Virtual Private Network services have become increasingly popular today, thanks to their ability to provide proxy servers to users. VPNs help bypass online censorship and protect people's communications and data from breaches and hostile networks.
Some of the most popular VPNs have large user bases across the world, and they make use of good advertising across mediums to reach more prospective customers. One highly-preferred way for these servers to reach new audiences is by having streamers and social media personalities promote them on their accounts.
In that regard, three of the biggest VPN servers — ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and Surfshark — have used this trick pretty often. They regularly appear on the broadcast of content creators as links in the description section, but the second name seemingly gets promoted the most, with an all-time appearance rate of more than 254% the next best server.
Moreover, between January 2022 and March 2023, NordVPN was the most visible proxy server, reaching more unique streamers than its competitors when looking at a month-by-month chart. However, so far in April 2023, Surfshark has been the busiest, appearing in the most unique streamers’ broadcasts, seemingly pushing on in its attempts to reach a wider user base this month. Surprisingly, despite the other two doing so much better in reaching streamers and users, ExpressVPN continues to reach the least number of unique streamers.
When it comes to content creators with the most followers who have each of these three VPNs in their description at all times, some pretty big names pop up. Surfshark’s top three such broadcasters are JesusAVGN (1.65M followers), Jerma985 (1.30M), and CDawgVA (1.01M). The second of these two names recently won the Legacy Award at The Streamer Awards 2033, while the other two are big names known for their unique content, including parodying and philanthropy.
For NordVPN, the leaders on the list are sodapoppin (8.83M), aXoZer (2.78M), and Reborn_Live (2.46M). The first name is one of the biggest in the world of gaming content, having been nominated for the Legacy Award at 2022’s The Streamer Awards, while the other two have carved niche spaces for themselves in the streaming industry with their streams.
Coming to ExpressVPN, the biggest online star is chocoTaco (1.29M), a popular name in the game recaps and highlights sphere who also sells his own merchandise. He is followed by Beaulo (1.07M) — famous for his FPS gameplay and news clips — and KingGeorge (1.03M) — a Rainbow Six Invitational World Champion who is highly-sought-after among fans of the game and genre in general.
Unsurprisingly, it is English names who dominate the list of streamers promoting these VPNs, with those from the US leading the charts for all three companies. ExpressVPN mostly relies on English-speaking nations, with the UK and Canada being the next two countries it operates the most in.
NordVPN has a solid presence in Europe thanks to its high availability in France and Germany. Meanwhile, Surfshark seems to have gone the Asian route, with its other two most popular nations being Taiwan and South Korea.
These preferences are also reflected in the languages that most promote these servers, with ExpressVPN's most popular options being English (87.89%), Finnish (3.11%), and Spanish (2.80%). Coming to NordVPN, the most common languages are English (66.95%), French (9.04%), and German (6.78%).
Regarding Surfshark, its most used languages are English (54.63%), Chinese (18.29%), and Korean (5.46%), again indicative of its most preferred nations. Knowing the high number of internet users in the Asian region, perhaps it is not surprising that the gap between the shares of English and the other languages is the least with this VPN service.
With these proxy servers allowing users access to so many features and facilities that are not usually accessible by standard web browsers, their popularity and reach will only increase going forward. Also, with the implications of Web3 tech and big data, browsing on VPNs might become the norm in the near future, so this space is worth a watch over the coming months and years.