2019 and 2020 saw massive protests by Hong Kong residents, along with a renewed crackdown from mainland China's government on the semi-autonomous city. This has led to concerns that Hong Kong's special status will be eliminated altogether. Not surprisingly, the tensions have increased interest in VPNs as tools to evade censorship and protect online activities. Accordingly, we've rounded up our top-rated VPN services for Hong Kong. Note that we haven't tested any of these services in Hong Kong, however. That said, all of the VPNs listed here have servers around the world, which makes them good choices for spoofing your location as well. Read on for our top options, along with some explanation of the challenges and benefits of using a VPN in Hong Kong.

What Do VPNs Do in Hong Kong?

VPNs are handy tools for improving your privacy online. When you switch a VPN on at home, it transmits your web traffic from your computer to a server controlled by the VPN service. Along the way, it's protected within an encrypted tunnel, preventing your ISP, anyone on your network, or even whoever is running the network you use from seeing what you are doing online. 

Let's say you are trying to access a website that is only available within the UK. Instead of banging your head against the wall in frustration, you could simply connect to a VPN server inside the UK. Now your data is running from your home, across the ocean, and exiting onto the public internet from another country, and you should be able to view the web as if you were in London and not New York (or Hong Kong, of course).

Now, let's say that you live somewhere with a government that exercises near total control over the internet. That government could use its power to limit what you and others can see, and even monitor what you say and do. In such a place, you could use a VPN to tunnel past the restrictions to the uncensored internet and gain protection against surveillance—although that protection might attract its own attention. And it might well be against the law. It would be up to you to inform yourself of local regulations and to gauge your own tolerance for risk.

Are VPNs Legal in Hong Kong?

Let us be absolutely clear: We're not giving out legal advice here—laws can change faster than we can update this story. You should always check the current laws and regulations before using a VPN in Hong Kong.

Furthermore, we didn't directly evaluate the security or privacy provided in Hong Kong by these VPNs. This is, rather, a list of our top tested VPNs (tested in our labs in New York City) that also offer some kind of service for users in Hong Kong. Several VPNs have servers in the region, and some offer specific tools that could be helpful for accessing a VPN in a hostile environment. Note, however, that this is a fluid political and potentially legal situation as much as a technical one. Check the VPN company websites to make sure the features you need are still available.

To reiterate: No tests were performed in Hong Kong—neither security tests nor performance tests. Also, bear in mind that if your aim is to tunnel past restrictions, you'll want to access a VPN server outside the country you're in. We have not tested for that capability, either.

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Why are we being so careful here? In addition to not conducting any Hong Kong-specific tests, we won't make a recommendation that could conceivably put people in danger. The Chinese government reportedly has profound surveillance capabilities. The Great Firewall of China is just one example of the depth and breadth of control that the Chinese government holds over its populace's access to information.

We cannot endorse a VPN as 100% safe and secure in the best of circumstances, and we certainly can't test for protection against a nation-state. To claim that any VPN could overcome such concerted surveillance would be a dangerous assertion on our part.

Proven Privacy Services

Caveats aside, we have tested all these VPNs in the US, and we stand by that testing. Each of these services is well worth the money it charges, and each of them deliver a winning combination of features, performance, and privacy protection.

Let's be clear, too, that we firmly believe that there are uses for VPNs that have nothing to do with state censorship. You might just be trying to protect your banking information when you access your account via a coffee shop, or you might be trying to stream a figure-skating performance that's only available to viewers in the UK. The former is just common sense; the latter, while it might break some TOS agreements, hardly rises the level of international espionage.

Max Eddy contributed to this article.