I'm basically a VPN rookie, at least when it comes to personal use. Sure, I've had to "tunnel in" to corporate networks before, but outside of work, a VPN has never been a need. But that might change, now that I have a better understanding of what you can actually do with it.

I got a chance to check out Amnezia's Premium VPN service, and it was eye-opening. I was able to watch TV shows and sports in different countries and gained an appreciation of how valuable VPNs can be.

Most of us have probably seen ads for VPNs, but what are they? A VPN, which stands for virtual private network, is software that securely connects your computer to the internet and funnels your web traffic through an encrypted "tunnel" to a server in a remote location. Your internet service provider can't know what websites you're visiting. 

VPNs also mask your IP address, thereby hiding your physical location and enabling you to bypass firewalls and unblock geographically restricted websites and streaming content such as sporting events that otherwise are blacked out in their areas.

About a third of the world uses VPNs, according to estimates from VPN provider Surfshark, and they're vital for people living in countries where governments censor and block various websites and apps.

If you want to know more about what different VPNs offer and how they compare, CNET puts many of them through hours of rigorous testing to determine the top dogs in various categories: best VPN overall, best cheap VPNs, best mobile VPN and many others. 

What Amnezia's Premium VPN lets me do

I went in wide-eyed and curious about Amnezia. I checked out the Premium edition, which costs $24 for six months and $48 for a year and covers seven devices simultaneously. There are also free, self-hosted and business subscriptions.

On its checkout page for subscribing to Premium, Amnezia clearly says there might be a "payment gateway fee" that raises the price a bit. CNET's Attila Tomaschek has a great explainer about how to watch for any added fees when buying VPN plans.

Digital privacy expert Mazay Banzaev founded the company, starting with an idea at the 2020 Demhack hackathon and culminating with the launch of the AmneziaFree Telegram bot component in March 2022.

WhatsApp, the most widely used messaging app in the world, with 3 billion active customers, earlier this year cited Amnezia and Mullvad as two VPNs to consider as a way "to connect to WhatsApp if it's unavailable from your current network," which generally means the government has blocked access to WhatsApp.

I don't need a VPN to avoid government censorship, but I was curious about being able to access Amnezia's servers all over the world -- 20 servers in 20 countries -- including Australia, Canada, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Japan, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UAE, the UK and the US.

In comparison, other major VPN providers have a much larger server array by the number of countries, including Proton VPN (145), NordVPN (135), ExpressVPN (105) and Surfshark (100).

Even so, I was like a kid in a candy shop seeing Amnezia's menu of countries. I was able to watch a police series on Russia's Channel One, synchronized skating on Finland's Yle Areena and a sitcom on Poland's TVP 1. If I wanted to subscribe to streaming services, I could dive into BBC iPlayer in the UK and Australia's Channel 7.

Initially, when I navigated to these TV channels, they all blocked me with some version of, "You don't live here, you can't watch." But after tapping into Amnezia's servers in those countries, I got access because the VPN fooled them into thinking I lived there.

Navigating to servers in different countries is a snap with Amnezia's app. Just disconnect from your current server, then select the country you want and reconnect. You can digitally cross thousands of miles in seconds.

Aside from viewing geo-restricted content, accessing servers in different locations can also help with internet speeds and traveling. For various reasons, an internet service provider might intentionally throttle -- that is, slow down -- a consumer's internet speed. Using a VPN will hide your true IP address, and thus, the ISP won't be able to use that address to slow down your speed.

Using a VPN can also be beneficial for traveling. It offers an added layer of security when using Wi-Fi in public settings, such as an airport or cafe. When in another country, you can also use a VPN to make it look like you're back home and then check your email.

Split tunneling, speed and security

Amnezia also offers a cool feature called "split tunneling," which lets you connect to only some sites and apps with the VPN while using a regular connection to access others. It's a fairly standard VPN feature that lets you avoid the usual slowdown caused by encryption for activities that don't require a VPN.

Split tunneling was handy when I wanted to watch something on Hulu. When accessed through the VPN, Hulu blocked me, saying I was using a VPN. I turned on split tunneling, instructing the VPN to work for some sites but not Hulu.com. I then went back to Hulu, and it worked since I was accessing it via my regular internet connection.

I used Speedtest.net to check the download and upload rates. (Disclosure: Speedtest.net is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.) Amnezia Premium experienced roughly 30% to 35% average download speed loss when connecting to servers in different countries, and about 60% to 70% average upload speed loss.

Take those numbers with grains of salt. Speed tests can vary drastically, depending on Wi-Fi quality, network congestion and server distance. While CNET generally recommends VPNs that slow your connection by no more than 25%, the main takeaway from using Amnezia's VPN was that I never noticed any noticeable slowness while browsing or streaming.

I was a bit nervous doing financial business during connections to Amnezia servers. It felt jittery to log in to my bank and brokerage accounts while connected to servers in other countries. Could some hacker in a foreign land get my data and drain away my money? Would my financial data be recorded and stored somewhere?

But Moe Long, senior editor and VPN tester at CNET, assuaged my fears. He said financial transactions, as well as any other data, will be safe if the VPN doesn't log your data, undergoes audits and keeps its encryption methods updated.

A representative for Amnezia confirmed to me that the company has a "strict no-logs policy and uses RAM-only servers," and that "all nodes in the system are RAM-only, meaning no data is written to disk and nothing is permanently stored on the servers."

The company had audits in 2024 and 2025, both conducted by cybersecurity company 7A Security. In 2024, 7A Security found that Amnezia was "taking the necessary steps to provide a secure and privacy-focused VPN service." In 2025, auditors said Amnezia "has strong safeguards against a broad range of potential attacks" and had fixed three issues they had found. Amnezia also recently upgraded its protocol to evade government censors.

"If your VPN provider isn't logging data, you shouldn't have to worry, as long as you trust the source you're sending data to," Long said. "A VPN can keep you private by hiding your browsing history from snoops like your internet provider, and the details of your browsing session shouldn't be collected by the company."

Long did say that a VPN alone can't protect your data privacy, especially if you're a victim of phishing. "I suggest taking a multifaceted cybersecurity approach and having multiple specialized tools in your belt, including a VPN, antivirus software and a password manager," Long said.

Getting started with Amnezia's VPN was easy, in keeping with the company's "Maximum ease of use" principle. I downloaded the app both on desktop and mobile and then inserted the long multicharacter key they sent me. A couple more clicks and I was connected to a server in a faraway land. No need to create an account or password. No annoying multifactor authentication.

Host the VPN yourself

I also dabbled a bit with Amnezia's self-hosted server option, which is a feature not offered by many VPN services. With a self-hosted VPN, you either host the VPN on your own server or on a VPS -- virtual private server -- that you can rent.

The difference is that a typical VPN service lets you tunnel into any of several different servers around the world, but with a self-hosted VPN, you only tunnel into one. Still, a self-hosted server offers various benefits. If you're working or traveling overseas, you can connect to your own VPN to make it look like you're home. You can also access files on networked devices from anywhere with a self-hosted VPN.

By using a self-hosted VPN, you avoid the middleman and thus someone who could possibly collect your data. You're also using only one IP address, which is a secure connection for financial transactions and working remotely.

Amenzia's self-hosted option is free, and there are several protocols you can choose from, depending on which operating system you're using -- WireGuard, OpenVPN, AmneziaWG, IPsec and XRay, among many. All have different features, depending on your needs.

To try the self-hosted VPN, I connected to a server in Amsterdam. 

I went with the default AmneziaWG, although it would have been a simple matter to use other protocols via Amnezia's easy-to-use app. I checked several streaming sites and experienced no noticeable lag or slowness.

Overall, the Amnezia experience was cool. The app was easy to use, and it's pretty amazing to think about how you can connect to servers all over the world in seconds, whether for entertainment or to avoid government censors. 

If you want to explore the world of VPNs, check out our guide to everything you need to know and settings to enable for optimal privacy.