Record VPN interest due to UK porn crackdown and TikTok ban, as NordVPN and Surfshark confirm download spikes

Demand for VPNs has skyrocketed across the United States of America and the United Kingdom.

Searches around Virtual Private Networks increased by an incredible 1566% as millions hunted for a new way to bypass tough age-verification laws to watch adult content online, or swerve the TikTok ban.

Popular providers responsible for some of the best VPN deals have reported record interest in recent days. NordVPN recorded a 78x rise in new users over the weekend, Proton VPN saw a 490% increase in US sign-ups during the same period, and Surfshark VPN saw a four-fold increase in new subscribers, Techradar learned.

Data from Google shows a dramatic rise in online searches around VPNs in both countries as people scoured for new information on these applications. NordVPN says demand remains at heightened, even with TikTok temporarily restored in the United Stated by President Donald Trump.

Despite the record interest from new users, VPNs wasn’t able to circumvent the TikTok ban, which saw the popular video-sharing app — owned by Chinese firm ByteDance — go offline for its 170 million users in the US for a little over 24 hours.

VPNs can swerve country-specific blocks, such as unlocking access to services like WhatsApp and Instagram in mainland China. However, TikTok seems to rely on both SIM card data and IP addresses to determine location, meaning a US-registered mobile number would still trigger restrictions even with a masked IP address.

But while the best VPNs struggle to unlock TikTok during its outage — something that’s sure to concern fans of the app, given that President Trump has only extended its stay of execution, not lifted the ban entirely — they continue to prove very effective in accessing adult websites.

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These tools allow a growing number of internet users to bypass strict age-verification rules, which have been implemented in several states in the US and are poised to be introduced in the UK this summer.

Yes, millions of UK adults will soon be forced to prove their age using facial recognition and other “robust” methods before accessing websites with pornographic content, under tough new rules set to be implemented in July.

Developed by industry watchdog Ofcom, websites that fail to implement strict age verification systems by the deadline will face “enforcement action”.

Major platforms, such as Pornhub, OnlyFans and social media sites that permit adult content, like X (formerly Twitter), will be required to verify users’ ages through methods such as a photo ID scan, facial recognition, or mandatory credit card checks. These websites are visited millions of times every day.

Pornhub, which is the most popular adult entertainment website on the planet and 16th-most-visited website of any kind in the world, is now blocked in 18 US states due to similar age-verification procedures.

In response to the implementation of age verification laws in various states, the company has taken a firm stand by blocking access to users in regions where such laws are enforced.

Parent company Ayo has defended the decision, stating that it’s “publicly supported age verification for years” but it believes — in its current form — the law puts users’ privacy at risk.

A spokesperson for the company explained: “Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy.

“Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.This is not speculation. We have seen how this scenario plays out in the United States.

“In Louisiana last year, Pornhub was one of the few sites to comply with the new law. Since then, our traffic in Louisiana dropped approximately 80%. These people did not stop looking for porn. They just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don’t ask users to verify age, that don’t follow the law, that don’t take user safety seriously, and that often don’t even moderate content.

“In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children.”

Data suggests that Americans are also turning to VPNs to bypass the new laws, with Florida seeing an increase of 1,150%, Oklahoma 1,060%, and Utah 967% in these applications following the introduction of age-checks.

VPNs work by re-routing internet traffic through various servers to scramble and disguise the real IP address of a device. This allows users to make it appear they are accessing the internet from a different country or location.

A VPN should not be seen as a foolproof shortcut to anonymity online. While it protects your location from onlookers, a disreputable VPN service might deliberately collect personal information or other valuable data.

Digital watchdog, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), warned that banning individual apps would not protect Americans’ data privacy, stating that “only comprehensive consumer privacy legislation can achieve that goal.”

While publicly-available data from Google shows a growing interest in VPNs across the UK already — based on what we’ve seen in the US, those numbers will explode when Ofcom starts to enforce its new checks.

Ofcom Chief Executive Dame Melanie Dawes said: “As age checks start to roll out in the coming months, adults will start to notice a difference in how they access certain online services.

“Services which host their own pornography must start to introduce age checks immediately, while other user-to-user services – including social media — which allow pornography and certain other types of content harmful to children will have to follow suit by July at the latest.

“We’ll be monitoring the response from industry closely. Those companies that fail to meet these new requirements can expect to face enforcement action from Ofcom.”

VPNs are already popular with whistleblowers, investigative reporters, and those who wish to hide their web activity from internet companies and security agencies. Companies often require a VPN to be installed on a laptop when employees work remotely.

The best VPNs rely on military-grade AES-256 bit encryption to scramble any information saved on you.

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Many VPN services also include kill switch mechanisms that automatically disconnect devices if the VPN connection fails, even momentarily — preventing any data leaks.

Experts warn that the surge in VPN usage brings significant privacy risks, particularly when using unreliable providers. GB News has put together a comprehensive list of the best VPN deals with the most trusted apps.

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