Join The Club
I spent a ton of time testing the best VPNs for PC gaming last month, and Surfshark came out on top for budget value by quite a margin. And while it's not the absolute fastest out there, I was surprised to find it's only ever so slightly behind the fastest ones. So until June 2, while the company is offering up to a $30 Amazon voucher with a 2-year sub that itself costs just $2–$4.19 per month (depending on your plan), it's definitely worth considering if you're looking to up your privacy online.
To get the gift card, you need the two-year subscription, and you can then collect the coupon on the 31st day of the VPN subscription via the web app. To get the full $30 voucher, you need to get the $4.19 One+ sub, and you get a $20 voucher for the $2.49 One sub, and a $10 voucher for the $1.99 Starter sub. For my money, I'd be getting the One subscription with the $20 voucher.
- Join us on WhatsApp for daily deals, direct to your phone.
The voucher only expires after ten years, so there's absolutely no rush to use it. You're also eligible for the offer if you renew your subscription during the next week, if you already have one, so it's not just for VPN newbies.
There are some reasons why you might want to use a VPN specifically for gaming—mainly if your ISP throttles bandwidth for gaming or has poor routing to game servers—but primarily, I'd say having a VPN is beneficial for everything else you use your PC for, such as general browsing, streaming and so on.
VPN performance comparison
Local ping (Counter-Strike 2)
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| No VPN | 12.58 |
| NordVPN | 12.73 |
| Windscribe | 12.34 |
| Surfshark | 13.54 |
| Mullvad | 12.55 |
| Proton | 13.8 |
| ExpressVPN | 12.22 |
Whether you're adding an extra level of privacy or trying to get around streaming geo-blocks, whapping on a VPN is easy to do, so it can be worth it even if you're not looking to use it while gaming. Just install it and have it auto-launch and connect at login. Then, if you want to have your games run on your default connection, you can have them run through a split tunnel—in Surfshark, this is the 'Bypasser' setting.
As you can see from the above benchmarks, there's really little in it between a native connection and a VPN connection, whether that's for gaming or downloading. Surfshark has a pretty decent pool of servers to choose from, too, and is a big enough company (it's owned by NordVPN) that support should be good, too.
While you're not getting a straight cut on its usual $1.99 post-cut price, this particular deal is nice because, if you think about it in a roundabout way, you're getting a few months for free. As long as you were already going to buy something off Amazon, that is.
1. Best VPN overall:
NordVPN
2. Best VPN for low ping:
Windscribe
3. Best cheap VPN:
Surfshark
4. Best VPN for privacy:
Mullvad
5. Best all-in-one VPN package:
Proton
