Below you can see the exact methodology we used to calculate each VPN’s rating:
1. Germany Server Locations: 30%
The most important thing for a Germany VPN is a network of German servers that enable you to get a German IP address in multiple cities.
You also need lots of servers in different countries to get international IP addresses.
The more servers the better, because it avoids congestion and maintains reliable speeds.
2. Germany Streaming: 20%
Most people want a VPN for Germany to stream geo-blocked content.
That’s why we regularly test each VPN’s ability to unblock popular German streaming sites outside the country, including RTL+, ProSieben, DAZN Germany, and Netflix Germany.
We’ve tested all 65 VPNs with German streaming sites, including German Netflix.
3. International Streaming: 20%
We also test each VPN’s ability to unblock international streaming sites from inside Germany.
We test each VPN with 12 popular streaming services from across the globe, including US Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Channel 4, Amazon Prime Video, and more.
4. Speed: 20%
The faster the speeds when connecting into and out of Germany, the better. We perform regular speed tests for each VPN connecting into Germany, from New York to Frankfurt.
We work out the average US to Germany speed performance and give the best rating to the fastest VPN.
5. Privacy & Logging Policy: 10%
Like many European countries, German ISPs monitor and record the browsing activity of their users. Put simply, it’s not a privacy-friendly nation.
For this reason, privacy protections are a big part of our VPN analysis. We examine each VPN’s logging policy to ensure it doesn’t log more of your data than necessary, and we assess its ability to encrypt and protect your sensitive data.
This informs our analysis of a VPN’s ability to keep you safe when sharing files. We look for the presence of a kill switch, a fast average bitrate, a private logging policy, and advanced tools like port forwarding.
Data Cap Reduction: Up to 50%
Although free services can perform well in our tests, data caps limit your VPNs overall performance.
To reflect this, we’ve apply a penalty to a free VPN’s overall rating based on how harsh its data cap is. It works like this:
- 10GB per month: -20% to the overall rating
- 500MB per day: -25% to the overall rating
- 5GB per month: -30% to the overall rating
- 1GB per month: -35% to the overall rating
- 200MB per day: -40% to the overall rating
- 500MB per month: -50% to the overall rating
With only 10GB of data available per month, we’ve docked 20% off Windscribe Free’s overall score.
