The best VPN for your iPhone

This content originally appeared on Mashable for a US audience and has been adapted for the UK audience.

VPNs are great tools for anyone concerned about diminishing privacy on the internet. These days, it's difficult to surf the web without leaving behind a trail of your activity.

While there's certainly no foolproof privacy option, VPNs are a popular way to shroud your web identity, and they're available for almost any device that connects to the internet, including iOS devices like the iPhone.

What is a VPN?

A VPN forms a protected tunnel that you send all of your information through. Instead of sending and receiving information in the open, it happens under the cover of an encrypted connection between your iPhone and the websites and services that you are visiting. Nobody can see your data, and all of your activity is protected against online threats like viruses, hackers, and malware.

Do you need a VPN for your iPhone?

An iPhone is an expensive purchase, and therefore something that you should really be protecting at all costs. To keep your data protected in transit, you need a VPN. With a VPN's protection, nobody can see or tweak your network traffic, not even the network's owner. VPNs encrypt your traffic before it leaves your phone. This encrypted data stream travels to a server owned by the VPN company, where it's decrypted and sent on its way. This keeps your activity under wraps.

What is the best VPN for your iPhone?

Whether or not you need a VPN is completely up to you. Your iPhone provider isn't going to recommend or offer the service. It comes down to whether or not you'd like to increase your anonymity online — and much of this depends on how you use the web.

If you do wish to invest in a VPN, we can help. We have listed the best VPNs to protect your iPhone, including popular services like PureVPN, CyberGhost VPN, and NordVPN.

These are the best iPhone VPNs in 2024.