A detailed evaluation of leading virtual private network (VPN) providers was conducted using a method adapted from Clubic, a French tech review site. The test measured download and upload speeds, latency, jitter, and connection times for eight providers across four destinations: France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. The testing was done in two campaigns in July and August 2026, using a dedicated mini-PC running Linux and connected via a high-speed fiber network with no other traffic interfering. This ensured accurate results by isolating the performance of each provider. The evaluation compared two main types of encryption protocols: WireGuard and OpenVPN. Three providers—NordVPN, Proton VPN, and Private Internet Access—offered WireGuard configurations, which are known to be faster and more efficient. WireGuard operates within the Linux kernel, allowing for higher throughput and lower latency. In contrast, OpenVPN encrypts data in user space, making it generally slower. Five providers—CyberGhost, ExpressVPN, PureVPN, Surfshark, and PrivadoVPN—were tested using OpenVPN due to limitations in manual configuration or key expiration. For the WireGuard group, performance varied by destination. NordVPN achieved the highest download speeds, reaching nearly 2,240 Mb/s to the United States and around 1,690 Mb/s to Japan. Proton VPN and Private Internet Access also performed well, with download speeds over 2,000 Mb/s to European destinations. In the OpenVPN group, PureVPN had the best performance, averaging 949 Mb/s, but still lagged behind WireGuard providers. Other OpenVPN providers, like Surfshark and CyberGhost, showed lower speeds, especially to Japan, where CyberGhost had an unusually slow connection of just 42 Mb/s. Latency, or the time it takes for data to travel between devices, was relatively low across all providers, typically between 12 and 30 milliseconds to France and the United Kingdom. However, latency increased significantly for transatlantic connections to the United States and Japan, ranging from 86 to 280 milliseconds. Jitter, which measures the variability in latency, was lowest for Surfshark at 1.6 milliseconds on average, while CyberGhost had the highest at 88 milliseconds. Connection times also varied, with WireGuard providers establishing connections in under a second, while OpenVPN providers took between 1 and 8 seconds, with CyberGhost being the slowest. The evaluation highlighted that WireGuard-based providers like NordVPN, Proton VPN, and Private Internet Access achieved the best performance on a 2 Gb/s fiber, making them ideal for users needing high-speed connections. For Japan, Private Internet Access was the top performer, while NordVPN excelled for the United States. For activities requiring stable connections, like online gaming or video calls, Surfshark and NordVPN had the lowest jitter. Users relying on OpenVPN for devices like routers or NAS systems should expect slower speeds, with PureVPN performing best in that category. CyberGhost struggled with Japan connections, and PrivadoVPN had issues with routing traffic to the intended country, which can affect streaming services.