5 Best UK VPN for Unlimited Internet Accessibility & Online Privacy

last updated: 11 March 2019 written by: Sebastian Petrosi

Not a long time ago, the United Kingdom was praised as a ‘Paradise for Netizens’. This was because a person residing in any remote region of the world could have access to traditional UK websites and services which included the likes of BBC without any restrictions. However, times have changed a lot and geo-limitations have been imposed on most, if not all UK-based services. Such stringent measures have annoyed fans of British videos and movies residing in all corners of the world.

In recent times, the United Kingdom has started keeping a check on the content that is visible to regions outside the UK. Many channels such as BBC iPlayer are restricted to viewers residing in the UK and their global availability has been restricted. In order to circumvent these measures, non-UK netizens have started opting for the services given out by best UK VPN services.

  1. NordVPN
  2. ExpressVPN
  3. Private Internet Access
  4. SurfShark VPN
  5. CyberGhost

Lurking threats of data retention and mass surveillance

Furthermore, the need for a VPN for UK has increased as the re-elected government of David Cameron pushed a piece of legislation through the House of Commons which allows the government to keep a track of UK citizens’ online activity. The law allows data retention and mass surveillance without any oversight from the judiciary. This means that any data that is transmitted through your device can be accessed freely without the need of a warrant. Such invasion of privacy has led to the need of the VPN for UK skyrocketing.

It must be noted that VPNs or Virtual Private Networks are not a new trend. They have been used by corporations and individuals in the past in order to create a secure network infrastructure for their home or office networks which are accessing the public internet. Today, the best VPNs for UK still provide the same security and are used to bypass the imposed geo-limitations while providing their users with anonymity.

The evaluative criterion of the best VPNs for UK is based on the number of servers the VPN service provider offers along with the countries their servers reside in. Further, there are a few factors which hold critical importance and they include the data encryption protocols implemented by the best UK VPN services along with the effective bandwidth speeds.

UK VPN – The need of the hour

It is common knowledge that the UK became a part of the European Convention in the year 1998, after which entities like freedom of expression and viewership has become non-existent in the UK. To add fuel to the fire, the tragic incidents of 9/11 and 7/7 were used to influence the government’s decision about online activities of its citizens. In order to curb terrorism and expose potential threats, governments opted controversial decisions about Britain’s cyberspace.

In 2014, the organization ‘Reporters without Borders’ labeled the UK as an enemy of the internet. Enemy of the Internet is a list compiled by this organization which ranks countries based on the online freedom their citizens enjoy. The UK was made part of this list due to the suppression of the online freedom of its population and censoring of news and information that was available on the internet.

The fact that most British people are unaware of is that the GCHQ has managed to push through an actual legislation which gives them complete authority to monitor and conduct proper surveillance of every individual without requiring any sort of court oversight. Such legislation’s not only strip away the basic rights of privacy from the citizen but also gave governments the authority to properly snoop around an individual’s online activity.

A ray of hope in this scenario is the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). The IPT during its initial judgment declared surveillance as legal, however, following the arguments and uproar, the Tribunal gave another ruling which declared all such surveillance activities by GCHQ as illegal. However, no matter what the ruling of IPT is, it can be acknowledged that the infrastructure for surveillance has been established and the GCHQ would not revert from its stance.

Why should one consider using a VPN for UK?

Strengthening the Investigatory Powers

David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the UK managed to push legislation through the House of Commons, the summary of which was basically an allowance to the security agencies of the country to digitally monitor all the activities of every citizen of the United Kingdom. The Investigatory Powers Bill was introduced with the aim of enhancing the authority of the security forces. The legislation empowers security agencies by including the following aspects:

  • Snooper’s Charter’s extension – allowing tracking of social media and web activity of British citizens
  • Strengthening of the powers conferred to agencies for mass surveillance of communications across the State.

The legislation basically allows surveillance which does not require any oversight from the judiciary or any legal warrant. Politicians have promised that appropriate oversight to the entire scenario would be implemented; however, it is very unlikely. To prevent this invasion of privacy from occurring, VPNs for UK are being used in Britain. The best VPNs for UK effectively control and prevent snooping of your personal information by efficiently masking your IP address.

Authorization of Data Retention

On June 7th, 2016, the House of Commons forced through another legislation which ordered Internet Service Providers to retain the data of their users for a minimum period of one year. With policies like these being implemented, it is natural for UK citizens to find refuge in services that offer them some fragment of online privacy. One such way is the usage of best VPNs for UK. VPNs anonymize data transmission from your computer to the server. They can spoof your IP address and change it to a remote geographic location.

Utilizing the services of a UK VPN service provider will allow you to keep your data encrypted on a constant basis which will render your ISP unable to retain a track of your internet browsing activities for government records. This is because your online identity would be completely masked and inaccessible as it is secured using the latest encryption standards.

It should be noted that the UK government has ordered ISPs to keep a tab on the copyright infringement activity of the users in UK. So if piracy is one of your primary concerns, then you need not worry as some of the best VPNs for UK can be used to mask your online footprint. VPN is considered as an essential security tool that will keep you out of the prosecutions scope of copyright violation

Rising Cybercriminal Activity

A report published by The Guardian on 21 October 2014 stated that in a span of one year (Sept 2013 to August 2014), the cost of bearing cybercrime was calculated to be £670 million.

Another survey conducted by the same publication house reported that in a sample of 2,075 people, a staggering 51% had been victimized by cybercrime in one form or the other.  Another odd fact that was reported through this investigation was that many people fail to report these incidents which make the discovery of the culprits near to impossible.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that almost every sector of the UK’s economy has bore attacks inflicted by cybercriminals. In the past three years, the cost inflicting by cybercrime has risen steadily. GCHQ, the prime surveillance agency of the UK, and the possible tracer of almost every IP address existing in the UK has till yet been unable to pinpoint the origins of most of the cybercrime cases. This leads one to wonder about the safety of their online identity.

Using the best UK VPN ensures that your online presence is adequately safeguarded. Since the best VPN for UK ensures that the influx and outflow of your information are encrypted, they help in effectively ruling out most of the cybercrime attacks. The best UK VPN is efficient enough to filter out malicious online activities like link phishing, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and malware from your valuable devices.

Circumventing Geo-limitations

Now moving on to the less sinister reasons, using a VPN is completely normal if you want to bypass the geo-limitations set in place. Many sporting events, for example, the Australian Open would only allow access to the matches if you are residing in Australia. However, a UK VPN would allow you to effectively bypass such inhibitions.

Most VPNs have servers in all major locations around the world. This allows them to spoof locations according to your needs. With advancement in software, data routing does not result in any bandwidth drop either, which allows for fast connections to be made.

Why use a UK-based VPN?

As British Citizens would often be required to use internet services which are local to the UK, it is essential that citizens of the UK opt for a VPN which has servers in England and the British Isles amongst other regions in the world. In this manner, you will be able to cover your digital footprint while also having access to websites that have geo-limitations imposed such as BBC’s iPlayer and CH4od.

These servers would also help UK residents when they are not in the country, as the IP address masking and spoofing will allow the user to access British content from another location on the world and regaining access to content which would be geographically impossible to access, otherwise.

Conclusion

A VPN for UK is essential and highly critical for safeguarding your privacy violations, both from the government and otherwise. On a lighter note, it also allows you to gain access to content which would otherwise be limited to the specific country’s local servers. Furthermore, the best UK VPN also play a crucial role in circumventing the copyright violations which would occur if you download a torrent.