantage over the two free alternatives is unlimited data. Download speeds come from US servers on our 190.36 Mbps connection, and paid prices are for two-year plans.

VPN	What it protects	US download (speed loss)	Kill switch	Netflix US	Locations	Data limit	Price
Opera VPN (free)	Opera browser only	1.90 Mbps (99%)	No	Blocked	3 regions	None	Free
NordVPN	Whole device	181.50 Mbps (4.7%)	Yes	Unblocked	152 countries	None	$3.49 a month
Proton VPN	Whole device	173.68 Mbps (8.8%)	Yes	Unblocked	149 countries	None	$2.99 a month
ExpressVPN	Whole device	177.03 Mbps (7.0%)	Yes	Unblocked	113 countries	None	$2.99 a month
PrivadoVPN (free)	Whole device	164.55 Mbps (13.6%)	Yes	Unblocked	10 countries	10 GB a month	Free
Windscribe (free)	Whole device	160.59 Mbps (15.6%)	Yes	Unblocked	10 countries	10 GB a month	Free

Best Paid Opera VPN Alternatives

1. NordVPN: Best Overall Opera VPN Alternative

NordVPN protects the whole device, so games, torrent clients, and other browsers are covered along with Opera. It was the fastest VPN we tested on US servers, at 181.50 Mbps, and lost just 7.8% of its download speed on average across the UK, US, and Japan. It also unblocked the major streaming services, including BBC iPlayer, Hulu, and Channel 4 in the US, while Opera’s VPN failed on most of them.

Unlike Opera’s VPN, it has a kill switch, and ours kept the PC offline even after a restart. Split tunneling lets you choose which apps skip the VPN, and the no-logs policy has been independently audited. NordVPN covers 152 countries, and the Basic plan costs $3.49 a month on the two-year term.

On my Windows PC, it sometimes wouldn’t connect while another VPN app was installed. That’s a problem for VPN testers like me, but most people with a single VPN won’t notice it.

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2. Proton VPN: Best for Privacy

Proton VPN is based in Switzerland and has had its no-logs policy audited every year since 2022, which puts it among the VPNs with proven no-log policies. It secures all traffic on the device, and its advanced kill switch passed our restart test. Stealth, its disguised protocol, helps on networks that block VPNs, and NetShield blocked 93% of ads and trackers in our test.

Speeds were close behind the fastest, with a 10.2% average download speed loss and 173.68 Mbps on the US server. Streaming is its weaker side, though: it couldn’t unblock Hulu, Pluto TV, or ITVX, so if streaming is your main reason for switching, choose NordVPN instead. The same Proton VPN also powers Vivaldi’s built-in VPN.

Paid plans start at $2.99 a month on a two-year term, and refunds cover only the unused part of the subscription.

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3. ExpressVPN: Best for Every Device at Home

ExpressVPN’s router and smart TV apps let one subscription cover devices that can’t use Opera. It was the quickest VPN we tested on the distant Japanese server, at 163.94 Mbps, and averaged a 7.8% speed loss. ExpressVPN was just as strong on streaming and unblocked Now TV, so you can watch Sky Sports from the US or other countries. It uses Lightway, the protocol Opera VPN Pro is built on.

In strict mode, its kill switch also stopped traffic during our restart test. Advanced Protection is weaker, blocking only 71% of ads and trackers, so keep Opera’s own ad blocker on if ads bother you. The Basic plan costs $2.99 a month on the two-year term, but it renews at $99.95 a year. Our ExpressVPN review covers each plan.

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Best Free Opera VPN Alternatives

These two free VPNs protect the whole device for nothing. The trade-off is a 10 GB monthly data limit, while Opera’s browser VPN has none.

PrivadoVPN: Best Free Alternative for Streaming

PrivadoVPN’s free plan was the fastest free VPN we tested, with 180.04 Mbps on the UK server and 164.55 Mbps on the US one. On the free plan, it unblocked Netflix US, Channel 4, and Peacock, but it couldn’t unblock Netflix Canada, Prime Video, or ITVX.

Free accounts can use 10 countries on one device. When the 10 GB is used up, PrivadoVPN keeps you online through slower backup servers at 1 Mbps. However, I found it annoying that the allowance doesn’t renew on its own: you have to renew it manually each month.

Windscribe: Best Free Alternative for Several Devices

Windscribe‘s free plan has no device limit, and we had five devices connected at once. Its speeds were close to PrivadoVPN’s, at 182.21 Mbps in the UK and 160.59 Mbps in the US. On streaming, it unblocked three Netflix libraries (US, Canada, and Japan) and BBC iPlayer. It failed on Prime Video, Pluto TV, and ITVX.

The free plan allows 10 GB a month once you confirm your email address. When you use it up, the connection stops until the next month, so check the data counter in the app before a large download. Its Stealth and WStunnel protocols also help on networks that block VPNs.

Browsers With a Built-In VPN

Opera isn’t the only browser that includes a VPN. Here’s how the others compare:

Browser	Price	What it protects	Data limit	Availability
Opera	Free	Opera only	None	Every version of Opera
Vivaldi (Proton VPN)	Free	Vivaldi only	None	Desktop only
Firefox	Free	Firefox only	50 GB a month	Desktop and Android, 29 countries
Brave	$9.99 a month	The whole device	None	Desktop and mobile

Vivaldi: Free Proton VPN in the Browser

Vivaldi includes Proton VPN’s free tier on desktop, with no data limit. It requires a Proton or Vivaldi account, so it isn’t as instant as Opera’s toggle. Free users can’t choose a location either: Vivaldi switched us between the Netherlands and Singapore. The Dutch server kept 188.17 Mbps, a 1.2% speed loss and the best browser VPN result in our tests.

Firefox: Free, With a Monthly Limit

Firefox added a free built-in VPN in 2026, still labeled beta, with 50 GB of browsing a month. You can switch it off for single sites and choose a country: from Europe, it offered Argentina, Australia, Germany, Japan, South Africa, and the US. On the US location, it came in at 28.46 Mbps, an 85% speed loss, though still far quicker than Opera’s US location.

The bigger catch is availability. Mozilla offers the VPN in 29 countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Japan, and much of Europe, so it may not appear in your copy of Firefox. Opera’s free VPN has no such list.

Brave: A Paid VPN in the Browser

Brave VPN works differently from the others. It’s a paid service, at $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year, and it protects the whole device along with the browser. It covers 10 devices and its no-logs policy passed a 2024 audit, but it was slow and weak for streaming in our Brave VPN review. For the same money, a dedicated VPN does more, and our best VPN for Brave page lists the ones that work well with the browser.

Conclusion

Opera’s free VPN is good at one thing: hiding your IP address from websites while you browse in Opera. It’s free, has no data cap, and requires no account. Once you want to protect other apps, choose a country, or stream from abroad, it falls short, and our tests showed how slow its distant servers can be. For most people leaving Opera, NordVPN makes the most sense.

It covers the whole device, stayed fast on every server we tried, and unblocked the major streaming services. Privacy-focused users should look at Proton VPN, with its Swiss base and yearly audits. If you’d rather not pay, PrivadoVPN and Windscribe cover the whole device for free if 10 GB a month is enough. And if you only want a better browser VPN, try Vivaldi’s built-in Proton VPN first. Our best VPN ranking covers more VPNs.

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