The World Cup final. One match, one night, and then a four-year wait until the next one. Whatever can go wrong with your stream, tonight is not the night for it.
The threats are real and they're varied. If you're watching from abroad, geo-restrictions could lock you out of the coverage you'd get at home. If you're on public Wi-Fi – at a bar, a hotel, a fan zone – your connection is shared, unsecured, and unpredictable. And if you're at home on your own broadband, your ISP can see exactly what you're doing – and has every incentive to throttle a 4K stream on one of the busiest nights of the streaming year.
Using one of the best VPNs solves all three at once, routing your traffic through an encrypted tunnel that sidesteps geo-blocks, secures public connections, and hides your activity from your ISP.
Norton VPN currently tops our best streaming VPN rankings, and with a deal running right now that brings it to $3.33 per month, there's no better time to get it sorted before kickoff.
How does Norton VPN compare to other top VPNs?
Surfshark is our pick for the best cheap VPN, and at $2.49 per month it's a very affordable option – with the added bonus of unlimited device connections that Norton doesn't offer. The gap is streaming consistency. Norton has been the more reliable performer across every major platform in our testing, and for a final that comes around once every four years, that's the gap that matters.
NordVPN is our top-ranked VPN overall, and earns it – 9,000+ servers across 148 countries, speeds of over 1,000 Mbps, and a near-flawless unblocking record. At $3.49 per month it costs more than Norton's current deal, though, and its 30-day guarantee is half the safety net Norton gives you for a night this important.
It's also worth remembering that the World Cup final isn't a game you can quietly catch up on tomorrow. The result will be everywhere before you've even found a replay link – on your phone, in your group chats, across every headline. Whatever VPN you go with tonight, just make sure it's one you've actually tested before kickoff.
For a night with no replay, no second viewing, and a four-year wait for the next one, Norton makes the strongest case.
We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
