NordVPN review.

Six months on my TV, phone and laptop

I've had NordVPN for about six months. It runs on three things in my house: the TV, where I mostly use it for streaming, my phone and my laptop. One subscription covers all of that with room to spare, because every plan allows 10 devices at once.

What I've noticed most is that I don't notice it. Speeds have been fast on all three devices, streaming on the TV doesn't feel any different with it on, and I've never been stuck looking for a server. There are a lot of locations to pick from, and switching between them takes a tap.

I paid roughly 60% off by buying on a sale, which is how almost everyone ends up paying for NordVPN. That matters later in this review, because the sale price and the renewal price are very different numbers.

Is it actually fast? Outside testing says yes

I didn't run timed speed tests, so here's what the people who do found. PCMag gave NordVPN 4.5 out of 5 and an Editors' Choice in its April 2026 update, and measured a download speed drop of under 2% with it switched on, the best result in its testing. Tom's Guide ranks it first in its VPN testing, ahead of ExpressVPN.

Not every lab agrees on the order. TechRadar's October 2026 test on a 10 Gbps line put NordVPN at 1,427 Mbps, a little behind Proton VPN, Surfshark and ExpressVPN. CNET measured an average download loss of 27.2%, better than Proton (40.8%) and Surfshark (33.5%) but behind ExpressVPN. The pattern across all of them is the same: NordVPN is in the fastest group, and on a normal Canadian home connection you're unlikely to feel the difference between it and the fastest rival.

One tip from those tests: use the default NordLynx protocol. Speeds on the older OpenVPN protocol were much lower in TechRadar's and Tom's Guide's results.

Streaming on a TV

The TV is where I use NordVPN most. There's a full app for Android TV and Google TV, Fire TV and Apple TV, so you don't need to fiddle with your router to get a TV on the VPN. On mine it's been a set-and-forget thing.

Outside testers rate it highly here too. TechRadar called it the best streaming VPN it has tested, and PCMag opened every Netflix region it tried, Canada included. Keep in mind that streaming services set their own rules about using a VPN, so check the terms of the service you pay for.

The real price in Canada: read this before you buy

Here's the part that catches people. Nord shows Canadian prices in Canadian dollars, plus tax. As of October 23, 2026, the 2-year plans (27 months with the three bonus months) are CA$121.23 for Basic, CA$137.43 for Complete and CA$207.63 for Ultra. That's about CA$54 to CA$92 a year, which is a good price for what you get.

After that first term, they renew at CA$173.88 a year for Basic, CA$273.48 for Complete and CA$337.08 for Ultra. Complete, the plan Nord pushes hardest, goes up about four and a half times. Renewal shock is the most common complaint I saw from owners on r/nordvpn, along with the renewal charge landing about two weeks before the date they expected; a US class action filed in 2024 makes the same claim. Nord told Tom's Guide it emails customers a reminder at least 30 days before renewal.

My advice is simple. Buy on a sale (Black Friday pricing runs in Canada from October 21 to December 9, 2026), then go into your Nord account the same day and turn auto-renew off. You keep the service until your term ends, and when it does you can decide whether to renew, buy another sale plan or switch. Many owners on Reddit say they get a better offer simply by cancelling.

Which plan? For most people, Basic. It has the VPN, the 10 devices, scam and phishing blocking and dark web monitoring. Complete adds antivirus, an ad and tracker blocker, a password manager and 1 TB of cloud storage, which is only worth it if you'd otherwise pay for those separately.

Privacy and trust

NordVPN is run from Panama, outside the Five Eyes and 14 Eyes intelligence-sharing alliances, and its servers run in RAM only, so they keep nothing on a disk when they restart. Its no-logs policy has been checked six times by outside auditors: PwC in 2018 and 2020, then Deloitte in 2022, 2024, 2025 and again late in 2025. Those are point-in-time checks, and the full reports are only readable after you sign in to a Nord account, but it's more evidence than most VPNs offer.

It isn't a spotless record. In 2018 someone got into one rented server in Finland through a remote-management account the data centre had set up without telling Nord. Nord says no user logs or credentials were exposed, but it didn't disclose the breach until October 2019, which outlets like TechRadar still criticise. It has since moved to RAM-only servers and regular audits. CNET also notes that the apps collect more marketing data by default than Proton or Mullvad do, which you can switch off in settings.

There's a Canadian angle worth knowing. Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, passed the House in June 2026 and is now in the Senate. In May, Nord said it would never weaken its no-logs setup or encryption and could limit or pull its Canadian servers if the law required that. Nothing has changed for users yet, but it's worth watching if you're signing up for two years.

What owners complain about

Beyond renewal pricing, the complaints I saw repeated by several separate owners on Reddit were about the apps. Recent redesigns removed the map and tray menu that long-time users liked, and the apps lean hard on upselling Nord's other products. Some owners reported bugs this year, like high CPU use on the Windows home screen or losing internet with the kill switch on hotel Wi-Fi, and a few said sites like Reddit and YouTube sometimes block Nord's servers.

There are also feature gaps. Split tunnelling, which lets you send some apps outside the VPN, only works on Windows, Android and Android TV, not on a Mac or iPhone. None of this has got in my way on my three devices, but it's the honest list.

If NordVPN isn't for you

Proton VPN is the one owners mention most when they switch. It's Swiss, has a free tier and open-source apps, and PCMag rates it 5 out of 5, though it was slower than Nord in TechRadar's and Tom's Guide's tests. Mullvad is the pick if privacy matters more to you than streaming, with one flat price and less data collected. Surfshark is usually cheaper and nearly as fast, but it's owned by the same parent company as NordVPN. ExpressVPN has simple apps and strong speeds and usually costs more.

From a tech standpoint

NordVPN has worked very well for me for six months on my TV, phone and laptop: fast, easy to live with and never short of servers, and outside testing backs that up. It's the VPN I'd recommend to most Canadians. Just buy it on a sale and turn auto-renew off on day one, because the renewal price is the only part of it I'd warn a friend about.