Peso Pluma Announces New Album’s Release Date & Unveils Tracklist

Developer Obsidian recently announced that it currently has no plans to make The Outer Worlds 3, according to a report by Bloomberg. Company head Fergus Urquhart didn't give a reason as to why Obsidian won't be working on a sequel, but he did note that the performance of The Outer Worlds 2 was "disappointing" and that it needs to "think a lot about how much we put into the games, how much we spend on them and how long they take."

Urquhart also said that Avowed was something of a miss for the company, but that it remains committed to the franchise. Obsidian plans to "keep making games in the Avowed universe," but that doesn't necessarily mean a legitimate sequel. Avowed is, after all, set in the same world as Pillars of Eternity.

Obsidian is still working on DLC for The Outer Worlds 2, so fans have that to look forward to. Urquhart also confirmed the company is making some DLC for Grounded 2, which was actually a hit. It released three games last year, which Urquhart said was a bad move for support teams.

“Spacing those releases helps the company manage its resources and not burn everybody out. It’s not good to release three games in the same year. It’s the result of things going wrong," he said.

The developer is also making some entirely new games, of which we know nothing about. As for Avowed, it's coming to PS5 on February 17. All versions are getting an anniversary update that includes a New Game Plus mode, new races, new weapon types and more. It's a good game and well worth the time of PlayStation fans, especially those who have dabbled with The Elder Scrolls franchise.

Fitbit's founders have a new startup. Two years after leaving Google, James Park and Eric Friedman announced a new platform that shifts the focus from the individual to the family. They say the Luffu mobile app "uses AI quietly in the background" to collect and organize family health information.

"At Fitbit, we focused on personal health — but after Fitbit, health for me became bigger than just thinking about myself," Park said in a press release. The app is particularly focused on the "CEO of the family" — the person who manages appointments, prescriptions and other health-related tasks.

But the definition of family isn't limited to parents raising children. The company sees its tool as especially valuable for caregivers in their 40s and 50s who may be managing the needs of both aging parents and kids. It even tracks pets' health habits.

"We're managing care across three generations — kids at home, busy parents in the middle, and my dad in his 80s who's living with diabetes and still wants to stay fiercely independent," Friedman wrote. "And the moments that matter most are often the most chaotic: a late-night fever, a sudden urgent care visit, a doctor asking questions you can't answer quickly because the details are scattered."

The company claims the app's AI "isn't a chatbot layer." Rather, it serves as a "guardian" — proactively monitoring for changes silently in the background. The AI then provides insights and triggers alerts when something is out of whack. You can also ask the app health data questions using plain language (so, there is some kind of chatbot) and share data with family members.

The company clearly wants to make entering data as easy as possible. Luffu allows family members to log info using voice, text or photos. It integrates with health platforms such as Apple Health and Fitbit. And the company eventually wants to expand into a hardware ecosystem — presumably, devices that make health data collection even easier.

Speaking of data collection, Luffu says, "Users are always in control of exactly what is shared, with whom, and privacy and security are paramount for all family data." In addition, the company told Axios that users can choose whether their data is used to train its AI. On the other hand, Big Tech has repeatedly shown that its most egregious data-collection practices are always wrapped in comforting language. So, at the very least, I'd take their pitch with grains of salt and, most importantly, make sure each family member knows exactly what they're consenting to. After all, this is a for-profit company, and we don’t yet know its monetization strategy.

Luffu is currently in a limited public beta. You can learn more and sign up for the waitlist on the company website.

So you've decided you need a virtual private network to hide your browsing activity from your ISP, change your virtual location, stay safe on public Wi-Fi and enjoy all the other benefits. The inevitable next question is: "Should I pay for one? If so, how much?"

All the best VPNs cost money, but it can be hard to tell an overpriced service apart from one that's priced according to its value. On this page, I'll share the costs for top VPN services, calculate the industry average and explain what makes VPNs cost as much as they do. At the end, I'll share a few tips for making a VPN fit your budget.

How much is a VPN?

I'd like to start by introducing the complexity of the problem. If you just want the numbers, you’ll find those in the sections below.

The main thing that makes VPNs so hard to budget for is that providers aren't always honest about how much they're charging. They rarely lie outright, but they often overcomplicate their pricing structures and hide increases in the fine print.

Let's take CyberGhost as an example, since I just reviewed it. A one-month subscription to CyberGhost costs $12.99 — simple enough. However, you can also get a six-month subscription by paying $41.94 upfront, though the website more prominently calls this "$6.99 per month." Finally, you can pay $56.94 for a 28-month subscription, but only once; after that, it'll be $56.94 for a year.

As you can see in the image, the website heavily emphasizes the average monthly price, in text that dwarfs the actual price you'll pay at checkout. This gets even worse with services like NordVPN that have multiple tiers of subscription as well as multiple durations. It's not uncommon to see 10 or more prices quoted for the exact same VPN.

The best way to cut through the confusion and shop on your own terms is to compare different VPNs at the same duration and subscription tier. For example, you could find the cost of one year of the most basic available plan, since most basic subscriptions still include full VPN service. In the next two sections, I'll compare and average the basic tiers of my top seven VPNs at the monthly and yearly levels.

Average monthly cost of a VPN

Here's what the best VPNs cost per month. The numbers below are for subscribing to one month at a time, excluding any discounts and special deals.

• Proton VPN: $9.99

• ExpressVPN: $12.99

• Surfshark: $15.45

• NordVPN: $12.99

• CyberGhost: $12.99

• Mullvad: $5.98 (depends on dollar/euro exchange rate)

• hide.me: $11.99

• Average: $11.77

As you can see, $12.99 is a normal price for one month of a VPN — but the average price is somewhat lower, as several providers sell monthly plans for less. In general, expect to pay in the range between $10 and $13. Companies like Surfshark sometimes inflate their monthly prices in a bid to drive more traffic toward the longer plans.

Mullvad is also an outlier, since you can only ever subscribe to it month-by-month. There are other outliers, such as Astrill, which costs a whopping $30 per month. But the above holds true for all the best-regarded providers.

Average yearly cost of a VPN

If you choose to sign up for a year at a time, you'll probably save money but you'll have to pay more upfront. VPNs offer long-term deals to pump their cash flow and active user numbers. One-year costs for the top seven VPNs are written below as a lump sum, since several of them add extra months to the first subscription period so they can quote a lower monthly price. Since CyberGhost doesn't have a one-year plan, I've replaced it with Windscribe.

• Proton VPN: $47.88

• ExpressVPN: $52.39 for the first subscription, $99.95 afterwards

• Surfshark: $47.85

• NordVPN: $59.88 for the first subscription, $139.08 afterwards

• Windscribe: $69.00

• Mullvad: $71.82 (depends on dollar/euro exchange rate)

• hide.me: $54.99

• Average: $57.69

For one year of a VPN service, you can expect to pay somewhere between $45 and $70. Note that at least two services, ExpressVPN and NordVPN, raise prices after the first year, so account for that in your budget if you really like them.

Why do VPNs cost so much?

The length of the subscription is the biggest factor in determining how much you'll pay. Beyond that, it's all a bit fuzzy. Commercial VPNs are still a relatively new industry, so there's not a lot of standardization in the pricing.

Most of the variation in cost comes from competition: VPNs value themselves lower to offer a better deal than their rivals, or higher if they think they've got a unique differentiator. Astrill gets away with charging $30 a month because of a widespread belief that it's the best VPN for China (in truth, no VPN can be sure of working in China 100 percent of the time).

Another factor that might influence a VPN's price is the cost of maintaining its infrastructure. For each new server location, the provider has to either rent space in an existing data center, build its own physical server farm or set up a virtual server with an IP address from a particular location.

Once the locations exist, they have to be maintained, including regular changes to their IP address so firewalls don't identify and block them. Loads at locations need to be balanced between servers and technology has to be upgraded as faster solutions become available. 

Since VPNs can have hundreds of server locations, all that upkeep doesn't come cheap, and customers often eat the cost. Factor in the price of extra features outside core VPN functionality and you'll understand why these companies are so desperate for liquidity that they'll offer discounts over 80 percent — as long as you hand over a lump sum right now.

What about free VPNs?

VPNs can get pricey, especially if you want high quality. But some VPNs charge nothing at all. Is there any reason not to go with free VPNs every time?

The answer is a pretty clear yes; paying for a VPN is almost always a better idea. When we rounded up the best free VPNs, only three got our unqualified recommendation. All three were paid services with free plans, and all come with strict limitations on server locations, data usage and other privileges.

The unfortunate reality is that free VPNs come with downsides no matter which one you use. Plenty of them are hacked-together apps with little value, thrown together to make a quick buck. Others turn you into the product by selling your data to advertisers or renting out your home IP address. Some drop any pretense and plant malware directly on your device.

These risks, which are often invisible to the end user, are the reason I almost always advise going with a free VPN funded by a paid plan, like Proton VPN, hide.me or Windscribe. Those plans may be restricted, but at least the provider's motives are out in the open: they make money off the paid plan and they want you to switch to it.

How to save money on a VPN

If you've decided to pay for a VPN but want to stretch your budget as much as possible, the tips below can push your cybersecurity dollar a bit farther. To begin with, the general advice on choosing a VPN always applies: read expert opinions, check the reviews and use the free trial to test its speed and security.

Get a long-term plan. If you're confident that you'll actually use the VPN for the whole duration, there's no reason not to go with a 12-month or 24-month subscription. These are win-win deals that genuinely do save you a lot of money overall.

Cancel auto-renewal. VPN accounts are set to automatically renew by default. In some cases, this can inadvertently lock you into a higher-priced long-term plan. I recommend cancelling auto-renew right after subscribing even if you're sure you want to continue. From there, you can create a new account to get the introductory rate again — or go with a different VPN to get a better deal.

Look for resubscription deals. Another perk of cancelling immediately is that the VPN will often try to woo you back with exclusive discounts. Stay strong until your subscription is a month or two from expiring, then look for emails offering better rates.

Wait for seasonal discounts. If you can hold off until November, most VPNs offer steep discounts from Black Friday season all the way through New Year's. Check around other holidays too, as VPNs will take any excuse for marketing; CyberGhost is offering a Valentine's Day deal as I type this. We also keep track of the best VPN deals you can get at any time of the year.

Use the VPN to save money on streaming. Most streaming services are more expensive than VPNs. If you use a VPN to access more content without adding a new streaming subscription, you'll come out ahead. For example, if you only have Netflix but want to watch Schitt’s Creek, you can pay $16.99 per month for Peacock without ads — or $9.99 per month for Proton VPN to unblock Netflix Canada, which features that show.

Shop for regional discounts. Like the previous point, this won't save you money on the VPN itself, but might save you enough money on other expenses that you turn a profit. Changing your virtual location can get you discounts on purchases where prices vary by region, especially travel costs.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. Disney has announced a successor to outgoing CEO Bob Iger, effective in March. Josh D’Amaro, current chairman of Disney Experiences, was tapped for the role in a unanimous vote by the company's board of directors.

D’Amaro has been at Disney for 28 years, where he oversaw theme parks, cruises and consumer products including video games. The company had previously appointed Bob Chapek, the Disney Parks chairman at the time, as successor to Bob Iger in 2020. At the time, Iger had served as CEO since 2005. But Chapek only lasted until 2022, when Bob Iger returned to take the helm once again amid company struggles. Disney formed a committee to find an appropriate successor in 2023, with Iger mentoring potential candidates along the way.

Iger's time at the helm saw the media giant make a number of significant moves such as launching the Disney+ streaming service, buying Hulu and acquiring 20th Century Fox's film and television studios. Iger will continue to serve as a board member and senior advisor until his retirement at the end of the year.