5 best VPN browsers for Android

Although still technically in Beta, Tenta Browser offers a slew of features designed to improve your online privacy. The most important of these is a “real” VPN (not a proxy) that secures your connection with its own OpenVPN-based encryption protocol called MimicVPN.

A little confusingly for a VPN protocol, MimicVPN only protects browser sessions for free users, but this makes more sense in light of the fact that Pro users can expand the protection to their entire Android device.

And what is particularly impressive about MimicVPN is that it can provide per-tab VPN encryption, with different tabs being able to connect to multiple servers simultaneously. That’s a seriously impressive party trick, although the untested nature of MimicVPN concerns us a little.

Free users automatically connect to the nearest VPN server location, while Pro users ($1/month) can select from any of the 28 server locations in 19 countries. Using the free VPN we logged download speeds of around 14 Mbit/s on our 350 Mbit/s connection, although these would no doubt improve with a Pro plan.

Besides offering a true no-logs VPN (with full DNS and WebRTC leak protection), Tenta Browser features an ad-blocker, secure DNS over TLS, DNSSEC, blockchain support, PIN code or fingerprint unlock, and more.

One feature worth special mention is the Encrypted Media Vault, which downloads videos, music, and pictures to an encrypted folder where they can be played back using Tenta’s built-in media player. 

Although it makes use of many open source repositories, Tenta Browser itself is not open source. Please check out our full Tenta Browser Review.

Opera is the fifth most popular browser in the world, and its free VPN feature has proven a big hit with its users. This feature was initially only available for desktop versions of the browser (see our Opera Browser Review for more info), but is now included in the Android app (as its rather unsubtle renaming makes very clear!). 

As with most browser “VPNs,” the VPN is really a secure HTTPS proxy. But it gets the job done, has no data limitations, and is fast.

Locations available are “America” (United States), Asia, and Europe. Connecting to America and Europe worked well enough in our tests, but selecting Asia strangely seemed to place us in Switzerland, Europe. Except for the United States, it is not possible to specify a particular country to location spoof.

A cool feature is the ability to only enable the VPN when using private tabs, and you can opt whether or not to bypass the VPN when using a search engine to deliver more relevant search results.

Outside of the VPN, Opera is a slick and modern Android browser with built-in ad-blocking, translate, and save web page offline features. It also includes Opera’s patent data compression technology, which reduces data use and improves page loading times, although this cannot be used when the VPN is running.

Another nice feature is the built-in Crypo Wallet, which integrates the Ethereum Web 3 API, allowing you to send and receive Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Tron payments directly in your browser.

Despite featuring a built-in ad-blocker, Opera is itself ad-funded, although you can opt out of it using your browsing history to deliver personally targeted ads.

Psiphon is an open source anti-censorship tool that, on Android, comes bundled with a browser. Although the Windows app includes an optional true VPN, the Android app routes all connections through an HTTPS SOCKS proxy. 

This is useful, as it allows you to route either just your browser traffic, or (on Android 4+ devices) all your device’s traffic through the encrypted tunnel, which acts very like a true VPN. You can connect to servers in 21 countries around the world.

It is important to understand there are two versions of Psiphon for Android:

Psiphon - a free version that is available from the Psiphon website, which must be downloaded as an .APK file and sideloaded onto your device.

Psiphon Pro - a premium version with a limited free tier available to download directly from Google's Play Store.

You can get a completely ad-free experience on the free version of Psiphon or if you purchase Psiphon Pro, however those on the free tier of Psiphon Pro will still have to brave some ads. These are personalized by default, but users can opt for non-personalized ads in the settings. Sadly, speed limitations saw our 350 Mbits/s connection reduced to just 2 Mbits/s on the free version and Psiphon Pro's free tier, but if this is important to you, you can pay for a limited-time “speed boost.”

The free version of Psiphon is completely ad-free, however there are speed limitations on both

We are not sure if there are any official speed limits on this app, but even when using 350 Mbits/s connection, download speeds hovered at around the 2 Mbits/s mark in our tests. This version of Psiphon, however, is ad-free.

It is also possible to download the Psiphon Pro app from the Google Play Store. This is a premium app with a limited free tier. Free users can opt out of personalised advertising, but will see still ads prominently displayed inside the app.

They are also limited to speeds of 2 Mbits/s, although these can be improved by paying for a limited-time “speed boost.”  The pricing structure for the Android Pro app, in general, is rather complicated (and that’s not even including the “speed boosts”), and it's not very clear just how much of a speed improvement you will see at each price range. 

Although the Pro version exists in order to help support the free Psiphon anti-censorship tool, we find its monetizing measures to be both expensive and intrusive, so can only really recommend using the free APK-sideloaded version.

The browser that comes bundled with Psiphon is a simplified version of the excellent Firefox for Android. It lacks support for most of Firefox’s bells and whistles (including a Private mode and support for add-ons), but does include the ability to Sync with your regular Firefox account.

Check out our Psiphon review for more information.

Aloha Browser Turbo is a browser that sports a number of privacy features, including a built-in “VPN” (actually an HTTPS proxy), an ad-blocker, a screenshot blocker, and a passcode lock.

The VPN can be easily enabled on a per-tab basis inside the browser simply by clicking the shield icon to the left of the URL bar. Free users are auto-connected to a nearby server (in the UK we were connected to a server in the Netherlands) and download speeds were among the best we have seen in free VPN browser apps, at around 20 Mbits/s download on a 350 Mbits/s connection.

The free service is ad-supported, although you can disable personalised tracking. Or for around $2.50 per month you can upgrade to Premium, which allows you to choose VPN servers in 30 countries, removes ads, and (presumably) improves speed performance.

Aloha Mobile Ltd. is based in Cyprus and publishes a good no logs privacy policy on its main website, but we otherwise know nothing about this company. The app is closed source, and a number of clone apps from the same publisher are also available under different names from the Play Store.

This is the newly-released official version of the infamous Tor Browser. Like almost all the other apps listed here, it's not really a VPN, but it is close enough to one and useful enough that we feel it worth mentioning here.

All Tor browser connections are routed through the Tor network, which is to say they are forwarded through at least volunteer-run “nodes,” with your data being re-encrypted each time.

 Because no-one in the chain can know both who you are and where you go on the internet, Tor Browser allows for true anonymity. 

Tor Browser is mainly designed for defeating censorship and accessing the open internet anonymously, but it can also be used to view .onion websites (aka the “dark web”).

The Tor network is notoriously slow, but if you need real anonymity on the internet then it's the way to go. Tor Browser for Android is based on the latest version of Firefox, but has been “hardened” to improve privacy and security in various ways.

Tor Browser is 100% free and open source.