Asia VPN: Virtual private networks, VPNs for short, are methods that make secure connections between servers and devices. Since its introduction in the United States a couple of decades ago, the market has expanded to other regions, such as Asia.

According to EARTHWEB, the number of VPN users has increased by 20 per cent in 2020, possibly due to the pandemic and increasing number of companies asking their employees to work from home. They added Asia-Pacific held the largest share of the VPN customer base by 33 per cent as of 2023, while Europe comprised 17 per cent. The country with the highest VPN infiltration rate was also an Asian country, Indonesia, with 44 per cent of internet users using a VPN. In some countries, like North Korea, VPNs are banned by respective governments.

Well-known VPN providers like Nord VPN are in high demand, but local services that correspond to region-specific needs are also gaining attention. 4i Magazine gives a brief introduction to top VPN providers from each country or regional market in the Asia continent. 

China – Asia VPN

One of the first things you would notice when visiting China is that the central government blocks access to many foreign websites. In many cases, cross-country internet traffic is also slowed down by the “Great Firewall”. This is known for political reasons and for maintaining the communist party’s control over people.

Using VPN is legal in China, although the government continues restricting their services by limiting bandwidths or shutting down available VPN servers. It is easy to find VPN services online, including Nord VPN, Express VPN, Pure VPN, and local ones. 

Subscription to non-Chinese VPNs can be either free (usually on Freemium, asking subscribers to pay a certain amount of fee after some time or if they go over their usage limit) or with a price tag, with varying add-ons and services they provide. For example,  Private Internet Access offer up to 10 simultaneous connections per network, and Nord VPN promises the best level of security compared to its competitors. Regarding the size of customers, Comparitech suggests that Express VPN may be the most popular VPN as of October 2023. 

Some VPN providers have servers in China, too. VyperVPN, a popular choice among internet users in the country, provides customer service for Chinese users 24 hours/seven days, with many servers located on the Chinese continent. It is also one of the few VPN companies that accept Alipay, a Chinese digital transaction and wallet service like PayPal.

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Japan

Using a VPN has no legal issues in Japan. Still, its use is limited to legally accepted activities — gambling or other illicit activities on a VPN can be punished under the country’s legal boundaries. Some argue that using VPNs to go around region-blocked websites and video streaming services can be legally disputed as it can be against many video platforms’ Terms of Service. 

Although the market for VPNs in Japan seems to grow every year, the share of VPN users compared to the country’s entire population is only 0.71 per cent, according to Forbes. That is among the countries with the lowest adoption rate in the world, Atlas VPN says. There still is some demand for VPN services in Japan, especially since the number of cyberattacks started to increase in 2020, targeting big corporations, small businesses, and individuals. 

Top-tier foreign VPN services with domestic servers seem to be the most-used providers in Japan. Express VPN, for example, has its servers in Tokyo and Yokohama, enabling its service to be delivered at a faster speed. CyberGhost and Nord VPN also offer improved local access for Japanese people, with more than 100 domestic servers being available.  

South Korea – Asia VPN

South Korea is one of the countries with the safest, fastest broadband internet. Several websites are, however, under the government’s censorship. These websites include pornography, gambling, and games without age ratings. Once you log into one of these websites, you will see a pop-up screen that says the site was blocked by the National Police of Korea, along with the reason and contact points.

The VPN adoption rate compared to the population was 3.2 per cent from 2020 to the first half of 2023, according to Atlas VPN. One of the most common reasons to use a VPN in South Korea is to go around regional content restrictions on streaming websites. According to reports, some subscribe to VPN services to do illicit activities, such as sharing copyright-sensitive files on torrent websites. Some people use VPNs to buy products or pay subscriptions at cheaper prices, as some websites make varying prices based on users’ location. 

Many of the top VPN providers also come from outside South Korea. Nord VPN is one of the most popular VPN providers, establishing Seoul’s official South Korean branch in 2020. The provider also offers Korean servers and user support in Korean. IPVanish, which allows up to 10 connections on a single network, is among the popular picks, too.

Some users prefer to use VPN services with domestic servers for speed’s sake. For example, Hotspot Shield has South Korean servers included in its available servers and provides a range of security features, such as DNS and IPv6 leak protection. There also is a VPN kill switch for users in case of emergency on Hotspot Shield.

Soon, Korean VPNs may enter the competition, too. Telecommunication conglomerate SK Telecom recently announced that its subsidiary company IDQ is joining hands with security compartment maker Axgate to build a VPN service.

Indonesia

In terms of people using VPNs, Indonesia has been the highest in the world. As of 2016, more than 40 per cent of the country’s internet users were using a VPN, Wired reports. Many VPN users are subscribed to go around geo-blocks or secure connections like in the cases of other countries, but this does not explain why Indonesia has a particularly high percentage of adoption compared to its neighbouring Asian countries. Reports say that the high percentage could be partly due to the government’s censorship, restricting access to certain websites of pornography and nudity. 

In Indonesia, foreign providers are leading the market. Reportedly, Nord VPN is leading the game by far, followed by other big providers such as Surfshark, Express VPN, and CyberGhost.

Singapore

Singapore also has strong government censorship over people’s internet use and tight privacy-related laws. Atlas VPN reported that the VPN adoption rate in Singapore was 37.11 per cent between 2020 and the first half of 2023.

The Singaporean VPN market is led by veteran foreign providers as well. Express VPN and Nord VPN seem to be some of the most favoured choices with their secure encryption and fast speed. Several providers, Private Internet Access and Atlas VPN, for example, have servers for the country’s users, allowing Singaporean users outside of the country to access with the national IP addresses.

Choosing VPNs may require caution, as they can have a track record of cooperating with authorities to unveil people’s anonymity or turn out to be a massive botnet, a group of devices running bots for cyber-attacks. This may be the reason why many Asian countries are relying on sizable VPN services, although they may not be domestic, to not risk any cyber-security issues.