Given the internet’s current state, we wouldn’t fault you for seeking a tool to block ads from your browsing experience. Many websites have focused too much on monetization over content and contain obnoxious advertisements. You can encounter web pages with half-ads, half-content or even more ads than content. Let’s not talk about those bizarre, clickbaity ads you’d find on some news sites.
Many people assume that annoying ads are an inescapable part of the internet, but that isn’t true. There’s a simple solution to this problem: an ad blocker. AdBlock Plus is a browser extension that detects and removes ads from your browser and allows you to surf the web seamlessly. It’s one of the most prominent ad blockers, and we’re reviewing it to help you decide whether it’s worth adopting. Our review will cover its features, pricing, user-friendliness, customer support, and other essential aspects.
AdBlock Plus: Plans and Pricing
AdBlock Plus offers a free version that blocks typical display ads. However, you need to upgrade to AdBlock Plus Premium to block additional distractions like newsletter popups, cookie consent popups, and floating videos.
The Premium version can be paid for monthly or annually. The monthly plan costs $4, and the annual plan costs $40, a 17% savings compared to paying monthly. You can start with the free plan to test AdBlock Plus's features and upgrade to the premium plan if you're satisfied with what you see.
If you change your mind after paying for a subscription, you can request a full refund within 120 days of payment. 120 days is one of the longest money-back guarantee periods we’ve encountered in any software tool.
(Image credit: Future / Stefan Ionescu)
AdBlock Plus: Features
You can download AdBlock Plus as a browser extension or download the mobile app (iOS and Android). AdBlock offers extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Edge, Opera, and the Yandex Browser. Having numerous browser extensions plus iOS and Android apps makes AdBlock Plus one of the most widely compatible ad-blockers we’ve encountered.
Our test began with downloading the AdBlock Plus extension on different browsers. Installation was quick and easy, taking less than a minute. We also downloaded the mobile app from the Play Store and App Store, and the process was seamless.
The first thing we observed was that AdBlock Plus gave details about the advertisements it blocked for each website we visited. To test, we opened “Forbes.com,” and the extension showed that it blocked 12 ads. We checked other domains and got relevant statistics about the number of blocked ads, letting us verify that the extension performs its work effectively.
This platform maintains extensive lists of domains known to serve ads and trackers. It scans and checks your browser requests against these lists, blocking any ad or tracker-serving domain from showing or installing anything on your browser.
AdBlock Plus lets you block specific elements on a website that you don’t want to see. Click on the Block element option and click on the element you want to remove– AdBlock Plus will prevent that element from showing henceforth.
Of course, you might have some trusted websites you want to allow to show ads. For example, you might love your local news site and want it to keep showing you ads as a means of support. AdBlock Plus lets you add websites to your allowlist, permitting ads to show on these sites while blocking the rest.
Our testing showed that AdBlock Plus is very good at blocking display ads to improve your browsing experience. However, this tool doesn't block popups and floating videos except you upgrade to the Premium plan. With the advent of constant cookie popups from websites, having a tool to block these popups makes your browsing experience much better.
Another drawback we observed is that AdBlock Plus allows "Acceptable Ads" by default, i.e., ads the platform deems non-intrusive. However, you can switch off acceptable ads from the settings page.
The free version of AdBlock Plus gives you access to complementary features, such as blocking all online trackers, push notifications, and social media icons.
(Image credit: Future / Stefan Ionescu)
AdBlock Plus: Interface and In-Use
AdBlock Plus offers a user-friendly interface we didn’t have any issues navigating. The interface is neatly arranged, with sufficient color contrast and well-placed elements, making it easy to find any feature you want. The configurations page is easy to understand, and you can customize your dashboard to a large extent, e.g., turn off notifications or ad-blocking statistics. You can control AdBlock Plus's filter lists or add custom filters to block ads effectively. AdBlock scores excellently in the user-friendliness criterion.
(Image credit: Future / Stefan Ionescu)
AdBlock Plus: Customer Support
AdBlock Plus offers extensive customer support resources. When facing any issues with the app, you can start with the official Help Center, which contains answers to common questions and guides concerning all AdBlock Plus features. If unsatisfied with the Help Center, you can email AdBlock Plus’s support team and await a response. However, understandably, the support team prioritizes paying users over non-paying ones.
AdBlock Plus also has an official support forum where users often exchange solutions to each other’s problems. Free-tier users can visit this forum to file a complaint and get help from fellow users.
AdBlock Plus: The Competition
uBlock Origin and AdGuard are two prominent competitors to AdBlock Plus. uBlock Origin is a free tool offering similar features as AdBlock Plus, and it’s one of the best ad-blockers you can choose. However, uBlock Origin has no mobile app– it only has browser extensions.
AdGuard is a freemium ad-blocking tool that offers extensions and a mobile app. It’s a good and reasonably priced alternative to AdBlock Plus.
AdBlock Plus: Final Verdict
After testing AdBlock Plus, we can confidently recommend it as an ad-blocking solution to any interested user. It effectively blocks ads and helps you enjoy your browsing experience. We observed a few drawbacks, but the pros outweigh the cons by a huge margin.
Most websites depend on advertisements for monetization. However, many websites focus so much on ad monetization that they, unfortunately, ruin the user experience. You might see a website with ads covering the content you want to read or too many ads and too little text.
Ads can disrupt the browsing experience, but there’s a solution to this dilemma. You can download an ad-blocking tool like Privacy Badger to surf the web without seeing disruptive ads.
We’re reviewing Privacy Badger to help you decide if it’s a good ad blocker to choose. We’ll examine its features, pricing, and other key characteristics so that you can make an informed decision. Follow us as we review this product.
Privacy Badger: Plans and Pricing
The best thing about Privacy Badger is that it’s free to use. Unlike most rival software, you don’t need to pay a dime to block ads and trackers with this tool. Privacy Badger is run by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a prominent American digital rights group. The EFF offers Privacy Badger for free as part of its mission to promote digital privacy.
Privacy Badger is a smart choice if you’re looking for a tool to help brighten your browsing experience at no cost.
(Image credit: Future / Stefan Ionescu)
Privacy Badger: Features
Privacy Badger is available as a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera. You can head to the official website and follow the download link for your specific browser. Alternatively, you can search for “Privacy Badger” directly on your browser’s extension store.
For this review, we first tested Privacy Badger on the Chrome browser. Downloading the software took less than a minute, and we got the work.
Privacy Badger is unique because it doesn’t block ads based on domain lists like most other tools. Instead, it employs algorithms to study your browsing activity and automatically discover trackers based on their behaviour. This method enables Privacy Badger to detect and block trackers that typical ad-blockers can’t find. However, it means that some ads can slip through the cracks, e.g., the software wasn’t able to block YouTube ads during our test.
This software focuses more on blocking web trackers than ad-blocking even though it performs both jobs effectively. Ads are just one part of tracking; Privacy Badger protects you from additional forms.
After downloading the extension, it automatically activates Global Privacy Control on your browser, sending opt-out signals to all sites that you don’t want your data shared or sold. It also activates the Do Not Track signal instructing websites not to track your browsing activity. If any website ignores this signal, Privacy Badger's algorithms can discover and block them. This software is good at detecting sneaky trackers that similar tools might find difficult to discover.
Privacy Badger employs a three-strike rule, wherein it starts blocking once it notices a tracker on three different websites. But, you might sometimes observe the extension breaking a page or feature on a website, e.g., a video. In that case, you can simply disable Privacy Badger for the specific site while protecting your privacy on others. You can also report the error so that the EFF can take a look and implement possible remedies.
A noticeable drawback is that Privacy Badger lacks a mobile app, unlike some prominent ad-blockers like AdGuard and AdLock. It only works directly on a desktop browser or the Android Firefox browser. Outside that, you can’t use Privacy Badger to detect and remove trackers while surfing the web on your mobile phone. This drawback often discourages potential users that want to use the same ad blocking tool on their desktop or smartphone.
To recap, Privacy Badger doesn't focus directly on ads. Instead, it blocks the tracking aspects, which accounts for 99% of today's advertising issues anyway. Some types of ads can slip through, but they're usually the non-intrusive types.
Privacy Badger: Interface and In-Use
Privacy Badger has a simple interface that’s easy to navigate. After downloading the extension, you can pin it at the top of your browser to open every time. Once the extension is installed, it automatically starts detecting and blocking trackers. If you observe any issues on a site, you can click on the extension and then disable the extension for that specific site. You can also tweak the extension’s settings to suit your needs better.
The Privacy Badger extension gives you a live view of the trackers it has detected and blocked. This way, you can easily verify that the tool is performing its job.
(Image credit: Future / Stefan Ionescu)
Privacy Badger: Customer Support
Privacy Badger is a free and open-source tool, so you shouldn’t expect much in the customer support category. There’s no designated support personnel to contact if things go wrong. The best you can do is report the issue to the EFF team and hope for a review.
However, there’s a thriving online community of privacy-focused users on sites like Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook. If you need any help concerning this extension, you can ask online and receive responses from such users. Many skilled developers are willing to contribute their expertise because Privacy Badger gives them something valuable for free.
Privacy Badger: The Competition
There’s no shortage of competition when it comes to ad-blocking tools. Privacy Badger competes with many well-known tools, such as AdLock and AdGuard. Privacy Badger’s selling point is being a free and open-source tool, unlike most rivals you have to pay for.
However, Privacy Badger lacks advanced customer support and a mobile app like AdLock and AdGuard. With Privacy Badger, you’re trading some convenience to use a free tool.
Privacy Badger: Final Verdict
If you’re looking for an effective tool to block ads and third-party trackers, look no further than Privacy Badger. This free tool goes a long way in making your browsing experience safe and convenient. It’s not perfect at blocking all types of ads, but it works 99% of the time.
A common complaint of internet users is the increasing pervasiveness of ads. Websites increasingly rely on advertisements for revenue, and this reliance has caused many publishers to focus on ads above offering valuable content. It’s now common to find websites fit with more ads than content, annoying users in the process.
However, there’s a simple solution to this problem: an ad blocker. Ad blockers detect and block ads from their roots so they can’t appear on your browser. Even then, you’re free to allow ads from trusted websites but disable them from the rest.
Surfshark offers one of the best ad blockers with its CleanWeb feature. We’re reviewing this tool to help you decide whether it’s worth adopting. This review will cover essential aspects, including Surfshark CleanWeb’s pricing, features, user interface, and customer support.
Surfshark CleanWeb: Plans and Pricing
CleanWeb is included in all Surfshark VPN plans. The Surfshark Starter plan costs $15.45 monthly. A good thing about Surfshark is that you get heavy discounts if you pay for 12 or 24 months in one go. For example, 12 months on the Starter plan costs $42 instead of $232 if you pay month-to-month, and 24 months of this same plan costs $59 instead of $417 if you pay month-to-month.
However, note that the heavy discount is only for the initial purchase. Once the 12 or 24 months expire, you’ll pay a higher renewal price. Surfshark offers a 7-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee period. Unfortunately, this platform lacks a free plan.
(Image credit: Future / Stefan Ionescu)
Surfshark CleanWeb: Features
Surfshark is available as a browser extension or desktop/mobile app. You can download and install it seamlessly from the Surfshark website or your relevant app store.
This platform is best known as a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which encrypts browsing activity by creating a tunnel between your device and a remote internet server. A VPN lets you surf the web without revealing your identity to ISPs and third parties. You can control your location and bypass content geo-restrictions; Surfshark has servers in 100+ countries.
You can turn on CleanWeb in the Surfshark VPN settings. Once it’s switched on, the app starts blocking ads and trackers while you surf the web. The good thing is that you can use CleanWeb even while the Surfshark VPN is off.
Surfshark uses sophisticated techniques to block ads. It maintains a database of ad-serving domains and thwarts any browser request from these domains, meaning you won't see ads from them. This platform helps block malicious ads so that you don’t fall victim.
However, you might have trusted websites you want to see ads on. For example, you might love a particular news site and want to support it by allowing it to show ads. In that case, you can add the specific website to the bypass list, and Surfshark will allow its ads to show.
Excessive ads annoy users, use significant bandwidth, and slow down browsing speed. Removing these ads with Surfshark speeds up your browsing experience and makes it more enjoyable.
Another annoyance you’ll often encounter on the web is those incessant pop-ups asking for consent to install cookies on your browser. This annoyance emerged since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in 2018, requiring explicit consent to install cookies and trackers. However, Surfshark solves this problem by setting an automatic no-consent response, and you won’t see the constant popups again.
A good thing we observed while testing Surfshark is that it provides details about the ads and trackers it has blocked. You can see how many trackers and ads it discovers and blocks on every web page. These details enable you to confirm that the app does its job effectively.
The extension version of CleanWeb (2.0) includes additional features like a Data breach alert. You can get immediate alerts whenever your email address appears on a breached database.
(Image credit: Future / Stefan Ionescu)
Surfshark CleanWeb: Interface and In-Use
Surfshark scores high in the criterion of user-friendliness. One of the best things about this platform is its widespread compatibility. It offers browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, as well as apps for desktops (Windows, macOS, and Linux) and mobile devices (iOS and Android). It’s compatible with all the popular desktop and mobile operating systems and browsers.
Surfshark has a simple interface that’s easy to navigate. The dashboard is minimal and uncluttered, with sufficient color contrast to highlight features. You can easily find any features you want and change the configurations. The platform offers a user-friendly interface you’ll likely enjoy using.
Surfshark CleanWeb: Customer Support
Surfshark offers extensive customer support resources. You can start with the FAQs and detailed user guides on the official Knowledge Base. These guides cover every aspect of the platform and should be the first place to consult when you face issues.
You can also contact Surfshark’s support team via email and live chat. The company has a large support team that enables it to offer 24/7 service.
Surfshark CleanWeb: The Competition
There’s no shortage of ad-blocking tools competing with Surfshark CleanWeb. Two competitors we’d like to highlight are Ghostery and Adblock Plus. These are two free ad blockers that make your browsing experience better. They’re effective at removing ads and trackers, and you don’t have to pay a dime to use them.
However, Ghostery and Adblock Plus only offer ad-blocking, while Surfshark offers many other features in addition to ad-blocking.
Surfshark CleanWeb: Final Verdict
Surfshark is an excellent choice you’re looking for an all-in-one security tool that offers an ad-blocker, VPN, and other features in one package. It blocks annoying ads effectively and makes your browsing experience easier. However, there are many free alternatives if you only need an ad-blocking tool and no other complementary feature.
Excessive ads are a common issue on the internet. Ask any internet user one of the main problems they encounter, and you’ll likely hear about too many ads when interacting with content.
Websites increasingly rely on ads to fund themselves, and this trend has driven publishers to focus on monetization over content creation. You might encounter a website with half ads and half content, making browsing miserable. Some might have poorly placed ads that make navigating the site miserable. Regardless, there’s a solution to this issue: an ad blocker.
uBlock Origin is one of the most popular ad blockers for web browsers. It’s also free and open-source, enabling you to avoid annoying ads without paying a dime. We’re reviewing this tool to help you decide whether it’s worth adopting. We’ll cover its important aspects, including features, pricing, interface, and customer support.
uBlock Origin: Plans and Pricing
uBlock Origin is a free tool, one of its main advantages. Raymond Hill, a solo developer, released this tool in 2014 and made it open-source, allowing other developers to contribute to its maintenance and upgrades.
You can download and use uBlock Origin anytime without paying a dime, unlike many competitors that charge monthly or annual fees. Being free has played a vital part in uBlock Origin’s growth to over 37 million downloads on Chrome and 7 million+ on Firefox.
For unclear reasons, uBlock Origin refuses donations, unlike other open-source projects. Instead, it advises interested supporters to donate to some vetted developers who maintain the project.
(Image credit: Future / Stefan Ionescu)
uBlock Origin: Features
uBlock Origin does one thing and does it very well: blocking ads from your browsing experience. This tool is available as an extension for different browsers, including Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, Brave, and Safari (before version 13). You can download it from your relevant browser store and block ads immediately.
One thing we enjoyed about testing uBlock Origin is the detailed information the extension provides about the ads and trackers it has blocked. You can see the number of ads blocked on every web page you visit and the cumulative number of ads blocked on that page since you installed uBlock Origin. These stats make it easy to verify that uBlock is doing its job.
uBlock works by filtering out web page elements that disrupt your browsing experience with ads. It acts as a filter for your web traffic: when you request a page and the contents drop into your browser, uBlock checks against a database of filters and block domains that host ads and trackers. This platform doesn't receive any payments for "acceptable ads," which some ad blockers do and serves ads deemed in good standing. uBlock blocks all ads equally.
You might have some websites you trust and want to still see ads on them. For example, there might be an ad-funded news site you like and want their ads to keep showing on your browsers to help the site generate revenue. In that case, you can navigate to your settings and add the website domain to your list of “Trusted Sites.” uBlock disables itself for any website on this list.
uBlock maintains various filtering lists for ads, malware domains, and cookie notices. You can add or disable lists that the extension uses to block ads from your browser. There’s an auto-update setting that enables the list to keep up with continuously changing domains from ad servers.
This extension is available in 36 languages, with a separate ad-block list for each one. Hence, you can browse in many languages without worrying about ads disrupting your user experience.
A very good feature of uBlock Origin is that you can back up your settings and install it on another browser. This feature downloads all your custom settings in a text file, which you can upload to another browser where the uBlock extension is installed. In that case, you’ll see all your custom settings in the second browser just like it was in the first.
The main drawback we observed is that uBlock does not have a desktop or mobile app, unlike some other ad blockers. It’s only available as a browser extension, but that’s understandable for a free tool maintained by a small team.
(Image credit: Future / Stefan Ionescu)
uBlock Origin: Interface and In-Use
uBlock Origin is a noticeably easy-to-use tool, starting from the download and installation. You can head to your relevant browser extension store and download the tool within minutes.
This extension breaks down the apps it has blocked, including the origin domains. You can customize your dashboard to a great extent, changing the theme to light or dark or changing the accent colour. You can toggle the ad-blocking feature on and off instantly. uBlock Origin scores very high in ease of use.
uBlock Origin: Customer Support
Because it’s a free tool, don’t expect much customer support for uBlock Origin. There’s no dedicated team to call to help you resolve any issues you have with the app. You have to figure things out yourself, but we appreciate that the team behind uBlock Origin has released detailed technical documentation concerning all its features. You can check this documentation to find solutions to your issues.
uBlock is a very popular tool, so you can also ask for help on IT forums or IT-related subs on Reddit. Many developers and users are willing to help others become familiar with this ad-blocking tool.
(Image credit: Future / Stefan Ionescu)
uBlock Origin: The Competition
We'd like to highlight two competitors to uBlock Origin: Privacy Badger and Ghostery. These are also free extensions you can use to block ads and improve your browsing experience. However, our tests indicate that uBlock is better at blocking ads, owing to its larger database of ad and tracker-serving domains.
uBlock Origin: Final Verdict
uBlock Origin is an ad-blocking tool we’ll recommend to anyone. It works with most popular browsers and allows you to wipe ads away from your browsing experience without paying a dime. It’s also very easy to use and configure, giving it an edge over most other ad-blockers.
Howdy VPN is a confusing service, to say the least. The free VPN doesn't offer anything close to a traditional VPN provider at first glance – and the more I dig, the more I'm convinced that you should leave Howdy VPN alone. Keep reading, and I'll explain why it can't compete with today's best VPN services.
HowdyVPN: the basics
First off, let's go over the basics. Who is behind Howdy VPN? Unfortunately, I don't know.
Combing through the terms of service, privacy policy, and disclaimer only told me that the company is seemingly based in the Netherlands – or is at least subject to Dutch law. Beyond that, there’s not much more to know. The website itself is registered in Indonesia and you can reach out via a single Gmail address, but that's all I could find. It's not a great start.
I was expecting to find a traditional VPN provider, but as soon as I landed on the Howdy VPN website I realized I was looking at something entirely different. The website is light on details, but offers a few services you wouldn't expect to see side-by-side with each other.
Figuring out who Howdy VPN is for isn't straightforward, either. The VPN offers free networking services – which means there's a free VPN and a free VPN service, free RDP service, and something called "Find SNI", which initially perplexed me.
Each page offers virtually no information about what these tools do. Instead, they're bloated with loads of unrelated Chat-GPT-generated text about cryptocurrency and VPNs. Needless to say, this isn't very user-friendly. If you're not already aware of what these tools do, Howdy VPN won’t be of any help to you whatsoever.
Howdy VPN: features
Howdy VPN's selection of features worries me – it's like the VPN is throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. So, with that in mind, I decided to take a closer look at the VPN tool.
There are actually two on offer – Howdy VPN and "Trojan VPN", which immediately rang some alarm bells. Upon closer inspection, I can see why it's called this, but it's still worrying.
Howdy VPN offers two free VPNs. The default VPN is available for seven days from the point you sign up for it, with unlimited bandwidth and a "no-logs" policy that I'm not entirely confident in.
The "Game" VPN provides lower latency at the cost of reduced maximum speeds and is available for thirty days instead of seven. Either way, you'll see a list of servers you can scroll through to see where each is located and the total number of users connected to the server.
Once you've clicked through, you'll be presented with an options menu that allows you to set your username and password for the VPN, along with something called an "SNI" or "Bug Host". I'll dig into this more when I cover the SNI finder but, for now, clicking through the remaining options generates an OpenVPN config file that you'll then need to load into a third-party client.
Howdy VPN doesn't actually offer a VPN client of its own – and I think it's a little misleading to call it a VPN provider.
Then, there's the Trojan VPN based on TrojanGFW, an obfuscation service designed to evade deep packet inspection by tunneling your VPN traffic through an HTTPS tunnel. I was suspicious, seeing as Howdy VPN also offers "free RDP" services, that this was a Remote Access Trojan service, but it's relatively harmless. There's a quota system in place of a timed lockout, so when you sign up for a Trojan VPN server you'll only get around 30 GB or so of data before your account details stop working.
The VPN service requires you to visit a separate site that doesn't seem to be working, so I can't comment on it. Howdy VPN does have a bunch of additional servers with a bunch of obfuscation guarantees, including RDP servers that let you connect to a remote desktop to use as a proxy host.
However, the tool that really caught my eye was the "Find SNI" option.
Howdy VPN: Find SNI
There's hardly anything on the Howdy VPN website about what Find SNI is or what it does. In fact, the provider is weirdly coy about the tool, stating:
"We know you need this, but we can't show it to just anyone to make sure it will last longer so you'll have to figure out how to use this feature."
The Find SNO tool itself gave me a list of partially censored host names and, upon clicking through to one, I was presented with a captcha. Completing the captcha uncensored the host, giving me a full hostname and data about whether the IP associated with it was accessible, and a set of HTTP response headers. Weird. Really weird.
I managed to put two and two together after some digging and found what Howdy VPN was actually offering as a website. To give you the relevant context, I need to touch on bug hosts and how ISPs connect you to the internet.
When you connect to an ISP, your account is granted access to the World Wide Web – so long as you have a valid subscription. If you avoid paying your ISP bills for long enough, it'll cut off your internet connectivity. However, because your ISP does want you to pay your bills (and pay them as soon as possible), the username and password tied to your router will still be valid – it's just that your internet has been restricted so you can only access your ISP’s home page. All the requests you make to other hosts are processed by your ISP and dropped.
You'll see something similar if you try to access the internet without a data plan on mobile data, or if you're accessing a paid public router. Only certain websites are accessible without a subscription. I'll call these "zero-rated" websites, but they can be all sorts of different pages available for different reasons: think public health sites, government portals, and CDN hosts.
The important thing to note is that your ISP will allow you to connect to them without paying a subscription.
Here's where it gets tricky. The "SNI" I've been talking about is the Server Name Indicator and a key part of the TLS transaction that tells the server you're connecting to which website you want to visit. This makes SSL certification bookkeeping easier for servers that host multiple sites on the same IP, but that's not why we care about it today. Remember, you're advertising which hostname you want to connect to ahead of time. The ISP will read it and authorize your connection if it's to a zero-rated site, or drop the traffic otherwise.
What sites like Howdy VPN allow you to do is create a TLS connection through an SSL VPN that spoofs your traffic – making it seem as though it's heading to a zero-rated website through the SNI indicator before being sent on to the real destination by the VPN server. This is a massive violation of your ISP’s ToS by the way, if not outright illegal.
In the context of offering completely free VPN and VPS servers, I have no doubt that there's something weird going on here.
There's no third-party audit to validate Howdy VPN's privacy policy and, as a result, I'd have to assume that it's logging your traffic by default. In fact, there's no mention of what happens to the data that's passed through the free VPN servers – and I think this is a total failure to make explicit what it is you're giving up in return for the free service.
Howdy VPN: verdict
When I dug a little deeper into who actually providers Howdy VPN, I found two more websites: fastssh.com, which hosts most of the tutorial content for Howdy VPN on a separate blog space, and sshkit.com, which offers similar services.
There's a whole web of free VPN and SSH services associated with each other that all seem to do the same thing, all seemingly kept alive by aggressive website marketing popups and ad marketing agreements with Google.
As far as I can tell, it all falls under the ZXC brand, which operates several websites from the same hosting cluster in Indonesia. I can't say whether ZXC is just monetizing additional excess server capacity or up to something more nefarious – but if everything I've covered so far hasn't been enough to put you off, then let me make it clear: don't use Howdy VPN.
The complete lack of transparency surrounding the site, alongside some really suspect services and a total disregard for normal monetization practices, means I wouldn’t touch the service with a ten-foot pole. Plus, it looks like you can only sign up for Howdy VPN via telegram, which is the icing on the cake.
I'd instead recommend that you check out a legitimate VPN service that won't sell your data as soon as you fork it over – like NordVPN.
NordVPN is the polar opposite of Howdy VPN in about every way I can think of. You'll get top-not encryption that'll keep personal data out of the hands of snoopers, an audited and airtight privacy policy, and some of the fastest speeds I've seen a VPN hit. Plus, if you're in the market for a streaming VPN, NordVPN leads the pack – and you can try it for yourself with its 30-day money-back guarantee.
Alternatively, if you'd rather stick to a free VPN, there are much better options out there. Proton VPN (designed by the minds behind Proton Mail) is a privacy-focused service that offers unlimited data with no catches; no ads, no tracking, just a really, truly, free service. The caveat is that you'll only have access to servers in three locations, and it's not as fast as other premium providers, but Proton VPN's free tier is more than enough for anyone wanting to shore up their digital security as they go about their day-to-day browsing.
AngelVPN is a relative newcomer to the VPN industry, having only established its presence in the last two years.
Still, while it lacks the extensive history of industry giants like NordVPN and ExpressVPN, Angel VPN has carved a niche in a very competitive marketplace as a budget provider with power.
In this review, I'll showcase the surprising strengths of AngelVPN, such as its speed and unblocking capabilities, as well as a few issues you'll want to be aware of being committing to a subscription.
About AngelVPN
AngelVPN, established in 2022, is headquartered in London. The UK isn't an ideal place to host a VPN company, unfortunately - after all, it's one of the primary members of the Five Eyes data-sharing alliance.
This raises several questions about how well AngelVPN is able to deal with law enforcement requests and targeted spying from intelligence agencies.
I'll get into the details a little later, but his potential government interference combined with a less-than-stellar privacy policy means that AngelVPN might not be your ideal provider if you want to prevent third-party snooping in an overzealous surveillance state.
On a more positive note, AngelVPN has servers in 67 countries, and more than 80 locations, and even boasts coverage across 13 points in America.
Normally, I'd say this puts AngelVPN squarely in the middle bracket when it comes to server networks, but I noticed a few interesting locations in the server list.
In addition to plenty of spots in Europe, like the UK, France, Italy, and Germany, there are a few lesser-covered regions listed, including Russia, China, Brunei, the British Virgin Islands, and the Cayman Islands. This kind of spread is pretty rare, so if you need a VPN that can unblock content in these locations, AngelVPN might be worth a look.
(Image credit: AngelVPN)
AngelVPN pricing plans
Like most VPNs on the market today, AngelVPN offers a monthly subscription plan and some discounted long-term plans which significantly reduce the price.
A monthly plan costs $9.95. This is fairly cheap for a top-tier VPN but no extra features are bundled into the subscription – you just get the VPN.
Going for the 6-month plan knocks the price down to $3.33 per month for a total cost of $19.99. While this represents a 66% reduction in the monthly cost, buying the 12-month plan only reduces the cost by another 6% or so for a monthly cost of $2.83 and a total of $33.99.
Each AngelVPN plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee that allows you to test out the service before you commit to a subscription.
I was a little worried when I checked out the Terms of Service on the app and saw that it said no refunds would be processed, but after confirming with AngelVPN staff, and processing a refund based on the money-back guarantee, I'm happy to say it’s a legitimate promotion.
AngelVPN also supports a range of payment processors. In addition to the usual credit and debit card providers, there's support for Paypal, GooglePay, and a range of cryptocurrencies through BitPay, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.
Privacy and security
AngelVPN is a mixed bag when it comes to privacy. There's nothing to complain about on a technical level – and, in fact, AngelVPN scores above-average marks in terms of VPN protocol support.
The Windows desktop app uses IKEv2 by default, which is a little unusual but definitely not a negative. IKEv2 is known for providing fast, high-security connections, but it's usually favored by MacOS and iOS devices.
There's also WireGuard support, as well as OpenVPN over both UDP and TCP. All three of these protocols are battle-tested and open-source, so you shouldn't have any concerns connecting to the internet.
I put AngelVPN's kill switch through its paces, too, in a series of stress tests designed to see if data would leak while the VPN is disconnected. I'm happy to report that it performed well in all cases. One caveat is that the kill switch only works while the VPN is connected. If you choose to disconnect manually while the client is open, it won't protect you.
One of the primary concerns I encountered with Angel VPN pertains to its privacy policy. Despite claiming to be a strictly no-logs provider, a closer inspection of its privacy policy reveals that it retains several significant data points that could potentially compromise your anonymity. These include details such as the user's city, ISP, connection timestamps, and the specific server being accessed.
While Angel VPN states that it does not record the contents of user connections, the retention of such information could still potentially lead to user identification if a third party was able to access the data, especially in the event of a request by law enforcement. Given that AngelVPN is headquartered in the UK, which has a less-than-stellar privacy reputation, it's entirely possible.
I raised this issue with AngelVPN's support staff. In response, they indicated to me that they have intentions to commission a third-party audit of both their privacy policy and server architecture in the near future. This is a positive step forward, as an independent audit will provide clarity on how AngelVPN captures data and potentially lead to revisions in its privacy policy.
However, it remains to be seen how this audit will impact its approach to user privacy. If online anonymity is your main concern, it may be worth holding out on AngelVPN until its privacy policy is updated following a third-party audit.
Netflix and global stream unblocking
AngelVPN works with every streaming site I tested, including Netflix in several regions (America, Japan, Canada, and the UK), Disney+, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, as well as regional streaming services such as BBC iPlayer, ITVX, and All 4.
In all cases, accessing the streaming service was instant. No buffering, no stalling mid-way through an episode, and no lockout screens. AngelVPN boasts that its services are optimized for IPTV, and it's evident from its performance that it's able to keep up with some of the bigger VPN providers when it comes to unblocking and streaming.
AngelVPN performance
AngelVPN impressed me with its performance – especially when you consider that it's a cheap VPN. To test its speed, I connected to the UK London server using a 100 Mbps connection, with the actual speed test being carried out by Ookla Speedtest.
Connecting over OpenVPN gave me download speeds of 63.85 Mbps and upload speeds of 20.89 Mbps. These speeds are more than enough to connect to a 4K streaming service without buffering or lag – even with other users on the same connection.
The only real complaint I have is that connecting or changing servers using AngelVPN took slightly longer than I expected, but your mileage may vary.
AngelVPN apps
AngelVPN is available on all major platforms, including Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS. Rather surprisingly for a smaller VPN provider, there's also a Linux client with a full GUI that works as well as the other desktop clients.
The desktop app itself is pretty unremarkable. It's functional, but there's nothing here that would wow anyone who’s used a VPN before. It's simple and easy to set up, with a minimalist design that requires just a single click to get online. The P2P servers are clearly marked when you check out the location list, which is nice, but it'd be better to have a separate P2P tab.
AngelVPN customer support
AngelVPN's support is also better than I would've expected. The support staff stole the show – all of my queries got quick responses via the 24/7 live chat system and email. Each agent I chatted with was polite and knowledgeable, willing to have an in-depth discussion with me about both the scope of the VPN's streaming support as well as the shortcomings of its privacy policy.
Apparently, AngelVPN prides itself on having highly visible support channels and, as such, maintains an active presence on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. I like email tickets better, but if you've got a different preference, AngelVPN has you covered.
The AngelVPN support library is pretty extensive, too, and has Quickstart guides for all platform applications. The apps aren't hard to use, but it's great to see each function clearly documented in the support library, as well as an FAQ section that covers questions about billing and AngelVPN’s service, too. There's even a guide on how to retrieve your credentials for OpenVPN if you want to set up your own third-party app.
AngelVPN alternatives
ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN is a great pick for unlocking geo-restricted streaming content such as Netflix, DAZN, Disney+, HBO Max, and Peacock. With a huge server network covering over 100 countries, it's one of the most expansive VPNs on the market. No matter where you're connecting from, ExpressVPN's ability to bypass geo-blocks ensures you'll be able to access a wide range of content from different regions. This is all powered by its proprietary Lightway VPN protocol, which delivers high-speed connections for uninterrupted streaming. ExpressVPN also guarantees a strict no-log policy, which is regularly audited by KPMG to demonstrate that ExpressVPN really doesn't hold on to your data.
NordVPN
NordVPN is another exceptional choice if you're looking for top-tier security and high-speed performance. In addition to its ability to effortlessly unblock content worldwide, NordVPN integrates cutting-edge security measures to safeguard you from online threats. With its innovative Threat Detection integrated scanning service, NordVPN continuously monitors incoming traffic for non-malware files, providing proactive alerts to preemptively protect your device. NordVPN also comes with Meshnet, which operates as a decentralized network that enables peer-to-peer communication and file sharing without relying on traditional centralized servers. It's all powered by NordVPN's high-quality VPN tunnels, so you can chat and send files safely in the knowledge you're protected by the highest standard of encryption.
Surfshark
Surfshark has a flexible subscription policy, allowing you to safeguard an unlimited number of devices under a single account. It's also got an extensive suite of tools designed to enhance the VPN for additional security. With Surfshark One, you get a comprehensive three-pronged solution to protect yourself from viruses, malware, data leaks, and privacy threats. Surfshark Antivirus shields your devices from viruses and malware with real-time protection and customizable security features. Then there's Surfshark Search, which allows you to perform web searches in complete privacy, free from ads, logs, and trackers. Finally, Surfshark Alert notifies you of personal data leaks in real time, helping you prevent potential damage before it's too late.
Private Internet Access
Private Internet Access easily matches the speed and power of other top vendors. It's one of the only top-tier VPN vendors in the industry to offer a fully-featured Linux client with a GUI, offering the same experience as AngelVPN but with more features. It also offers unique features such as anonymous purchase options for dedicated IPs, enabling access to sites that commonly block VPNs. Its "MACE" blacklist also effectively blocks ads, trackers, and malicious sites, further enhancing your privacy. If that wasn’t enough, PIA's commitment to a strict no-logs policy has been proven by several third-party audits and in court.
AngelVPN review: Final verdict
AngelVPN is a budget provider that punches above its weight in key areas. While it's not quite as feature-rich as Surfshark, or as globe-spanning as ExpressVPN, it's a quality VPN posed at a price that won't break the bank. If you're trying to watch IPTV or streaming services while abroad, you could do a lot worse.
However, if you're looking for a rock-solid VPN that comes with some extra security capabilities you won't find anywhere, I recommend you give NordVPN a shot.
TechRadar rating: ⭐⭐⭐½
How we test VPNs
Beside using the top recommended VPNs for our daily activities, we also conduct a thorough analysis of the top 30 VPN services every 6 months to keep track on how the software compares with other providers as new developments come in.
We start by reviewing each provider's website to double check if its claims and offering changed. We also look for any tracking cookies on the site and if/when they activate to see if the service tracks people using the site.
We then install and use each VPN service across a wide range of location servers and devices to see how they perform across the board. We go through all the settings to make sure all the features work as promised, while playing around with encryption protocols.
Our reviewers actively challenge the software, too, in the lookout for any flaws. For example, we purposely make the VPN connection drop so that we can test if the kill switch does its job of preventing data leaks correctly.
From speed connections and streaming unlocking results, to customer support and app usability, we regularly make sure to test every aspect of the software that could affect the experience of our readers.
As issues arise during our testing, we make sure to investigate these even by digging into the source code or the contents of its RAM if necessary. Head to our dedicated VPN testing methodology page if you want to know more.
I’m usually quite suspicious of free VPNs, especially ones with such bold claims about their privacy stance. Usually, all it takes is a visit to their privacy policy to find that the VPN is subsidized by intrusive data-scraping or, even worse, ads inserted directly into your browsing traffic. When I saw that Amnezia VPN advertised itself as a free service, I immediately started looking for the catch.
I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that Amnezia VPN seems to be taking a totally different approach. It’s an open-source solution built by a Russian team in collaboration with Privacy Accelerator, an organization dedicated to funding and developing privacy tools for use inside Russia. Without diving too deeply into the politics, Russia’s increasingly hostile stance towards free speech necessitates the use of the best VPNs around to communicate without worrying about prying eyes reading over your shoulder - or worse.
About the company
The Amnezia team released a completely open-source and decentralized VPN solution to combat Russia's harsh censorship. It isn’t decentralized in the Web 3.0 sense of the word, where everyone contributes their bandwidth to a single VPN network, but decentralized in the true sense of the word: there is no “Amnezia network”.
Let’s get this out of the way: Amnezia is not a one-click VPN solution. In fact, the Amnezia team doesn’t host their own servers at all. They’ve instead released a VPN product that allows you to deploy your own customized VPN server on the hosting site of your choice. While they recommend several known hosting providers, including Amazon AWS and Digital Ocean, you’re entirely free to pick whichever host you want. In theory, you should even be able to host a VPN off of your domestic internet connection.
So, if Amnezia doesn’t host a VPN service for you, what does it do? Well, Amnezia takes a lot of the difficulty of running a secure VPN server out of your hands. If you’re worried about a third party reading the data you route through a VPN, Amnezia lets you take back control by running your own VPN server. As long as you trust your host, you’re in complete control of how your server works.
Amnezia VPN pricing
Amnezia is completely free—that’s free as in free speech, and the client and server source codes are available on the GitHub repository for anyone to download. You don’t need to pay a penny to download the product and you’re able to modify and redistribute it as you wish.
Amnezia is also licensed under GPLv3, which means that it’s a breach of the license to use the Amnezia code as the basis for your own paid white-label VPN service. Other than that, you’re free to do anything you like with the code as long as you continue to distribute it with a GPLv3 license and don’t charge users.
The Amnezia project is funded by a combination of donations from various sources and contributions from non-profits through the Privacy Accelerator project. If you’re interested in chipping into the project, you can subscribe to the Amnezia Patreon or donate through Bitcoin, Monero, or Payeer.
Does Amnezia VPN offer privacy?
The real appeal of Amnezia is unparalleled control over your data. Even the most bullet-proof VPN solutions require you to trust your provider to protect your data from external hackers and their own employees. With Amnezia, you can pick the server host you have the most confidence in, and keep the administration of your own VPN server entirely in-house.
I particularly like how Amnezia handles DNS leaks. If you’re using a VPN while browsing the web, and if your DNS requests are still going through your ISP’s DNS servers, you’re actively disclosing the domain of every website you visit to your ISP (and thus, the government). Amnezia solves this issue by providing an interface allowing you to install your own DNS server on your hosting of choice, minimizing the amount of data you leaking while browsing.
Plus, Amnezia isn't interested in keeping, collecting, or storing logs, claiming:
"You have full control over your data. The app does not collect or transmit any statistics, logs, or other information about users or their data."
(Image credit: Amnezia VPN)
Amnezia VPN protocols
When you’re installing Amnezia, you’re presented with a choice of server settings based on the severity of censorship in your country. It's pretty much just a novel way to pick the protocols installed on your VPS by default, but, it's nice to see that it’s couched in language a non-specialist will understand.
Disclosing that you’re under extreme censorship will install OpenVPN over Cloak, medium censorship uses a hardened version of WireGuard, and low censorship will install default WireGuard.
Choosing to install your own VPN protocol instead lets you choose between default OpenVPN, OpenVPN over ShadowSocks, and IKEv2. All of these protocols are highly secure but differ in terms of connection speed and how obviously they appear as VPN traffic when analyzed.
IKEv2, OpenVPN, and WireGuard are all easily detected by basic deep package inspection (DPI) techniques and, as such, are only offered for the sake of encrypting your data. Any ISP looking to block your VPN traffic will shut down the connection to your VPN server, even if you’re also running an obfuscated VPN service. Instead, I’ll look at Amnezia’s obfuscated protocols and how well they hold up.
Without access to Russia or China’s internet routers, it’s difficult to truly tell how well a VPN protocol holds up under scrutiny. With that said, there are multiple techniques you can use to identify VPN traffic and it’s possible to make educated guesses about how governments track VPN usage.
The most obvious one is comparing against a list of known VPN servers. This could involve using the VPN service and enumerating endpoint IP addresses assigned to you, or accessing a third-party IP database of known VPN addresses. It’s not a comprehensive solution but it’s a good start for any authoritarian government. It works against commercial VPNs, but Amnezia skirts this problem by letting you host your own VPN—any hosting site could be a VPN, and it would simply be unfeasible to block every hosting site without making the internet completely unusable.
Want to learn more?
Curious about VPN protocols? Or want to figure out which one is your match made in heaven? Check out our guide to VPN protocols.
An ISP could also block the default port numbers for VPN protocols. OpenVPN and WireGuard both connect to a fairly unique default port, but this isn’t a particularly effective solution. By changing the port to something another ubiquitous web service uses (such as 443 for HTTPS), you can ensure your VPN traffic can’t be blocked at the port level without forcing an ISP to block the other services associated with that port, again, making the internet completely unusable.
Both of these techniques are somewhat rudimentary and don’t address the actual problem: DPI. OpenVPN and WireGuard traffic can be identified by looking at the structure of the packet headers, which have a distinct set of bytes. You can try this out for yourself by opening up WireShark and capturing some traffic with WireGuard open. You’ll see that the first byte in the WireGuard header is either “01”, “02”, “03”, or “04”, each corresponding to a type of WireGuard packet, followed by three bytes of “00”. A DPI program can match these bytes to instantly determine whether this is a WireGuard packet without reading the inner contents. From there, it’s as simple as null-routing the destination of the packet, and now your WireGuard connection no longer works. A similar concept applies to OpenVPN.
This means there’s a flashing arrow over every VPN packet you send that says “Hey, I’m a VPN packet!”. It’s not hard for your ISP to capture this information. Amnezia employs some interesting ways to avoid classification, but let’s finish discussing the ways an ISP can identify VPN traffic with the most nebulous, and least understood method: behavioral analysis.
The frequency, size, and destination of individual packets can be aggregated to create a statistical profile of a user’s internet traffic. Then, this reveals information about the stream of traffic, even if it's encrypted and obfuscated. Neural networks can be trained to accurately identify OpenVPN traffic with over 90% success rates. The entropy of an encrypted message can be analyzed to decipher which file type it might be, too. These are just the techniques we’re aware of, but many DPI vendors use black-box software to analyze traffic and this is especially true of ISPs in repressive regimes.
It’s not all doom and gloom, however. Security is always an arms race, even when it seems dismal for one side. Amnezia offers several different obfuscation methods with different levels of success against DPI. OpenVPN over ShadowSocks is the most well-known... and least effective. It creates an encrypted connection to a SOCKS5 proxy server, allowing you to run a VPN over the connection which doesn’t show any tell-tale signs of VPN use.
Unfortunately, the behavioral analysis I talked about earlier exposes ShadowSocks. It’s hard to find concrete details on how China blocks this system, but chatter amongst VPN circles suggests it’s fallen out of use and authorities are starting to use it to identify connections. This is backed up by the existence of SSAPPIDENTIFY, an academic project published by Xidian University, China, which seeks to classify types of ShadowSocks application traffic by using neural network classification. There are also suggestions that ShadowSocks is now vulnerable to active probing, whereby an ISP will send crafted traffic to a suspected ShadowSocks server and analyze the response to determine whether it’s really a ShadowSocks server.
Thankfully, ShadowSocks now supports plugins that enhance the usability of the project as an obfuscation tool. Cloak is the most important one offered by Amnezia, as it drastically reduces the protocol's vulnerability to active probing methods while continuing to masquerade as HTTPS traffic not easily identified by traditional DPI methods. Cloak does significantly downgrade the speed of your internet connection, but it’s worth it if you’re extremely concerned about the security of your internet traffic.
Finally, we get to Amnezia’s custom implementation of WireGuard: AmneziaWG. It’s important to note that AmneziaWG is not Amnezia’s recommended solution for extreme censorship, which is OpenVPN over Cloak. Instead, AmneziaWG is a hardened version of WireGuard that removes several key aspects used to identify WireGuard using traditional DPI methods. It changes the header values from the static ones I outlined earlier to random values, which makes it harder for DPI to identify the WireGuard packet. WireGuard packets also have a static size of 148 bytes, but AmneziaWG appends junk data to the start of a packet to randomize the packet size, making packet matching harder. Finally, the initial session connection is disguised by sending junk packets at the start of the connection. Honestly, it’s unclear if this would make a massive amount of difference to traditional DPI methods but potentially confuse statistically-based behavior analysis.
You should note that all of these obfuscation techniques add additional overhead when using WireGuard proportional to how much junk data you’re adding on a per-packet basis. All of these metrics are customizable from inside the Amnezia app, so you can balance obfuscation against speed until you find a sweet spot that confuses DPI while keeping your connection usable. While I don’t have a Russian or Chinese ISP to test against, it wasn’t possible to create a set of rules in WireShark that could accurately characterize AmneziaWG traffic without prior knowledge of user settings. Amnezia’s own testing in these regions suggests that any regime that outright drops unfamiliar UDP traffic will filter out AmneziaWG traffic, so where possible you should probably stick to the slower OpenVPN over Cloak protocol. However, for regimes with less advanced DPI, such as Iran, Egypt, and Turkey, it may be a viable solution. Your mileage may vary.
Amnezia VPN setup and configuration
Amnezia makes server administration surprisingly simple, too. You set up a VPS server on your account and provide details to the Amnezia app, which you’ll have set up on your phone or desktop. Once the app logs into your VPS provider for the first time, it sets up the relevant public key infrastructure and OpenVPN key-pair necessary to authenticate you securely in the future. The client then connects by SSH and automatically installs and configures the Docker software required to run your VPN connections.
Each time you start a new VPN protocol connection, your Amnezia client boots up a new Docker instance with randomly generated SSH keys. This approach has two major benefits: any data left behind by your VPN instance is removed from the server after your connection is terminated, and any new instances have completely fresh credentials. If you’re worried your key has somehow been compromised, you can tear down your Amnezia instance and start a new one in just a few moments.
After you’ve started up an Amnezia instance, all admin is taken care of inside the app. Installing new protocols on your server, sharing your access credentials with others, and adding new servers to your client only takes a few taps. It makes tweaking your VPN service shockingly easy and I’m impressed with how seamless this process is. It’s clear that Amnezia’s team put thought into creating a user-friendly product that’s still powerful enough to provide effective security while browsing.
Amnezia anti-censorship tools
Amnezia also recently announced the launch of its anti-censorship tool, available in Russia, Myanmar, Iraq, and Kyrgyzstan, at no extra cost.
These four countries have been hit particularly hard by censorship, making it increasingly difficult for citizens to access sites and services like Facebook, X, WhatsApp, and TikTok. It's easy to take these platforms for granted, but they're vital sources of information, allow folks to keep up with current events, and a means to stay in touch with friends and family.
Amnezia's tool allows access to sites that'd otherwise be inaccessible, thanks to censorship.
In March 2022, Russia blocked independent media outlets covering the Ukraine war, including the BBC and Deutsche Welle, as well as popular social media platforms. Amnezia worked alongside Russian human rights activists, Roskomsvoboda, to release the first version of the service.
In 2021, following a military coup, Meta services were blocked in Myanmar. Fortunately, the Amnezia service arrived in the country in April 2024.
Kyrgyzstan blocked TikTok back in April 2024, though citizens can now regain access to the app via Amenzia.
Amnezia introduced its tool into Iran in May 2024, too, using the AmneziaWG protocol—a necessity, given that all standard VPN protocols are blocked in the country.
Performance testing: How fast is Amnezia VPN?
Ultimately, your speed and streaming capability will vary massively depending on which host you use and how far away you are from it. For this reason, it’s hard to come up with meaningful numbers, because your experience is absolutely going to be different from mine.
What you should keep in mind is that Amnezia is not an ideal solution for unblocking content streams such as Amazon Prime or Netflix, as these providers are constantly on the lookout for non-residential access to their streams and block those IPs accordingly.
Amnezia VPN review - final verdict
It could be said that there’s nothing fundamentally innovative about Amnezia VPN—after all, what’s stopping you, a tech-savvy internet user with unfiltered website access from registering a VPS subscription and installing some open-source VPN software yourself?
If that’s your takeaway from Amnezia VPN, you’re missing the point. Not everyone has the knowledge or resources to set up a micro-VPN service securely, but everyone should have access to a free and unfiltered internet. It shouldn’t be an exercise in gatekeeping, where only the most well-read and capable internet users can duck past censors. Privacy tools need to be easy to use to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible. This philosophy is baked into Amnezia’s design all the way through. You can even share your VPN client information with other users through the app so it’s possible to run a single VPN server for several of your friends and family with relative ease.
Amnezia embraces this philosophy wholeheartedly with a simple interface and clear, concise support material that walks you through the installation process in plain English. I can’t speak for how the site reads in Russian, but I can only assume it’s similarly well-written. The source code for both client and server has been independently audited by 7ASecurity, which published several exploits of varying severity that the Amnezia team has patched. This approach to transparency is really refreshing from a VPN provider.
The only significant issue I can see with Amnezia is that you’re handing over your server credentials to a third party, which automatically administers a server for you. Normally, this is a setup I’d balk at. However, the Amnezia app and server are both fully open-source. You can browse the source code line by line for yourself if you need convincing that Amnezia isn’t malicious.
I can only think of one other solution that’s attempting to do something similar to Amnezia, and that’s Outline VPN from Jigsaw, a Google technology incubator dedicated to technology projects that intersect with online anonymity and freedom of speech. It uses ShadowSocks to tunnel a ChaCha20 encryption stream, but it’s not as pointedly designed to evade DPI as Amnezia is, nor is it nearly as user-friendly. Although Outline is also open source, Jigsaw’s proximity to US defense projects makes me somewhat uncomfortable so when it comes down to it, I’d bet on the rag-tag group of Russian privacy advocates in the long run.
In 2024, Kanary is one of a number of the best data removal services, which play a fundamental role in keeping your personal information out of the wrong hands, such as data brokers that buy and profit from data.
For the uninitiated, data removal services come in a few different forms but their task is essentially simple: scan the web for your personal data (think address, email, phone number, and so on) and, either automatically or manually, remove that data from data brokerages, social networks, search engines, and so on.
There are a lot of companies that offer such services, and today we're looking at Kanary, one of the most well established and reliable services on the market.
We'll get into the nitty gritty below, but Kanary offers a free trial (which then turns into a free tier subscription) and two paid tiers of its data removal services that offer different levels and specifications, including the ability to add custom domains and emails to speed up removals.
In 2024, keeping your online data safe should be of paramount importance, and we recommend checking out the best VPNs, the best password managers, and the best antivirus software to help prevent anything untoward happening.
We also recommend checking out rival data removal services like DeleteMe, Mozilla Monitor Plus, and Surfshark Incogni to make the best choice for your needs, be that a wider range of data brokers targeted or a corporate plan.
As we mentioned above, Kanary offers two paid tiers and, at the moment, a fairly generous 14-day free trial that includes three removals, which will then turn into a free tier subscription if a user decides not to pay.
The Premium tier is split into monthly and yearly payment plans, albeit with one difference: the monthly plan does not include free custom domain and email to speed up removals.
Kanary charges $16.99 per month or $179.88 per year, which translates to $14.99 per month, but that will, of course, be billed yearly. Each tier lets users add family members, for $7.49 per month on the yearly plan and $8.49 on the monthly plan.
Finally, Kanary offers an Enterprise plan, which costs $179.88 per year per user and adds a ton of different features that we'll get into below.
These prices are fairly towards the high end of the range for data removal services, although the addition of a limited free tier and, on top of that, a 14-day free trial are nice perks that can at least offer a feel of the services, and remove at least some data from brokers and other online services.
Kanary has a really helpful explanation of how its service works on its website, and we'll break down the main themes here, on top of some other notable features.
Upon becoming a Kanary member, the service begins scanning the web to identify where your data is located and who has been storing it. That process can take anywhere from two to 14 days, and includes removing users from Google Search, and asks for your preference on data on Facebook and other websites.
Between days four and 14, Kanary is still scanning the web and removing any data automatically that falls within its scope. On day 15 (or maybe sooner), Kanary will generate a dashboard to show removals, pending removals, and its overall progress.
By day 30, Kanary says there should be around a 60% removal success and the software will continue to rescan and check for your data out there. Users can initiate a new scan sooner than 30 days, but Kanary recommends waiting for the dust to settle first.
Between day 31 and 45, Kanary estimates there will be an 80% removal success rate, as the service focuses on the "toughest removals" and its support team investigates websites that are not responding to removal requests. By day 90, you will likely be looking at a 95% to 100% removal success rate as Kanary's software and its staff work their magic.
Beyond the 90 days, Kanary will continue to scan every month and resurface old exposures to fix them promptly, and users can track pretty much everything on the main dashboard.
It's pretty much simple, and we found Kanary to work as advertised. The company publishes a helpful website on its Privacy & Security philosophy that offers a lot of details for those interested.
Kanary also offers a tier for businesses, which provides a pretty similar set of features to the personal plans but with some additions geared towards enterprise.
The high-end service comes with 256-bit encryption and multi-factor authentication, the ability to set up accounts within five minutes, and dedicated support, to make sure that your needs are met quickly and easily.
Kanary works by searching and removing content related to employees at a business, like it does with personal data. You can find out more about its enterprise tier on its website.
Like its peers, Kanary offers a good range of support documentation, including a helpful blog with tips on everything from Google data removal to deleting popular social media services like Instagram and LinkedIn.
There's also an FAQ with a lot of basic questions about how the service works, and the company publishes a long list of all of the websites Kanary removes from.
On top of that, Kanary offers email support, as you would expect.
There are a number of high quality data removal services available right now from a range of companies, some independent and some part of larger organisations.
DeleteMe, for example, is a veteran of the data removal game having been launched in 2011, and includes a lot of great features, including support for up to 750 data brokers (albeit with some available on on expensive plans). The company charges $129 per year for its basic plan.
Mozilla Monitor Plus, too, is a great option that is developed by the same people as Firefox, meaning you can rely on its quality and robustness. Monitor Plus costs $8.99 per month.
Honourable mentions should also go to Surfshark Incogni, PrivacyBee, IDX, and Hello Privacy, all of which offer data removal services to a high standard and are worth checking out to match your specific needs.
In our testing, Kanary worked well and deserves to be up there alongside the best data removal services around in 2024. With the crisis of data brokers and the abundance of personal data we (accidentally) leave across the web, there has never been a better time to get a handle on your online footprint.
It's worth checking out Kanary's competitors like DeleteMe and Mozilla Monitor Plus, especially if you have a specific use case in mind, or to just make sure you're getting the best value.
Covering hundreds of data brokers, plus Google, Facebook, and other social networks, Kanary is a solid option, and the $16.99 per month tier, while not cheap, offers a wide range of features.
DeleteMe is one of the best data removal services out there right now, helping you keep your personal data from data brokers and other internet parties easily.
In 2024, making sure your personal data is safe is hard, which is one of the reasons we recommend using a password manager, antivirus, and a VPN, and with the prevalence of social media, data brokers, and most jobs requiring an internet presence, it's a hard world out there.
Responding to this situation, data removal services have sprung up, letting users quickly and painlessly remove their data from Google, social media, and the internet at large with the click of a few buttons.
One of the leading services, and the subject of this review, is DeleteMe, a US-based service that deals with name, age, location, email, addresses, and much more, stored by over 750 data brokers across the US.
DeleteMe says the service completed over 50 million opt-out removals by 2022, after its parent company Abine launched DeleteMe in 2011, long before most people had ever heard of a data broker.
The service has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and now, of course, TechRadar Pro, a sign that your data is safe and secure with its experts.
Let's dive into the DeleteMe data removal service review.
As we mentioned above, DeleteMe is sadly only available in the US right now, meaning that users in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere will be missing out.
The company offers plans across one or two years, with the latter being cheaper on a per monthly or yearly basis, and for one or two users.
One year and one person costs $10.75 per month, billed as $129 per year, while one person and two years costs $8.71 per month, billed as $209 over two years, or $104.50 per year.
For two users, the price naturally rises, to $19.08 per month, or $229 per year as billed, for one year, or $14.52 per month, or $349 across two years.
Which level you chose depends on your needs, and it's worth reiterating that all of these planned are billed annually, so the true cost to use DeleteMe is $129. Of course, they are paying a team of experts to do the work, but that might be too steep for some users.
DeleteMe works by using four simple steps: users submit their information (think age, location, emails, phone numbers, and so on), which is then searched for by the company's experts. For some data, DeleteMe requires a government or state ID.
After that process, DeleteMe then sends you a detailed report (see an example) of your data from across the whole internet, which might be a little disconcerting, but it's better to know than not.
Once you've received the report, DeleteMe then begins scanning the internet for your information and deleting it, before continuing the scan and delete every six months for the term of your year contract.
DeleteMe removes data from over 750 data brokers, and there's a complete list of them on the website. In today's surveillance age, data brokers are one of the key ways that dangerous (and harmless) actors can obtain your data. It's worth noting that some competitors cover more data brokers.
The process means that almost everything is handled by the company itself, which is a big bonus and part of the reason that the $129 cost is there: paying for expert data removal specialists isn't cheap.
DeleteMe has a really useful dashboard that shows a range of information and, as you use the service over months and years, analytics for how your data is faring out in the big bad world. The service shows you how many data brokers have your data, and the number of removal requests, among other things.
Finally, one neat feature is that users can make custom requests for removals to DeleteMe, whose experts will then assess the request and carry it out, a nice touch.
Alongside being able to remove personal data, DeleteMe also has an enterprise level that is used by Google, Pinterest, ProPublica, Yahoo, and other big US brands to help stop executive and employee exposure.
DeleteMe helps with the data of public-facing employees, executives and board members, and individual contributors to your business.
Pricing is available on application, so if you're representing your business make sure to get in touch with DeleteMe.
DeleteMe offers a fully fledged online portal with tons of information to help users across a huge array of topics. Everything from password changes to pricing, two-factor authentication, data security, and more is covered.
In addition, DeleteMe also publishes some really helpful DIY Opt-Out Guides, in the interest of ensuring that all users – and not even just DeleteMe users – can help keep their personal data out of the wrong hands.
There are extensive guides on removing data from an array of different data brokers, as well as general guidance on best practices, all written by experts. It's a really handy resource, even if you don't ultimately get DeleteMe.
DeleteMe has competition from a wide array of services, including the likes of Mozilla Monitor Plus, Kanary, PrivacyBee, and OneRep.
VPN provider Surfshark, which might be a familiar brand, has a service called Incogni that can do a similar job to DeleteMe, but starts at $12.99 per month, and doesn't need to be paid for a full year before signing up. The service is also available outside of the US, including in the UK, the EU, and Canada.
We recommend checking out as many services as you can to find the right fit, especially if your needs are more specific and niche.
DeleteMe, released in 2011, is one of the most long-running and well-respected data removal services out there, and with good reason. Across its personal and business editions, the service delivers everything you want in a quality package.
Having experts on hand to help sift your data, and the tools available to find tune the kind of data you want removed, is really handy, and ensures that a) a machine won't muck something up and b) your data is in safe hands.
While having to pay yearly is a slight drawback, and reports are only generated every quarter rather than monthly, DeleteMe is a comprehensive service for removing your data from data brokers.
The market for virtual private networks (VPNs) is huge, and it can be difficult to figure out which services are reliable and which are better off avoided. Some VPNs are mediocre, most do the job without having any stand-out features, and a handful really knock it out of the park.
With this in mind, I'll be digging into OysterVPN (and whether it's worth your money.) I've been researching and reviewing VPNs for years, now, so you can rest assured you'll be getting first-hand info from a hands-on testing process (and not just the usual marketing blurb you can find on OysterVPN's website yourself.)
For a VPN that's only been on the block for a few months, OysterVPN is massively impressive—and definitely one to keep an eye on. With some adjustments to its toolset, the inclusion of WireGuard, and better performance, OysterVPN could be well on its way to giving the best VPNs a run for their money. For now, however, there are still plenty of snags to iron out.
OysterVPN features
OysterVPN is situated in Ireland and owned by Oyster Digital Solutions Ltd. It's a new-ish provider that kicked off its VPN services in early 2023 and, hopefully, this means that it's on the cutting edge of cybersecurity technology.
Ireland isn't part of any Western intelligence pacts, like the notorious 14 Eyes Alliance, so I'm also pretty confident in the provider's privacy policy. However, Ireland does impose mandatory data retention laws—so OysterVPN's no-logs policy has to do a lot of heavy lifting.
OysterVPN currently hosts 150+ servers in 17 countries, most notably:
Australia
Canada
France
Germany
Hong Kong
India
Singapore
Netherlands
USA
UK
This is a decent spread of locations, especially across Europe and Asia, but it’s nowhere near the extensive list of locations you would get from a top-tier VPN. Functional, but not amazing.
It's great to see OysterVPN offering split tunneling, which gives you full control over which apps are covered by the VPN connection. The downside is that it's only available on the Windows and Android apps, which is disappointing, considering that top-tier providers now offering split tunneling for MacOS.
Keep in mind
Split tunneling is handy if you want to stream content from one location and browse in another, but it's better to switch it off if you put your privacy first.
Fortunately, OysterVPN's split tunneling works well. It's easy to specify which apps and sites use the VPN connection and whether you'd rather have the VPN cover your entire connection.
Torrenting with OysterVPN is seamless, too. I didn't encounter any issues while hopping from server to server, which suggests there’s a full P2P service enabled across all of them. The same goes for P2P gaming across Hamachi—it was a breeze.
OysterVPN pricing plans
OysterVPN has a single payment tier that allows you to choose how long you want to subscribe for. The monthly plan costs $9.99 and includes 3 free months upfront, which is pretty awesome.
The monthly plan is on the pricey side, given the lack of server locations, but OysterVPN's yearly plan is more modest at $2.50 per month. Alternatively, if you feel like making a bigger commitment, OysterVPN lets users make a one-off payment of $49.99 for lifetime access to the service. This works out at $0.42 a month—that's not bad at all, but it is a limited time offer.
No matter which subscription you pick, you'll be covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can put the provider to the test without risking a penny.
Unfortunately, there’s no free trial or free VPN tier, so you’ll have to purchase OysterVPN if you want to give it a shot. The provider only accepts major credit cards and PayPal, too, meaning there's no option to pay via Bitcoin. This is going to disappoint folks who want to really shore up their privacy.
All OysterVPN plans offer five simultaneous connections—which isn't massively generous. However, it will allow you to protect all of your favorite devices. A family household can easily have upwards of ten gadgets (including mobiles, PCs, consoles, and more), so if you're looking for unlimited connections, you're better off with Surfshark.
(Image credit: OysterVPN)
Privacy and security
OysterVPN comes with most of the features you need to maintain your digital privacy. There are four VPN protocols to choose from: IKEv2/IPSec, L2TP/IPSec, PPTP, and OpenVPN. I recommend steering clear of L2TP and PPTP, seeing as they're not secure, and sticking with IKEv2 or OpenVPN. Both of these picks offer industry-standard security and reliable speeds.
I was disappointed to see that OysterVPN doesn't offer WireGuard, though. It's a relatively new VPN that combines the tight security of OpenVPN with the speed of IKEv2, all while maintaining a much smaller resource footprint. Given that OysterVPN touts itself as a modern VPN, there's no excuse not to offer WireGuard. Ideally, I'd like to see the service ditch its outdated protocols and welcome WireGuard to the fold.
OysterVPN passed all of the IPv4, DNS, and WebRTC leak tests I put it through. It’s reassuring to see that OysterVPN really will preserve your privacy while you’re browsing online, given that there are so many leaky VPNs out there. The only real issue I found was that IPv6 wasn’t supported, but as long as you disable this service, you'll be alright.
Furthermore, thanks to AES-265 encryption, you can be sure your traffic is encrypted in a way that won’t expose your data. It’s the same technology baked into SSL, which is trusted by every major institution on the internet.
Similarly, OysterVPN’s kill switch worked well. A kill switch makes sure that if your connection to the VPN drops, you won’t immediately default back to your ISP’s internet connection and accidentally leak your original IP. While it might be a little inconvenient, it’s an essential part of preserving your privacy with any VPN. I put OysterVPN's kill switch through a series of disconnection scenarios and it didn't disappoint.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that OysterVPN also offers DNS-level ad-blocking. Most of us use an ad-blocker these days, to banish those annoying pop-ups and invasive ads, but OysterVPN augments this functionality by putting a stop to malware and preventing it from being downloaded to your computer by blocking the connection on the network. In practice, this worked pretty well, but I still noticed a few ads here and there. This isn’t a dealbreaker by any means, as the feature is still extremely useful.
Logging policy
OysterVPN claims that it's a no-logs service—most VPNs do. It's difficult to verify this without a third-party audit, however.
In theory, OysterVPN could have a server architecture set up using disk-less servers that operate entirely in RAM. Actual details about its implementation, and how it achieves zero-logging, are scant at best, and Ireland has mandatory logging requirements.
So, if you can't take any chances with your privacy, I'd recommend sticking to audited services like ExpressVPN and NordVPN.
Netflix and global stream unblocking
Streaming with OysterVPN was painless. It takes a whole lot of dedicated manpower (and server capacity) to keep up with Netflix’s policy of banning VPNs, but I was able to check out US and UK content without a hitch.
Accessing Hulu, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, and DAZN was just as straightforward—and that's an impressive spread of services. I was even able to access the WWE network, and OysterVPN claims it’s also able to unblock a wide range of additional sports platforms including UEFA, the Premier League, and the NBA. I haven’t tested this for myself, but given how well OysterVPN unblocked everything I did try out, I have no reason to doubt this is the case.
I didn't experience any major issues with lag or buffering, which is awesome news if you're in need of a tip-top streaming VPN, but streaming in 4K during busy periods did push OysterVPN to its limit. I'll dig into the details when we delve into the provider's performance, but overall, streaming with OysterVPN was adequate.
(Image credit: OysterVPN)
OysterVPN performance
OysterVPN has held its own so far but, unfortunately, it slips up where speed is concerned. Don't get me wrong, it's more than capable of handling day-to-day browsing—it's HD streaming that causes strain.
Using a 100 Mbps connection at 10 am, I connected to a UK server and captured 43.98 Mbps download speeds and 12.11 Mbps upload. That's respectable, but these numbers dropped dramatically when I ran my tests again at 6 pm.
The biggest dip in performance came when I switched to a US server. Download speeds clocked in at 11.59 Mbps and upload speeds at 3.79 Mbps. This wasn't enough to stream 4K content from Netflix US without significant buffering. I found similar speeds connecting to Hong Kong, at 8.91 Mbps down and 3.65 Mbps up.
So, while OysterVPN offers decent speeds if you’re connecting to a nearby server, long-distance connections tank its performance. That means that OysterVPN might not be your perfect pick if you're in the market for a reliable Netflix VPN that'll unblock geo-restricted content.
OysterVPN apps
Things improved when I switched my attention to OysterVPN's apps, however. There’s an install app for Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android, and the Windows and MacOS versions also have their very own installation wizards that make set up a breeze. If you're a mobile user, just head on over to your app store to find OysterVPN.
The service can also be set up on a range of routers, and there's browser support for Chrome and Firefox via add-ons.
Sadly, you won't find any native Linux support. Relying on OpenVPN configuration files and a third-party client makes OysterVPN look a little outdated, but there are, at least, a handful of articles that'll guide you through the process.
(Image credit: OysterVPN)
OysterVPN customer support
OysterVPN's customer support is pretty solid. I got in touch to clarify some of their marketing information and got a response almost instantly, which is surprising. I couldn’t find a phone number for their support staff and couldn’t get their live chat to work, but if they respond to emails this quickly, it's not going to be a huge issue.
The FAQ follows suit. It's not particularly expansive, but the available guidance is straightforward, easy to follow, and covers a range of topics. Its installation guides are clear, too, but there's not a lot of information about what to do if something goes wrong.
Alternatives
With so many VPNs to choose from, you're not tethered to OysterVPN—especially if you don't want to compromise on speed and security. Below, I've outlined some of my top picks.
ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN is my #1 VPN overall, and boasts a stacked roster of features. Plus, you'll be able to take your pick of more than 3,000 servers in 94 countries. ExpressVPN unblocks just about every streaming service you can imagine and can keep up with other resource-intensive tasks, like gaming, torrenting, and video calls. Its reputation for ironclad security is well-deserved, too, thanks to robust encryption protocols, a strict no-logs policy, and advanced features like a kill switch and DNS leak protection.
NordVPN
NordVPN is another favorite of mine, and a powerhouse in the VPN sphere, that's committed to safeguarding your security. It packs military-grade encryption and a strict no-logs policy, as well as a handy Double VPN feature for folks who really want to fly under the radar. NordVPN is also the fastest VPN I've ever tested, ensuring smooth browsing, streaming, and downloading experiences that won't be interrupted by any buffering hiccups.
Surfshark
Surfshark is an awesome pick for folks on a budget—it's the best cheap VPN available. That doesn't mean it's lacking in features, however. With Surfshark, you'll get awesome speeds ideal for HD streaming, a CleanWeb tool that'll banish ads, malware, and trackers, and an audited no-logs policy. Surfshark is also one of a handful of providers to offer unlimited simultaneous connections, so you can secure a whole household of gadgets with one subscription.
Proton VPN
Wrapping up my recommendations is Proton VPN. Developed by the team behind Proton Mail, a renowned encrypted email service, ProtonVPN follows a similar philosophy of protecting user data. The service utilizes robust encryption protocols and offers a range of advanced security features, like Secure Core, which routes user traffic through multiple secure servers to prevent interception. ProtonVPN has a standout free VPN, too, although it's more limited than its paid alternative. Still, it's a great way to try the service before committing to a long-term plan.
OysterVPN review: Final verdict
OysterVPN isn't a bad VPN by any stretch of the imagination. It does what it needs to do, and fairly cheaply at that. Its biggest problem is that there's nothing that makes it stand out in a highly competitive market, and it’s somewhat lacking in server location and speeds.
These are totally fixable issues, however, and I have a feeling that OysterVPN is going to get better and better over time. In fact, for a VPN that's only been operating for a few months, it's already impressive.
Still, there are better-established VPNs with more servers, better speeds, and a wider feature set than OysterVPN. ExpressVPN and NordVPN are the cream of the crop (that tick all of the right boxes), and I'd recommend checking them out if you want a premium and polished service.
TechRadar rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Subscribe if:
✔️ You want to unblock a ton of content: OysterVPN had no trouble bypassing geo-blocks to access the likes of Netflix, BBC iPlayer, and Hulu. ✔️ You're a mobile user: whether you're an Android or iPhone loyalist, OysterVPN has easy-to-use apps for your device. ✔️ You want a broad spread of servers: OysterVPN might not have a ton of servers, but the ones it does have are scattered across key locations.
Don't subscribe if:
❌ Speed is your priority: unfortunately, OysterVPN can't compete with the industry's top names when it comes to performance, especially when connecting to distant servers. ❌ You're on Linux: with no native Linux support, you'll need to jump through some complex hoops to get OysterVPN up and running. ❌ You need live chat support: I couldn't find OysterVPN's live chat, which might be a problem if you need quick answers to pressing problems.
How we test VPNs
Beside using the top recommended VPNs for our daily activities, we also conduct a thorough analysis of the top 30 VPN services every 6 months to keep track on how the software compares with other providers as new developments come in.
We start by reviewing each provider's website to double check if its claims and offering changed. We also look for any tracking cookies on the site and if/when they activate to see if the service tracks people using the site.
We then install and use each VPN service across a wide range of location servers and devices to see how they perform across the board. We go through all the settings to make sure all the features work as promised, while playing around with encryption protocols.
Our reviewers actively challenge the software, too, in the lookout for any flaws. For example, we purposely make the VPN connection drop so that we can test if the kill switch does its job of preventing data leaks correctly.
From speed connections and streaming unlocking results, to customer support and app usability, we regularly make sure to test every aspect of the software that could affect the experience of our readers.
As issues arise during our testing, we make sure to investigate these even by digging into the source code or the contents of its RAM if necessary. Head to our dedicated VPN testing methodology page if you want to know more.
