The index ranks 171 countries according to the degree of freedom of access to the Internet. The results show stark global differences, ranging from highly open systems in parts of Europe and Latin America to tightly controlled networks in countries such as North Korea and China.
The data comes from the the Internet Freedom Index 2026compiled by Cloudwards, which assesses national policies in four areas: torrents, VPN availability, adult content, and political and civic expression.
No country achieves a perfect score, but 11 countries from four continents share the top spot with a score of 92.
These countries include Belgium, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Slovakia, Suriname and East Timor.
Next comes a long line of countries with an index of 84, so it can be considered that Moldova is in second place in the world Internet ranking.
The United States scored 64 out of 100, which puts them in the middle tier worldwide. They are on par with countries such as Japan and Australia.
Romania has the same number of points.
The UK scored even lower at 52, reflecting stricter rules in areas such as access to online content.
Ukraine has 44 points, Belarus has 20, and Russia has just 4. It is in penultimate place with China, Iran and Pakistan. Below it is only North Korea with 0 points.
