You see, the whole service is built by the team behind Proton Mail, so the privacy posture feels consistent across products. Apps are open-source, independently audited, and easy to use after a recent UI refresh.

The network scale is substantial, with coverage across well over a hundred countries and a large pool of high-capacity servers. Streaming access is strong on eligible plans, and P2P is allowed on designated locations.

I mean, support isn’t 24/7 yet, but response quality is solid and live chat hours cover most of the day in Europe. Altogether, Proton VPN belongs on any shortlist where privacy and streaming must coexist.

Why It’s Important to Have VPN These Days

Daily Internet use leaks more than you may realize: IP address, location hints, device traits, and a trail of DNS queries. A VPN wraps traffic in encryption and swaps your apparent IP for a server’s, reducing tracking across networks you don’t control. That matters on café Wi-Fi, school networks, airports, and rentals.

Furthermore, many services now geo-fence content, price, or features. A reputable VPN lets you choose a region to regain a consistent experience while still encrypting transport. You see, even at home, your ISP can monetize DNS lookups or throttle certain traffic. A VPN’s private DNS and tunneling blunt both behaviors.

I mean, a VPN isn’t a cure-all: it won’t fix malware, weak passwords, or scam sites. But combined with a password manager and updates, it forms a practical baseline.

But not all VPNs are made equal, and you’ll want one with independent audits, modern ciphers, and clear policies rather than marketing slogans.

Safety Tips While Using VPN

Using a VPN safely is mostly about configuration and habits. Think of the tunnel as a strong corridor; it still matters what doors you open. Below are practical, step-by-step tips that map to how Proton VPN – and similar services – actually work in the real world, including public Wi-Fi, streaming, and P2P scenarios.

Lock in a kill switch before anything else

Turn on the kill switch so traffic stops if the tunnel drops. In Proton VPN, open Settings → Connection and enable Kill Switch (consider Advanced Kill Switch if you want “VPN only” networking). Test it: connect, pull your internet briefly, and confirm apps pause rather than leak.

Match protocol to your network conditions

Start with WireGuard for speed and stability. If a network blocks VPNs, switch to the Stealth option to disguise traffic as standard HTTPS. On restrictive corporate or school networks, let “Smart Protocol” auto-select, then override manually only if you see failures or captchas.

Use split tunneling intentionally, not by default

Split tunneling routes selected apps outside the VPN. Enable it only when necessary – for example, to let a banking app use your real region while the browser stays tunneled. After setup, revisit rules monthly and keep the kill switch requirements in mind when splitting traffic.

Pick server types for your task

For streaming, select Plus-labeled or streaming-optimized locations. For P2P, connect to P2P servers and then enable port forwarding where supported. For maximum privacy, use Secure Core even though it’s slower. Favor nearby servers for gaming or video calls to keep latency down.

Pair the VPN with protective DNS filtering

Turn on NetShield to block known malware, trackers, and ad domains at the DNS layer. This reduces drive-by downloads and cuts page noise. If a site breaks, temporarily downgrade the filtering level rather than disabling the VPN entirely, then re-enable protection afterward.

Mind account, devices, and telemetry

Use a unique email and a strong password for your VPN account, plus two-factor authentication if available. In the app, disable optional usage/crash analytics if you prefer extra quiet. Periodically review signed-in devices and revoke ones you don’t recognize.

Re-check tunnel status during server changes

When you switch servers or protocols, the tunnel briefly re-establishes. Pause sensitive actions during that transition. In desktop apps, wait for the “Connected” state and a new VPN IP before resuming downloads, admin sessions, or streaming logins.

Pros and Cons of Proton VPN

Proton VPN targets privacy first without giving up consumer features like streaming and app polish. Below is how that balance shakes out in practice; the highlights reflect audits, protocol breadth, and special servers, while constraints touch support hours and a few platform quirks.

Expect quick connects, steady throughput on nearby nodes, and reliable streaming unblocks with Plus servers. If you need multi-hop or Tor over VPN, speeds drop as privacy layers increase. The free tier is practical for light use, but the full experience really starts with VPN Plus.

Proton VPN Prices

There are three tiers. Free costs nothing and focuses on basic privacy. VPN Plus unlocks the core feature set most people want. Proton Unlimited bundles the VPN with Proton Mail, Drive, Calendar, and Pass for an all-in privacy stack. Pricing varies with term and promotions.

On long terms, VPN Plus often lands in the low single digits monthly, while month-to-month sits near the standard premium rate. Expect ten simultaneous devices on paid plans, access to the full global network, all protocols including Stealth, streaming unblocking, P2P with port forwarding, Secure Core, NetShield, and Tor over VPN.

Free users connect one device and use a smaller set of locations with unlimited data but without streaming/P2P features. Refunds include a 30-day window, typically prorated by usage. If you’re testing waters, begin monthly, verify the features you care about, then switch to a discounted multi-year plan when confident.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of the different tiers offered by Proton VPN, including their current pricing (as publicly listed) and what features they unlock.

You see, selecting the right plan depends on how many devices you have, whether you stream or torrent, and how much value you want beyond just the VPN. I mean, the Free plan is genuinely usable – but if you want full access, you’ll likely move to the paid tier. And also long-term commitments often reduce the monthly cost significantly.

How Good Is the Proton VPN Free

As free VPNs go, Proton’s offering is unusually usable. It has no data cap, avoids ads, and uses the same encryption and audited apps as paid tiers. You’ll get a handful of entry locations and one device at a time. Performance fluctuates at peak hours because free servers carry heavier load.

Streaming libraries and torrenting are intentionally excluded, and advanced toggles like Secure Core or NetShield are locked. For everyday privacy on public Wi-Fi, that’s acceptable; you’ll still encrypt traffic and hide your IP. If you plan to stream regularly or seed torrents, stepping up to VPN Plus is the straightforward move.

In practice, casual users report smooth browsing, light streaming on open sites, and stable connects – especially with WireGuard. If a captive portal or network blocks VPNs, try the Stealth protocol. If speed dips, reconnect to rotate within the free pool; that often lands you on a less busy server without extra tinkering.

Conclusion

Proton VPN nails the fundamentals: audited no-logs, open-source apps, modern protocols, and strong specialty servers. It also performs where consumers notice – snappy connects, reliable unblocking on Plus servers, and practical UI. I mean, support could extend to 24/7 and macOS guidance could be clearer, but the core service is excellent.

If your priorities are privacy with credible transparency, smooth streaming access, and optional P2P with port forwarding, Proton VPN is an easy recommendation. The free plan is genuinely useful for casual protection, and VPN Plus is the sweet spot for most people. The thing is… few VPNs combine privacy pedigree and everyday convenience this well.

Setting up and Interface

An important thing to note about getting started with Webroot WiFi Security is that you only get a 7-day free trial option if you sign up through your Android or iOS smartphone. If you sign up from a desktop, you won’t get the free trial. You could, however, test the desktop client using the free trial after you’ve created an account through your mobile device and then signed in from your PC or Mac computer. This is quite odd and we have no idea why the creators of the VPN have chosen this approach but it is an important thing to bear in mind because the 7-day free trial is your only way of testing the VPN. There is no refund option so once you spend your money on the VPN, even if the service doesn’t work as expected for you, you’d be stuck with it.

Once you create an account, download and install the desktop clients or the mobile apps, and start them, the first thing you will notice the minimalistic interface of Webroot WiFi Security.

The Windows client’s starting screen offers little more than a list of countries/locations to pick from as well as a list of “Recommended” servers that should give you the best performance. There is also a simple system for favourite locations that will show you the ones you connect to the most often and that’s about it. The client doesn’t give you any details about the different servers’ ping values and it doesn’t show you the individual servers in a country. There are also no location filtering options and no mapped interface for those who prefer to have the locations visualized to them in that way.

This simplicity of the client will likely appeal to people who are not particularly familiar with the VPN-type of service, but for those with more experience and higher demands, this might seem a bit underwhelming.

The mobile apps and the macOS client offer pretty much the same functionality and clean interface so if you get used to using the any of the VPN variations, you should have no issue handling the other ones as well.

Privacy Policy

Webroot is an established and well-known North-American company that deals with Internet security for regular users and businesses alike and so this should give the customers of its VPN service some reassurance that their online traffic is in good hands. However, we still need to take a closer look at the specifics of how Webroot WiFi Security handles the data of its users. VPNs are all about keeping one’s browsing private from snooping third-parties but it is also important to remember that your data should also stay hidden from the VPN provider or else the whole purpose of using such a service would largely be defeated.

According to the privacy policy section on the site of Webroot WiFi Security, the VPN doesn’t keep tabs on your IP address, browsing activity, the data you download, share, or view, and it also doesn’t track your DNS requests. All of this is pretty standard and is to be expected from a respected VPN service. However, some logging would still be happening if you use Webroot WiFi Security. As stated in the privacy policy, the date and time of the start and end of a session does get recorded, as well as the bandwidth that is used, the country from which you’ve connected to the VPN (not your IP!), and the number of devices from which you have been using the VPN.

One other thing that caught our attention is what happens if the VPN experiences a crash. According to the privacy policy, information about what happened on the device just prior to the crash might get logged for “troubleshooting purposes only”. The information that may get logged may include DNS requests and some of the downloaded data. This is a bit unusual to say the least but, at the same time, we can see the logic behind it and how it might help prevent future crashes and improve the service as a whole.

When we compare the amount of logging done by Webroot WiFi Security in comparison to most other VPNs we’ve reviewed thus far, it’s fair to say that the logging is significantly more. However, it is still not something we’d consider a deal breaker but it still needs to be kept in mind when thinking about getting this VPN.

Another thing worth noting here is that Webroot WiFi Security has not yet been reviewed by an outsider auditor. Currently, this is the best reassurance you can get that the claims made in the privacy policy of a given VPN are indeed truthful. At the moment, very few VPNs have gone that route and seeing as how Webroot WiFi Security is still a rather new service, we won’t be surprised if it undergoes an outsider audit sometime in the future. However, until then, there is simply no way to confirm anything stated in the privacy policy section on the site of Webroot WiFi Security.

Network and Performance

The size of the network of Webroot WiFi Security is not something to get particularly excited about. It covers only 34 locations at the time of writing and, as mentioned at the start, none of the servers support P2P. On the plus side, however, the distribution of these locations across the globe is good, with the servers not being limited to only in North America and Europe, which is a rather common trait of most smaller VPNs. In addition to North America and Europe, Webroot WiFi Security also has servers in some Asian countries (India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan) as well as in some South American ones (Brazil, Argentina, Portugal), which is a nice thing to see – many VPNs don’t have servers even in a single South American country and have very few servers in Asia. Webroot WiFi Security even has South Africa as a server location – another thing we don’t see too often with the majority of VPNs.

Overall, even though the number of servers and locations for the network of Webroot WiFi Security is modest, the positioning of the servers mostly makes up for it as it ensures that the majority of users will always have a server that’s relatively near their location so that the connection speed would be adequate.

Speaking of connection speeds, Webroot WiFi Security is definitely not the fastest VPN out there. On a standard 75Mbps Internet, the average connection speed when the VPN is active and the connection goes through a server located in the same country as the user is about 60Mbps. This is nothing to be amazed by but it is still an adequate, albeit a bit below average, speed. When a more distant server is used (for instance, a user from Europe connects to an US server), the speed drops to about 40Mbps, which, considering the longer distance, is to be expected and is not something to complain about. One thing to be pointed out here, however, is that, during tests where a more distant server was used, the average speed of 40-50Mbps would occasionally drop to half of that. There could be many reasons for that so this shouldn’t be seen as a huge issue but it is important to make full use of the 7-days free trial to extensively test the VPN to see if you face any similar issues that may be a dealbreaker for you.

Features

If you are looking for a big number of advanced tools, you will likely not be impressed by Webroot WiFi Security, but as we mentioned in the start of this post, this is not a VPN service that is being sold on its huge variety of features anyway. Still, there are some options that you can play around with, other than the ability to connect and disconnect from the VPN.

For starters, Webroot WiFi Security allows you to switch between different protocols. Currently, there are four different options: L2TP, PPTP, IKEv2, and OpenVPN. For newcomers, this option may not mean much, but more experienced customers should appreciate the protocol variety.

There is a potential issue when using the OpenVPN protocol – if the connection fails, you get the “connection failure” alert in the client but there is no desktop notification, meaning that, if the client is minimized, you’d have no way of knowing that the VPN is currently keeping your traffic hidden until you open the client again. This issue, however, is negated if you toggle on the next feature we will cover.

Like most other VPNs, Webroot WiFi Security, too, has a kill-switch function, the purpose of which is to end your connection to the Internet if the VPN service suddenly stops. The idea is to prevent your traffic from getting exposed to snoopers once the VPN is no longer protecting it. However, again, when the OpenVPN protocol is used, you won’t get a desktop notification and you may not initially realize why your Internet has stopped until you open the client to see that the VPN connection has failed.

The Autostart option here is a bit more limited than that of other VPN products, as it will launch Webroot WiFi Security with the start of your computer but will not automatically initiate a connection – you will have to do that yourself, which, to some extend, defeats the purpose of having an Autostart function to begin with.

Webroot’s VPN also provides you with a powerful web-filtering feature called BrightCloud to keep you from opening potentially harmful and dangerous web addresses. This feature is definitely one of the highlights of this VPN, as it uses the same technology that is employed in Webroot’s security suites. Most other VPNs’ web-filtering tools get the job done but BrightCloud takes it a step further, making it a nice addition to this VPN package.

Content-unblocking is, to some, the most important aspect of a VPN and if a given VPN product cannot provide access to a particular geo-restricted site or service, then its usefulness goes down by quite a bit. This, however, is one of the areas that many VPNs, even well-known and popular ones, seem to struggle. Some won’t be able to unblock Amazon Prime Video, others will fail with Disney+, and most of them will not provide access to US Netflix. In the case of Webroot WiFi Security, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that this VPN has excellent unblocking functionality. It manages to bypass the geo-restrictions for the aforementioned US Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, and it also unblocks a number of other popular geo-restricted services and sites. Overall, if you want to use a VPN for unblocking, Webroot WiFi Security is a great option.

Pricing

There are only two pricing variants – the first one covers 3 devices for one year and the second one – 5 devices for a year. There are no 1-month or 6-month options and there’s also no option to extend your license to 2 or 3 years and get a discount for each consecutive year. The 1-year plan that covers 3 devices would cost you $39.99 ($3.33 effective per-month price) and the one that covers 5 devices is priced at $59.99 ($5 per effective per-month price) for the first year (note that those are discounted prices at the moment of writing and might change over time). If, after year one, you decide to go for a renewal, the prices for both of the plans go up – $39.99 becomes $59.99 for the 3-device license and $59.99 becomes $79.99 for the license that covers 5 devices. If we look at some competing brands, it might seem a bit costly, mainly due to the small number of covered devices and the lack of extending the initial license period in order to get a discount. Still, Webroot WiFi Security is definitely not the most expensive VPN available. If we compare it to Goose VPN, for example, we see that its one-year license is about 20 dollars cheaper, with Goose VPN costing $59,88 for a one-year license. However, it’s worth noting that Goose will give you an unlimited number of devices that you can cover with its VPN, so, if you have more than five devices that need a VPN, it might be better to go for that one.

Final notes

It is obvious that Webroot WiFi Security is still a relatively new VPN, as it lacks many of the more advanced functions that more established products of the same type can offer. Still, there are quite things to like about this VPN – from its well-positioned server locations and its excellent unblocking of geo-restricted content to its powerful URL-filtering feature and overall simplicity and ease-of-use. Of course, for more demanding users, this will likely not be enough and they would require more features and customization freedom from a VPN. If you are one such user, you can always go take a look at our other VPN reviews, where you surely find a product that better suits your needs.

Goose VPN is a VPN service from the Netherlands that offers good connection speeds, decent pricing, and some unblocking functionality. Goose VPN is compatible with all of the most popular platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android and it also comes with a Chrome extension.

It also places no limits on the number of devices you can use it with across all pricing plans, which is a rarity among the other VPNs. However, despite its positive traits, there are also some problems with Goose VPN and, in order to offer you an objective review of this product, we would need to cover both its strengths and weaknesses in more detail, which is what we are going to do through the rest of this write-up.

The importance of ensuring that you can browse the Internet in privacy has never been more important. Seeing as how nowadays everybody – advertisers, hackers, scammers, governments, and other third-parties – wants to learn more about your private virtual life, it can be quite difficult to retain at least some of your privacy while you are browsing the world wide web. This, in turn, has led to the exponentially increasing popularity of the type of service known as VPN. A VPN can help you prevent unnecessary exposure of your online activities to third parties and thus preserve your virtual privacy. There are also some other useful functions of VPNs (such as site-unblocking) that can also be appealing to a big number of users. However, as with any product, not all VPNs are of equal quality and offer the same value-to-price ratio. This is where our reviews can help you by giving you a more in-depth look into the good and bad sides of each VPN service that we cover. That said, if you are not too sure about the purpose of a VPN or the most important characteristics you should be looking at, we advise you to first visit this article to get a better overall understanding of this type of service as a whole. If, on the other hand, you are already familiar with VPN services, let’s get right into reviewing Goose VPN.

Overview

Goose VPN is not at the top of the list of the most popular VPNs. It is certainly overshadowed by other, bigger names, such as ExpressVPN, NordVPN, TunnelBear VPN, and so on. One of the things that are immediately noticeable is that it doesn’t offer quite the same array of customization settings and bonus features when compared to its more well-rounded competitors. However, this might actually make this VPN a rather good fit for people who have never used a VPN before and would rather stick to a more simple option that doesn’t bother you with a bunch of advanced tools that you will probably not need for the moment. With these things in mind, right off the bat, we’d say that, if this is the first time you are getting a VPN, Goose VPN could be a good option for you. Still, don’t go right ahead and purchase it before you’ve gone through the whole review.

Setting up, Interface, and ease-of-use

Very few VPNs have any specifics during their setup and Goose VPN is not an exception here. Whether you want to install either of its desktop clients or mobile apps, Goose VPN is easy to set up and you should face no difficulties. A nice thing worth noting here is that you won’t get charged during the first month of use despite having provided your banking details, which gives you the option to cancel your subscription without paying anything during this 30-day period. This is a nice form of a free trial and it allows you to freely test the service before deciding you want to commit to it.

Once you install the desktop client and start the VPN, you will notice that its interface doesn’t overwhelm you with any intimidating settings and options. You are just given a list of locations and a map to visualize them. You can pick a location using either of those tools. However, there isn’t a Favorites system, meaning that you’d have to manually find your preferred location each time. A plus here is that the locations which support P2P are shown as such.

Once you go to the settings’ section, you will see that there isn’t too much going on there. You have the option to choose between four different protocol types (IKEv2, L2TP/IPSec, PPtP, and OpenVPN) or set Goose VPN to automatically choose the best one for the occasion. The other options in the Settings section are for enabling/disabling the extra features of the VPN, but there are not that many such features to begin with so there aren’t too many settings to play around with.

The mobile apps are even more stripped down – they do have the same dashboard with the map and the servers list but most of the settings you get with the desktop client aren’t there. In fact, the only thing you can configure here is whether to allow the app to automatically connect to the best server for you or to manually choose the server you want to connect to.

All in all, users who are newcomers to the VPN-type of service should be relieved that there aren’t any overly-complex options in the desktop clients or mobile apps of Goose VPN. However, more experienced and demanding users will probably be a bit underwhelmed by the lack of variety and customization freedom and might lean more towards more advanced VPN products.

Privacy and Security

Since VPNs are all about keeping your browsing private and boosting your online security, these aspects of each individual VPN service are essential to the overall reliability of the product. This is why you must never overlook the details regarding the privacy policy and security levels of a given VPN you may consider purchasing. It’s also important to remember that, even if a certain VPN does a good job at preventing third parties from monitoring your browsing, this doesn’t mean that the owners of the VPN themselves do not keep tabs on what you are doing online and use the acquired info for their benefit.

When it comes to Goose VPN, after going through what’s written on its official site with regard to these aspects, we can say that, on paper, the service can be deemed reliable. According to the privacy policy of Goose VPN, the user’s Internet activity doesn’t get tracked or recorded. This includes data such as visited sites, DNS requests, incoming and outgoing emails, usernames and passwords, IP addresses, and any other personally-identifiable data. The VPN also doesn’t log data about which servers of its network you use. The only information that gets recorded is how much bandwidth you’ve used, which is perfectly understandable.

In terms of security, a good thing about Goose VPN is that the people behind it own and themselves manage the servers from the VPN network. This is great news as it tightens the control that the creators of the VPN have over their network which, in turn, boosts security.

One theoretical security-related issue with Goose VPN, however, is its OpenVPN configuration. The issue here is that server certificate authentication isn’t used with this protocol, which might potentially allow attackers to disguise themselves as Goose VPN servers and intercept your traffic. Again, this is a theoretical problem that is unlikely to transfer into real life but it is still there and it is still worth mentioning and keeping in mind, especially since most other VPNs out there don’t have this issue.

Another note we must make here is that Goose VPN is yet to be audited by an impartial outsider. To be fair, very few VPNs have gone through an outsider audit but this is an important step to confirm the privacy and security claims made by the VPNs owners. Until this is done, there’s no way for regular users to be sure that anything said by the VPN company about the data collection or security measures of their product is a hundred percent true. Of course, these audits are costly which is also a possible reason why a lot of VPNs have not gone through them, but the fact that Goose VPN hasn’t been audited is still something you must bear in mind.

Network and Performance

The network of Goose VPN is rather modest, with only 25 countries where its servers can be found. Most of those countries are located in Europe and there are also some servers in Asia, North America, and Australia but no South America or Africa. Overall, the size of the network isn’t particularly impressive and users from out of Europe, Australia, or North America are very likely to have no server near them.

On the plus side, if there is a nearby server you can connect to, you can expect good connection speeds of around 66-67Mbps if you are on a standard 75Mbps Internet. Connections from Europe that use USA servers also yield satisfying speeds between 40 and 60Mbps so even if you are using a more distant server, you can still get some decent performance.

One interesting thing is that, if a single user ends up consuming more than 1% of the entire bandwidth of the VPN network, they will be approached by the company and asked to decrease their bandwidth usage or to make bigger payments. This is disclosed on the official site of the VPN and we like the addition of this measure as it ensures that no one will be able to abuse the network at the expense of other users’ connection speeds.

Features

We already established that Goose VPN is not a particularly feature-rich service as it really doesn’t offer any impressive or advanced tools to its customers. Still, most of the basics are here, so let’s take a look at them.

The kill-switch – this is a very important tool for every VPN as its purpose is to cut your Internet connection if the VPN server you are using goes down or if the whole service itself malfunctions. Stopping the Internet connection whenever this happens helps keep your traffic private by not allowing it to continue after it is no longer being hidden by the VPN. For the most part, Goose VPN’s kill-switch works well but you might sometimes experience a problem where the client crashes and won’t start to connect again until you restart the computer. This isn’t a huge deal and the fix to it is easy but could still be irritating at times.

DNS leak prevention – this feature keeps your DNS from getting leaked while you are using the VPN. DNS leaks could lead to third-parties snooping on your traffic even while you have your VPN service enabled, so it’s a good idea to keep this feature enabled at all times.

Smart server list – when enabled, this feature will automatically connect you to the best server available in the location you’ve chosen. If it is disabled, you will be able to pick from a list of all the servers in said location.

Unblocking – in terms of unblocking capabilities, Goose VPN is something of a mixed bag. While it does unblock US Netflix – one of the most challenging services for a VPN to unblock – it fails at providing access to Amazon Prime Video, Disney +, or BBC iPlayer. If you are looking for a VPN that unblocks everything, you may need to look elsewhere. If, however, you want to gain access to US Netflix from another country, Goose has got you covered, and its high connection speeds will allow you to stream video content from Netflix without any interruptions.

P2P – P2P is supported by this VPN but, as noted above, the servers in only two of the available locations (the USA and the Netherlands) offer this and so if you live far away from those countries, connection speeds may be too low for you to use it effectively.

There are pretty much no other additional features that come with Goose VPN – there’s no VPN-hiding feature or a split-tunneling one, so more demanding users will likely not be amazed by what Goose VPN has to offer them.

Pricing

Considering the lack of any advanced bonus features and some other complaints we had with this product, the $12,99 per-month price seems to be a bit high. For comparison, VyprVPN, which offers a very wide array of extra features and tools, has a similar monthly price of $12,95. Of course, if you pay for a one-year or two-year subscription with Goose VPN, the monthly price would drop significantly. For instance, the one-year plan costs $59,88, which equals $4,99 a month, and the two-year plan further discounts the default price to $2,99 a month or $71,76 for the whole two-year period. Again, however, the aforementioned Vypr VPN has a better offering for its one- and two-year plans, which are priced at $45 and $60 respectively. Similarly, other competing VPNs also seem to have better pricing plans that are less expensive and offer more features. A final pricing plan from Goose VPN is its “Lifetime” offering, which gives you a permanent license for the service and costs $139 (at the moment of writing). Depending on how long you may end up using Goose VPN, the Lifetime plan might give you the most value. However, considering that this VPN isn’t the most feature-rich one and you may eventually end up transitioning to another, more advanced VPN, we are not sure whether we’d recommend going for it. If, on the other hand you’d like to explore more VPN options, you can find more VPN reviews we’ve written right here.

Final Notes

For newcomers to VPN in general, Goose VPN might be a good option due to its simple interface, ease of use, and its reliable connection speed. Also, if you are a user who needs to use a VPN on a big number of devices, this could also be a particularly good choice as there’s no limit on the number of devices you can cover with this VPN. This fact alone could potentially make this service a rather good choice for business owners who need a VPN that extends to all of their workstations.

Despite these strengths of the service, however, we cannot overlook the negatives we found when reviewing it. The small network, the absence of a third-party audit, the inability to unblock popular services and sites, as well as the unexpectedly high pricing all contribute to this VPN being a mixed bag. Not that it isn’t worth trying out, especially since there is a 30-day free trial, but you must keep in mind the downsides of the service before you decide to commit to it. If you are fine with the mentioned cons and don’t need a particularly feature-filled VPN service, it won’t do any harm trying Goose VPN out and seeing if it does the job for you.

And the minute you load PIA’s website, this becomes apparent. The network has in excess of 2,600 servers, all supporting P2P, spread across 47 different countries around the world. In addition, the provider supports all commonly used platforms such as Windows, Mac and Linux. And mobile device users can also benefit from it on their Android and iOS smartphones or tablets. Furthermore, PIA even has browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Opera if you’re interested in those.  

The powerful VPN will allow customers to connect up to 10 devices at the same time, which is rather impressive comparing to most of the competition. There are a bunch of other extras that we’ll get into further on in this review, but to just briefly mention a few of them, there’s ad- end tracker-blocking features, malicious URL filters, encryption and authentication configurability and more. And if you ever run into any difficulties, you can rely on PIA’s speedy 24/7 support to help you out – also via live chat.

One of the things that makes PIA stand out from other providers is that its network service is open source. Hence, anyone can view the source code of all the apps and desktop clients on GitHub.

Getting started

There are three plans that you can choose from on the provider’s website. These are a monthly, annual and bi-annual plans. The monthly plan can seem quite costly and will set you back $10.90 per month. But sign up for a year and that price drops dramatically down to just $3.65 per month. The bi-annual offers the best bargain and it comes down to $2.95/month, and you even get an additional two free months.

There are plenty of payment options available, including PayPal, credit cards, Bitcoin and other alternatives such as AmazonPay. And typically for this industry now, there is no free trial to make use of. Instead, users can take advantage of the 30-day money back guarantee if they aren’t happy with the service.

So once that’s all out of the way and you’ve selected your desired plan, you can proceed to the download of the client. You are immediately redirected to a page that offers a surprising amount of helpful information on how to complete the setup process. The Windows client even allows you to choose between the 32-bit and 64-bit builds, as well as opt for earlier versions of the software if for some reason the latest one is causing you troubles.

The OpenVPN configuration is also made as easy and streamlined as possible, with all of the files named by country and region. There are even separate downloads available for the different encryption settings if you’d rather not deal with the default OpenVPN settings. And if you think that’s highly thoughtful, wait until you see the OpenVPN Configuration Generator on the website. With its help, you can build your own setups for separate groups of servers, which can save you a lot of time and effort.

Logging & privacy

When it comes to logging, most VPN service providers only give you their word for it. Usually there’s statements plastered over the website saying that the company doesn’t collect your information and all you can do is choose to either trust those statements or not.

Private Internet Access, on the other hand, is huge on its no-logging policy. And not only does it make bold statements about it, it has undeniable proof to back them up. The company has been served with subpoenas asking to release account information, but all that was given were general server IP locations. So that should already be evidence enough that the company doesn’t store any user data whatsoever.

But no. PIA takes it a step further than that even.

The company published a transparency report where you can check the above for yourself. And then you can find the corresponding article on the provider’s website where it’s explained in detail that they do not collect or store any data related to their subscribers at all. In addition, the company has also reached out to independent auditors to have an external party evaluate their systems, which is also very encouraging.

As far as privacy goes, PIA uses highly secure OpenVPN protocols to make sure you browsing data is safe. But you can even tweak those protocols to match your needs if you want stronger encryption, for example, or if you want to remove it completely and boost your speed.

PIA’s VPN boasts something called a MACE feature, which automatically blocks web locations that are known to be used by malware, trackers and ads. And the company also has its own DNS to minimize the risk of DNS leaks. But you can use whatever DNS you prefer, as this is another one of the many flexible options here.

Another great safety feature is the kill switch, which is available on the Android and iOS apps, as well as on the desktop clients. It can disable your internet access in the event that the connection to the VPN is dropped. And it handled all of our testing really well. It’s not uncommon for kill switches to be utterly useless with many VPN services, but in this case we were notified every time the connection was dropped and our real IP was never revealed.

Windows client

We really enjoyed playing around with the Windows client. As mentioned earlier, setting it up is a piece of cake – anyone will be able to handle it with ease. And once that’s done, you’ll be greeted by a pleasant interface and a large button labeled as ‘Connect’. There’s a very sophisticated location picker to help you choose a location with a list of cities and countries, as well as the respective ping times. There are sorting options available and even a search box if you’re looking for a specific location. Aside from that, you can also make use of the Favorites system to short list your most-used servers.

As you may have already guessed it, PIA is quite big on offering high levels of customization to its subscribers. And so if you head over to the Settings section of the client you will find a bunch of controls that will enable you to configure how the VPN works. You can change anything from the encryption to the authentication method and more.

All in all, the Windows client was a real pleasure to work with. It seems deceptively basic in the very beginning, but that’s only until you start exploring the various options it comes packed with. And it’s also very easy to navigate those.

Android & iOS app

Both the Android and iOS versions of the client share the same streamlined and neat interface, which is somewhat unusual when it comes to VPN’s. They even share most of the same core functionalities, and both will greet you with a minimalistic design that comes with your typical large On/Off button in the middle of the screen.

Choosing a desired location is pretty easy, and there’s a favorites list to save your most commonly used servers. And there’s a surprising number of configurable settings in the mobile apps as well. For example, you can choose to switch between the different encryption options, as well as choose UDP and TCP connections. In addition to that, both apps will also allow you to replace the default DNS servers with your own.

The kill switch is available for the mobile versions of the client as well, in the case the VPN is dropped at any point. And we were pleased to find that it is just as capable as the desktop version. But if you want something a little extra, then the Android version of the application has something called the ‘always on’ feature. There’s a link with detailed explanation as to what it is available directly in the app.

A really cool feature that you’ll find both in the iOS and Android applications is PIA’s InBrowser. This is a special private browser for mobile devices that erases all traces of your activity after you’ve closed it. And it works exactly as advertised. Oh and Apple users will be pleased to know that the Private Internet Access VPN also supports Dark Mode.

Performance

We ran several tests to see whether the Private Internet Access VPN performed as the provider says it does. And we were quite happy to find that it did. All of the server locations appeared to be exactly as advertised, and we checked quite a few of them.

In addition to that, the connection time was very decent and probably even a little better than a substantial portion of the competition.

Download speeds were really good too. Our nearest servers managed an average speed of just under 70Mbps on a 75Mbps connection, so that’s less than 7% slower than if we were to have the VPN switched off. Some providers we’ve reviewed here did a little better, but it certainly wasn’t by much and the difference would most likely go completely in a real-world scenario.

Support

Customer support is also offered on a high level with PIA’s VPN. There’s a support center on the website with articles that cover most troubleshooting issues. They offer plenty of details technical information on all sorts of things, including the encryption and authentication methods.

There’s also a guides section on the website with many useful tutorials and articles to help set up the software on all the many different supported platforms. But not all of them are just for the setup, there are plenty of articles and guides on how to make use of the various functionalities and such, too. In fact, 14 of these guides are for Android alone, so there’s much to explore.

And if for whatever reason the information published on the website isn’t sufficient to help you with your problem, you can always reach out to customer support. Before support was available at all times, but only via email, even though response time was still very quick. But as of very recently, though, Private Internet Access has also added the option to speak to a customer support agent via live chat. We found them to be quite helpful and quick, which is already a lot given what you pay for the service.

To sum it up

Private Internet Access offers an all-around great, powerful VPN service that doesn’t seem to compromise much in any of the key areas. You get support for pretty much all operating systems, there’s a ton of configurable settings and options along with a whole range of advanced features, performance is on point and you get it at all at a decent price. We would certainly recommend considering this provider if you’re on the lookout for a new VPN.

A VPN service packed with features and a very generous free plan.  

Pros:

• Up to 10GB free data allowance upon registration with email.
• Very flexible plan offerings
• Reliable protection through military-grade encryption
• Effective site unblocking

Cons:

• Support can be slow and is not available 24/7
• There is no Live Chat
• It can take a while to receive app upgrades

Windscribe is a popular and simple-to-use VPN service which offers a decent set of handy features and one of the most flexible plan offerings in the market. Users of the service can choose from locations in more than 100 cities in 62 countries. What is more, Windscribe says that its servers are really located in those places.

A number of VPN client apps can cover you up on any device and operating system that you use, including iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux. There are extensions for Chrome, Opera and Firefox that give you even more ways to connect, plus some great privacy-related extras that can add additional layers of protection for your web browsing.

The official website of Windscribe provides detailed instructions to help you set up the VPN service on routers, Amazon Fire TV,  Kodi, Nvidia Shield, as well as on any device that is compliant with the OpenVPN protocol.

A strong AES-256 encryption, IKEv2 and OpenVPN support take care of your online safety and keep your tunnel traffic protected from prying eyes. There are also embedded stealth technologies that try to mask your VPN usage with the idea to provide access even to sites that actively block VPN traffic. You are also protected from unwanted ads, trackers and malware through a DNS-based tool named ROBERT which goes way beyond a basic DNS blacklist tool. ROBERT gives you more control and flexibility than many of the competitors’ apps typically deliver. Windscribe even allows you to purchase a static IP address or add a residential IP address. This greatly increases your chances of accessing blocked pages.

If you need any help, ticket support is available. There are also a lot of resources on the official website.  However, support is not active 24/7 and may take you a while to get a response from the in-house team. The Windscribe’s own subreddit is a valuable knowledge base, though. There you can see what the real Windscribe users chat about, their concerns and issues – a transparency that is hardly seen in other VPN providers.

The company has recently been busy providing major updates for its VPN client applications and extensions. A stylish new look is applied to all of them. The latest iOS app allows for network whitelisting, enables IKEv2 and OpenVPN support, as well as shortcuts to Siri. The Android VPN app supports IKEv2 and OpenVPN as well as split tunnels to decide which programs use the tunnel and which don’t. The latest browser extensions enable city-level location selection, and come with privacy-boosting extras focused on protection against malware and phishing sites, WebRTC blocking,  website notification blocking and location API spoofing. There is also streaming support that unblocks almost any site.

Some of the latest changes and additions include:

• Users of the free plan can now access locations in Turkey
• ROBERT now fully blocks CNAME cloaked trackers on all servers.
• All Windscribe servers can have Wireguard configurations.

Windscribe also provides a very generous free service in comparison to other competitors.

Are you already excited to explore more about Windscribe’s features? Let’s take a deeper look then.

Setting up a VPN client

If you want to set up a VPN client, the official Windscribe website welcomes you with a “Get Started” button which takes you to a Download page. The site automatically highlights the best choice for your device but you can also access links to installation packages for Mac, Android, iOS and other operating systems, as well as guides for router setup, Linux setup and more.

You can create an account for the VPN service only by entering a username and a password. That automatically gives you 2 GB of data allowance per month. If you provide your email, you get 10 GB and if you Tweet about Windscribe, you end up with 15 GB. Just for comparison, competitors such as Avira Phantom VPN’s free package gives you only 500MB of data per month and other providers aren’t even that generous.

What might be a bit more complicated with Windscribe is to manually set up the servers (a functionality that is not available for users of the free plan), especially if they are using OpenVPN. In this case, you will be required to manually define the type (TCP or UDP) and the port of your connection. This should be repeated for every server that you want to download. This is not the case with most competitors, where you usually can download hundreds of server configuration files into an archive, unpack them and then use them all immediately.

However, with this manual method of configuration, you have great flexibility and can, for example, use OpenVPN UDP on some locations for speed, whereas others will use TCP for reliability. Windscribe also has specific web tools for generating IVEv2 and SOCKS5 configurations, which enable you to change all your manual VPN connections.

• Windows client
  

The Windows client interface greets you with a panel showing a list of locations, an On/Off button, and some status information. When you tap the default location, a full list of countries opens where you can see the available servers. Each server has an indication for latency to help you find the fastest one. It is also possible to label countries as “Favorites” and to display them at the top for zero-scroll connection later.

The free plan gives access to limited number of servers and countries (US, Canada, France, the Netherlands, UK, Switzerland , Norway, Romania, Hong Kong). A Windows desktop notification lets you know whether you are protected by changing its interface from grey to blue.

A standout feature of the Windscribe’s Windows client is its ability to import custom OpenVPN configuration files from other providers and display these servers along with its own. This makes it possible to use the Windscribe desktop app as an interface for other free VPN providers.

You can find a variety of connection choices in the “Preferences” dialog. For instance, you can select your preferred protocol manually, try bypassing some VPN blocking, remove the need for DNS by using a special API Resolution system and set up a proxy (HTTP or SOCKS).

The Windows client even supports the use of the device as a secure wireless hotspot, or as a proxy gateway. Through this feature, your other devices  (which support Wi-Fi or proxy) can take advantage of Windscribe without any special VPN setups or an app of their own.

Some other extras include the ability to sort the location list by country, by latency, alphabetically, etc. A local view log option provides a detailed overview of recent program actions, which is great for tracking and detecting issues. Experts may even pick their preferred TAP driver and OpenVPN version or incorporate custom OpenVPN parameters, allowing for much greater control over the operation of the connections.  

• Mobile apps
  

The main panel of the mobile VPN client apps of Windscribe is almost identical to the Windows panel. There is an On/Off button and status information, as well as a list of countries (expandable to cities) that allows you to select the server you want. There are also lists to Favorites and dedicated streaming locations, as well as a Custom Config list (probably used for enabling other VPN servers within the Windscribe’s interface).

The “Preferences” panel in the mobile apps is packed with features and customization options. A Connection log helps you to choose which apps you want to use the VPN and which not (split tunneling), select the protocol type (OpenVPN UDP, TCP, IKEv2 or Stealth) and your preferred port. There is also integration with Android Always-On that allows you to set up a system-wide kill switch, enable GPS spoofing, block or allow local network traffic and more.

There is a Network Whitelisting tool which lets Windscribe to automatically connect the moment non-trusted networks are accessed. This allows for the service to automatically protect you when you surf in a coffee shop, for example, and intelligently shut off when you connect to your home network.

• Browser extensions
  

Windscribe offers simple and fast way to connect your Chrome, Firefox and Opera browser to their VPN service through browser extensions. These extensions have a modern and sleek interface and operate as simple proxies that protect your browser traffic. This may not seem like much but is your easiest way to go if you need a VPN for basic browsing. Autopilot mode helps you to connect to the best location in just a click. You can select countries or specific cities from a list and mark them as “Favorites”.

Ad and malware blocking is taken care of with a ROBERT tool that keeps away malicious and phishing pages, bandwidth sucking adverts, trackers, widgets for social media and more.

The extensions include several additional data security features that block WebRTC leaks and change your GPS position and time zone in order to better match the selected Windscribe server and make it harder to get tracked. All that we highlight speaks about how powerful the extensions are, but this isn’t only our opinion. A quick look on the high rating of Windscribe’s browser extensions proves that most users share the same opinion.

Performance and user experience

For the purpose of testing Windscribe VPN, an automated tool is used to log into servers based in different geolocations, check their connection time, latency issues and actual physical location. According to the results, the service connects without errors with sample servers in Europe, UK and the US. The average connecting time with OpenVPN takes about 12 seconds but switching to IKEv2 protocol brings the time down to 3-4 seconds. Latency problems are not detected during our tests and servers appear to be located in the countries they are advertised.

Testing the download speed from the nearest servers in UK and US locations gives positive results, reaching an average of 68 Mbps on a 75 Mbps connection. The results from a download performance evaluation using benchmarking sites such as TestMy.net and SpeedTest are also impressive with download speeds reaching about 250 Mbps on average.

If you want to test the service for yourself, Windscribe provides you with up to 10 GB of data per month, with access to many locations and high-speed servers with its free plan. This is something that many VPN providers don’t offer and is something that you can use to your advantage to evaluate  the Windscribe service before you decide to buy it.

Streaming

Connecting to a VPN may allow you to access content that is location restricted. For instance, if you want to watch US only YouTube videos or US Netflix, it would be more than welcome if your VPN service can unblock this content for you.

Many competitor VPN services, however, fail to unblock popular streaming sites effectively. Moreover, content providers of restricted content try to detect and block traffic that comes from VPN. In our tests, Windscribe proves effective in avoiding the blocks and lets you access US YouTube, US Netflix, BBC iPlayer streamings and Amazon Prime Video through various US and UK locations without problems even with the free plan.

In fact, in its paid plans, Windscribe provides a virtual location called Windflix US which enables users to access Netflix without having to try different servers manually until they find a server that works.  The VPN service also has virtual servers in the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada for streaming Netflix and they perform great during tests, unlike other competitors.

Torrenting

Windscribe is very transparent about its torrent support unlike many other VPN providers. In their “Status” page, the company provides a list of locations that support P2P and locations that don’t. In the Windscribe apps, the locations where torrenting isn’t allowed are marked with crossed-out “P2P” and the rest support it.

Privacy policy and data logging

Windscribe’s privacy features include AES-256 encryption, with SHA512 authentication, a 4096bit RSA key and support for maximum protection. The keys are not re-used, so even if a malicious attacker takes a hold of a private key, they can only access the data of one session.

Multiple strategies are used to mitigate leakage, restrict IPv6 traffic and re-route DNS requests through the tunnel so that the VPN server can handle them, including in the apps. There is also a kill switch to prevent all Internet access in case the VPN connection fails.

A check on Windscribe’s performance on a Windows 10 system with websites like IPLeak, DNSLeakTest and DoILeak shows no DNS or other disturbing leaks of private details.Forcibly closing the VPN connection with the kill switch on results in immediately blocking the Internet access and preventing potential leakage of data followed by a reconnect attempt. 

Unlike many other VPN providers, Windscribe has a clearly defined and refreshingly brief privacy policy on their website, outlining what type of data the company does collect and what doesn’t. 

The long-term logging is restricted to the total bandwidth that you have utilized during one month (essential in the management of your free plan usage) and a time record of your last activity on the service, which allows the identification of inactive accounts.

The service does collect some details about your connection such as your username, the VPN server you are connected to, bandwidth used during the session, number of connected devices and a few more details. These, however, are stored only in the VPN server’s RAM and are lost when the session is terminated.

As the company states in its privacy policy, they do not keep records on what IP address the users use and what their browsing history is. These claims are backed up by a report that transparently reveals the numbers of DMCA and Law Enforcement data requests throughout the year. It states that “Exactly zero requests were complied with due to lack of relevant data.”

Many competitors, however, go a step further and invite independent audits to check their systems for privacy issues and logging. Thus, the  reassuring words on Windscribe’s website aren’t enough to convince us about their privacy policy and we would like to see them (and other VPN providers) have their systems publicly audited.

Still, it is worth taking into account the fact that Windscribe gives you 2 GB of data per month without requiring your e-mail or other personal details totally for free. This may not be enough for heavy downloaders or streaming users, but is more than enough to protect your basic browsing data and provide you with anonymity when online.

Plans and pricing

The free plan of Windscribe provides a comfortable 2 GB of data transfer per month. If you register with your email, however, you automatically get 10 GB. There are just 10 servers in the package, located in North America, Hong Kong and Europe, but that is still more than what you can get from many other VPN providers.

The paid plan, naturally, gives you unlimited data, access to 110 locations and the opportunity to customize the settings for OpenVPN, IKEv2 and SOCKS5. Simultaneous connections have no irritating restrictions and you can set up and use the service wherever you want. A small print, however, forbids sharing your account with others.

Prices are very affordable and competitive compared to what you can get from the annual plans of many VPN providers that are currently on the market. A monthly subscription will cost you just $9. And if you pay upfront for one year, the price drops down to just $4.08 per month.

But there is something even sweeter – Windscribe has a “Buld a Plan” scheme that may save you money by letting you pick just the locations you need for $1 each. With each selected location, you get 10 GB to your free bandwidth limit. Minimum two locations are required for your package. This means that, you can build a plan with UK and US locations, for example, and you will get 20 BG of data. Add that to your initial free 10 GB data allowance provided that you register with your email address and you can create a package of 30 GB in total for just $2 a month. An upgrade to unlimited data will cost you only a dollar more. This is a great deal if you aren’t looking for a long-term subscription. Besides, the flexibility that the “Build a plan” scheme offers is a major plus that isn’t seen in the offerings of other VPN providers.

If the full VPN service is not something that you need all the time, the free package may be the perfect solution for basic use as it gives you more than enough data (plus a number of ways to increase the bandwidth limit) for simple browsing. For your convenience, Windscribe offers you a variety of payment methods, such as cash, PayPal, Bitcoin and other cryptcurrencies, as well as gift cards and more.

Support

Windscribe is a great place to get answers to your questions in case that you are having some troubles with the service. There are setup guides that cover up the major operating systems and devices, including smart TVs, torrent clients, routers and more.

If you are having troubles with the browser extensions, however, you might have your questions unanswered since the help pages that provide setup guides for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera extensions link to YouTube videos of July 2016. Comments are allowed but most of the questions that people have posted are without an answer.

Fortunately, the support team can be contacted directly. You can send an email or fill in the contact form on the website to raise a ticket. The precise amount of time it would take to receive a reply is not clear, though. The company explains that with its relatively small team consisting of only 13 people which is not able to provide a 24/7 support to its millions of users, including the free accounts.

In a positive note, though, Windscribe points out that it doesn’t outsource the support and does it all in-house, which guarantees that, even if you have to wait a bit longer for an answer, you are likely to get an expert solution from a team member that is actively engaged.

Final words

Windscribe is a VPN service provider that offers great value for the price. Its free and paid packages comes with a set of privacy protection extras that guarantee your online anonymity and some of the most flexible and generous offerings that you can currently find on the market. Of course, we do have some reservations related to the lack of 24/7 support and independent audit when it comes to data logging, as well as the time needed to receive a reply from the team. However, these are unlikely to have a major negative effect on the overall performance and user experience. Thus, we would suggest you to start with installing the free version of Windscribe’s VPN service and give it a try.

Setting up and Interface

There’s nothing difficult about setting up VyprVPN – its official site makes everything clear and understandable for everyone. There, you can find useful guides and tips on how to set up each of the different VPN programs and apps. Speaking of VyprVPN programs and apps, there are versions for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS and you can even find instructions on the VPN’s site on how to set up the VPN on Linux machines and Chromebooks or how to add it to your router. Additionally, you can find useful information for each VyprVPN app that tells you about the supported protocols, operating system requirements, and changes brought by the different updates. Few other VPNs go the extra mile to offer their customers this information so we highly appreciate the effort.

Once the desktop client or the mobile app for the VPN is installed and you open it, you are asked to provide your username and password that you’ve set up when purchasing the VPN and you are ready to begin. The desktop clients and the mobile apps look and feel quite similar, with a few minor differences dictated by the difference in the platform. The interface of VyprVPN is always simple and minimalistic across the different platforms – there is no map and, instead, you are given a helpful and potent location picker, under the Servers button, that shows you the available locations, informs you about their ping, and gives you the option to add locations to a Favorites list.

The button labeled Customize will send you to the settings menu of the VPN, where you are given quite a lot of customization freedom without being overwhelmed by any overly-technical options and settings. We will talk more about the different things you can change from the Customize menu when we get to the Features section.

Security and Privacy

VyprVPN is one of the VPN services that take things such as connection security and user privacy seriously and do not seem to cut corners in this regard.

In terms of security, the VPN supports solid forms of encryption such as SHA384, HMAC, AES-256, and even TLS-ECDHE-RSA-2048. This last one can ensure that each connection instance is secured by a different key so that even in the event that a trespassing third-party manages to get hold of the private key, they will only be able to monitor this specific connection but will still not have a key for your next connections. A system-wide kill-switch also helps keep your connections secure in case the VPN goes down but we will talk more about this in a bit. We understand that this could be needlessly technical for lots of users so, to sum up, the security of VyprVPN is on point and you won’t go wrong with it if connection security is your main priority.

But what about privacy? Your data might be protected from third parties with VyprVPN but is it protected from the owners of the VPN? Well, this is a good question and a big problem with VPNs, in general, is that it’s oftentimes unclear how much of the user’s online data gets logged by the owners of the VPN one is using. There is a way, however, to know how transparent a VPN provider is willing to be with its customers and that way is through the third-party evaluation of the product by impartial auditors. Not many VPNs are willing to go through the trouble of bringing in an outsider to examine their product, which is why the ones who do that are to be commended. VyprVPN is indeed one of those VPNs that has gone through a third-party audit and the results were mostly positive, confirming VyprVPN’s statements about its no-logging policy. In other words, this VPN tracks and stores no data about your IP address, browsing, the sites you visit, the searches you make online, your DNS requests, or session times. The audit has detected some small inconsistencies but by the end it the evaluation of the VPN was over, those have been resolved by Vypr. One thing worth noting here, however, is that the audit we speak of was performed back in 2018, so there has been around a year and a half since the last time this VPN has been tested. While this doesn’t mean that much has changed (especially for the worse) with the security or privacy of VyprVPN, we’d like to see another audit to confirm that the service is indeed still strict with its standards. Some other VPNs, such as TunnelBear, make sure to get their services audited each year to ensure users that they can be trusted and relied upon. Nevertheless, we’d still say that VyprVPN can be regarded as a highly-secure and privacy-oriented VPN, which is a very important trait.

Network and Performance

VyprVPN doesn’t have the biggest network, with a number of servers around 700, but this doesn’t tell the whole story, because those 700+ servers are nicely distributed across over 70 locations (64 countries). What’s even better is that those locations aren’t limited to only Europe and North America but there are also quite a few of them in different parts of Asia, in Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Oceania. This locations’ distribution is something we liked quite a lot as it means that even people who do not live in a country where the VPN has servers, the likelihood of having a server located in a relatively near country is quite high. The proximity of the server you use directly affects the sped of your connection so it’s important to be able to connect to a nearby server to get the best speed. Another nice thing about VyprVPN is that its network is it’s own. Unlike some other VPNs that use servers from a network that isn’t owned by them, all of the servers in VyprVPN’s network are owned by the VPN’s creators. This, combined with the fact that Golden Frog, the company behind VyprVPN, is situated in Switzerland (a country known for its strict privacy laws), gives users quite the reassurance that their browsing activities will stay private and will not fall under the jurisdiction of a country that may not have such strong laws on privacy.

Of course, a VPN also needs to have good connection speeds, or else, no matter how secure and safe it is, it won’t really matter if it takes ages to reach the sites you want. In the case of VyprVPN, connection speed is decent if you are using a server within the same country. When tested on a regular 75Mbps Internet, the connection speed varies between 60 and 70Mbps, which isn’t amazing but is still quite adequate. However, if you try to connect to a more distant server, this number quickly changes and drops quite significantly. For example, if you are in France and try to connect to the nearest US server, you are unlikely to get speeds higher than 35Mbps. This is a bit disappointing considering that many lower-tier VPNs could give you significantly higher speeds when put through the same test. This is where the fact that VyprVPN has servers all over the globe becomes quite important, because, as we said, it means that it is less likely that there won’t be a server that is relatively near to your location.

Unblocking and P2P

If the main reason you are looking for a VPN is to be able to access certain geo-restricted sites or web services, then VyprVPN is quite a good pick for your future VPN. Many (most) VPN products do come with some unblocking abilities but their success rates tend to vary, and many of them fail to provide access to some of the most popular location-restricted content, including Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, etc. When it comes to VyprVPN, we can say that its potency for unblocking such sites is excellent – it has no problems bypassing the geo-restrictions of US Netflix, US Youtube, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime, and other similar sites/services. The only one it seems to struggle with a little bit is Disney+, where streaming is still possible but you’d need to have a direct link to the video you’d like to stream as trying to visit the login page of the service using VyprVPN doesn’t work at the moment of writing this. Overall, as far as its unblocking potential goes, VyprVPN is a very good choice for a VPN.

If, on the other hand, you are looking for a P2P-supporting VPN, though you will probably not find it mentioned on the official site of VyprVPN, P2P is indeed supported by the service so it can be used for that as well.

Features

The features that come with VyprVPN vary depending on which desktop client or mobile app you are using. The VPN version with the most perks, customization options, and features is the Windows client, followed by the Android app. The iOS and macOS versions are a bit more stripped down of any additional functions.

With the Windows client, you get the system-wide kill-switch we already mentioned. This feature will stop your access to the Internet if the connection to the VPN is interrupted so as to prevent your traffic from getting exposed. You are also given the option to choose between three different VPN encryption protocols – OpenVPN, IKEv2, and VyprVPN’s own protocol – Chameleon – which, according to the VPN’s creators, can help you access sites that block the use of VPN.

You can also choose whether the VPN should automatically activate whenever you connect to a public Wi-Fi – a simple, but useful feature, that we don’t see all that often with other VPNs.

Another option you are given with the Windows client is to set the VPN to automatically reconnect to the Internet after the kill-switch has been activated once the VPN comes back online.

There are also some other more basic options, such as making the VPN activate on startup, but those are available with the majority of VPN services on the market so there’ s no need to go over them here.

On the Android app, there is an added URL-filtering feature that, when enabled, will keep you from visiting sites that could potentially be compromised. The feature doesn’t altogether stop you from visiting the potentially unsafe address and, instead, it warns you but still gives you the option to proceed to the site.

There’s also a Connection Per App option that is basically split-tunneling – it gives you the option to choose which apps on your phone will connect to the Internet through the VPN and which will connect regularly for better connection speed in case you don’t need their traffic to be protected by VyprVPN.

However, with the Android app, the available protocols are only two: OpenVPN and Chameleon (no IKEv2).

The iOS mobile app is even more limited in terms of added features. It doesn’t have the URL blocking of its Android counterpart and it even lacks a kill-switch feature. It is a rather simple app that needs some polishing and so it is definitely not the highlight of the VyprVPN package.

Pricing

Initially, the pricing of VyprVPN might seem a bit expensive, at $12.95 a month if you decide to go for the one-month plan. However, if you pick either one of the other two available plans, for one for two years, the effective monthly price drops quite significantly. For the one-year plan, the price per month becomes $3.75 ($45.00 for the whole year) and for the two-year plan, it drops down to only $2.50 a month ($60 for the whole 2-year period). These discounts are quite serious and it really makes sense to at least go for the two-year plan. All of the plans provide VPN cover for up to 5 devices.

There is a way to test the VPN before you commit to the payment. There is no free version but you are given a 3-days grace period after you purchase the VPN, during which period you won’t be billed. If before the end of these 3 days you decide you don’t like the product, you can cancel your purchase and you won’t be billed. Additionally, there is a 30-day testing period after the initial 3-day trial, during which, if you notice any problems with the VPN you can refund it and get your money back. Notice, however, that this option only applies if there are indeed actual problems with the service – you can’t refund it if you simply don’t like it but there aren’t any real issues with it.

Final notes

VyprVPN is a solid choice for a VPN service that will satisfy both regular users who want to gain access to certain blocked sites and services as well as for experts and professionals who want to ensure that their traffic is hidden from all third-parties. We cannot say it is a perfect VPN offering, and there’s certainly a significant difference in functionality between its versions for different platforms but if your main goal is to use the VPN on your Windows PC and/or Android phone, we can confidently say that we recommend VyprVPN as a potent, secure, and functional VPN service, with solid privacy policy.

In today’s software review, we will tell you about the recently released Mozilla VPN – a continuation of the Mozilla Firefox VPN browser extension that has now evolved into a standalone VPN service with versions for Windows, Android, and iOS (this one is still in beta). According to Mozilla, macOS and Linux clients are also in the works. Also, it’s worth noting right off the bat that, at the moment of writing, Mozilla VPN is only available in the UK, the US, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore, with plans to expand this list of countries sometime this fall.

Seeing as how this is a relatively new VPN, there will certainly be aspects of it that would require improvement and polishing but we are curious to find out what Mozilla has to offer with its VPN service. At first glance, this VPN isn’t as varied and as feature-heavy as most other VPNs on the market but this could actually be an attractive trait to people who are new to VPN services as a whole and don’t need any overly-advanced settings and tools. However, for more experienced users and professionals, there are certainly VPN options out there that will be better suited for their needs.

The main selling points of Mozilla VPN seem to be privacy and security, which makes sense considering the overall reputation of Mozilla – a company known for its transparency and strict privacy policy. Such a focus on privacy and security in the VPN is also quite fitting due to the nature of this kind of online service. After all, the whole goal of a VPN is to give your online activities greater privacy and better protection against third-parties who may try to get their hands on information you’d rather keep to yourself. If you want to get a more detailed understanding of what exactly VPN does and how it does it, you can visit this link, where you will find relevant information.

Setting up, pricing, and interface of Mozilla VPN

At the moment of writing, the only available payment method for Mozilla VPN is through debit/credit card – there are no BitCoin or PayPal payment variants, though this might change with time. There’s also only one pricing plan – $4.99 a month, billed each month. This plan provides cover for up to 5 devices but the odd thing here is that it can only be used on specific devices that have been registered and not on any device that you have lying around. Of course, you can always change the devices that you’ve registered to use with the VPN but, in our opinion, this is a needless complication of the process.

As far as other payment plans are concerned, there aren’t any. There are currently no six-month, one-year, or two-year plans that give you discounts on the effective monthly price but, since the base price of $4.99 is quite affordable, we’d say that the lack of options is not an issue. Again, we suppose that sooner, rather than later, new pricing options would be provided, possibly when the service becomes available in more countries.

The installation of the Windows client is as simple and as straightforward as it could be and the mobile apps can be easily found and downloaded from the respective virtual store. The desktop client and mobile apps have very similar interfaces with very few differences dictated by the difference in platforms. Overall, the Mozilla VPN interface is simple and clean, there’s no map or any advanced buttons and functions. There isn’t even a search box, any type of locations filtering, or a “Favorites” option to allow you to find specific locations quicker, which is a bit of a bummer and we hope to see such interface features added with future updates. Again, for newer users, this simplicity will probably be a good thing, but we prefer there to be a bit more customization freedom in the interface even if the VPN service is primarily targeted towards less experienced customers.

Privacy and Security

Unsurprisingly, those two characteristics are the highlights of Mozilla’s VPN offering – as we said, the company, in general, is famous for its transparency and trustworthiness. To add to that, Mozilla VPN uses servers from the network MullVad VPN which is another highly-reliable and trusted VPN provider.

According to Mozilla, no personally-identifiable data would be logged by the VPN. On the official site of the VPN, Mozilla assures you that no information about IP, used bandwidth, visited sites, DNS requests, or session times will be tracked or recorded. According to Mozilla, the only data collected by the VPN is that, which is required for keeping the service “healthy and operational”. This includes information about the current version of the VPN client/app that you are using, your hardware configuration, and the type and current version of your OS. It’s all pretty standard for a privacy-focused VPN service but, even when talking about Mozilla, the question “Can any of this be confirmed?” needs to be asked. In this case, the answer would be a soft “no”, at least for the time being. Mozilla VPN is yet to be audited by an independent third-party but this is not surprising considering the recent official release of the service. That being said, there are reports that this will soon change, as it seems that there are already plans for such an audit in the near future. We believe that the results, as far as the VPN’s privacy is concerned, will confirm the claims made by the service’s creators.

Network and Performance

Seeing as how Mozilla VPN is still very new and needs time to better establish its network, do not expect a huge number of servers or server locations. There are only around 280 servers that Mozilla VPN customers can use. The number of available locations is actually relatively good considering the small number of servers – there are 41 possible locations with 9 of them located in different US states and the rest are distributed across 30 other countries, most of which are in Europe but there are also some in Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore), in South America (Brazil), and there are servers in Australia and New Zealand too.

Despite the smaller number of available servers, the performance of Mozilla VPN is satisfying – the connection speed to a server located in the same country and when a 75Mbps Internet is used is around 60Mbps, which is a bit lower than the speeds of competing VPNs but is still a good enough value. A surprising aspect of this VPN is that its connection speed is relatively good even when a more distant server is used. For example, when a user from Germany connects to a server in the USA, the speed could still go up to around 60Mbps. With most other VPNs, the connection speeds drop very significantly when such faraway servers are used. Overall, although Mozilla sells its VPN more as a trustworthy, secure, and privacy-focused one rather than as a very high-speed one, so far, performance has been excellent and we can definitely recommend this VPN for people who want stable and fast connections over VPN even when more distant servers located in other countries are used.

An added bonus with Mozilla VPN’s performance is that it connects to its network very quickly – it takes no more than a second or two to activate the VPN connection, whereas with some competing brands it could sometimes take up to 20 seconds.

Features

Unfortunately, if you are looking for a feature-filled VPN service that offers all the most advanced tools and functions, Mozilla VPN has little to offer in that regard. At the moment of writing, the array of bonus features that come with this VPN is quite limited. Still, the basics are there, so let’s have a look at them.

Kill-switch – the purpose of the kill-switch feature in a VPN is to temporarily shut down your connection to the Internet in case the VPN goes down for some reason why you are using it. The idea is that, as soon as your online traffic stops being protected by the VPN, the connection will cease altogether and your browsing activities won’t be revealed to any third-parties. In the case of Mozilla VPN, the kill-switch works as expected, shutting down your connection to the Internet if the VPN stops working. However, there’s no way to disable this feature so some users may feel inconvenienced by that fact. On the plus side, the Windows version for the VPN is smartly designed to have two separate services – one for the client and one for managing the actual connection. This means that even if the client experiences an error and crashes, the VPN would continue working in the background, providing protection for your traffic, and when the client gets started back up again, it will carry on from where it left off, recognizing the active connection.

Split-tunneling – this is a useful function similar to an app-specific kill-switch that gives you the option to make some of your programs/apps not use the VPN and instead use regular connection for better connection speed when protection for your traffic isn’t required.

P2P – many people are interested in using a VPN service for P2P connection and so, for them, this is one of the most important aspects of a VPN. In the case of Mozilla VPN, P2P connection is supported so if that’s what interests you, Mozilla’s got you covered.

Content Unblocking – another reason many people turn to VPN is geo-restricted sites and services that they want to be able to access and use. In this, Mozilla VPN is more of a mixed bag – while it does unblock US YouTube and BBC iPlayer, it fails with Amazon Prime, Disney +, and, yes, Netflix too. In other words, if you are looking for a VPN service with potent unblocking abilities, you may need to look elsewhere.

Final Notes

As a whole, Mozilla VPN is still in its infancy as a standalone product and it will take some time before it becomes a more solid and full-fledged VPN option. Still, its simplicity, focus on privacy and security, its reliable connection speed, and its inexpensive pricing make it a great option for users who aren’t interested in having a highly-advanced VPN and simply want to add a much needed extra layer of privacy to their online traffic as well as access some geo-restricted services and sites (although this last one may not always work with Mozilla VPN). We would certainly recommend Mozilla VPN if you’ve never used a VPN service before and you are looking for an introductory option. If, however, you already have some experience with this type of service and would prefer a more polished and well-rounded product, we suggest you take a look at our other VPN reviews, where you can find some quite potent and feature-filled VPN options.

 A powerful VPN service for users who seek simplicity and unbeatable raw speed.

Pros:

• Impressive raw speed
• All plans include three bonus products
• Unblocks Netflix, iPlayer, Disney+
• Quick and easy setup
• Clients for all major desktop and mobile OS

Cons:

• Works only with Hotspot Shield’s own apps
• Relatively limited configuration options in the apps
• Cannot unblock Amazon Prime Video
• Relatively costly packages compared to single VPN services

Hotspot Shield is a VPN service known by many. It has a free and a premium version but this review is all about the premium service and all the features that come with it.

Upgrading to Hotspot Shield Premium removes the nagging ads that come with the free edition and gives you an unrestricted transfer of data (the free plan has a limit of 500MB only), as well as complete access to all of the locations and functions of Hotspot Shield’s VPN (the free version is restricted to US only).

With the Premium plan, you can choose from servers in more than 80 countries, all of which are P2P-friendly. Besides, the integrated blocking of malicious and phishing websites helps you to maintain security online. There are Windows and Mac apps, plus Android and iOS VPN clients, so, practically, you can install the service on any device that you have.

The Hotspot Shield’s Catapult Hydra protocol takes care of your protection. However, it won’t let you manually set up the service. This is not an issue, though, because the seller’s websites has recently introduced support for that. (For more details, please see the Support page).

Another advantage of Hotspot Shield Premium is that it offers up to five simultaneous connections. This is the standard for the industry and is more than enough for most users. However, since we are making a review, we should mention that there are some providers that allow more connections by default. For instance, NordVPN allows up to six, IPVanish supports ten, StrongVPN can handle 12, and there are no limits for Windscribe.

The hot news from the recent updates on the Hotspot Shield’s websites is that now they are owned by Pango. This means that, once you sign up for the Premium VPN plan, you will automatically get access to three additional products, based on your location – the infamous 1Password password manager, the Identity Guard (an identity theft protection service available in the US only) and Robo Shield (a US only spam and robocall blocker). These three products are very interesting additions to the Hotspot Shield Premium VPN service and make the upgrade even sweeter. But let’s take a look of how much that would cost you.

Hotspot Shield Premium price breakdown

The price of Hotspot Shield Premium and its 1Password, Identity Guard and Robo Shield additions is $12.99 per month. This price seems a bit on the higher side for a VPN service only, but if you count the additionally bundled products, the package actually becomes very reasonable considering all the extras that come with it.

The annual plan at $7.99 per month is even a better deal, which again may look expensive in comparison to a VPN service only, but is not bad at all if you look at all that you get. The ultimate deal, however, is the three-year subscription that will cost you only $2.99 per month, with the extra products included for the first year. Of course, if you are looking for a VPN service only and don’t want any additional products with it, there might be better deals available to you.

With Hotspot Shield Premium, tough, you’ll have the chance to try any of the plans for up to 45 days – a very generous money-back guarantee that isn’t seen in most of the VPN service providers who usually give you up to a week or maximum a month to cancel the plan purchase.

Setting up the VPN clients

Hotspot Shield does not accept common protocols like OpenVPN anymore and is based on its patented Catapult Hydra technology. Thus, you can use the VPN service only with Hotspot Shield’s own clients and apps. The developers say that this technology is worth it, increasing the speed rates up to 2.4 times over long distance connections.

Once you are signed up for any of the Hotspot Shield’s Premium plans, you’ll be rerouted to a console with download links for the VPN clients for Windows, Mac, Android , and iOS, as well as the Chrome extension. Setting up the relevant apps and clients is easy. You simply have to follow the steps from the installation managers. The Chrome extension and the mobile apps are also available in the relevant app stores. After you install them, you simply have to sign in with your preferred username and password and you should be able to use the VPN service.

• The VPN client for Windows

The Windows client of Hotspot Shield has recently been redesigned, but core principles have not changed and you’ll quickly be at home if you have ever used another VPN. The main panel shows the current default location and a large on/off button. A click on that button allows you to connect within two to three seconds even to the most distant server. For comparison, in most VPNs, a local link requires at least five seconds to connect while some need more than ten to fifteen seconds for the same.

The moment you get connected, a map appears that shows your new virtual location. There are also other panels that show some status information such as your server’s IP address, load and latency for your server, the amount of data you’ve used, your current transfer speed, and your local network name.

The number of countries and cities you may choose from is shown when you click on the current location. There is a “Recently used” list to speed up re-connection to already used locations.

The “Settings” dialog for Hotspot Shield’s Windows app is simple and covers all the essentials that you need including switches that run the client when Windows starts, as well as a kill switch that prevents access to the Internet if the VPN drops.

A great feature that isn’t seen often in other VPN clients is the ability to automatically connect to Hotspot Shield when you access dangerous Wi-Fi hotspots, safe hotspots or all networks.

The “Smart VPN” feature allows for selecting domains that won’t be routed through the VPN. This is a useful functionality when you want, for example, to access websites that usually do not work when you are logged from another location.

You can’t browse key FAQs on the client interface, but the Hotspot Shield’s Support page is on a one click away and includes access FAQ and Live Chat pages.

• The VPN client Android app

The Hotspot Shield’s Android app has a close to the Windows app look, but certain extras are missing. For example, it functions just as well when it comes to selecting a location and getting connected, but the app doesn’t show a map, IP addresses and all the other status details that you can see on the Windows app.

The “Settings” dialog has quick options to start the service when the device boots or to automatically load the Hotspot Shield for a particular network. There is no kill switch but you can turn off the VPN with a battery saving option when your device is not in use. An Auto-Connect VPN feature helps you to start Hotspot Shield automatically once you launch a specific app.

Compared to the Windows application, the Android client lets you to search basic help from within the interface rather than having to open a different window to access the relevant support pages. Another very nice feature that the Android VPN app users can enjoy is its ability to automatically choose the best server.

• The VPN client iOS app
  

The iOS version of Hotspot Shield is somewhat close to the Android app in terms of interface. It has a connect button, a world map, a list of locations to choose from and a few simple setting options. However, there are some functions that are missing. For instance, the auto start or auto-connect options are not included and there is no kill switch. The iOS client also does not have an option to connect to the best server for your location. The only option you get is to set the “Insecure connections” that will warn you if you connect to an insecure network.  The most recent improvement in the app’s functionality is the ability to activate Hotspot Shield’s bundled products (1Password, Identity Guard and Robo Shield) from within the main interface. Nonetheless, the iOS app is user-friendly and does its job, which is more than enough.

• The VPN Browser extensions

Most VPN providers typically provide very basic client extensions for browser. They barely offer anything more than a Location List and a Connect button. Hotspot Shield, however, comes with a Chrome extension that is full of features and, in a way, more powerful than the desktop and mobile apps.

The opening screen doesn’t give an idea of how powerful the extension actually is since it looks much like the other clients: a dark empty panel with a Connect button in the middle and nothing more. Once you click on it, you are connected nearly instantly and can unblock different websites.

When you press the “Configuration” button in the top-right, however, you can open up a menu with a lot of settings. For example, from there, you can choose whether to set a default server to connect to, or connect to the nearest server automatically. You have a range of protection options as well. There is an ad cookie blocker, track blocker and a malware and WebRTC blocker. These added tools are not as powerful as the leaders on the market but, still, they are working well and are nice extras that compliment the Chrome extension.

The “Settings” page of Chrome’s Hotspot Shield hides two more very handy options – Auto Protect and Bypass lists. If you add websites to the Auto Protect list, Hotspot Shield will turn itself on automatically when you try to access them. If you add websites to the Bypass list, Hotspot Shield will redirect them through your normal connection, not via the VPN tunnel.

Although the website barely speaks about it, Hotspot Shield has also an extension for Firefox. It looks and operates much the same way as the Chrome extension with only a slight difference – it doesn’t have a Sword Mode for feeding web trackers with fake browsing data. In general, however, the Firefox extension is as simple and as efficient to use and is a great addition to the entire Hotspot Shield line-up.

Performance and user experience

Hotspot Shield has some bold statements regarding its Catapult Hydra protocol performance. A quick check on the speeds with benchmarking sites like SpeedTest and TestMy shows some interesting results. Connecting to a closeby location in the UK gives speeds of about  70Mbps. Connecting to a very fast 600Mbps connection to US-based servers from a US location shows some pretty amazing speeds reaching up to 540Mbps on two different testing sites at two different times of the day. That is more than twice the speed that is seen in many of the competitor VPN services and is quite impressive.

Long distance connections usually don’t perform that well, but Hotspot Shield doesn’t disappoint with that either. Faraway connections like Vietnam, for instance, regularly keep a speed of more than 60 Mbps. These results are very impressive and prove that Hotspot Shield Premium’s claims about its Catapult Hydra protocol stand the tests and actually place this VPN service among the fastest VPNs on the market.

Streaming

VPN services are preferred way to bypass all sorts of website restrictions. Connecting to a VPN allows you to access streaming sites which have their content blocked in certain countries, as well as access popular sites that are blocked in some locations. Trying to evaluate the VPN’s unblocking abilities, however, can be difficult since there are a number of factors that affect it.

Still, Hotspot Shield gives quick access to geoblocked YouTube videos, BBC iPlayer content, Disneky+ and Netflix without any hassle – an achievement that defeats most of the VPN competitors on the market. The US Amazon Prime Video, however, detects the VPN and doesn’t allow access.

Still, you can access torrents without any restrictions in the bandwidth. This is not mentioned on the website’s front page or in the Hotspot Shield’s list of features. Still, if you search a little deeper, you will find out that the service supports P2P in full on all servers, meaning that you are able to start downloading as soon as you have connected with any of the clients – Windows, Mac, Android or iOS. There are also some quick guides for newcomers on the Support page with information about how to download torrents anonymously and why you would want to use a VPN for torrenting.

Protection and privacy

To understand a VPN’s protection, one usually has to look at its protocol, encryption and authentication information. Hotspot Shield, in particular, is tougher to evaluate since it does not support popular open source secure protocols like OpenVPN or IKEv2, or L2TP/IPsec. Instead, it is using its own Catapult Hydra protocol, which, is not openly accessible. According to the website, however, this protocol is based on TLS (Transport Layer Security) 1.2. It also has a AES-128 encryption and 2048-bit RSA certificates for server authentication. Keys are exchanged via Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDHE) for optimal protection.

Catapult Hydra is aimed at improving performance and promises fast speed. What speaks good about it is that the protocol is incorporated by many big names such as McAfee, Cheetah Mobile, Bitdefender and other companies that offer VPN services from within their apps. Hotspot Shield even points out in their website that operators like Telefonica and KDDI also use Catapult Hydra to offer VPN services and Wi-Fi protection to their users. This speaks high about the protocol’s reliability which has certainly been evaluated by such big corporate customers and third-party security experts before they have decided to implement it in such a large scale.

When it comes to protection and privacy, the VPN client implementation is also very important. Hotspot Shield’s clients and browser extensions perform in that as well, and offer reliable protection from snoopers according to tests at IPLeak and DNSLeakTest.

The kill switch that most of the Hotspot Shield’s apps offer prevents IP address leakage in case that the VPN connection suddenly drops. The client also opens many local TCP connections for tunnel management. Force-closing these connections does not crashes the client which is an evidence that it can cope with unusual problems and is smartly developed.

Privacy policy

On its official website, Hotspot Shield claims that it keeps no logs of its users. The Support page has a paragraph that states that Hotspot Shield does not store or exchange any User IDs, including IP addresses. The provider also claims that he doesn’t keep logs of user interaction, be it on the free or the premium service, and he guarantees a 100% privacy and anonymity of those who are using the VPN.

There is also a VPN Privacy Notice that explains in more details the privacy policy of the company. In this Notice it is stated that when you initiate the VPN connection, your IP address is collected, immediately encrypted and removed at the end of your VPN session. Your VPN browsing activity does not relate to your IP address. This means that Hotspot Shield cannot share your VPN browsing neither with ad networks nor governmental institutions simply, because these details aren’t stored.

This sounds very convincing but, at the same time, in another paragraph, it is explained that the company gathers details on the browser type, the device type and settings, the OS version, network information, t=tour approximate location, as well as how much bandwidth you use, when and for how long you use the VPN service, and some other non-identifiable details.

This seems like a bit more data collection then what you might initially expect. Moreover, to the date of this publication, the company has not passed any independent external or public security audit that can prove its data-protection guarantees. Thus, we are left with no option but to confide with the Hotspot Shield’s claims.

Customer support

In case that you have issues with operating Hotspot Shield, its you can seek advice on popular problems thorough the incorporated website links with resources that are available in most of its VPN client applications. If you have a more serious problem, you can go to the Support page of the website for more comprehensive advice.

For quick troubleshooting, Hotspot Shield has a web-based Support Center that lets you search your answers by categories (Manage Accounts, Common Issues, Payments, Subscriptions). The  main webpage also has some helpful materials that you won’t find elsewhere, such as release notes and updates.

In case you still have troubles to find an answer to your question in the knowledge base, you can contact the Support Team through Live Chat or email. The Live Chat would normally let you speak with a member of the Support Team within minutes.

Conclusion

Hotspot Shield Premium is a VPN service that amazes with its speed and performance. The provider offers VPN clients for all major operating systems both on mobile and desktop and promises ultimate protection during web browsing. There are several subscription packages to choose from and they all come with three extra products as a bonus. The no-logging policy of the company isn’t verified by independent audits, thus, we are left to take its claims on user privacy with a little grand of salt. Still, Hotspot Shield’s Premium VPN service beats a lot of its competitors with raw speed, ease of use, site unblocking and no bandwidth restrictions. You can test it out for up to 45 days – a generous period of time to get a personal impression on all of its powerful features.

Thus, we have decided to make a series of reviews of popular VPN services out there to try and figure out which ones are genuinely worth investing in and which are best to avoid.

IPVanish is one particular product that caught our eye because it promises a very powerful performance and an impressive list of features. IPVanish is US-based with a fairly large network of over 40,000 shared IPs. There’s also over 75 different locations to choose from.

And while that may not sound like a whole lot, the company emphasizes on that fact that it owns all of its servers, as opposed to renting them, which is very often the case in this industry. This means essentially that IPVanish has a great deal more control over how exactly these servers run and how the network is set up. It’s also a sign of a high level of available resources, as well as expertise.

Another great thing about this VPN service is that it is available across a wide range of devices and operating systems. It supports Windows, Mac, Linux and Chromebooks, as well as Android and iOS devices. Better yet, the service can cover up to 10 devices simultaneously and they don’t even have to be tied to the same person. A single account can cover your whole family and can therefore prove to save you a small fortune.

And if you ever run into any troubles, there’s 24/7 support available via live chat and phone, which is certainly going the extra mile. Speaking of which, when you sign up for IPVanish, you also get a number of other benefits. For example, all plans come with 250GB SugarSync encrypted storage space, which is a very pleasant bonus to have.

Getting started

As mentioned, IPVanish is available across a variety of different platforms and you can find the respective tutorials for them on the developer’s website. As for downloading the app itself, you can easily find the download links and you won’t be required to use your login details for that either.

This brings us to the installation process, which for Mac and Windows users runs just like any other regular setup. And if you’re downloading the app for your Android or iOS device, you will find those in the respective app stores. There are also manual setup tutorials for those users who wish to skip the official client.

Choosing a plan is pretty simple and straightforward, too, which we very much appreciate. There are only three plans available: a monthly plan, a 3-month plan and an annual subscription. Be aware that we have noticed a tendency in IPVanish to change their pricing relatively often, so depending on the point in time in which you are reading this, these prices may no longer be accurate. But at the time of writing at least, the prices are as follows:

• Monthly plan: $10/ per month
• 3-month plan: $8.99/ per month
• Annual plan: $6.49/ per month

There is no difference in the plans other than the price, and you are billed instantly for the whole subscription. Hence, for the quarterly and annual subscriptions, you pay directly for the entire period (i.e. 3 months or 1 year).

With that in mind, we should also point out that IPVanish doesn’t come with a trial version, so testing options aren’t exactly convenient. But there’s a 30-day money back guarantee which is line with what most top VPN services offer and is still better than nothing.

All IPVanish users get to benefit from the 1500+ servers, and unlimited number of simultaneous connections and the aforementioned SugarSync storage and backup service. And by the way, if you do plan on using it, the subscription prices here are a real bargain, even if you were solely interested in SugarSync.

Payment options are limited to just credit cards and PayPal, although in the past IPVanish used to accept Bitcoin payments as well. That’s no longer the case, unfortunately.

Logging & privacy

As is custom with VPN service providers, the website of IPVanish has a statement announcing their no-logging policy. As per this statement, the company does not record any of its users’ activity, and the same thing is also confirmed in the fine print in IPVanish’s privacy policy. So to state it clearly once again: IPVanish doesn’t store any record of users’ activity, traffic or connection data.

However, big companies such as NordVPN and TunnelBear have gone an extra step further to prove their words to customers. And to do this, they have allowed external companies to audit them and their systems, so you don’t have to just take their word for their no-logging policies. So we can only hope that someday soon more companies will follow their example, including IPVanish as well.

But as for protecting your privacy from third parties, the company relies on the latest AES-256 encryption technologies, which is in line with industry standards. That also applies for the support of utmost secure protocols IKEv2 and OpenVPN.

In fact, IPVanish gives users a lot of control when it comes to configuring the OpenVPN setup. Namely, you have the opportunity to choose the OpenVPN port you want, as well as take advantage of the so-called ‘Scramble OpenVPN Traffic’ option that can decrease your chances of being blocked by anti-VPN regions.

In addition, there’s a very capable kill switch for the Windows version of the client, along with DNS and IPv6 leak protection as extra protection layers. But there’s added bonuses for other platforms, too, like the iOS app allows you to make lists of WiFi networks that the VPN should protect at all times. And indeed, all our leak tests confirmed that IPVanish really did a great job in protecting our identity.

Performance

As per our tests and those performed by others, IPVanish VPN has demonstrated consistently good download speeds in different locations. In fact, some even showed better results than most of the competition, which was a nice surprise.

For instance, the average speed on a 75Mbps test line in the Netherlands was about 68-69Mpbs. US download speeds averaged at around 220Mbps, which is more that decent and well beyond what you’d need for the majority of applications out there. So at least as far as speed goes, IPVanish demonstrated a very agreeable performance.

Windows client

The IPVanish client is a little different from most other VPN services, which you will notice immediately if you already have experience using this type of software. IPVanish certainly boasts a whole lot more functionalities than the competition. And therefore, it only makes sense that its client would look a little more complex.

It’s nothing to worry about, though, as navigating it should become rather simple as soon as you’ve had enough time to familiarize yourself with all the included features.

Greeting you will be the Quick Connect panel, which comes with a Connect button that will reveal to you the protocol, server name, uploaded and downloaded data, as well as even the time connected. So that’s a whole lot more detail than you will typically see elsewhere.

But if that amount of information seems unnecessary to you, then you can switch to a more traditional and simpler view. This will give you the typical list of countries to choose from – but with a few more extras still. Instead of simply having a regular dropdown menu, there is a variety of filtering and sorting options at your disposal here. For example, you can enter a keyword or you can choose to sort your locations by response or load time. There’s even an option to add servers to your list of favorites.

Alternatively, you can make use of the map to select your desired country. And the view of it is surprisingly uncluttered. As you zoom in on a specific region, you will see more locations appear, adding to the convenience factor.

One thing to keep in mind with this client, though, is that the kill switch isn’t enabled by default – you have to switch it on manually in Settings. And it passed all our tests with flying colors, never failing to notify us when the connection was lost.

Perhaps the only hitch we encountered with IPVanish is that it doesn’t really update the app too often. For some of the versions of the app, it was months between updates, which seems like quite a lot. But even despite that, the product works fantastically well and hasn’t really been able to disappoint on any other counts.

Android & iOS apps

You would think that the app for your smart devices would be far more simplified comparing to the desktop version, but that’s not quite the case with IPVanish. Yes, the opening screen is quite simple and shows you your present IP and location with a list of locations to choose from.

For convenience purposes, the app does offer you locations based on the closest server. But you’re free to override that selection and choose a specific country, city or server within a matter of just a few taps. And while the Android app doesn’t have this option, the iOS version will allow you to create a Favorites list that’s very simple to use.

And just as with the desktop client, both the iOS and Android versions of the app then display a bunch of stats with cool visuals. You can monitor things like the time connected, the new IP address and location, etc.

The Android app also boasts the same configurable options that make the desktop version stand out from the competition. Namely, there’s the opportunity to choose where to make OpenVPN UDP or TCP connections, and even more ports to choose from than you get in the Windows client. And it also has an effective kill switch, which, unfortunately, the iOS app lacks.

On the bright side, though, as we briefly mentioned in the beginning of this review, the iOS app allows users to create whitelists and blacklists of wireless networks. This means that IPVanish can remember which networks it should protect and which it should trust as already safe. You can also add URL’s that you would like the app to protect automatically as soon as visit them.

Then there’s a handful of other neat extras, such as being able to use Siri in order to enable or disable the VPN whenever you choose. In addition, IPVanish now also supports Dark Mode, which is another plus.

Support

In the event that there are some system-wide issues with the VPN service, there’s a System Status link that will inform you about it as soon as the issue is known. And there are plenty of support articles in the Help section of the application that do a pretty decent job in explaining certain problems, as well as describing the solutions for them.

But if you don’t manage to find that information you’re looking for, then all users can benefit from 24/7 support. There’s a helpful live chat option, as well as even a phone number to dial. In both cases you get a fairly quick response that’s straight to the point.

To sum it up

There are some minor issues in the IPVanish VPN, such as glitches here and there that would’ve perhaps been even more insignificant if there were more frequent updates. But all in all, it’s certainly a product that packs a punch with a great design, an impressive arsenal of configurable features and powerful performance.

In a recent post published by vpnMentor, seven free VPN providers have been reported to have left more than one terabyte of browsing logs accessible to the public. All of the providers related to the incident claim in their privacy policies that they do not monitor their user’s activities, but the recent data leakage seems to have exposed the personal details of millions of users.

After analysis, researchers from vpnMentor have found that in the compromised data silo that comprises of 1,083,997,361 of records, there are specific confidential records, some of which are publicly identifiable. According to them, the exposed information consists of details about the pages that the users have visited, as well as passwords in plain text, email addresses, PayPal payment information, device information, and more.

After the detection of the data exposure, the 1.207 TB of records have been immediately taken down. In the meantime, VpnMentor was able to independently validate and cross-check with the updated database that the data came from these specific VPN applications.

The group of free VPN apps in question turns out to be owned by a Hong Kong-based parent company who has simply rebranded them. The affected free VPN apps have been marketed under different names such as Super VPN, Flash VPN, Fast VPN, and UFO VPN. In reality, however, the VPN provider behind them seems to be the same. Most of the affected free VPN apps have over 10 million downloads in the Google Play and iOS App Stores.

One of the VPN apps, named UFO VPN, has written in its privacy policy that they do not track user activities outside of their website. They also claim that they do not track the website browsing or connections activities of users who are using their services.

A spokesperson from UFO VPN has explained to vpnMentor that no sensitive details have been accessible in the network and that the coronavirus has stopped the staff from securing the server. The spokesperson claimed that that they have not identified vulnerabilities in server firewall rules because of the personnel modifications that have happened due to the COVID-19 situation. According to the announcement, this might have contributed to possible hacking, but now it has been fixed.

VPN applications are powerful tools that can ensure your online safety and hide your internet traces from snoopers. However, in order to provide you with anonymity, these apps have access to a lot of personal information and are capable of keeping track of your internet traffic, passwords and any details that you log online. That’s why choosing reliable VPN service provider is of ultimate importance if you want to ensure that your data is safe and protected with them.