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5 Paid and 5 Free VPN Apps for Italy in 2025

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The practice planned by the Italian government dangerously resembles what is known as “soft censorship”, or "indirect government censorship", indicating an array of official actions intended to influence media output, while maintaining an appearance of media freedom la Repubblica

A reliable VPN app serves to unblock restricted websites and services in Italy in a matter of minutes. Besides, it makes you protected from monitoring.

Want to learn more?

5 best VPNs for Italy

  1. ExpressVPN: It is a perfect choice for Italy as it’s super-fast and secure.
  2. NordVPN: It provides its customers with easy-to-use apps and 24/7 support.
  3. Surfshark: It will allow you to unblock restricted websites in Italy safely.
  4. CyberGhost VPN: It uses robust protocols and military-grade encryption./span>
  5. PIA: It is cross-platform software available on all popular platforms.

5 free VPNs Italy

  1. ProtonVPN: A top-notch VPN with a free plan to use without time limits.
  2. Windscribe: It offers a free package to unblock any service in Italy and be anonymous.
  3. Hide.me: A free VPN plan by hide.me that gives you 10GB of traffic limit per month.
  4. HotspotShield: A worthwhile VPN app with a free plan and a 500MB daily traffic limit.
  5. TunnelBear: One more VPN service to go round censorship in Italy.
Recommendation

Show preference to the VPN providers with diverse server parks, a strict no-logs policy, reliable AES 256-bit data ciphering, and an automatic kill switch. Paid VPNs possess these features. But if you cannot pay for service now, you can make use of VPNs with a free trial period.

All you need to know about censorship in Italy

In 2009 Wikileaks reported that Italy has banned about 300 sites. According to that report, censorship was based on “a secret, unaccountable list of site names”. For internet users in Italy, this means a serious lack of access to certain sites that do not contain any criminal material.

Even though Italy does NOT impose restrictions on social media or news websites use, there are some cases of restrictions concerned with a lack of facility to visit web services.

Wikipedia censorship in Italy

In 2001 administration of the Italian department of Wikipedia blocked access to the website, as the step of protest against the government's bill that was under discussion.

According to this new law, the administration of the website had to change the content of the articles within 48 hours in case Wikipedia pages contain deceitful information.

These measures were estimated as direct censorship imposed on Italian Wikipedia without court permission. Website administration commented this situation saying that it would destroy basic principles of Wikipedia:

Still, there always was a chance, using a VPN in Italy, to open the website changing an Italian IP address into an IP of a less restricted country.

TV censorship in Italy

As it’s widely believed, the Italian television industry is politicized both inside and outside the country.

According to the statistics, Italy has only 24% of TV news trusted programs, while, for instance, Britain has 38% out of this. It makes Italy only one of those examined countries, where online resources are considered to be more reliable to get information than television ones.

Italians often face the situation when movies or cartoons are changed while broadcasted nationally.

Although the whole situation shows that information taken from the Internet is more truthful, still it frequently happens that such data is inaccessible while browsing with Italian IP.In this regard, it’s recommended to use a VPN for Italy to bypass such restrictions and find out true news.

Content restrictions for Italian IP

The Italian government tends to restrict access to some sites, as they are stated to bring harm and danger to their users.

What websites undergo blocking in Italy?

As a rule, the services are blacklisted in Italy in case they contain:

  • Materials with a political coloring
  • Texts criticizing the activity of any organization
  • Data that breach copyright law
  • 18+ content
  • Texts rising the theme of violations of rights and corruption
  • Ads propagating the sale of drugs
  • Social dangerous information
  • Texts covering the idea of national security
  • Content that contradicts economic interests

The arguments presented explain why Italy takes the 41st position in the RSF rating.

Censorship leaves nothing but a necessity to acquire a VPN provider for Italy to get freedom in internet space.

Freedom of speech in Italy

RSF rating of Italy

Not too long ago, the Italian government passed a set of internet censorship rules called the Levi-Prodi law.

Those laws strengthened the powers of the country’s internet regulator, AgCom. Under the new laws, AgCom has wide-ranging powers to take down sites that may violate copyright laws in the eyes of the bureaucrats.

If AgCom finds a “serious violation of the economic exploitation of the rights of a digital work”, it can take down a site in less than a fortnight. Critics have pointed out that the process is unfair, given the AgCom lacks copyright law specialists, and that it ultimately leads to a violation of freedom of expression for everyday Italians.

The abuse of user rights is pretty infrequent in Italy. Reporters on the Internet and users of social networks should be careful in speaking out because of the legislation about criminal defamation in this country. Especially, it is disputable dealing with the online sphere.

Comparison of VPN services for Italy

ServiceRanking (out of 10)Speed, MbpsCountry selectionNumber of serversPrice (monthly)
ExpressVPN9>1001053000+$4.99 - 12.95
NordVPN10>601187100+$3.39 - 12.99
Surfshark10>501003200+$2.19 - 15.45
CyberGhost940-7010010200+$2.19 - 12.99
PIA10>508430000+$2.03 - 11.99

What VPN is the best for Italy in 2025?

1. ExpressVPN

Overview

I have no claims to the work of ExpressVPN. All services and sites I tried were opened when connected to servers in different countries located in 105 places in the world.

User security is above all for the provider. That’s why it uses only diskless servers and doesn’t keep logs on user activity.

Price

1 month6 months1 year
Price (monthly)$12.95$9.99$6.67
Money-back guarantee303030

Conclusion

  • Good streaming support
  • A 7-day trial for Android
  • Apps for any platform

Read more: ExpressVPN review

2. NordVPN

Overview

NordVPN is cheaper than ExpressVPN thanks to its long-term packages. Its servers are fast enough to watch Netflix movies without buffering.

Split tunneling serves to route traffic of certain apps through a secure VPN channel.

Price

1 month1 year2 years
Price (monthly)$12.99$4.99$3.39
Money-back guarantee303030

Conclusion

  • Automatic kill switch
  • Obfuscation feature
  • Custom DNS

Read more: NordVPN review

3. Surfshark

Overview

Despite it’s the cheapest VPN on the list, it offers premium functions and a good server park. It’s also good at unblocking Kodi addons as well as other services.

Surfshark servers have shown good speed test results in Italy – about 10-20% speed drop.

Price

1 month6 months 2 years
Price (monthly)$15.45$6.49$2.49
Money-back guarantee303030

Conclusion

  • Suitable for torrenting
  • Very secure
  • Good for unblocking streaming services

Read more: Surfshark review

4. CyberGhost VPN

Overview

It’s perfect for unblocking different services because it has special servers for Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, etc. The app is smart enough to choose the most suitable server for your location.

Torrenting becomes very attractive with CyberGhost VPN, as it makes you absolutely anonymous and serves to access any torrent site.

Price

1 month1 year2 years3 years
Price (monthly)$12.99$4.29$2.19$2.29
Money-back guarantee45454545

Conclusion

  • Apps for Amazon Fire Stick and Android TVs
  • 7 simultaneous connections

Read more: CyberGhost VPN review

5. Private Internet Access

Overview

PIA offers the maximum number of simultaneous connections per subscription (after Surfshark of course) – 10. The connection is rather stable. Thanks to the automatic kill switch, your traffic stays secure when you switch between the servers.

Price

1 month1 year2 years
Price (monthly)$11.99$3.33$2.69
Money-back guarantee777

Conclusion

  • High-speed servers
  • Different functions on different platforms

Read more: PIA review

What about free VPN apps for Italy?

There’s another option – to use a free VPN. You can make use of this opportunity in case you don’t have money for a paid subscription.

The VPNs presented here are paid ones. But all of them have free packages.

Warning

Free plans of paid VPN services have lots of restrictions (speed, bandwidth, servers, etc).

Free ProtonVPN

ProtonVPN is the best among free VPNs. It provides premium service and guarantees privacy on the Internet. Although it doesn’t have traffic or bandwidth limits, it restricts its users to servers located only in 112 countries.

Free Windscribe

With the Windscribe free VPN package you can unblock any site in Italy. But be ready that your unlimited access to the Internet will be over when your traffic reaches 10GB (monthly).

Free Hide.me VPN

Having chosen the hide.me free package, your monthly traffic will be only 10GB. But it’s enough to access necessary sites and watch a couple of movies or series. Besides, you’ll have a chance to connect to the servers in 5 locations.

Free HotspotShield VPN

Another free package by a premium VPN service offers 500MB of daily traffic (or 15GB per month), the US location, and speeds up to 2 Mbps.

Free TunnelBear

This VPN offers its free plan with the strictest traffic limits – from 500MB to 1.5GB per month. However, you can connect to any server in 23 countries.

FAQs

  • First of all, it is necessary to study its characteristics such as the list of servers and their geographical locations, IP types, speed, bandwidth, additional features like automatic kill switch, and unlimited server switching.
  • After one has found a VPN that allows accomplishing all desired activities on the Internet in Italy, it is necessary to check if it is compatible with the device.
  • The next step on unlimited web surfing is the payment procedure. If one desires to be 100% anonymous and protected on the Internet, it is better to opt for payment with Bitcoin

  • Paid VPNs provide their subscribers with security and anonymity of high quality when free VPNs barely make them safe online.
  • Another difference is in service quality. Free VPN providers often lack professional live chat support.
  • There are cases when free VPN recorded browser history and sold it to advertisers. Paid VPN guarantees your privacy while surfing the internet and follows a no-logging policy.
  • Paid VPN provider ensures stable connection, unlike a free VPN that has an overwhelming flood of users. Thus, the connection can be lost while speed – reduced.
  • An unlimited number of servers in various countries around the globe are at users’ disposal in case they have opted for paid VPN services for Italy.

These facts seem to confirm the idea that it is better not to entrust security to free VPNs in Italy.

Comments

Gabry
prefix 7 years ago
VyrpVPN works pretty good in Italy! I unblock BBC channel, Hulu, HBO, Spotify and even Netflix in Italy with a VPN. Some people say that it makes the connection slow, so don’t believe this information. I watch movies every evening and that’s great!
Dean Chester
prefix 7 years ago
Hi Gabry! Thank you for sharing your experience with VYrpVPN in Italy!

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