NordVPN Tutorial for Beginners 2026 - How to use NordVPN

Hey, I'm Caleb, and in this video, I'm going to show you exactly how to use NordVPN as a complete beginner so you can protect your online privacy and safely browse the web. If you want to get NordVPN set up the right way, learn how to connect to servers, adjust the important settings, and use it for things like accessing region-locked streaming content, I'm going to walk you through all of it step-by-step. By the end of this video, you'll know how to get NordVPN fully set up on your computer, use it to protect your other devices, and actually feel confident using it even if you've never used a VPN before. Now, before we get started, let's quickly break down what a VPN is and how it actually works. Normally, when you go online, your device connects straight to the websites you visit, and your IP address can show your general location. A VPN adds a layer of privacy by encrypting your traffic and routing it through a VPN server first. That means the websites you visit see the VPN server's IP address instead of yours. This helps protect your privacy, makes your connection more secure on networks like public Wi-Fi, and lets you change your online location by connecting to servers in other countries. Okay, so now that you know the basics, let's go ahead and sign up for NordVPN. To make sure you're getting the best price available, visit the link on screen right here or click the first link down in the video description. NordVPN updates its promo pricing pretty often, so that link will always have the most current deal they're offering. And once you've gone to that link, you'll be brought to this page right here. Click on Get NordVPN. Then on this screen here, you'll need to choose your plan. You'll get the most savings by going with a 2-year plan, but you can switch this as well. At the very least, I would recommend going with the 1-year plan. The 1-month plan is going to end up costing you a lot of money over time. So, for this video, I'll go ahead and go with the 1-year plan. And I'm going to go ahead with Basic. If you want to see the difference in the features between all the plans, take your time here and look through them and see which one you like the best. I'll click on Get Basic. And after that, you'll have to go through the checkout process. Go ahead and fill out your information and your payment method here, and once you're done, I'll meet you at the next step. Then once you're on this screen here, click on Activate Nord account. You'll then get a verification email sent to the email you used to sign up with. Go to the inbox for the email listed right here, and then find the code. That email should look like this. Copy the code here, then go back over to NordVPN, and paste in that code right here. Go ahead and create a password, then click Create password. Then you'll see the option to download NordVPN for your operating [clears throat] system. I'm on Windows, so I'm going to click on Download for Windows. You'll see the installer appears in the top right here. I'll go ahead and click on this. You'll see the NordVPN installer appear here. First thing you'll do is click on Next. Click Accept. And then here you can choose what you want to install. In my case, I just want the desktop app. So, I'm going to turn off the browser extensions. However, you can choose to keep these on if you want to. I'm going to go down and click on Install. Now, the NordVPN desktop app is going to be installed onto your computer. This will take a few moments to complete, so I'm going to fast-forward to whenever it's done. Okay, and whenever it's done, click on Launch NordVPN. Once you're here, click on Log in. And since you've already logged in to NordVPN on your browser, just click on Open NordVPN here. Here, I'm going to go down and click on Skip. Click Next. Then you'll have the option to choose your preferred location. By default, it's going to choose the fastest server. This is just going to connect to the server closest to your actual location. If you want to leave this on fastest server, go ahead, but you can also choose another location if you want to. For example here, I'll click on Specific location, and I can scroll through the countries here. For now, I'm going to close out of this, and I'll teach you how to connect to other servers in different countries in just a moment. For now, I'll just leave this on fastest server. Now, go down and click on Next, then click Secure my connection. And just like that, we're now connected to a VPN server. I'm going to go to the top right here and maximize this window, and now we can get a better look at the NordVPN desktop app. Okay, so right away here, you're going to see a bunch of different stuff, but don't worry, I'm going to clearly explain what all of this is and what you actually need to focus on. So, we were auto-connected to a server here in the top left. To disconnect, click on Pause, and then go down and click on Disconnect. So, right now whenever I click on Secure my connection, it's going to auto-connect to the fastest server. That means since I'm in the United States, it's going to choose a US server. But what if you want to choose a server in a different country? Well, you can go down here, and you can search for a specific country if you want to. Like for example here, I'll click on Search connections, then I'll type in Japan. Then right here, you'll see Japan. I'll go ahead and click on it. And it's going to auto-connect me to the Japan servers. Then if you find that you want to change your auto-connect settings from the fastest server, you can click on Set as auto-connect whenever you're connected to the server you want to use. I'm probably going to be using the Japan servers a lot, so I'm going to click on this here. So now, I'll connect to the Japan servers every time I open NordVPN. And if you want to go and find other countries here, go ahead and clear out the search, and you'll see all of them listed here. Here, you'll also see tabs for specialty servers, which is going to give you some more advanced options, and a tab for devices. This is regarding a feature called Meshnet, and I'll cover this briefly here in a few moments. Now, let's quickly go over what these tabs on the left side of the app are for. At the top, you've got Home, which is your main screen that we're currently seeing now. Below that is Threat Protection. This will help block ads and dangerous websites while you browse. If you're on the Plus plan or higher, you'll get a stronger version of this called Threat Protection Pro, but the basic version still does a good job. Below that is File transfers. This will let you send files directly between your devices without needing a cloud service. Below that is Devices and Meshnet. And this is where you manage which of your devices are linked together for those file transfers. If you want to learn more about setting up file transfers and Meshnet, I'm going to leave a guide to that from NordVPN down in the description. Then below this is Dark Web Monitor. This will check if any of your email addresses have shown up in a data breach. You can add up to five emails on the basic plan. And lastly, you have the Products tab. This will show you other Nord services you can check out if you're interested. Next, let's go to the bottom left here and go into our settings. All right, so here we are in the settings. You're going to see a few more tabs here on the left. Let's start at the top here in General. This is the screen that we're currently on now. First, I'd recommend making sure that Launch the app at Windows startup is turned on. That way, NordVPN is always ready to go when you turn on your computer. And then all of the other default settings you see here are good to go. Back here on the left-hand side, let's click into Account. This is pretty straightforward. It's just your subscription info and your email. Then let's click into Connection and Security. This is where you'll find your VPN protocol settings, which controls how the app actually connects to servers. For most people, just leave it on the recommended settings here, and you'll be fine. Then below that, we have the kill switch. I'd recommend turning this on. What this does, if your VPN connection drops for any reason, it blocks your internet so your real IP address doesn't accidentally get exposed. So, let's click on Continue. You can also turn this on for specific apps as well. Then below the kill switch, you'll find split tunneling. Split tunneling is useful if you want certain apps or websites to bypass the VPN. So, for example, if your banking app doesn't work well with NordVPN, you can exclude just that app so everything else stays protected. Then you'll find some miscellaneous settings here at the bottom. And that's pretty much it for the settings. Now, the last thing I want to show you is how to unlock region-locked streaming content. So, I'm going to go back over to the Home tab in the top left, then I'll click Pause, and then disconnect from the Japan servers. I'll click on Pause here. So now, my device is no longer protected, and my IP address is going to show my actual location, which is the United States. So now, I'm going to go ahead and open up my internet browser and go to Netflix. Now, on Netflix here, if I scroll down, you'll see it says Top 10 TV shows in the US today. Now, watch what happens when I go back to NordVPN, and select the Japan server. Now that I'm connected, I'm going to go back over to my Netflix tab, and I'll simply refresh the page. And now if I scroll back down, you're going to see that it lists the top 10 TV shows in Japan. This means that I now have access to the Japan exclusive Netflix catalog. And you can do this for all sorts of different countries. If you find that you're getting blocked from accessing a certain country's catalog, I'd recommend changing out your server location, clearing the cookies in your browser, or you can contact NordVPN support. All right, so at this point, you're fully set up on desktop. You know how to connect to servers, you've got your settings dialed in, and you're browsing with way more privacy than before. But if your computer isn't the only device you use every day, I'd recommend getting NordVPN set up on your other devices, too. NordVPN has apps for pretty much everything: your phone, tablet, smart TVs, and streaming devices, too. Just check whether your specific device has a downloadable app, and in most cases, it will. The setup process on those devices is going to feel really familiar because it follows the same general flow that we just walked through. Now, if you've got a lot of devices in your home, or you want to cover something that doesn't have its own app, you You also set up NordVPN on your router. Doing it that way will protect everything connected to your Wi-Fi at once. I'll link Nord VPN's help article for setting this up down in the description. And if you haven't purchased your Nord VPN plan yet, make sure you use the link on screen right here, or click on the first link in the video description. Using that link is going to make sure that you're getting the most affordable deal available. If this tutorial helped you out, liking the video really helps our channel. And if you want more tutorials like this, make sure you subscribe. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.