Qatar is an Arab country located in the Persian Gulf. Despite being a country of just over 2.1 million people, this Islamic state has the highest per capita income of any country in the world. Qatar is an absolute monarchy, led by Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Just like with any absolute monarchy, the ruler has absolute power over the people with no checks and balances in place. The emir’s people could watch you whenever for whatever reason they wish to. If you are in Qatar, you will want to use a VPN.
| Rank | VPN Service | Our Score | Server Locations | Visit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | 9.8 | 160 |  |
| 2 |  | 9.4 | 87 | |
| 3 |  | 9.2 | 95 | |
| 4 |  | 9.0 | 110 | |
| 5 |  | 8.8 | 73 | |
Even though Qatar is wealthy, digital piracy is huge. Ranging from respected companies using pirated software, to physical piracy where people may be selling movies on the streets, it is clear that piracy is rampant. There is some progress in combating the problem, but it seems many of the measures taken are not taken seriously. Even raids on local businesses involving software piracy are not making much of an impact. Officially, according to the IIPA, Qatar is still on the piracy watch list.
So, let’s talk about VPNs and the way they work. A virtual private network is a secure and encrypted connection that is made to another computer, possibly in another country. If you are concerned about your privacy, especially in Qatar, a VPN is a must. Nobody should have to deal with the invasive eyes of the Qatari government or anyone else that would love to obtain your information. Though the government may not be watching you at all times, others may be.
By connecting to server in a different country, you can get around geo-blocking restrictions. Geo-blocking is a technology that will either restrict people from seeing content outside of a targeted area, or stop them inside an area. With a VPN, you could get around these restrictions, no matter who is imposing them. For an example of how this works, we will use Netflix.
Netflix is one of the biggest and most widely known premium streaming services in the world. Their goal is to be in 200 countries by the end of 2016. However, by connecting to a different country, you could enjoy all the titles on Netflix by connecting to the biggest markets. Currently, the biggest market is the US market. Even after Netflix launches, keeping a VPN is a good idea, because you will have access to more content. Of course, you would need a paid subscription as well as a VPN to access the service that way.
With so many choices, what VPN would you choose? That depends on what goals you are trying to accomplish. We have some chocies in mind for Qatar. Though these choices all use secure encryption, using the OpenVPN protocol would be your best choice whenever possible. If you are going to access a streaming service, OpenVPN (UDP) would be your best bet. To stream or connect to a VPN by using a mobile network, be sure to look into other protocols including IKEv2 and L2TP for privacy protection.
If you want to secure your activities or unblock content, we recommend ExpressVPN. They don’t keep logs and have a kill switch feature, so you are protected if you have prying eyes watching you. To use streaming services like Netflix or others, ExpressVPN again is the best choice. They manage a large VPN network, and offer a mobile client as well, so you would only need to connect, and you would be able to stream from the countries with large content libraries.
If you just want to view geo-blocked content, we recommend ExpressVPN MediaStreamer. The Smart DNS feature will help you unblock channels without the slight speed loss. We would never recommend trading security for speed. Since the internet speed is extremely high for Qatar, you would probably not even notice a difference. The benefits you would get from security would outweigh any speed loss.
Please fee free to check out our top 10 VPN services for different choices, but we do not think you will have to. These options are ones we have picked because they are the best overall. The criteria in our selections are based on speed, security, regional locations, and price. In addition, we also chose the ones with large networks of servers you may easily connect to them. No matter what goal you have in using a VPN, our options here are sure to meet your needs. Reliable VPN providers are those that will provide fast networks for streaming HD content from other locations and protect your privacy.