Proton VPN is one of many internet privacy products developed by Proton, the team of scientists and privacy advocates behind Proton Mail. The suite Proton offers is certainly impressive, but how does its VPN hold up against dedicated VPN providers like NordVPN and ExpressVPN?

The answer is pretty well. The completely free tier is something no other competitor on our top five list offers. With no ads and the same privacy guarantees as paid accounts, it’s an ideal way to trial the service. The paid version?

Starting, currently at $2.49 per month, it’s about the average for a top-tier VPN. Stay with me and I’ll go into whether the paid features are worth paying for, as well as how Proton VPN stacks up to the rest of our top five for speeds, unblocking capabilities, privacy, and overall value for money.

Features

There are lots of extra features built into Proton VPN’s paid version of the app, most of which are designed to either enhance your privacy or make the VPN harder to block.

For example, there’s Secure Core, which sends your VPN traffic through an initial hardened, physically owned VPN server in a high-security location before sending it on to a second endpoint VPN server. This secures the traffic you’re sending twice, so you can connect to locations without worrying that the endpoint server you use might be hacked, exposing your IP. Although it’s overkill for everyday use, it’s useful if you’re connecting to countries where VPNs are being heavily monitored by the government.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s Alternative Routing. When enabled, this routes your VPN traffic along a route provided by external third-party servers such as AWS. While this does allow servers outside of ProtonVPN’s remit to see your home IP, it also allows you to connect to services that are otherwise blocking access from Proton VPN’s servers. You’re not going to get past an ISP’s DPI monitoring with this, but it’ll get you access to some sites that would otherwise detect you’re using a VPN.

As you can see so far, Proton VPN provides expert features that fit specific use cases. The same is true of the VPN over Tor feature, which allows you to access the Tor network directly from certain Proton VPN servers. Not everyone will need to access the Tor network, but if you’re a journalist or whistleblower, it might be the standout feature here when you need the extra anonymity.

Not everything is about privacy, though. Proton VPN uses a technology called VPN Accelerator, which uses multithreading and advanced TCP routing to provide you with better speeds when connecting to servers on the other side of the planet. It doesn’t do much when you’re connecting to servers you have a good connection with, but in situations where there’s high latency or excessive packet drop, it allows you to keep a significant portion of your bandwidth where you’d otherwise be slowed to a crawl by network instability.

Of course, there are all the conveniences here too. The VPN also includes a NetShield Ad-blocker, which blocks ads, trackers, and malware, enhancing both privacy and browsing speed. There’s also a kill-switch and split tunneling across all its apps, as well as DNS leak protection thanks to Proton VPN’s own private encrypted DNS servers.

Features score: 8/10

Server network

Proton VPN’s server network is impressive, to say the least. While the rest of our top 5 (barring Surfshark) offer more locations, Proton VPN is right up there for countries to choose from, offering a staggering 126. Although this leaves it just one short of NordVPN (127) when it comes to country coverage, there are some significant differences in terms of where they cover.

What sets Proton VPN apart is the focus on serving areas of the world that have been traditionally underrepresented by VPNs, such as Africa (with 26 locations) and the Asia (with 44 locations), both of which are more than any other provider on our top five list.

Of course, if you’ve already started doing the numbers, you’ll realize that this comes at the cost of offering less impressive coverage in Europe and North America than its competitors. This isn’t to say that Proton VPN doesn’t offer an acceptable range of locations, but if you need state-by-state coverage across the US, you’re better off looking at Private Internet Access instead. Similarly, ExpressVPN has you covered if you want in-depth access to Europe.

Server network score: 8/10

Apps

There’s a Proton VPN app for every major platform, including Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Linux. There’s some feature disparity between versions of the app, but you can expect roughly the same experience from all of them, including the Linux app, which is a full GUI program. It’s roughly on par with the Windows version, whereas the macOS version doesn’t offer OpenVPN or split tunneling. Not ideal, but all of the security features are available across every platform.

There’s an interesting quirk in Proton VPN’s desktop app design that sets it apart from the rest of the apps in our top 5. When you unfurl the home menu, it displays a map of every VPN location you can access. It’s a very cool piece of design flair, which, when combined with the pleasing purple and black color scheme Proton VPN has going on, results in a piece of software that looks like something out of a spy film.

Proton VPN recently unveiled a major revamp to some of its apps, including its previously less appealing mobile apps. This update has improved not only the customisability of the service, but also how intuitive it feels to use across different platforms, since the apps now match almost entirely across all major platforms.

The Chrome version is rated significantly lower than the other browser extensions from our top 5 VPNs, but it seems a little unfair. With a score of 2.4 on the Apple App Store, many reviews seem to focus on the lack of a free version of the browser add-on. This isn’t the case anymore, as ProtonVPN has recently released a free version of all its browser apps. Some of these complaints are a little more valid, though. While I haven’t noticed it myself while testing the Chrome extension out, there are a lot of complaints about it requiring multiple log-ins to keep connected, which is an easily avoided frustration for users.

Apps score: 8/10

Ease of use

There’s nothing very difficult about the install process, and once you’re logged in, Proton VPN is easy enough to deploy. There’s a guided tour you can take to check out some of the more advanced features, but it’s easy to ignore if you just want to get started. You click the quick connect button, and you’re connected to the nearest server.

For everything else, Proton is functional if a little intimidating for new VPN users. The world map interface lets you plot out your Secure Core connection by hand, giving you a much better idea of how each location will impact your overall connection path. It’s a great way to optimize your connection speed, but it's a little more involved than just clicking a button and closing the app.

Ease of use score: 8/10

Speed and performance

Our latest testing across Proton’s protocols indicates an overall increase in its average speeds.

Over its fastest VPN protocol, WireGuard, Proton VPN (1521 Mbps) was second only to Surfshark (1615 Mbps) when connecting to our nearest VPN server.

What's more Proton VPN (1242 Mbps) maintained that excellent performance over a transatlantic server connection far better than Surfshark (355 Mbps). Proton VPN (1242 Mbps) was second only to ExpressVPN's Windows-only Lightway Turbo protocol (1373 Mbps) this time.

Our latency and jitter readings didn’t pick up anything particularly alarming either.

Sadly, Proton VPN's OpenVPN speeds are less than we’d hope, only measuring 240 Mbps (local) and 173 Mbps (long distance). Compare that to ExpressVPN (1038 Mbps / 808 Mbps) and NordVPN (974 Mbps / 857 Mbps) and it's quite a difference.

To be clear, these are all speeds that will completely suffice for almost all your internet activity. If you’re on fibre, you might struggle a little to get the most out of your connection while you’re downloading, but otherwise, it’ll handle 4K streaming without any issue at all.

Speed and performance score: 7/10

Unblocking

Given Proton VPN promotes itself as a privacy-first VPN, you'd be forgiven for thinking streaming might not be a strong suit. However, that’s thankfully not the case. We’ve tested the servers against a wide range of streaming services, including regional variants of Netflix (US, UK, Japan, Canada, and Australia) as well as other streaming giants like Amazon Prime and Disney Plus.

In all cases, the Proton VPN servers provided instant access to the services we tested. All you have to do is pick the location you want to watch from and get streaming.

We also tested Proton VPN with more regional services such as BBC iPlayer, Channel 4, ITVX, 10Now, and 9Play, all of which were easily accessible from Proton VPN.

As for torrenting? It’s a breeze. Proton VPN supports port forwarding, so you can easily connect to other peers in a P2P network. There are also a few P2P optimized servers available on Proton VPN, which allowed me to fully connect to the rest of the swarm when downloading Linux ISOs to test.

Unblocking score: 10/10

Privacy and Security

Like every other tool from the Proton team, Proton VPN has been built from the ground up for privacy and security. Depending on which platform you’re using Proton VPN on, you’ll have the choice between OpenVPN, WireGuard, and its proprietary Stealth protocol. OpenVPN and WireGuard have both been stress-tested a thousand times over by real-world deployments and audits, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally choosing an insecure protocol when setting up the service.

WireGuard is built to always use the most secure encryption by default, while Proton has set up its OpenVPN deployment to use AES-256, which is about as secure as can be.

Stealth is an obfuscated version of WireGuard that runs over TLS, making it look like normal encrypted browsing data to anyone who’s trying to analyze your traffic to spot a VPN in use. It’s mainly useful for ducking past enterprise rule-based firewalls, but your mileage may vary in how well it works on DPI-based firewalls that ISPs in countries with harsh internet restrictions use.

Of course, Proton has a strict no-logs policy, which has been verified by multiple independent audits, most recently from Securitum in July of 2024. This marks its third consecutive annual no-logs audit, all of which are available to see on Proton VPN’s website without registering for an account.

Most providers, including ExpressVPN, will ask you to sign up first, but Proton VPN is demonstrating a commitment to transparency that few VPN providers can match.

While Proton VPN doesn’t use RAM-only servers to run its service, they do employ full-disk encryption on all of its servers, which essentially achieves the same thing. None of your browsing or connection data is ever written to disk, and anyone who attempts to remove one of the servers by force would be completely unable to decrypt the hard disk without an encryption key. Not that they’d find anything useful, anyway.

Proton VPN’s Secure Core architecture adds an extra layer of protection by routing traffic through multiple servers in privacy-friendly countries, effectively defending against network-based attacks. Forward Secrecy is implemented, generating a new encryption key for each session to ensure that even if a key is compromised, past browsing history remains secure.

I can’t say Proton VPN’s malware blocking was particularly good, though. To test it out, we picked 100 brand-new phishing URLs from the anti-phishing experts at OpenPhish and connected to each one with Proton VPN open to see how they’d do. At 11% of malware sites blocked and only 19% of phishing results, Proton VPN could do far better.

Privacy and security score: 8/10

Track record

When you claim that you’re a privacy-first company, you’re going to get a lot of eyes on you. Proton VPN is no exception, which means that some privacy issues from related products tarnish its reputation slightly. In 2019, ProtonMail was forced to log the IP address of a climate activist after a law enforcement request, which significantly undermined its perception as a private email provider.

However, Swiss law works slightly differently for VPN providers. They cannot be compelled to carry out bulk surveillance by either foreign law enforcement or the Swiss government, so Proton VPN as a product is significantly less vulnerable to the same sort of requests.

As for individual accounts, Proton VPN has to comply with legally valid cases brought forth by the Swiss courts, even if these are made by a foreign entity. However, Switzerland has no official ties to EU, NATO, or US intelligence sharing pacts, and tends not to recognize law enforcement requests from countries with a poor judicial reputation.

Track record score: 9/10

Customer support

More so than other VPNs in our top 5, Proton VPN feels like it expects you to do a bit of reading to get the most out of your VPN. There’s an incredibly comprehensive knowledge base that very clearly outlines how the whole app works, as well as offering a ton of solutions for common troubleshooting problems. The live chat is only for paying customers, so if you have any trouble signing up, you’ll have to email them or send a support ticket.

Speaking of, its live support isn’t 24/7, unlike NordVPN. Instead, you’ll need to get in touch with a support representative between 9 AM and 5 PM CET. While my interactions with the Proton VPN support staff have been useful, if delayed a little bit (there’s a 24-hour turnaround on any issue when you open a ticket), there have been some poor interactions that resulted in a 2.4 score on Trustpilot.

Customer support score: 7/10

Pricing and plans

Proton VPN starts at $2.49 a month with the currently Black Friday VPN deal. That makes it a very good offer, right now, coming in significantly lower than NordVPN Basic ($2.99) and ExpressVPN Basic ($3.49).

A Proton VPN subscription protects 10 devices on a single plan. Upgrading your plan to Proton Unlimited won’t remove this restriction, but it will give you access to Proton Drive, Mail, Calendar, and Pass for another three dollars a month. If you’re trying to migrate all of your data away from another provider like Google, this is a truly great deal.

There’s also a free version that only offers 10 locations (The US, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Poland, Switzerland, Singapore, Mexico, Canada, and Japan) but does so with no ads or restrictions whatsoever.

You won’t get access to all of the premium features, such as Multi-Hop or Secure Core, but it’s functional enough if you need a secure VPN to cover a single device without paying for it.

Pricing and plans score: 10/10

Should you use Proton VPN?

If you’re looking for a free VPN, get Proton VPN. With an unlimited bandwidth policy, no time-outs, and no ads, Proton VPN is just about the best free VPN you can get today. As a paid VPN? You could do a lot worse. Proton VPN will satisfy just about everyone who uses it, but it falls short in a few key areas where other VPNs simply work better.

It’s fast when it counts, but Surfshark and NordVPN both consistently outdo Proton VPN. All the rest of our top five perform better than Proton VPN at both European and North American locations, especially ExpressVPN and PIA, respectively. Still, these are minor complaints at best. Proton VPN has an extensive list of privacy-focused features, and you can try all of them for yourself with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Overall score: 83/100

Proton VPN alternatives

Proton VPN FAQs

Psiphon is not a traditional VPN – it’s a censorship circumvention tool developed by the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. Created in 2006 to help citizens access blocked content in restrictive countries, Psiphon has gained plenty of traction among activists in censored regions like Myanmar, Iran, and China.

The service is completely free with unlimited data, but comes with a paid upgrade to access high-speed servers. We’ve found several use cases where Psiphon would be pretty handy, but it comes with some extensive caveats if you’re expecting the features you’d get from one of the best VPNs on the market.

Read on, and we’ll get into the instances where we would recommend Psiphon, and why we’d mostly recommend you look elsewhere.

Features

First up, we should point out that Psiphon doesn’t work like a VPN by default. Instead, Psiphon offers a unique hybrid approach combining VPN, SSH, and proxy technologies into a single circumvention tool.

It has two distinct modes: a proxy mode for basic web browsing and a VPN mode that tunnels all device traffic. When you boot up Psiphon, any app that runs through a SOCKS proxy is automatically configured to run traffic through the Psiphon servers. This mode is designed to access blocked sites, but it won’t disguise your browsing traffic. Anyone monitoring your network will be able to see the data you’re sending from your device.

On top of the default SSH tunnel used to power the proxy mode, you also have the option for “SSH+,” which automatically switches between different connection methods (SSH, HTTP, HTTPS) to maintain access when your proxy tunnel is blocked.

It’s an obfuscation technique that sends your traffic with an extra protocol built on top, essentially disguising your connection to the proxy as communication with a normal web server. There’s also a form of automatic multi-hop built in under the hood, which automatically routes your traffic through the best tunnels on the way to the endpoint you specify. This makes it particularly effective at bypassing the Great Firewall of China and other sophisticated censorship systems.

Split tunneling is available in a limited form. You can choose not to proxy local sites, but that’s about it. There’s no way to customise which apps use Psiphon and which don’t, as well as no way to specify individual websites you want the VPN to ignore.

The Android version includes a "MalAware" feature that detects certain types of malware in data traffic by comparing your requests against known IPs and domains that serve malware. It gives you a pretty specific readout of what threats you’re possibly being served with, although it’s not a full anti-virus solution. MalAware can only warn you; it can’t remove malware from your device.

If you’re unhappy with your current speeds, Psiphon uses a virtual currency system called "PsiCash" that you can either earn by watching advertisements or purchase to temporarily boost connection speeds.

Features score: 6/10

Server network

Psiphon operates a modest network of servers across just 28 countries, with the vast majority concentrated in Europe. There are just two servers available for North America and three in Asia.

If you want to connect to Africa, the Middle East, or Oceania, you’re out of luck. All of the servers are also country-level, so you won’t be able to switch if the server you’re connected to isn’t giving you the performance you want.

We suspect Psiphon operates several thousand servers, but it’s unclear what the exact number is. Given their relatively small global presence and slow speed results, we have to assume most of these are pretty outdated.

Server network score: 3/10

Apps

Psiphon provides applications for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Although there are some methods available to run Psiphon as a Linux VPN, none of these are official. You’ll have to download a third-party solution instead that modifies the core Psiphon files, so go ahead at your own risk.

Design-wise, the Windows application features some particularly dated interface choices, which make it reminiscent of software from the early 2000s. It’s not pretty by any means, but it’s functional enough.

The options are clearly laid out from the dashboard, but the PsiCash menu is presented to you twice on the main page. However, once you get to the settings menu, the actual settings are buried within sub-menus that aren't clearly labeled, which makes it pretty complex if you aren’t already familiar with general networking concepts.

,The mobile applications offer a somewhat more modern design but are also pretty clunky and unintuitive. On Android, you get additional features like the MalAware detection system and device-wide tunneling options. However, the iOS version is more restricted, making it the weakest version of Psiphon.

Installation is straightforward across all platforms and no account registration is required to use the basic service. However, if you want to purchase speed boosts, you must provide payment information and an email address.

Ultimately, all versions of Psiphon suffer from the same fundamental limitations: the absence of essential VPN features like kill switches, DNS leak protection, and reliable connection stability.

Apps score: 5/10

Ease of use

Psiphon is relatively easy to set up and use as long as you’re not installing it on Linux. You won’t need to provide any details to get the basic version of Psiphon up and running, so all you have to do is download and run an executable on Windows. That makes it highly portable if you need a VPN you can deploy in any situation.

On Android and iOS, you’ll need to install it from the Play or Apple store, but other than that, the process remains the same. All in all, it's a pretty decent VPN for beginners.

However, the automatic browser launching feature is pretty annoying, and there’s no option to turn it off. Worse, if you haven’t got a SpeedBoost enabled, it actually serves you ads from Psiphon’s partners. If you’re concerned about being tracked by advertising agencies, this is the worst tool you could use.

It’s also hard to find the server you want to connect to, as they’re not listed in alphabetical order. You’ll have to scroll through a list of random servers to find the correct one, which is just an unnecessary issue that seems fairly easy to fix.

Ease of use score: 5/10

Speed and performance

We recognise that Psiphon's a free service that’s being run with a very specific use case in mind: getting around content blocks for web content. However, the performance speeds we recorded on Psiphon’s free version were nigh unusable.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, as the free version is limited to just 2 Mbps, and these speeds make HD video streaming impossible. Page loading times were excessive, too, and video content buffered constantly. Frankly, Psiphon’s speed makes the service impractical for anything beyond basic text-based web browsing. It is not the fastest VPN on the block.

Things got a little bit better when we upgraded to Psiphon Fast, but even these speeds were significantly poorer than what we’d expect from top-tier VPNs. With Psiphon SpeedBoost enabled, we clocked maximum speeds of 35.9 Mbps.

This is just about workable if you’re only trying to stream a single 4K video, but with anything else taking up your bandwidth, Psiphon isn’t able to take the strain. Even with the SpeedBoost enabled, we found that connection stability on the VPN wasn’t particularly solid.

It’s also important to remember this is a temporary boost. You’re paying for this upgrade, whereas most top-tier VPN providers just give you unlimited data to play with for the sake of a subscription.

Speed and performance score: 1/10

Unblocking

We’ve been able to access some of the major streaming sites using Psiphon, but the speeds make it difficult to recommend as a streaming VPN.

It worked with Netflix US and UK, as well as Disney+, but that’s about it. Psiphon doesn’t have a particularly large set of servers to choose from, so we couldn’t do tests on some of the regional streaming sites we’d usually take for a spin. Even if we could connect, the speeds are so poor that it wouldn’t be worth sticking around to watch a show. Even on Netflix, our speeds were unwatchable.

To be clear, Psiphon's strength lies in bypassing government censorship rather than commercial geo-blocking. It has historically proven effective at accessing social media platforms, news websites, and communication tools in countries with heavy internet restrictions. While it’s worked in the past to uncensor sites for Chinese netizens, it’s unclear if it’s currently effective.

Torrenting support is practically non-existent due to speed limitations and the service's focus on web browsing rather than file sharing. The 2 Mbps speed cap makes downloading large files impractical, and the frequent connection drops in VPN mode further complicate P2P activities.

While torrenting does work, Psiphon blocks everything outside of a specific set of common ports for port forwarding, meaning you’d have to tunnel your torrenting use through the service if you wanted to get the best connectivity.. All in all, forget about using Psiphon as a torrenting VPN.

Unblocking score: 3/10

Privacy and security

Psiphon's privacy and security practices are actually somewhat of a mixed bag. If you approached it with modern VPN standards in mind, it would automatically fail.

There is no kill switch protection on any platform, meaning internet traffic continues unprotected when VPN connections drop. You also can’t specify which apps you want covered by the VPN tunnel, either.

The L2TP/IPSec protocol it employs is secure enough as it’s covered by AES-256 encryption, but it’s still considered less secure than modern alternatives like WireGuard or OpenVPN.

So, no kill-switch, no split tunnelling, and underpowered VPN protocols. If you’re looking for privacy, look elsewhere.

It’s also important to state that this is not a no-logs browser service. While Psiphon doesn’t collect browsing activity, it does collect and retain metadata related to the service, including connection times, device information, and bandwidth usage.

In some cases, this includes the domain visited. Psiphon also uses AWS in part to support its infrastructure, which creates a serious problem from a privacy point of view, as Amazon will log every IP that uses its services.

That’s somewhat worrying, considering Psiphon operates from Canada, which is a Five Eyes surveillance alliance member. In the event law enforcement from this jurisdiction comes knocking on Psiphon’s doors, it’s quite likely they’d be obliged to hand over a significant amount of data, which could correlate your activities from elsewhere on the internet.

That said, the most alarming privacy issue we’ve come across is a DNS leak in Psiphon’s VPN service. Psiphon claims it has taken particular care when choosing the DNS servers the app can connect to, ensuring they’re all picked from a vetted whitelist.

Unfortunately, we found that we could see our home IP address even with Psiphon active while using a DNS leak tool. We recognise that Psiphon isn’t built as a privacy tool, but DNS leaks simply aren’t acceptable when you’re offering VPN functionality.

On the plus side, Psiphon has undergone several independent security audits by reputable firms, including iSEC Partners, 7A Security, and, most recently, Cure53 in 2019. These audits found several flaws in Psiphon’s core VPN technology, all of which have since been fixed. Apart from the weaknesses identified, each audit has suggested that overall, Psiphon is quite secure.

Privacy and security score: 4/10

Track record

Since its 2006 inception at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, Psiphon has built a reputation specifically within the internet freedom community rather than the broader VPN market.

For example, during the 2021 Myanmar protests, Psiphon's user base surged from approximately 5,000 to 1.6 million monthly users, reflecting previous usage spikes after internet blackouts in Belarus and Azerbaijan. Clearly, in areas where internet freedom is on the line, Psiphon works.

That’s one reason you’ll have heard about it less than some of the big-name VPN providers. Psiphon is first and foremost a censorship bypass tool, rather than an all-in-one VPN. However, you also won’t have heard about it because there’s little to be said against Psiphon’s track record.

It hasn’t suffered any major security breaches, and the app has a completely clean rating when run through the CVE list, indicating that researchers in the wild haven’t found exploits for the app. That’s pretty impressive, considering Psiphon has been running for close to a decade and a half.

Track record score: 8/10

Customer support

Psiphon offers pretty minimal customer support. While there is a basic FAQ section on the website, it’s not easily accessible, and the dated nature of some of the questions suggests that it hasn’t been updated in a while.

There is no live chat or phone support, so if you’ve got an issue, you’ll need to send out an email request and hope someone gets back to you. One thing we did like is that Psiphon runs an email service that will send you back a bunch of country-specific links to download the app if your access to the main site is blocked.

It is somewhat odd, given Psiphon’s position as a VPN for users in restrictive countries, that there are no community forums and practically no useful user guides to help with installation.

Don’t expect extensive customer support from Psiphon. If you need a VPN that walks you through the setup process and keeps 24/7 customer support on hand, you’re better off investing in a premium VPN like ExpressVPN instead.

Customer support score: 3/10

Pricing and plans

Psiphon operates on a freemium model with the core service available at no cost. The free version includes unlimited data usage but caps speeds at 2 Mbps and includes advertisements whenever you boot up the VPN. Simple enough. What isn’t simple is Psiphon’s paid plan.

You can pay for Psiphon in two ways. On mobile, Psiphon can handle payment subscriptions through the app store. These are pretty self-explanatory: $2.99 per week, $10 per month, or $72 per year. These subscriptions remove advertisements and increase speed limits, although the performance you’ll get is significantly below the standard set by other premium VPN.

There’s also the PsiCash system, which we’re not a huge fan of. Instead of buying a subscription, PsiCash allows you to activate an on-demand boost to your VPN speeds. You have to purchase an amount of PsiCash, which is then credited to your account. You can then spend the PsiCash on temporary speed boosts for 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month.

The cost is significantly higher than just buying a subscription and requires you to create a separate PsiCash account to manage your funds, but it’s the only way to access the speed boost on Windows. PsiCash is somewhat unique in that you can also earn credits by watching ads, but we haven’t investigated this at length.

Pricing and plans score: 5/10

Should you use Psiphon?

It’s very difficult to recommend Psiphon as a generic VPN solution. It’s clearly built for a specific need, and it’s hard to say that Psiphon’s useless when it could be the lifeline for someone in a heavily censored country.

It’s been built to be super simple to download and deploy without any payment necessary, so we can see some use cases where it’d work. For example, if you're an activist journalist and need access to news and communication platforms at a moment’s notice, Psiphon may also be right for you.

Otherwise, there are a few serious things wrong here. The speeds are subpar for anything other than browsing the internet, there are several outstanding questions about both technical privacy and the privacy policy, and the payment scheme is confusing, to say the least.

If you need free VPN functionality, you should consider alternatives like Windscribe Free or ProtonVPN's free tier instead. Both of these providers offer better security practices and improved speeds.

Overall score: 43/100

Psiphon alternatives

 The Opera web browser has included a simple free VPN for a very long time, but it only protects your browser traffic, has almost no features and is generally very slow.

Opera has now unveiled Opera VPN Pro, a true system-wide VPN which allows you to protect all your app traffic on up to six Android, Windows or Mac devices.

The service is accessed from the Opera browser rather than a standalone app, in much the same way as the free VPN: tap a button on the address bar and connect. But it's an entirely different service underneath.

• Want to try Opera VPN Pro? Check out the website here

You can now select countries (and sometimes cities), with 33 countries available. You're able to choose OpenVPN or IKEv2 protocols, depending on the platform. And rather than route your traffic through Opera's overloaded free servers, Opera VPN Pro uses the same network as NordVPN, delivering much better speeds (more on that below).

There still aren't a lot of features (more on that below, too), and there's no iOS app yet, but the price is certainly right. Opera VPN Pro is $5.99 billed monthly, around half the price of some monthly plans. It drops to $2.99 a month on the six-month plan, and only $1.99 billed annually, a tiny $23.88 for a full year's protection.

Privacy

Most VPN providers make huge efforts to convince you of their bullet-proof privacy, and that you'll be entirely safe with their service. Opera is, well, a little more cautious. Here's the relevant part of its privacy policy:

"VPN Pro is provided by a third-party service provider... Data communicated through VPN Pro will be encrypted and routed through one of thousands of servers... However, we do not promise that the service is absolutely secure. Despite our best efforts and the best efforts of our provider, criminals or other bad actors may still be able to access your data."

Is that worrying, unusually honest, or both? We're not quite sure, but it's something to bear in mind: Opera VPN Pro doesn't offer any big privacy promises, and it's probably not the best choice for privacy-critical tasks.

Opera says VPN Pro is a no log service, explaining: "We do not collect or store records of web pages you visit or links you click on in the servers dedicated for this Service."

Sounds promising. And as Opera VPN Pro is based on NordVPN's much-audited servers and network, we'd be reasonably sure that there's nothing harmful going on here. But Opera hasn't put its own apps or infrastructure through any audits of their own, so right now there's no evidence to back this up. We're left to take the company's words on trust.

Windows app

While Opera VPN Pro can now protect your entire Windows device, it's still accessed entirely from the Opera browser. You must download and install Opera, launch it whenever you need protection, and click a VPN icon in the address bar to control the app.

That's a relatively heavyweight solution (installing an entire browser requires far more resources than a simple standalone client), but once you've launched the app, it looks and feels much like any other VPN offering.

Opera VPN's dashboard is simple and free from clutter, which is just what we like to see. There's a connect button, and tapping the location option displays a list with all of your recent connection points at the top, as well as Opera VPN's server list. This is where you can pick and choose where you'd like to put your pin in the map.

There are no city-level locations, however, and no favorites system. This isn't a massive red flag, but it is a small quality of life feature that most top-rated VPNs include as standard, these days.

The only other feature is a Settings icon. Tapping this displays a VPN Pro section in Opera's general Settings page. This is even more basic than the location list, with little more than a couple of account management options and a reconnect feature (which automatically restarts if the VPN fails).

The app doesn't make any mention of protocols. Our investigations revealed it used a standard Windows IKEv2 connection, slower than WireGuard, but properly configured for maximum security.

Kill switch

The Opera VPN Pro website has no mention of a kill switch, and our tests showed why: it doesn't seem to have one. When we forcibly closed our Windows VPN connection, Opera displayed a 'Disconnected' message and reconnected within seconds, but it didn't block our internet and our device traffic wasn't protected.

This reconnect feature is welcome, and reduces your data exposure. It's no substitute for a working kill switch, though, and our tests revealed it had an odd 'feature' (or bug) of its own.

Suppose you've finished with Opera VPN, closed the browser, and you're connected to something else via a different Windows network connection – maybe a secure login for a work system. We’ll call this service X.

We noticed that if we forcibly closed X’s connection, then Opera VPN Pro acted like this was a failure in its own service, popped up a warning and tried connecting to its own network. But X was trying to reconnect, too. Sometimes Opera connected first, sometimes X, and sometimes that connection failed after a few seconds, presumably because the two systems were fighting over who was in charge, and they’d both try reconnecting again.

This may not happen much in real life. If you’re not using a second connection, it may never happen at all. But just the fact that the app can make such a fundamental mistake is a concern, and we’re left wondering what other issues might be lurking somewhere in its code.

Performance

We tested Opera VPN Pro's speeds with Windows systems in both UK and US locations, using multiple speed tests, over several sessions. That's a minimum of 120 individual checks, and it's often considerably more.

The results were relatively ordinary at 230-280Mbps. That's about what we expect for an IKEv2 connection (Atlas VPN also managed 230-240Mbps in recent testing, Hotspot Shield 220-260Mbps). However, WireGuard-equipped VPNs are typically two to three times as fast, and Surfshark and TorGuard reached 950Mbps+ in their last tests.

Opera's VPN has always been about privacy and security more than accessing geoblocked content, so we didn't expect much from our unblocking tests. And sure enough, it gave us very mixed results in both the UK (unblocked BBC iPlayer, couldn’t even access ITV or Channel 4) and Australia (succeeded with 9Now, failed with 10 play).

But the service went on to surprise us everywhere else, unblocking Netflix in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Japan, as well as Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus: a very capable record.

If you’re looking for even more, though, ExpressVPN, Hide.me, Ivacy, NordVPN, PureVPN and Surfshark all unblocked 100% of our sample sites in their last tests.

Support

The Opera Pro VPN support site is just about as basic as we've seen, with a tiny number of extremely short articles containing almost no useful details at all.

We opened the article 'Can I use Opera VPN Pro on my Laptop/Desktop computer?' hoping to find step-by-step guides to setting up the service, for instance. ExpressVPN has seven in-depth tutorials on Windows alone, but Opera's article was 58 words long, and said little more than 'it's available for Windows 8 and MacOS 10.15 or later, just download Opera Browser to use it.'

Live chat is available, but only Monday to Friday, 8am to 4pm (CEST). You can leave a message and the support team will respond by email, but officially this could take up to 48 hours.

We posted a test question explaining that Opera VPN Pro connected for us, but then we weren't able to access the internet on any apps until the connection was closed. That's typically a DNS-type issue, but would the agent give us any kind of detailed response to help figure that out?

The good news is the reply arrived quicker than expected, in around 18 hours. The bad news is it included nothing but the most generic advice that anyone with more than five minutes VPN experience would figure out for themselves: uninstall and reinstall, or try it on another device.

Final verdict

Opera VPN Pro is a nice extension of the free Opera VPN service. It's capable of unblocking Netflix, thanks to a decent spread of servers, but dedicated streamers will be disappointed with its overall unblocking power. Opera VPN is somewhat basic when it comes to features, too, especially compared to our top-rated services. If you're looking for an all-rounder, you'll be happier elsewhere.

• We've highlighted all the best VPNs

You might not be immediately familiar with the Opera web browser, but it has been around long enough to have settled down with a wife and kids. First released in 1995, Opera earned a name for itself as the browser that adhered the closest to web standards such as CSS, making it the go-to choice for web developers.

In 2016, the company released a VPN baked into its web browser; no separate app required. We had a look at the paid OperaVPN Pro version a couple of years ago, and found it somewhat underwhelming as a paid product, especially compared to the best VPNs on the market.

In a world where you can find full–featured free offerings from companies like Windscribe, Proton VPN Free, and PrivadoVPN Free, is there still an argument to be made for using OperaVPN? Let's find out.

Features

Opera's offering is rather sparse; users don't get more than the bare minimum in terms of features. There are three VPN server locations to choose from, and free users also get access to a split tunneling tool, which Opera VPN Free calls “bypass rules”, a feature which is, strangely, absent from the paid Pro version.

Bypass rules allow you to choose if you want specific websites to use your regular connection rather than the VPN connection. This comes in handy if you do a lot of online banking.

OperaVPN also comes with IP and DNS leak protection – but that’s it for features. There’s no support for streaming or torrenting, and no additional security tools beyond those that come as part and parcel of the Opera web browser. All the other features are for paying customers.

The biggest drawback is that Opera VPN Free only protects your browser and nothing else, unlike other free providers that protect all the apps on your device.

Features score: 3/10

Server network

The Opera VPN Free server network is, in a word, tiny. There are three server locations for free users to connect to, including the Americas, Asia, and Europe. By contrast, paid users get access to servers in over 60 locations worldwide.

There is another option called ‘Optimal location’, which automatically chooses the server it thinks offers the fastest connection. There is no ability to pick a more specific location, no cities on offer, though the ability to at least pick a certain point on the map puts OperaVPN above some free VPN providers, which connect you to a random server in a random location whenever you hit the connect button.

As OperaVPN only protects web traffic, there are no specific servers for torrenting or streaming.

Server network score: 3/10

Apps

To use Opera VPN’s free or Pro version, you must install and use the Opera web browser. The browser is available on a wide range of operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and Chromebooks.

Apps score: 5/10

Ease of use

We found that Opera VPN Free was surprisingly intuitive to use. As basic an offering as it is, there’s little to confuse even those unfamiliar with VPNs.

You access the VPN by clicking the small “VPN” icon in the address bar. After that, you get the usual big power button style connect button with a message that reads ”Unprotected - Enable for enhanced privacy” when the VPN is off and “Protected - Your browsing is secured” when the VPN is up and running – and a map visual showing you where you're connected to.

Beneath that is a dropdown with four different connection options, which will show your chosen location and new IP address. The other settings for the VPN are accessed via a rather tiny cog icon that takes you to the settings menu.

There’s a handful of additional VPN-specific settings, mainly centered around whether or not you want certain sites to use the VPN, though there are no tool-tips to help beginner users understand why they might want to enable/disable any of these settings, nor is there any help given to explain how the split-tunneling/whitelisting feature works.

Ease of use score: 3/10

Speed and performance

OperaVPN’s performance varies wildly depending on the time of day you access it. Our testing was carried out on a 1 Gb fibre connection during the morning and the evening.

The Asian location gave us a top connection speed of 249 Mbps down with an upload speed of 103 Mps.

The European and American locations were both equally as inconsistent, with top download speeds of 380 Mbps and 136 Mbps respectively. These tests were repeated over multiple days, and speeds varied from passable to barely usable, with the best results being returned in the evening GMT.

4K streaming, for instance, requires connection speeds of 25 Mbps, so while you could maybe stream high-def content via Opera VPN Free, it would be heavily dependent on the time of day you were trying to watch anything.

By contrast, Windscribe’s test results put it in the top ten fastest VPNs with a download speed of 785 Mbps using the WireGuard protocol and a top speed of 365 Mbps when connecting through the OpenVPN protocol. PrivadoVPN Free and Proton VPN’s free offering both returned download speeds that are faster and more stable than OperaVPN as well.

Speed and performance score: 4/10

Unblocking

While OperaVPN Pro was surprisingly competent when it came to unblocking streaming sites around the world, the same cannot be said for the free version.

It failed to access any content on Amazon Prime Video, couldn’t unblock Disney+, and attempts to get to Paramount+ led to a screen telling us that the service wasn’t available in our part of the world.

The same went for BBC iPlayer, with the service detecting that we were not based in the UK and denying us access. If accessing streaming content is a big selling point for you, then not only does this force you to use the websites to stream rather than the bespoke apps, which often leads to degraded picture quality, but you would simply be better off using a different free VPN, with both PrivadoVPN Free and Windscribe offering far better results.

While it was able to access a variety of different torrenting sites, Opera VPN Free offers no protection if you want to download any of these torrents, as you need to use an external client. If you’re looking to do any P2P file sharing, you’d be better off looking at one of the best torrenting VPNs instead.

Unblocking score: 0/10

Privacy and Security

The biggest issue we faced when talking about Opera VPN Free’s privacy and security features is that the provider shares so little definitive information anywhere online.

The client’s privacy and security settings are as bare bones as the rest of its offering, while also managing to be confusing by offering a variety of protocols depending on the platform you're using. On Windows and macOS, it uses the IPSec protocol. On Android, it uses either IPSec or OpenVPN, and on iOS, it uses the WireGuard protocol.

While other VPN providers offer up-to-date and speedy VPN protocols like WireGuard, OperaVPN free users are restricted to only the somewhat dated IPSec protocol on Windows and macOS.

There’s also no way for you to choose your protocol if you have issues connecting to a server or online resource. Opera does claim to have AES-256-bit encryption, but it's difficult to verify any of these claims when Opera itself is so tight-lipped about what the VPN is capable of.

We can confirm that there are no DNS, IP, or WebRTC leaks found in any of our testing, and the Opera web browser itself blocks malicious websites, as well as offering advert and tracker blocking.

That's great news, meaning that it provides some additional protection from intrusive websites trying to track what you’re doing, or wasting your bandwidth with annoying adverts. Beyond that, however, there’s none of the additional security or privacy features we would hope or expect to see, like multi-hop connections, anti-virus, obfuscated servers, or a kill switch.

The company has taken steps to assure both users and critics that it is committed to privacy and security. Towards the end of 2024, the company underwent an independent third-party audit, bringing in Deloitte to look at its systems and processes. The result of this was that Deloitte confirmed that Opera does live up to its no-logs policy and does not log or store any user data.

This is a big step toward proving that while it might be feature-light, Opera VPN Free doesn’t mess around with the privacy of its users.

Privacy and security score: 5/10

Track record

There’s not a great deal to say here, which is a good thing. OperaVPN doesn’t seem to have been involved in any major controversies or data breaches, though there have been some concerns voiced about Opera’s parent company, given that Opera is now majority owned by a Chinese company called Kunlun Tech Co., Ltd.

It also underwent a third-party audit last year that confirmed that its no-logs claim isn’t just an empty promise that can't be verified.

Track record score: 8/10

Customer support

The short answer is that there is not much in the way of support for Opera VPN Free. Opera VPN Pro has its own dedicated support site, but it’s about as basic as they come. There are a handful of short articles that are mostly concerned with the basics of getting the VPN configured and working.

One of the articles claims to detail the difference between the Pro and Free versions, but it’s little better than a marketing page that directs users to the respective sites for each product and offers only two sentences with an overview of the differences between them.

Free users get even less. There is no dedicated support portal for free users, and nothing more than a handful of extremely basic “how to use the VPN” entries in the overall Opera browser support pages.

If you can’t find any help there, then there are community forums you can use, but the VPN doesn’t even merit its own dedicated forum for queries! There’s one for the AI tools that Opera bundles in, but not for the VPN.

Again, this is in comparison to other free VPNs that boast full-featured knowledge bases and sometimes even a support team you can reach out to for help.

Customer support score: 1/10

Pricing and plans

Opera VPN is available both as a free and a paid Pro version. The Pro version is priced as follows:

• 1 year - $48
• 6 months - $30
• 1 month - $8

There are no bandwidth limits when using the free version of the VPN, and you can install the Opera browser on as many machines/devices as you like, with the understanding that only your browser traffic is going to be protected by the VPN.

The paid version supports up to 6 simultaneous connections for your devices, which is fewer than a lot of other premium VPNs.

The company offers a 7-day free trial, but there seems to be some confusion over the length of the money-back guarantee.

On the Opera website, it appears to suggest that there is a 14-day money-back guarantee, which requires you to fill out a form, print it, scan it, and then send it to Opera’s support desk, which is hardly an intuitive or user-friendly procedure.

But if you look at the Opera VPN Pro forums, it claims that the company offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, and that all you need to do is email the support team.

Pricing and plans score: 7/10

Should you use Opera VPN Free?

Opera VPN's free offering brings very little to the table that would see us recommend it over its competitors, and Opera seems almost embarrassed by its existence, judging by the dearth of information in its own official forums and support pages.

It has a tiny server network, it only protects your web browser, there’s no support for torrenting or streaming, no support site to help if you run into trouble, and its connection speeds range from the barely-usable to the just-about-adequate. There’s no killswitch, no ability to choose your VPN protocol, and basic whitelisting for URLs only.

It’s not all bad, though. The company passed an independent audit confirming its no-log claims, it’s about as simple a VPN as you could get, making it very easy for absolute beginners to get to grips with, and it does add at least some additional protection to your browsing by masking your IP and ensuring there’s no sneaky DNS leaks.

OperaVPN aims to be the most convenient way to encrypt your web browsing, and that approach does have some merits. The problem, though, is that other free VPNs are almost as simple to use, offer faster speeds, more features, and protection for all your other apps.

OperaVPN might appeal to those who aren’t particularly tech-savvy and want a truly simple product, but the argument could be made that a non-tech-savvy user isn’t going to be browsing the web through Opera to begin with.

Overall score 39/100

Norton has long been a household name for antivirus software, yet despite launching its first VPN, Norton WiFi Privacy, in 2017, it's never achieved the same pedigree status in the space. Its original iteration, Norton Secure VPN, offered little to shout about, though a recent revamp seems to have set the service on a much more promising path.

Although not yet rivaling the likes of NordVPN, Norton VPN offers surprisingly quick speeds, a super-friendly interface, and a great array of features you’d expect from a top VPN service. While some gaps in the service remain, it’s clear the Norton VPN team is striving to bring the same security pedigree seen on its antivirus software to its VPN, and pretty quickly, too.

We’ve put this new and improved service to the test. Both in day-to-day scenarios and more rigorous, proprietary tests, we’ve uncovered where the service has made great strides, and where it should look next to ensure it reaches the heights it's aiming for, all to help you decide whether Norton VPN is the choice for you.

Features

Norton VPN’s recent revamp has seen a host of expectable but mightily important features arrive across several platforms. Plus, it continues to improve its fundamentals – even if some areas still have some work to do.

As far as VPN protocols go, Norton offers OpenVPN, WireGuard, IPSec, and Mimic, its proprietary protocol designed for obfuscation. iOS and Mac users are limited to only IPSec and Mimic, which is disappointing given OpenVPN and WireGuard’s improved capabilities – although IPSec can be fast, WireGuard offers a faster, less device-intensive experience. Luckily, wider support for these protocols is said to be in the works, though an exact release date is unknown.

As for extra features built into Norton VPN, there aren’t any particularly unique choices, though each is beneficial and often seen among top VPNs. Wi-Fi detection allows you to auto-connect to the VPN when connecting to public Wi-Fi. On macOS, it also auto-connects on “compromised networks”. It’s unclear how Norton decides if a network is compromised, but all wireless networks are considered public by default.

Norton also offers ad and tracker blocking. Tracking is blocked at a DNS level to reduce the risk of your data being used for targeted ads while you browse online, and can be turned on by simply toggling the option. Although the tracker appeared to work, its ‘Trackers Blocked’ counter seems to run on a delay, rather than in real time, so while we know 50 trackers were blocked across a period of our testing time, we don’t have any indication of when each was blocked.

Ad blocking is undertaken by a browser extension. Although this means another download and sign-in process, we did find the ad blocker to be effective – even if not quite as effective as dedicated ad-blocker services. Scoring 77% in our tests, it is definitely worth turning on should you use Norton VPN, though don’t expect a flawless display. NordVPN and Surfshark only achieved 84% in our latest tests, and ExpressVPN only achieved 90%, so there isn’t far for Norton VPN to go before leading VPNs in this field.

A key area of improvement has been in Norton VPN’s security-focused features. Firstly, Norton VPN offers a simple-to-use kill switch, ensuring your internet traffic stops immediately when you lose connection to the VPN, preventing you from broadcasting unencrypted traffic over public Wi-Fi networks. If you’d prefer, you can choose whether you’d like to keep your access to local devices over a LAN even when the kill switch is active. The kill switch isn’t enabled by default and requires you to dig through a few menus to set it up, but if you’re on macOS, Norton gives you an easy set of guidelines to follow so you can quickly set it up.

Outside the kill switch, Norton VPN has added an array of features. In April 2025 alone, Norton VPN gained Double VPN, IP Rotation, Pause VPN capabilities, and the ad-blocking browser extension mentioned above.

Double VPN is available across 8 servers. While your connection options are fixed, for example, USA via Canada, they are bi-directional, and give you access to Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. While it’s not completely customizable, like Surfshark’s Nexus technology allows, its 8 locations put it only two behind NordVPN, which offers 10.

IP rotation also features, something not even NordVPN can say. Only Surfshark also offers IP rotation among the best VPNs. While Norton’s offering isn’t quite as expansive, it does offer servers in the US, Japan, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Germany to use. What’s more, Norton’s offering is much simpler to access and connects in almost no time at all, no matter the server you pick. In our testing, our IP seemed to change every few seconds, meaning it should be good enough to give you a new IP for every website you visit.

Pause VPN is the final feature worth mentioning. Overlooked by the likes of PIA and ExpressVPN, pause VPN gives you the choice to temporarily end your VPN connection for a set time, with the VPN reactivating once the time ends. This is a great tool should you briefly wish to search for something or use an app outside of the connection without risking forgetting to turn your VPN back on. Norton VPN’s implementation is extremely simple to use, and is easily accessed, though it’d be great to see a minimum pause time shorter than 15 minutes as, frankly, most times when we’ve needed it we’ve been finished in five minutes rather comfortably.

Features score: 7/10

Server Network

Norton VPN’s server network isn’t up there with the very best VPNs quite yet, but it’s seen massive expansion in recent months. Since our last review, Norton VPN has expanded from servers in 29 countries to servers in 65, with 104 total locations. For comparison, Norton VPN now has more locations than Mullvad, which offers 89, and only a few less than Windscribe, which offers 112.

What’s good is the spread Norton VPN offers. 25 locations in the US are great for streaming enthusiasts, plus 6 countries in South America and 5 countries in Africa is superb given the lack of coverage these areas traditionally recieve. Asian coverage is weaker, with only 12 countries, though the most popular locations are included among these.

Given Norton VPN’s rate of increase, it wouldn’t surprise me if its country spread increased further over the coming months. If so, it’d be good to see the service fill the various gaps left in Asia and, since it already has a strong presence in South America and Africa, bulk out its presence in Europe and the US to account for key sites and services located in currently omitted regions.

Server network score: 7/10

Apps

Norton’s VPN app is available for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. It’s also available on Apple TV and Android-based smart TVs. For Android TVs, you need version 10 or later, whereas Apple tvOS requires version 17 or later.

Notably, there’s no Fire TV or Linux support, so if you need to cover your Ubuntu or Linux Mint install, Norton won’t cut it quite yet - there’s not even support for a command-line VPN. Norton does not offer configuration files for OpenVPN or WireGuard either, so there’s no way to use Norton with an unsupported device.

It’s worth mentioning that Norton VPN’s apps have several instances of feature disparity. As highlighted already, iOS and macOS users are already limited in protocol choice, but these platforms also lack split tunneling and some auto-connect functionality. The lack of protocol choice is especially disappointing in this instance, given that other providers have offered OpenVPN and WireGuard on these platforms for a while now.

Otherwise, there’s nothing really to dislike about Norton VPN’s apps on any platform. They’re simple to look at, easy to navigate, and look so unapologetically Norton-like that anyone new to VPNs who’s familiar with its antivirus tools will quickly gain the sense of security often felt when using other Norton tools.

Apps score: 8/10

Ease of use

Norton VPN is a breeze to install, likely thanks to the years of experience Norton has with its other products in making complex systems simple to introduce.

Once you’re in, the experience is impressively simple, though at the expense of a couple of handy extra tools. The menus aren’t overcomplicated with features, settings, and data – though the option to set favorites or see the best servers at any time would be nice – the settings are all explained in simple enough terms for beginners, and there’s easy access to any extra tools you might have in your plan, or guides you may need to help set up your VPN connection how you’d like it.

In true Norton fashion, the experience you have is as close to identical as possible across any device you might have, too. This makes Norton VPN a superb choice should you be new to VPNs and looking for easy, quick access to the settings you need, without worrying that your usual server, connection type, or setting may be hiding somewhere new.

Even Norton VPN’s Advanced Servers, meaning its P2P-optimized, double VPN, and IP rotation optimized servers, are easily accessed. With dropdown menus giving you the information you need to understand where you’re connecting to, and any additional routing your connection might take.

Ease of use score: 9/10

Speed and performance

Norton’s speeds are its biggest area of improvement since our last round of testing. Starting with the headlines, we recorded an average speed of 909Mbps download using WireGuard from our testing server in the UK, rivalling the likes of NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Proton VPN as a result.

Our connection to the US wasn’t quite as impressive, as we only recorded speeds of 463Mbps, which is around the middle of the pack. It’s still more than enough to watch multiple 4K streams simultaneously, but it’s a sizeable dropoff compared to our initial UK tests.

As for OpenVPN performance, Norton didn’t do as well. Our average speeds were around 260-275Mbps, whether connecting to the UK or US, which is also more than enough for most internet activities, but pales in comparison to the speeds we’ve seen elsewhere.

Our latency recordings were roughly what we’d expect for a top-tier VPN connecting to UK servers. In Norton’s case, 3.5ms. Most of the providers we’ve tested clock in around the 2-5ms mark, which is barely perceivable. One or two milliseconds' difference won’t make a difference to most internet apps or online gaming sessions.

As for the US connection, Norton tops our list in terms of low latency at 66.6ms, just barely beating out NordVPN to take the top spot. If you’re gaming or running a video call and want your connection to be as responsive as possible while connected to the US, Norton is the ideal solution.

Speed and performance score: 8/10

Unblocking

We’ve tested Norton VPN works with them with loads of your favorite streaming services, and it worked with them all! Netflix is cracking down on VPNs, but we were able to watch Netflix US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Japan all from our local testing centers. The same goes for Amazon Prime and Disney+; however, we weren’t able to access US YouTube.

As for regional providers, it’s a mixed bag but mostly positive results. We were able to access BBC iPlayer, ITV, Channel 4, 7Plus, and 9Now, but TVNZ+ intermittently failed, and we couldn’t access 10Play at all.

Norton VPN does have P2P capabilities, and our testing showed it works reasonably well. It’s worth mentioning that Norton doesn’t support port forwarding, which means that you won’t get incoming requests for sharing when torrenting, limiting your connectivity.

Norton only has two P2P servers, one in the Netherlands and one in Dallas. It’s a far cry away from the full P2P connectivity of a provider like PIA, but even Avast’s competing SecureLine VPN offers eight P2P servers.

On the plus side, Norton does allow you to connect automatically when you boot up a supported P2P app, but you’ll have to enable this option from the settings menu first.

Unblocking score: 8/10

Privacy and security

Norton is clearly taking the necessary steps to ensure its VPN is secure and private. Its no-logs policy is extensive yet clear, outlining the data collected by the VPN app at any instance, your browsing data is never stored on their servers, including DNS requests, which are instead served by a private DNS server run by Norton, preventing ISP spying, and it’s had its no-logs policy audited to ensure trust.

In August 2024, VerSprite audited Norton’s policy, noting two issues that could result in sensitive user information being disclosed. Norton took the necessary steps to address these issues, and once remedied, VerSprite agreed that the no logs policy was both accurate and implemented correctly.

However, Norton does collect some anonymized information from the VPN client. This includes connection timestamps, platform details such as OS and timezone, and crash logs. They also aggregate overall data transmission for network planning. So, if you’re extremely concerned about your privacy, Norton might collect slightly too much information for comfort. As it stands, Norton’s acceptable for day-to-day browsing, but you might consider Proton VPN instead if you need rock-solid privacy guarantees.

Something that may ease some privacy concerns would be if Norton VPN implemented RAM-only servers. These servers wipe when rebooted, meaning you cannot store any data on them, thus eradicating the risk of any user data being available should a data request be submitted by authorities. Not having RAM-only servers isn’t an issue as such, though it adds a layer of trust for users, and is becoming increasingly common among top VPNs.

Given its privacy focus, we wanted to know more about Norton VPN’s proprietary Mimic protocol. In addition to offering obfuscation, Mimic is powered by TLS 1.3 ciphers (AES-256 and ChaCha20), as well as CRYSTAL-Kyber-512 for post-quantum cryptography. It’s good to hear that Norton is already thinking ahead when it comes to quantum security, which puts them significantly in front of most of the VPN industry.

Meanwhile, Norton's standard VPN protocols, OpenVPN and WireGuard, use AES-256-GCM and ChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption, respectively. These are considered the top encryption methods used by all of the best VPNs, a strong demonstration, therefore, of Norton’s intent to found its service on strong privacy staples.

Privacy and security score: 8/10

Track record

Gen Digital, Norton’s parent company, is headquartered in the USA and the Czech Republic. It’s the result of a merger between Avast and Norton in 2022, and now owns other big-name brands, including Avira, AVG, and CCleaner.

Despite the merger, Norton continues to be run as a separate company with their own range of products. Norton has decades of experience in providing digital security products, but until now, the VPN offering has lagged behind the industry standard.

The merger with Avast seems to have been a kickstarter to the impressive changes we’ve seen in the product in recent months. Norton claims the merger has prompted progress that “combines our ‘best of breed’ technologies to provide safer, faster, and more reliable performance for the customer,” with Norton VPN being the first product to benefit from this work.

In the past, Norton VPN had suffered from DNS leaks and a nearly non-existent feature set, both of which have been fixed since. The current iteration of Norton VPN is a substantial upgrade from versions we’ve seen in the past, but it still has some way to go.

It should be noted that the service has now also undergone a no-logs audit, and users can read the in-depth executive summary report at their leisure. Plus, if you’re concerned about the kinds of requests no-logs policies help protect against, Norton now publishes transparency reports. These reports, updated twice per year, outline all the requests Norton receives from authorities for user data, and explain why Norton is unable to comply with them since its no-logs policy means there’s nothing to provide.

Track record score: 9/10

Customer Support

Norton’s customer support staff are very helpful. There’s a community forum where you can post issues you’re having with Norton VPN, where other members and support staff can pitch in with their own advice. From the interactions we’ve had, they’re very knowledgeable and quite prompt in returning with information.

However, the support materials on the site are a different matter. When you search for help topics on Norton’s website, you’re immediately given an AI prompt for your search, which looks like it’s powered by Gemini. It’s not totally useful when you’re trying to find specific help on a topic, and you have to scroll past it to get to the actual results.

As for the knowledge base, it’s not particularly in-depth - most of the articles consist of bullet point lists and some are thinly-disguised marketing material. If you want help with Norton, we’d stick to contacting their customer support directly through the forum or over the phone. There’s also a 24/7 helpdesk upgrade if you need around-the-clock customer service.

Customer support score: 7/10

Pricing and plans

Norton offers three tiers of pricing. The standard VPN package starts at $39.99 for the first year, which works out at roughly $3.33 per month. After the introductory offer is over, it renews at $79.99 per year. That makes Norton one of the cheapest VPNs we’ve see.

However, there’s one major limitation: you’re only allowed five device connections (or worse, only one if you’re in some regions, including the UK), significantly under the 8-10 you’ll find from most other providers. Surfshark and PIA both go even further, offering unlimited device connections on their cheapest subscription plans. It should also be clarified that Norton’s device limit isn’t a traditional simultaneous connections limit. Instead, Norton’s five-device limit refers to the number of devices with the VPN installed. Should you wish to install on a sixth device, you’d instead be asked to remove one of the previous five devices, rather than merely disconnecting from the VPN.

Upgrading your subscription costs an extra $10 per year, making your subscription cost $4.17 per month initially and $109.99 every year after that. There’s no meaningful change to the VPN, but you get extra features from Norton’s security suite, including virus protection, password management, dark-web scanning, 10GB encrypted cloud storage, and AI-powered scam detection.

The Ultimate subscription package will set you back an extra $20 per year, making it $5 per month initially and $129.99 per year after the first. In addition to extra family-safety features for monitoring your child’s devices, the device count is bumped up to 10, so you can take full advantage of Norton’s security features on most of your household’s devices, and you get 50GB of secure storage (or 150GB should you activate auto-renewal).

To its credit, Norton offers an above-average 60-day money-back guarantee and a true 7-day free trial when you sign up. We love 7-day free trials as an entry point into VPNs, as they offer a ‘try before you buy’ solution, without some of the hassles caused by a 30-day money-back guarantee. Seeing Norton VPN be one of the first to offer this, then, puts it in good standing to be among the best VPNs for beginners in the future.

Switching from its current install-based device limit also seems like an easy win that Norton VPN could take advantage of. While increasing the device limit with more premium plans does help this slightly, removing the confusion of registering and removing devices is an easy way to make the service more accessible to newer users and takes away the sting of the small device limit on the standard plan.

Pricing and plans score: 7/10

Should you use Norton VPN?

Norton VPN is a rapidly improving VPN. In the space of a few months, it’s brought in a spread of features you’d expect to see in a top VPN, alongside some features some top VPNs don’t think to include. Its performance has risen to a point where it can rival top VPNs like Surfshark and NordVPN, it has apps simple enough for anyone to use, and it brings Norton-pedigree security to make anyone trust its privacy guarantees.

That said, there are several areas it still needs to address. Primarily, sorting the device install limit will add to its already high-value package by reducing connection roadblocks for users. Outside of this, expanding the feature pool, adding Linux and Fire TV support, and eradicating the feature disparities for macOS and iOS users will quickly put Norton VPN among the best value VPNs available if done right.

For many, now might not be the right time to pick up Norton VPN due to any one of the limitations mentioned. That said, it’d be wise to keep an eye on Norton VPN over the coming year or so, as, from what we’ve seen already in 2025, it looks as though the provider could quickly become a high-value, high-security VPN from a name renowned for its security capabilities.

Total score: 78/100

Norton VPN alternatives

Mozilla VPN might've been a standalone Firefox browser extension once upon a time but, since then, it has become a full-blooded VPN service capable of giving your online security a significant boost.

The network has expanded recently and now offers 600+ servers across 73 locations in 43 countries.

• Want to try Mozilla VPN? Check out the website here

Mozilla VPN is powered by Mullvad's speedy and secure network. Some companies keep quiet about the fact that they're reselling someone else's service, not Mozilla. Click the 'see our full list of servers' link on the Mozilla VPN website, for instance, and it takes you to the server list on Mullvad's site. 

Features

Mozilla VPN's feature list has grown considerably since launch. Now, the service competes well with many big VPN names. The network is P2P-friendly, for instance (we torrented successfully on three test locations), support for the speedy WireGuard protocol optimizes performance, and there's a kill switch to protect you if the VPN drops. Multi-Hop VPN enables connecting to the VPN from one location and exiting from another, making it even more difficult for others to track your activities. There is also split tunneling support (called App Exclusions here) that allows you to decide which apps are protected by the VPN and which use your regular internet connection.

Other highlights include IPv6 support, and the ability to choose an ad or tracker-blocking DNS server, or to use your preferred DNS.

Firefox users get an unusual bonus in support for Multi-Account Containers. Each Firefox tab can be connected to a separate VPN location, so instead of forever connecting, changing location, and disconnecting, you can just switch to whatever tab you need. This Mozilla blog post has more details.

There are still weaknesses. Mozilla VPN only supports the WireGuard protocol, so if that won't connect on your network, you're out of luck. There's no support for manually setting up the service on routers or anything else. Additionally, you still can't set up the apps to automatically connect when you access public Wi-Fi, either.

There's no live chat support, but Mozilla does have a decent number of support articles. You can also send questions to the support team from the website if you're in serious trouble.

We spotted one potential annoyance. Although Mozilla VPN says it works with up to five devices, that means specific, registered devices. If you use the service on two mobiles, two laptops, and a tablet, for instance, you can't use it on a new device until you've signed out of one of the others.

• How does Mozilla VPN shape up with the best Firefox VPN extensions

Mozilla VPN pricing

Mozilla VPN is priced at a reasonable $9.99 for its monthly billed account, dropping to $4.99 on the https://vpn.mozilla.org/.

Although that's not expensive overall, keep in mind that you're paying for access to Mullvad's servers. Sign up for Mullvad instead and you'll pay a flat rate of €5 a month (around $5.50), whatever the length of your subscription.

Payments are accepted via card and PayPal only.

If you sign up and the service doesn't work for you, no problem, you're protected by a 30-day money-back guarantee. There are no sneaky catches or exclusions, as far as we can tell and we spent quite some time looking. If you're unhappy, just tell the company within the first 30 days, and you'll get a refund.

Privacy and logging

Mozilla sells its VPN partly on being from 'a name you can trust' and that's a major plus. Even if you think Mozilla's reputation comes largely from not being Google or Microsoft, it's still way ahead of many VPNs in the trustworthiness stakes, and its partner, Mullvad, is one of the most privacy-focused providers around.

The Mozilla VPN website makes its general approach very clear – ''Your privacy comes first'', ''We don't store your online activity logs on our servers'' – and the company provides more information in a brief Privacy Notice.

The firm collects your IP address when you sign up and use the service, along with technical information about the setup such as the app version, operating system, hardware configuration, and interaction data. Interaction data includes the time that you log in, when the app requests the server information, and other stuff. Mozilla says the IP is only held temporarily, although it doesn't explain how long 'temporary' might be.

If you're unhappy with this, you can disable some of it. Our Windows app installer asked us whether we wanted to send usage data to Mozilla, making it clear what was going on, and giving us a chance to say 'no, thanks'. If you don't notice the installer option, you can also turn this off later in the settings.

Mozilla points users to the Mullvad Privacy Policy for more detail and that explains there's no logging of traffic, DNS requests, IP addresses, session times, or bandwidth used.

Audit

Mozilla says all the right things about privacy, but users shouldn't be left to take any provider's words on trust. We like to see some independent evidence that a VPN is living up to its promises.

In August 2021, Mozilla provided just that by publishing the results of a second Cure53 audit into its service.

This didn't look at the servers, but Cure53 did have an in-depth look at the apps, including the source code.

Cure53's report was positive overall, saying that only a single medium scale vulnerability was uncovered, and that the apps had 'grown significantly in security' since its last review.

Overall, we think the audit is positive news in a number of ways. The scope was significant, covering all Mozilla's apps; the company shared its source code; the audit results were reasonable, and it published the report in full. We give Mozilla a lot of credit for putting itself under that level of scrutiny, something which most VPNs still haven't done.

Apps

Signing up with Mozilla VPN begins by providing your email address and age to create a Firefox account. Although most providers also ask you to register with your email address, Mullvad doesn't need any personal details at all, which could be another reason to just buy it from Mullvad directly.

With the account set up, we handed over our cash and the website directed us to the Downloads page. We grabbed a copy of the Windows app, which was downloaded and installed within seconds.

Mozilla VPN's Windows offering has a straightforward and very standard interface. A small console displays your default location, and you can click this to select another. A big On/Off switch connects and disconnects you as required, and icons plus a status display make it clear when you're protected, and when you're not.

The client doesn't have an 'Automatic' setting where it chooses the fastest server for you, and there's no Search box, filtering, or Favorites system to quickly find your most-used locations. Getting connected takes a little more scrolling and clicking than we'd like. There's some compensation in Mozilla's use of the ultra-speedy WireGuard protocol, which typically got us connected in 1-2 seconds.

The app didn't perform as well in our connection stress tests, where we see how a VPN can handle awkward network situations like no internet connection, when another VPN is connected, and so on. It occasionally hung on ‘Connecting' or ‘Disconnecting' screens for so long that we had to restart to recover.

If you're only ever accessing the same few very standard Wi-Fi hotspots, you might instantly connect each time, and this won't matter at all; however, if you're traveling more widely, you could find Mozilla VPN has the occasional connection issue. If you're signing up for the trial, use your time to test the service on as many different networks as you can to see how it works for you.

Settings

We started by looking at Mozilla VPN's Windows split tunneling system. This enables setting up specific apps to use your normal internet connection rather than the VPN, which can be handy to improve performance or fix problems like banking apps not running if you seem to be in another country.

A DNS Settings screen allows you to choose DNS servers that block ads, trackers, or both, and you can also enter a custom DNS server of your own.

A 'Privacy features' page allows selectively blocking ads, trackers, and malware. We turned everything on and tried accessing 156 common trackers. Mozilla VPN blocked a very acceptable 115, including all the most important such as Google and Facebook.

Switching to malware, we tried accessing 379 very new malicious websites and watched as Mozilla VPN blocked 99.2% (it missed only three.) Even ad blocking worked better than we expected, with our VPN-enabled connection scoring 90% protection in one test (that's better than uBlock Origin.)

A Notifications page includes an option to display an alert if you connect to an unsecured Wi-Fi network. That's useful, although more powerful apps can automatically connect to the VPN as required, too.

A handful of more technical features include the ability to use port 53 for connections, which might help you use the service in countries or on networks where a VPN is normally blocked. 

As we mentioned above, there's no option to change protocol but otherwise, there's a fair amount of configurability here and Mozilla VPN certainly outperforms many competitors.

Kill switch

While Mozilla's Windows client has a kill switch, there's no option to turn it on or off or tweak how it works. That's good for security, as there's no way you can accidentally disable it. Still, this could be bad news if the kill switch causes some problems on your device, as there's no way to try and fix that.

We ran a few tests and found the kill switch correctly blocked our internet if the VPN connection dropped.

We did notice problems in some extreme situations. If one of Mozilla's Windows services fails, for instance, protection is lost but the kill switch doesn't kick in. The app warns the user about the disconnection but there's a chance their identity and some traffic will be exposed.

Problems like this aren't common and while you may never encounter them in real-world use, they suggest Mozilla's Windows app isn't the best at handling unusual network conditions. We're left wondering what other issues might be lurking under the hood.

Mac app

Mozilla VPN's Mac app looks and feels almost identical to the Windows version and that's both good and bad. On the plus side, it's exceptionally consistent. Learn how the app works on one platform and you'll have no problem using it on the other. On the downside, it means the Mac inherits all the same Windows limitations. There's no 'Fastest server' option to automatically choose the best location, no Favorites system, and no choice of protocol, for instance. It's also missing Mozilla's 'App Exclusions' split tunneling feature.

The app does have a few interesting touches. It also includes Mozilla's effective ad, tracker, and malicious website blocking DNS. It can also give you notifications if you connect to unsecured Wi-Fi. Other apps go further – the best VPN software can automatically connect when you access untrusted networks – but these are still features worth having.

Put it all together, and although it's not exactly powerful, this is a decent Mac app. It's simple to use and worked well for us. It connected quickly and delivered decent performance all-round.

Mobile apps

The Mozilla Android and iOS apps are near clones of the desktop builds, easy to use but with few features.

Browsing the menus, we managed to spot some differences between the desktop clients. For example, the Android app supports the split tunneling feature which isn't supported on Mac, allowing you to choose specific apps that won't have their traffic routed through the VPN.

The iOS app doesn't have split tunneling (not Mozilla's fault, it's not supported on iOS), but you do still get ad, malware, and tracker blocking DNS and some basic notification settings.

Mozilla's mobile apps aren't exactly exciting then, but like the rest of the range, they're not bad either. They all do a reasonable job of the VPN essentials, and if that's all you need, they might be good enough.

Performance

Mozilla VPN focuses primarily on its privacy-boosting tools and, unfortunately, our hands-on unblocking tests made this crystal clear. We were unable to access popular platforms, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, and Disney+.

We managed to check out ITV and Channel 4 however, as well as Australia's 9Now, but this is a pretty disappointing spread of sites.

This means that Mozilla VPN just doesn't cut it as a streaming VPN – which could be a massive red flag for prospective users looking for a well-rounded service. NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark all aced our unblocking tests, able to access virtually every streaming site we threw at them.

Our performance tests found Mozilla's WireGuard-powered download speeds peaked at 360Mbps. That's far behind the likes of NordVPN, Surfshark, and Windscribe. All these VPNs reached 950Mbps+ in their last tests. If your regular internet connections only ever reach a fraction of that speed, or you're using a VPN to protect normal browsing or streaming, Mozilla VPN is fast enough.

The company ended on a positive note in our final privacy checks, as multiple test sites found Mozilla VPN blocked all DNS and WebRTC leaks.

Mozilla VPN review: Final verdict

Mozilla VPN benefits from a well-known and trusted brand, but it can't quite compare to our top-rated services when it comes to features, unblocking power, and value for money. Ultimately, unless you're a die-hard Mozilla fan, you'll be better off looking elsewhere.

• We've also highlighted the best VPN providers of 2025

PureVPN positions itself as a service focused on security, privacy, and accessibility, but it doesn’t do any of these particularly well. An expensive monthly plan at $12.95 means that it’s only worth purchasing if you’re buying at least a year-long subscription, but our tests suggest that the service is getting worse in terms of speed and server locations.

PureVPN is part of a much larger privacy package that includes a password management system, file encryption, dark web monitoring, and a “remove my data” feature. It’s unlikely you’ll forget this while using the VPN, as it bombards you with ads for these features no matter which platform you’re on (apart from the Linux app, which is very light on features).

Read on, and I’ll dig a little more into why PureVPN doesn’t really stick the landing in any one area, as well as the specific use cases where you may want to check it out anyway.

Features

The actual PureVPN doesn’t have a ton of extra features, but it does nail the essentials for the most part. As far as VPN protocols go, you’ve got access to OpenVPN, WireGuard, and IKEv2. All of these are highly trusted, well-audited VPN protocols, so you won’t have any worries about picking an insecure one when you set the VPN up.

On top of that, there’s both a kill switch built in to make sure you won’t accidentally leak unencrypted data if you disconnect from the VPN, and a split tunneling option that’ll let you pick which apps you want to connect to the VPN.

Port forwarding is also available on PureVPN, but it’s a paid extra whereas some providers like Private Internet Access offer it by default. It’s pretty useful if you’re regularly torrenting or you’re trying to host a web service, but otherwise, you’re not likely to get much use out of it.

Speaking of, PureVPN also offers a paid dedicated IP option, which gives you a static IP whenever you log in. You won’t be pestered by CAPTCHAs or IP-based reputation systems as you’ll be the only user on that IP. However, it’s locked to one location, so it’s not ideal if you’re trying to stream content from all over the world. It even offers residential IPs that you can proxy through, which are slightly less prone to the same issues that a dedicated IP solves.

There’s an automation feature built into PureVPN on connect. Essentially, it allows you to nominate a website that opens up automatically whenever you connect to a specific location. For example, if you’re connecting to Tokyo because you want to view the latest shows on Netflix JP, you can set PureVPN up to open a Netflix tab automatically. It’s not the flashiest feature in the world, but it’s very convenient.

Features score: 7/10

Server network

You’re not getting the biggest server network with PureVPN, but it’s still respectable at 80 locations in 66 countries. That’s a slight reduction from our last review.

With that in mind, it’s a fairly well distributed server set that includes locations other providers don’t focus on, including five different servers in Africa and another five in the Middle East. The flip side is that you’re getting significantly below average coverage in Asia and worse North American coverage than other providers.

Ultimately, if you’re looking for a truly global server selection then you’re better off looking elsewhere, but PureVPN’s servers should otherwise suffice.

Server network: 6/10

Apps

The desktop apps are completely fine. Whether you’re on Windows, Linux, or MacOS, PureVPN offers a functional app that performs as you’d expect.

The Linux app does look like an afterthought compared to the Windows or MacOS versions but, ironically, this makes it far easier to use. There are no large in-app ads, so you can just click connect and get started. Still, if you’re expecting full Linux support, you’re out of luck. There’s way less in terms of features, so you should check out Private Internet Access for a Linux GUI client that keeps parity with other desktop apps instead.

PureVPN’s Android app leaves a lot to be desired. The “free trial” locks you into a relatively expensive yearly subscription at the end of the 7 days without appropriate notification. Even when you do pay for the app, you’re constantly being bombarded with in-ad apps to upgrade for more features. Other providers like Surfshark do offer upgrade plans with extra features but don’t hassle you about them in the actual app. It’s also unstable, as I found it crashing several times throughout the testing process, which is just unacceptable for a VPN app.

The iOS app is more stable by comparison but isn’t much better. There are still the same adverts for other apps, and while I personally haven’t had issues with the iOS client, there are plenty of reviews out there complaining about poor speeds and subscriptions expiring before their time is up. This isn’t the VPN experience on mobile you’re looking for.

Apps score: 6/10

Ease of use

To be honest, the PureVPN app is a little overwhelming when you first log in. The Windows app takes up a lot of your screen real-estate with both the connection button and a bunch of advertisements for other apps in the PureVPN ecosystem.

While the actual VPN is relatively easy to operate, there’s just far too many options that take you out to other parts of the app which should be hidden away in sub-menus instead. On the plus side, the app’s aesthetic is pretty pleasing with easy purple and black features on a white background, which you can invert with a dark mode.

Ease of use score: 5/10

Speed and performance

PureVPN isn’t particularly impressive in terms of speed. We’ve changed how we measure our speeds, which I’ll get into more in a moment, but the point is that PureVPN has seen significant speed drops as a result.

When testing its WireGuard connection to our nearest server, we saw peak speeds of 480 Mbps, which is a real downgrade from the 615 Mbps we recorded during our last testing round. Strangely, our cross-Atlantic tests actually performed slightly better at 491 Mbps. I have to assume that this is roughly where its servers operate at peak capacity.

Although PureVPN’s speeds seem to be getting worse, they’ll still suffice for high-quality streaming, even in 4K. The OpenVPN performance, on the other hand, is poor. We recorded maximum speeds of 113 Mbps, which is a bandwidth reduction of nearly 90%. If you’re locked into OpenVPN, it’s very likely that PureVPN is going to choke the life out of your bandwidth speeds.

The only real plus with PureVPN is that we found our upload speeds to its US servers nearly maxed out our testing rig at 818 Mbps when using WireGuard, so it might be worth a shot if you have a seriously impressive internet connection and you want some extra protection while torrenting. Otherwise, PureVPN’s speeds just fail to impress.

It should be noted that we’ve updated our testing process for speeds. We still take a range of connection speeds throughout the day, using various speed testing sites and across multiple protocols, but we now take the top results and average them out to get a better idea of what the best speeds from a VPN look like instead of just using the best speed we’ve recorded.

Speed and performance score: 7/10

Unblocking

We regularly put the VPNs we review through a barrage of tests to see if they can unblock the most popular streaming sites out there. It’s good news for PureVPN as it put in an almost perfect performance during our unblocking tests.

All of the Netflix regions we tried worked flawlessly (that’s the UK, US, Japan, Canada, and Australia) without needing to resort to a residential IP. Amazon Prime and Disney+ also worked, as well as BBC iPlayer, Channel 4, ITV, and 9Now. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get access to 10Now, but that’s still pretty impressive.

One caveat, though. While the residential IP option should, in theory, allow you to do anything that a VPN address won’t, there’s a flaw with it. You can’t choose which region you get connected to, so there’s no way to dial in on the streams you want. The bandwidth limit also means that even if you can get access to a particular stream, you’re going to chew through your allotted 12 GB pretty quickly.

Residential IPs are useful for evading VPN detection. We tested out 15 different VPN detection sites, and PureVPN worked on 10 of them, which is way better than the 3 we bypassed using the regular VPN IP. It’s not completely foolproof, as some sites still managed to detect that we were using a potential proxy.

Unblocking score: 9/10

Privacy and Security

This isn’t a privacy-first VPN, but PureVPN still does pretty well. All of the VPN protocols you can pick are pretty much bulletproof: OpenVPN, WireGuard, and IKEv2. This wasn’t always the case, as PureVPN used to offer insecure protocols like L2TP and PPTP. These servers are actually still visible from the server list on their site, but the app won’t allow you to connect to them.

Its OpenVPN implementation also allows you to connect to quantum-resistant servers, protecting you against future attacks on the data you transmit today. It’s the first part of the full quantum-resistant rollout so, for now, you’re only able to connect to quantum-resistant servers in the UK, US, France, Germany, Australia, and Canada. It also only protects the keys used to start your connection, not the full data stream.

PureVPN is also a no-log VPN provider that’s been audited multiple times by independent third parties, including KPMG. That’s a great start, but PureVPN goes one step further with an “always-on” audit. Essentially, it's beholden to a surprise audit at any time, which means that PureVPN can never afford to operate at anything less than 100% data privacy.

It’s questionable how much more trust this affords compared to a traditional audit, but with four successful third-party audits in the bag, it’s clear that PureVPN is doing the right thing.

The only outstanding issue we’ve found is that WebRTC allows you to determine that the Residential IP feature actually resolves back to a normal PureVPN IP. While this isn’t a huge privacy leak, it does significantly undermine the appeal of a service that should let you appear as though you’re a normal US resident. A particularly determined attacker would be able to leverage this to discover otherwise, but you’re still protected against other types of leaks including DNS and IPv6.

Privacy and security score: 7/10

Track record

Frankly, it’s a mixed bag. PureVPN has suffered from DNS and IP leaks in the past, and the fact we’ve noticed a potential leak in the residential IP offering doesn’t bode well. While PureVPN has been diligent in fixing these leaks when reported, this shouldn’t be a recurring issue.

There’s also a black mark against PureVPN’s name for its handling of a law enforcement request by the FBI in 2017. As a result of this investigation, it became clear that PureVPN was logging IP addresses alongside connection timestamps.

Since then, PureVPN has undergone several audits to demonstrate it doesn't keep logs, as well as ISO 27001 certification to show they implement appropriate information security controls. While PureVPN seems like a changed company today, it’s worth keeping in mind that it might not necessarily be the best choice if you need an absolutely bulletproof VPN.

Track Record score: 5/10

Customer support

I’ve certainly seen worse customer support plans out there. There’s a live 24/7 support chat you can access without being a customer, but it puts you in contact with an AI chatbot first, and you’ll need to navigate through it to speak to a real support agent.

They’re not always available either, but the one we got through to was prompt and helpful. There’s also an email-based ticket support system for deeper technical problems that support agents can’t easily fix.

The support FAQs are also pretty good. All of the articles are categorized by OS and cover topics from installation to platform-specific features and troubleshooting. It’s all clearly written in plain English with plenty of screenshots, so you should be able to follow along without much trouble.

Customer support score: 9/10

Pricing and plans

PureVPN is definitely on the pricier end for a monthly plan at $12.95 per month, especially considering that you’re getting a pretty bog-standard VPN for that price. This drops down to $3.99 for a month on the one year plan and $2.15 for the two year plan, which is far more reasonable.

You can also lock in a five year deal for $2.16. It works out slightly more expensive than buying two years because that gives you three months free, but the five year deal locks in that price if PureVPN ever decides to raise their fees. There’s also a 31-day money back guarantee, slightly more than the industry average… by a day.

That’s about where the value stops with PureVPN. One dedicated IP is $4.99 per month. Port forwarding, a feature that other providers give you for free, is $1.49 per month. Want access to a residential IP? That’ll be $19.99 per month (and even more if you go over the 12 GB a month bandwidth cap).

Pricing and plans score: 7/10

Should you use PureVPN?

It’s hard to recommend PureVPN unless you’re going with one of its cheaper yearly plans. Even then, Surfshark offers significantly better speeds and more locations for around the same price. Where PureVPN differs from other providers is in the IP-specific options it offers, but there are still issues with the Residential IP option that make it useful only in very specific cases.

Simply put: Unless you’re hosting web services and buy into both the dedicated IP and port forwarding options, there’s a VPN provider out there that does what PureVPN does but better in every category. Sometimes several. That doesn’t make PureVPN a bad VPN, but it does make it a redundant one. On that basis alone, I’d say you should check out one of the VPN providers below instead.

PureVPN alternatives

PureVPN FAQs

EVenture Limited subsidiary Hide.me is a Malaysia-based company that has been making waves in the VPN business since 2011.

Hide.me currently boasts around 2,600 servers in 91 different locations worldwide. That's a pretty decent spread that'll be more than enough for most users, but NordVPN blows it out of the water when it comes to coverage, with servers in a whopping 118 countries.

Several protocols are available to choose from, including the super-speedy WireGuard and battle-tested OpenVPN, and IKEv2, SoftEther, and SSTP are in the mix, too. It's also nice to see that Hide.me offers DNS, IP, and IPv6 leak protection, and that port forwarding is there for anyone who needs it (perhaps while doing a spot of torrenting).

Hide.me is compatible with most of today's biggest and best platforms. Apps are available for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Linux. You'll also be able to use Hide.me on smart TVs, consoles, and routers, as well as enjoy 10 simultaneous connections. If you need help getting set up on any of these devices, or just want help picking out the best server, 24/7 live chat is happy to help.

Advanced features include MultiHop VPN, allowing you to connect to one location and exit from another. This makes it even more difficult for anyone to trace back and identify you.

Hide.me claims to support P2P on most servers. We verified this by connecting to five different locations and had hassle-free torrenting in each case.

We also like that Hide.me is clear about its unblocking capabilities, listing the platforms it's able to access on its site. This is great news for fans of Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Prime Video, and more, and sets Hide.me apart from other services that rely on vague promises that they're not always able to live up to.

While there have been some recent updates and improvements, they're more focused on enhanced the existing Hide.me service rather than adding new and innovative tools. It's why Hide.me can't quite keep up with innovators like NordVPN and ExpressVPN, but they're still worthwhile improvements. In particular, upgrading the servers from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps is exciting, and Hide.me labels which servers have received the upgrade in its list. It's the kind of transparency we love to see.

Hide.me pricing

Hide.me's monthly plan is fairly priced at $9.95. Most providers charge somewhere in the $10-$13 range, although a few are significantly cheaper (Mullvad asks around $6).

The annual plan is available for an above-average $5.82 a month. Hide.me used to throw in 2TB of Internxt cloud storage, but no more. Now, it's the VPN only. Most providers are a little cheaper at around $4-5 for annual subscriptions, and a few cost even less (you'll pay a monthly $3.33 for Private Internet Access, $2.08 for FastestVPN).

The two-year plan offers the best value at $3.45, but even here, there's money to be saved elsewhere. Atlas VPN's three-year plan costs $2.08 a month, for instance. Looking at the totals, paying $89.95 to Hide.me gets you coverage for two years with two months free – but three years of protection (with three months free) at Atlas VPN costs $71.52.

Regardless of the plan length you go for, you'll find a number of ways to pay for your subscription. This includes the usual credit and debit cards, PayPal, Bitcoin, Google and Amazon Pay, and others – though the exact list varies from location to location.

If you fork out for a Hide.me plan and ultimately decide that it's not for you, don't panic! All plans are covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee that'll let you reclaim your cash without any quibble or questions. However, this only applies to users who haven't previously received a refund from Hide.me.

Plus, for folks who'd rather not part with a single penny, the free version of Hide.me is better than ever. It now boasts servers in 8 countries, which is pretty generous for a free VPN, and doesn't demand that you make an account and hand over your personal details. Most impressively, however, is the fact that Hide.me free doesn't impose any data limits or monthly caps on your usage - you can stay connected for as long as you like.

Of course, there are downsides to consider, including a lack of streaming support, port forwarding, and multihop functionality.

Privacy

Hide.me has a strict no logging policy. The company claims, "We do NOT keep logs of your VPN sessions, browsing behavior, websites you visit, or any activity related to your VPN connection. In addition, we NEVER store VPN connection logs and timestamps that match your incoming and outgoing IP address or session duration."

Hide.me does briefly record your randomly generated username and internally assigned (non-public) IP address when you connect, but this is only for troubleshooting purposes, and the company says even this troubleshooting log is securely wiped every few hours.

Hide.me says it will comply with court orders received by recognized legal authorities with jurisdiction over them. But again, that's to be expected, and if the logs don't show anything significant, that won't matter at all.

The company claims this is supported by a comprehensive audit, and that 'Hide.me has been certified as the most anonymous VPN service in the industry.'

It turns out that the audit dates from 2015, though. There's little information on the scope of the audit and no report you can read. Hide.me deserves real credit for realizing the importance of audits so long ago – some providers still don't get it, even today – but we think it's probably time to take another, something more thorough and transparent, where everyone can read the full results.

In the meantime, there's a simple metric we use to get a feel for how any provider is handling your privacy, and that’s how many trackers and third-party cookies are used on its website. The Blacklight privacy inspector gave us the answer; none at all. That's not unique - Mullvad, Proton VPN, Windscribe, and a handful of others are also tracker-free - but it's unusual, and suggests Hide.me is making a real effort to maintain your privacy.

Apps

Hide.me's Windows app has a clear and straightforward interface. A large Enable button plugs you into the nearest server, the full location list (countries, expandable to cities in some cases) is just a click away, and a navigation bar has buttons for the streaming service, app settings, and more.

The flexible location list can sort your options by name, or use ping time to show the fastest servers at the top. Begin typing a city or country name in the Search box and the list updates to display any matches (typing MIA cuts the list to just Miami, for instance.) A Favorites system enables grouping your most-used servers together for speedier access later.

A Streaming tab connects you to the best locations to unblock streaming platforms in a lengthy list of countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and United States. That's nine countries added since our last review. Impressive!

We found Hide.me's connections times to be fair. Typically, we were able to connect to a server within 1 or 2 seconds, which meant we weren't waiting around. There doesn't appear to be a connection timeout, however, and we encountered a few instances where Hide.me was stuck on its "initializing service connection" animation for minutes at a time.

Digging into the details, it looked like Hide.me's Windows service had failed, and the app wasn't able to restart it. That can happen, but the top providers do a better job of handling it. ExpressVPN's Windows app recognizes a service failure immediately, for instance, without leaving you waiting for minutes. Then, it either fixes the problem all on its own or tells you what to do next.

Typically, though, connections ran smoothly, with the app making good use of notifications to keep you informed about what it's doing. Switch back to your other apps, and Hide.me will let you know when you’re protected, and when you’re not.

Hide.me's MultiHop feature gives you another option, good news when you need the best possible privacy. Choose an entry server of New York, say, and that's where you'll connect, but you'll be redirected through Hide.me's network to your pick of exit servers. Websites will think you're in the UK, and even if an attacker manages to compromise the London server, they won't be able to link the activity to your account as you've accessed it using the New York server, not your own IP.

Settings

There's real depth here. The app supports no less than five protocols (WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, SoftEther, SSTP), for instance, with a stack of configuration options including IKEv2 stealth mode, custom and random ports, tunnel via IPv4 or IPv6, and the option to enable Bolt (Hide.me's custom speedup technology). More on that later.

That's just the start. While most VPN apps ignore IPv6 entirely, or at best give you an option to disable it, Hide.me offers complete support and control. You can have the app connect via IPv4 only, IPv6 only, prefer IPv4 but use IPv6 as a fallback, or prefer IPv6 but use IPv4 as a fallback. That'll probably get you better speeds if you can use IPv6, and Hide.me's ability to handle both protocols reduces the chance of data leaks.

The advanced features continue everywhere you look. For example, split tunneling support enables defining which apps use the VPN, and which will use your regular connection. Plus, the client doesn't just have a single on/off kill switch setting to define what happens if the connection drops. It can run customs scripts, too. You get it to close apps, run others, whatever you like. You can also define whether scripts are run as the current user or an administrator.

There's a lot to explore, and sometimes we couldn't remember where to find a particular setting. Fortunately, the app has a settings Search box. If you know you want to customize the Best Location feature, just type 'best' in the Search box, click the link, and the app will take you to the right page, and even highlight the option for you. A neat touch we've not seen with anyone else.

Mac app

We were glad to see that Hide.me's apps are similar across all platforms. The Mac app, in particular, is practically a clone of the Windows version, with the exception of a few small visual details.

Connection times were much faster than we saw on Windows, and we didn't have any connection failures. Real-world use was otherwise much the same. The app was easy to use, there were no unexpected drops, and everything worked more or less as we'd expect.

There's a decent set of advanced options, too. WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2 protocol support, a kill switch, auto-connect when you access untrusted networks, and split tunneling. If any of this technology doesn't quite deliver, you can even raise a ticket from within the app.

There are a lot of advanced Windows features that haven't made it to the Mac. There's no VPN-wide custom DNS option, no custom MTU, no way to tweak how Best Location is chosen, no IPv6 tunnel option, no IKEv2 configuration tweaks, and no real kill switch configurability beyond on or off.

If you're not interested in VPN technicalities, then none of that is likely to matter very much, and this is still a quality Mac app. It's not difficult to use, performance is good, and it has far more features than most.

iOS app

Most VPNs focus their development time on desktop apps, and iOS users in particular are expected to be grateful for whatever scraps are left. Fortunately, no one told Hide.me that this is the way things are supposed to be. Its own iOS offering is surprisingly powerful.

This isn't visible initially, because the app has the same simple and appealing interface as the rest of the range. It has the blue and white color scheme, a big connect button, and not a whole lot else. Don’t let that fool you, we tapped a few buttons and quickly got a feel for just what the app can do.

The Location picker has all the features we saw on the desktop, including the Favorites, the Streaming and Multihop lists, the search box, sorting, and more. You probably won't need all of that, but just the ability to bring favorite servers to the top of the list can make your VPN life so much easier.

IOS apps typically have almost no settings, but this one outperforms some of the Windows competition. There's support for IKEv2, OpenVPN UDP, OpenVPN TCP and WireGuard, for instance. The app can automatically connect when you use Wi-Fi or mobile networks. There's a kill switch. You can choose a custom DNS server. You even get to control whether the tunnel uses IPv4 or IPv6, assuming you've a reason to care and if you don't, no problem, the app has sensibly chosen defaults.

The feature list is still a little shorter than the desktop apps (no split tunneling, for instance), but that's inevitable, iOS just doesn't allow anything like the same level of system control. Despite that, this is a top-notch iOS app. It's easy to use and way more configurable than most of the competition.

Android app

Hide.me's Android app didn’t spoil the excellent record for cross-platform consistency. Hide.me has paid real attention to detail with app design, and essentially the Android edition has the same appealing interface and capable location list as the rest of the family.

A better-than-most feature list includes WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2 support, auto-connect for unsecured networks, and a custom DNS option.

The Android app beats iOS with split tunneling, where you're able to define which apps use the VPN tunnel, and which don't. But it does lack some functionality. For example, it doesn't allow you to decide whether to use IPv4 or IPv6.

Overall, this is an impressive mix of power and ease of use. You don't have to register to use Hide.me's free plan, or hand over any personal details – just install it from your app store, explore the various screens, and see how it works.

And if you don't understand something, or there's some other problem? You can even raise a ticket from within the app. Now that's what we call convenient.

Kill switch

We checked out the Windows app kill switch by manually closing WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2 connections and everything worked as it should – our internet access was blocked right away, a notification warned us about the problem, and the app reconnected within seconds.

The kill switch didn’t always work when we switched locations, though. The app appears to close the first connection, then try to connect to the new server, and our device was sometimes able to use its regular internet connection until the tunnel was re-established.

This is unlikely to be a big issue for most users. If you’ve decided to switch locations, that’s a very strong indication that you’ve finished your torrenting, your online banking or whatever else you’re trying to protect, and a few seconds of unprotected internet access may not matter at all.

It is still a weakness, though, and one that could be a concern in the most privacy-critical situations.

Privacy tests

Hide.me's Windows apps boast plenty of protocols, but are they set up for maximum security? We can't see every detail of what's going on, but checking app configuration files and logs provides some useful information.

The results were broadly positive, with OpenVPN using AES-256-CBC encryption and SHA256 authentication. IKEv2 connections provided the same reliable AES-256 shield, while SoftEther appeared to use its standard (and very acceptable) default settings.

The app's WireGuard and OpenVPN files were more than a year old, which means they're missing plenty of patches and bug fixes. This is unlikely to have any real practical impact on your privacy, but we'd like to see Hide.me update these more often, just to keep any risks to a minimum.

We spotted a slightly dubious design decision with the app's OpenVPN connections, as it saved our username and password to disk in plain text. This also isn't that big a deal (if you've got malware reading files, Hide.me's logins are the least of your worries), but it's unnecessary, and most apps do a better job of concealing your credentials.

Once we got connected, Hide.me excelled on the privacy front, with IPleak.net, DNSleak.com, and DNSleaktest.com confirming that it correctly shielded our IP, allocated us a new address from our chosen country, and blocked DNS leaks at all times.

Virtual locations

Most VPNs have very long location lists, but their servers aren't always where you expect. If they're in a country that maybe has poor internet connectivity, then a provider will often host them elsewhere.

This can often be a good idea. If a VPN offers a Monaco location, and allocates you a Monaco IP address when you connect, but the servers are really in a super-fast French data center just a few miles away, should you care very much? We'd say no.

But what if you're in Cambodia, and you connect to a Cambodia location, but the server is really located in New York? That's likely to deliver a big and very unexpected performance hit.

We tested ten Hide.me locations to get a feel for what the company is doing.

In most cases, Hide.me's servers turned out to be in the advertised locations and some appeared to be virtual locations but weren't far away. Still, we found a couple of notable exceptions. Hide.me's Mexico location appears to be hosted on the US east coast, and its Morocco servers are closer to Quebec or Ontario.

This may not be an issue for everyone. The servers correctly give you Mexican and Moroccan IP addresses, so they’ll work just as you expect, and if you're in North America, having servers closer by might improve performance.

Providers should be transparent about their use of virtual locations, though, in order that potential customers can make up their own minds. Hide.me doesn’t highlight which locations are virtual, or tell users where they really are (which ExpressVPN does), and we'd like to see that change.

Netflix and streaming

Most VPNs claim they can help you access geoblocked websites, and Hide.me is no exception, with the company promising that you'll 'avoid annoying censorship.'

And this turned out to be correct, as Hide.me got us access to Netflix in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Japan.

It scored with our other test US platforms, too, working with both Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus.

The good news kept coming, too. Not only did Hide.me unblock BBC iPlayer, ITV and Channel 4 in the UK, but it delivered with Australia’s 9Now and 10 play, too.

That’s a perfect 100% unblocking score, a great result. Hide.me did just as well in our last review, too, which suggests the company didn’t just get lucky – it’s working hard to unblock everything possible, and then make sure those services stay available long-term.

(If you plan on testing Hide.me for yourself, keep in mind that you only get this level of success from the paid product – the free plan doesn't support unblocking streaming sites.)

Performance

We assess VPN speeds by running multiple automated speed tests using several platforms including SpeedTest's website and command line app, Measurement Lab, and Cloudflare.

Hide.me’s data center results were pleasantly unexpected. WireGuard speeds reached a decent mid-range of 580Mbps and switching to regular OpenVPN got us an above average 260Mbps. Using OpenVPN with Hide.me's Bolt got us an amazing 950Mbps.

That's a huge achievement, but there's an important point to keep in mind. Bolt is only available in the Windows app. If you're using Bolt on any other platform, performance is going to be more ordinary, though still very acceptable for most purposes. Would you really be upset if your VPN 'only' managed 580Mbps? Didn't think so.

Hide.me review: Final verdict

Hide.me boasts some seriously impressive speeds and works like a charm when it comes to unblocking services – narrowly missing out on a perfect score. However, other big-name providers have more intuitive apps and a better roster of features, meaning Hide.me remains a half-step behind the competition.

CyberGhost has been on the VPN scene since 2011 and, as you'd expect from a veteran, has built a solid service with a reliable roster of core VPN tools. Despite this, however, you won't find CyberGhost listed in our shortlist of the best VPNs overall – despite its impressive speed testing results and unblocking performance.

So, where does it fall short? Throughout our testing, we found that CyberGhost just isn't as proactive as the big dogs. There's a lack of new, innovative features, and its ad-blocking tool has plenty of room for improvement. Keep reading, and we'll dig into the good, the bad, and the ugly to see where CyberGhost stands amongst today's competition.

Features

CyberGhost won't be taking home any awards for new and novel VPN features, but the tools it does offer are all solid and secure.

Kicking off with the basics, we were glad to see that CyberGhost has its very own kill switch, which will cut the existing internet connection if the VPN drops out. This prevents IP leaks – and the kill switch works well in tandem with the DNS leak protection as a safety net, running in the background to catch mishaps before they happen. Unfortunately, unlike NordVPN’s, this kill switch is not configurable, which may disappoint power users looking to tailor their VPN experience.

We think that the Wi-Fi protection feature pairs up nicely with this set, too. It's a simple on/off toggle to activate and, once enabled, it'll let you know about changes to the internet connection and warn you if you're not currently connected to a VPN server.

You can tell the VPN what to do depending on the security status of the new network you connect to, too. For instance, prompting CyberGhost to ask before connecting to a server if the network is secure, or always joining a server if it's unsecure. This is pretty nifty, as it'll ensure that you don't accidentally expose identifiable details when switching from your home network to public Wi-Fi.

CyberGhost has its very own split tunnelling functionality called Exceptions. Here, you're able to list the sites that don't use the VPN's encrypted tunnel. They'll be routed through your original internet connection instead – and you may want to add your online banking to this list, for example, or streaming services you use to keep up with local sports.

Another VPN staple is the connect-on-launch tool. There's some limited customizability, here, too, as we were able to select the server that the VPN automatically connects to and even nominate an app that'll launch, too. It's a nice time-saver that worked like a charm when we tested it, connecting to a US server and launching the Netflix app in one fell swoop.

The built-in ad, malware, and tracker blocking tool was surprisingly effective when we tried it out in real time. We found that it blocked 83% of ads – which is pretty impressive for a VPN tool, but it's not as powerful as a full-blooded ad-blocking solution. Ultimately, we don't recommend using it in place of one of today's best ad-blockers.

We attempted to access 156 common trackers with the tool, too, and saw that the app blocked 149, which is seriously impressive. These results put CyberGhost on par with Windscribe and Private Internet Access.

CyberGhost's malware blocking results weren't quite as rosy, as it only managed to block 55% of a set of 412 malicious URLs. Still, it's enough to be useful in a day-to-day context.

While it's encouraging to see that CyberGhost has stepped into the ad, malware, and tracker blocking, the VPN has fallen behind in other cybersecurity arenas. ExpressVPN, for example, boasts its own password manager, ExpressVPN Keys; NordVPN has an identity theft protection service; and Surfshark's Alternative ID tool can generate an entirely new online persona for you before you can sneeze, to reduce the risk of becoming embroiled in scams and data breaches.

CyberGhost, by comparison, doesn't bring any features of this calibre to the table. This won't be a deal-breaker for everyone, but when other providers are making such notable strides, it's a shame to see CyberGhost at the back of the field.

Features score: 5/10

Server network

CyberGhost has an impressive network of more than 11,500 VPN servers in 100 countries. This puts it squarely at the top end of the pack when it comes to coverage. NordVPN may only have 7,000 servers in total, but it serves a wider variety of 118 countries. Still, there's not much in it, and CyberGhost certainly isn't lacking global coverage.

As is the case with most VPNs, the European region takes the lion's share of servers, though CyberGhost does its best to cover Central and South America, Asia, and Africa, too. We were pleasantly surprised to see servers in famously neglected regions, too, including Kenya, Bolivia, and Costa Rica. The fact that CyberGhost boasts server coverage in the high-censorship regions of China and Russia is especially noteworthy.

Finally, we think it's pretty cool that CyberGhost takes server requests. So, if you live somewhere that doesn't have a local CyberGhost server, it's worth asking for one. We can't confirm whether these requests are taken seriously or responded to, but the squeaky wheel gets the oil, right?

Server network score: 9/10

Apps

CyberGhost's apps straddle a fine line between sleek and somewhat threadbare. The VPN is compatible with pretty much every platform out there – Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux, smart TV, and consoles included. Unfortunately, the Linux edition of the CyberGhost app is command-line only, and there's no indication of whether a GUI upgrade is in the cards. If that's a deal-breaker, you'll want to invest in Surfshark or PIA’s Linux VPN, instead.

As is the case with most of today's top VPNs, CyberGhost has its own browser extensions. Folks using the Chrome and Firefox browsers can add the tools in a few clicks, though it's worth remembering that the extensions only encrypt browser traffic and not the traffic of other apps you might be using on your device. Sadly, there's no extension for Microsoft Edge.

CyberGhost's apps have a distinct visual flair. We think that the black and gold looks awesome, and the Windows edition of the app looks like it could even be native to the platform. There's an emphasis on readability and open space that we find refreshing, and the screen isn't jammed with statistics, social media links, or flags. There's room to breathe, making CyberGhost a pretty solid VPN for beginners.

The desktop offering is intuitive and easy to navigate. Basic tools and settings are clearly labelled, and there are only three extra features to take note of – the ad blocker, DNS leak protection, and kill switch.

The mobile VPN apps look even better in our opinion, especially when using them in the portrait orientation. They're just as easy to navigate as their desktop counterparts, too, with simple tabs to tap on, though they are somewhat on the small side.

Unfortunately, the iOS and Android apps are light on features, especially compared to NordVPN and PIA's feature-rich and customizable offerings.

We were particularly irked by CyberGhost's device limit. Unlike ExpressVPN, CyberGhost doesn't issue a certain number of simultaneous connections, and instead limits the number of devices, total, that you can install the service on. Users have 7 device slots, and installing the VPN on a device consumes a slot. If you reach the 7-device limit, you'll need to unlink a device before you can install it on another, which is an extra bit of legwork that the majority of the competition just don't make you do.

Apps score: 6/10

Ease of use

CyberGhost's apps might not be full to bursting with a cavalcade of tools, but they're nice and easy to use. For some folks, this will be more important, and we had no trouble getting the VPN set up on our Windows 11 test machine and iPhone 13 mobile.

We found that it was easier to create a CyberGhost account and select a plan as the first step in the process, then download the corresponding app for the device you're using after logging in to the My Account page on the CyberGhost site.

Initially, the Windows installer failed to initialize, though it worked like a charm upon the second attempt. The installation process itself was quick and painless after accepting the usual terms and conditions.

Once we'd logged into the app, which is compact and stylish, we were greeted by a big one-click connect button, which is exactly what we like to see. A lot of VPN users won't need to explore any further than this homepage, as hitting the button will pair you with a speedy local server, allowing you to go about your day-to-day browsing with increased peace of mind.

On the other hand, we found that it was easy to dictate which server CyberGhost connects to when clicking the connect button, and the full server list expands into a larger window with a single click. From here, we were able to favorite locations and check out the full roster of specialized streaming, torrenting, and gaming servers.

Our sole quibble with the CyberGhost Windows UI is that the settings are split into three discreet menus, each with a different icon in a different part of the app. We believe that it'd be better to merge these options into a single tab, reducing the amount of clicking around required to find specific tools and configurations.

We're happy to report that CyberGhost is a straightforward and sleek iOS VPN, too. Downloading the app from the App Store is a breeze, and we were prompted to log in, as usual, before seeing the home page and quick connect button.

The iOS and Android apps have access to dedicated IPs, protocols, and a mobile-exclusive connection checker. This is a nifty little extra that ensures that your network connection is stable and configured correctly, and it was responsive when we put it to the test - which is something to keep in mind if you run into issues and need a place to begin your troubleshooting.

Ease of use score: 8/10

Speed and performance

CyberGhost blew us away during our most recent round of speed testing, achieving a blistering 950+ Mbps when using the WireGuard protocol.

This effectively maxed out our 1 Gbs connection, and means CyberGhost is one of the fastest VPNs in the business, on par with the likes of Surfshark. We were also pleased to see that speeds didn't waver massively depending on the server we connected to – regardless of whether the location was near or far in relation to our UK home base, CyberGhost's performance remained stable and steady.

Its OpenVPN performance wasn't quite as red hot, coming in at 460 Mbps, but this is par for the course. OpenVPN isn't as lightweight as WireGuard, consisting of more lines of code, and is usually favored by folks who want to prioritize security over speed.

Still, CyberGhost's result breezes past NordVPN's OpenVPN 173 Mbps performance, which is something to keep in mind if you know you'll be relying on the protocol most of the time.

As a final cherry on top, we found that CyberGhost's connection times are brisk, clocking in at about one second. That's a great result – who wants to spend time tapping their fingers and waiting for a VPN to connect, after all?

Speed and performance score: 10/10

Unblocking

We put VPNs through the wringer when it comes to unblocking streaming services, and part of that testing involves determining whether the VPN in question can access various Netflix libraries in the US, UK, Japan, Canada, and Australia, Disney+, Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, 10Play, 9Now, and Channel 4. It's a tall order – but CyberGhost achieved a perfect score.

We didn't encounter a single obstacle when investigating these streaming platforms. Netflix loaded instantly, every time, and we were able to catch up on multiple WWE replays without a single buffering hiccup or drop out. This kind of reliability is seriously impressive, and makes CyberGhost a solid VPN for Netflix.

As we mentioned earlier, CyberGhost is a certified speed demon, too, and the content we access loaded in crisp HD, every time. After all, Netflix itself says that 4K streaming only requires a 25 Mbps connection – and CyberGhost brings 950+ Mbps to the table.

We're also glad to see that CyberGhost has its own Smart DNS service. This allows folks with consoles and smart TVs to enjoy the VPN's unblocking power, too, though it's worth noting that the Smart DNS tool won't encrypt your traffic like a full-blooded VPN.

CyberGhost is a decent torrenting VPN, but not at the top of our recommendations. The provider doesn't make a big song and dance about it, but it does offer P2P-optimized servers, listed under the "For downloading" tab in the server menu. These servers span 80 countries, which is plenty to choose from, and should help you find a nearby connection point to help maximize performance. Unfortunately, unlike PIA, CyberGhost doesn't come with port forwarding, which reduces the number of seeders you can connect with.

Unblocking score: 10/10

Privacy and Security

CyberGhost users have three VPN protocols to choose from – OpenVPN, WireGuard, and IKEv2.

As we touched on earlier, OpenVPN is your go-to if you value security over speed, whereas the speedy WireGuard protocol is a favorite of gamers and avid streamers. IKEv2, on the other hand, is ideal for mobile users, as it can handle changes in network connections without disrupting the VPN connection. Of course, if you can't make up your mind, you can always let CyberGhost choose a protocol on your behalf.

In addition to DNS and IP leak protection, which help keep your identifiable details out of the hands of third-party snoopers, CyberGhost lets you choose a random port. This makes it easier to use the VPN in airports and hotels, for example, as they usually restrict traffic to HTTPS.

CyberGhost is headquartered in Romania, which will register as an immediate green flag for privacy purists, as the country has no mandatory data retention laws and isn't a part of the notorious Five Eyes Alliance.

Because Romanian law doesn't force CyberGhost to record or store user data, it means that, if pressed by the authorities to hand that data over, the VPN couldn't, as it wouldn't have any data to fork over in the first place.

CyberGhost doubles down on its commitment to user privacy with a solid no-logs policy that ensures that no records are stored that could link users to their network activity. We investigated the policy and found that it was refreshingly easy to follow. It's not stuffed with techno-babble, and it takes the time to explain each term in plain, parsable language. Sure, it's on the lengthy side, but we'd take a long, simple policy over a short and impossibly dense one.

The provider even invited cybersecurity firm Deloitte to comb through this no-logs policy back in January 2024. Deloitte gave CyberGhost a big thumbs up, confirming that the VPN doesn't have an appetite for identifiable details and logs. Ideally, CyberGhost will repeat the audit at some point this year, and make the report accessible to everyone.

Privacy and security score: 7/10

Track record

In addition to the 2024 Deloitte audit, CyberGhost claims to be the very first VPN to publish a quarterly transparency report way back in 2011. These reports are published in the spirit of transparency and detail how many DMCA complaints the VPN has received, as well as the number of police requests for user information.

The reports can be difficult to find, but CyberGhost does an excellent job of cutting through the statistics for the layperson, highlighting figures that have risen or fallen in the period between reports.

CyberGhost's owner, formerly known as Crossrider, has raised concerns over the years. The company acquired CyberGhost in 2011 and was previously associated with malware distribution – essentially the antithesis of a VPN service.

Crossrider rebranded as Kape Technologies in 2017 and has since brought PIA and ExpressVPN into the fold. This murky past has deterred more than a handful of users but, since then, Kape Technologies has taken steps to promote transparency and trust with its continued transparency reports and independent audits.

Finally, on a brighter note, we love to see that CyberGhost launched a bug bounty program in 2022. Any expert who sniffs out a vulnerability in the service can earn up to $1,250 for their trouble.

Track record score: 7/10

Customer support

Right off the bat, we were glad to see that CyberGhost offers 24/7 live chat support. This means that, if you do encounter a hiccup here and there, you won't have to wait until business hours to begin troubleshooting the issue with in-house experts. Alternatively, there's the option to raise an email ticket via the support page.

If you prefer doing your own problem-solving, you'll be glad to see that CyberGhost has a well-stocked library of guides, tutorials, and articles. The setup guides are some of the best we've come across. They're illustrated with up-to-date screenshots, have simple and easy-to-follow steps, and cover most platforms – though Surfshark's guides are slightly more detail-rich, and are supplemented with handy YouTube tutorials.

Customer support score: 7/10

Pricing and plans

CyberGhost is a budget-friendly provider and, in fact, with prices on par with Surfshark, one of the best cheap VPNs on the block. Of course, you'll bag the biggest bargain by picking up a multi-year plan and paying upfront.

A 2-year CyberGhost subscription comes in at $2.19 – identical to Surfshark – and includes an extra 2 months of coverage for free. You'll be billed $56.94 for 2 years, then yearly from then on out.

If you're looking for a shorter-term commitment, you can opt for the 6-month plan at $6.99 ($12.99 upfront), or a one-month plan at $12.99. All CyberGhost subscriptions are covered by an especially generous 45-day money-back guarantee, giving you over a month to put the provider through its paces to see whether it's the right service for you.

Oh, and if you fancy adding a dedicated IP to your plan, it's a simple add-on of $2.50.

We're impressed by the number of trials CyberGhost serves up, too. In fact, it has some of our favorite VPN free trials. Windows users can enjoy a 24-hour trial, Android users get a 3-day free trial, and iOS loyalists win big with a 7-day free trial. Better yet, none of these trials demand that you hand over any financial details.

Pricing and plans score: 9/10

Should you use NordVPN?

There are plenty of good things about CyberGhost. It's wickedly fast, unblocks every streaming platform you can think of, and is one of the cheapest providers in today's market. So, if you're an avid streamer, or spend a log of time plugged into online games, CyberGhost could be your holy grail – if you don't mind dealing with the pesky 7 device limit.

However, if you're looking for a VPN that's on the cutting edge of cybersecurity ingenuity, then CyberGhost won't cut it. Its basics are in order, but its functionality doesn't extend far beyond basic, and it doesn't seem like that's going to change any time soon.

NordVPN and Proton VPN, on the other hand, continue to innovate and release new tools and features, and may be better alternatives for true advocates of internet privacy.

Overall score 78/100

CyberGhost alternatives

Windscribe is one of the best all-rounders in the VPN market. It's got some handy privacy-boosting tools, the speeds you need to enjoy HD streaming, and apps for pretty much every platform out there. So, even though it can't quite match up to today's best VPNs, it's still worth checking out if you're on the hunt for something new.

During our hands-on testing, we were impressed by Windscribe's core features and unblocking power, but we did run into issues with its UI. We evaluated its privacy tools, server network, performance, and overall value for money to determine how it compares to VPNs on the market. Keep reading, and we'll dig in.

Features

Windscribe's server network covers 69 countries (and 134 cities) in total. This is a decent spread that should allow all users to find a nearby connection point, but it's almost half the selection offered by NordVPN, and its network of servers in 126 countries.

Windscribe apps are widely available for all popular platforms, too, including Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux. We're glad to see that feature and UI parity are consistent across all of these apps. Plus, if you want a lightweight option and not a full-blown app, Windscribe's browser extensions are available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.

Users have a choice of VPN protocols, too, with WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2 all on the table. WireGuard employs industry-standard AES-256 encryption, which ensures that your web traffic is kept safe from third-party snoopers and cybercriminals. To further enhance your online security, Windscribe has built-in stealth technology designed to conceal your VPN usage entirely, so you can avoid VPN bans enforced by schools, workplaces, and oppressive governments.

The powerful apps look great and are easy to use for beginners.

In September 2025, Windscribe rolled out a major app revamp, focused on improving the overall usability and adding more customization options. The refresh introduced a new home screen, redesigned settings menu, and the ability to rename server locations. These updates aren't particularly groundbreaking, but they are valuable quality-of-life improvements that highlight the provider's dedication to its userbase.

It's important to note that these apps also include many advanced features including split tunneling (on the desktop as well as mobile devices), MAC address spoofing (a clever way to reduce the chance of being tracked), versatile auto-connect rules, full IPv6 support, and even a command line interface to automate the VPN from scripts.

ROBERT is Windscribe's DNS-based tool for blocking ads, malware, trackers, and various internet content types like gambling, porn, fake news, clickbait, and so on. How effective is it? We'll take a look later.

There's no 24/7 support but Windscribe does have a decent web knowledge base and a helpful support chatbot. You can raise a ticket if you need more advice, and in our experience, replies are detailed and helpful.

New features include Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) that can bypass SNI filtering so others can't try to view or maybe block the domains you're trying to access.

While many VPNs offer no control over DNS at all, Windscribe allows you to define which DNS to use when the VPN is connected or disconnected. The latest addition includes support for DNS-over-HTTPS, and as Windscribe also runs Control D (a very configurable DNS service, with a free plan) we expect to see more related features appear over time.

Windscribe pricing

Windscribe's free plan offers a generous 10GB of data transfer a month if you register with your email address, and 2GB if you don't. You're limited to 11 countries – North America, across Europe, and Hong Kong – but that's still far better than some (Hotspot Shield and a few others don't give you any choice of locations at all).

Upgrading to a commercial plan gets you unlimited data and access to all 110 locations.

One of our favorite things about Windscribe is the fact that it gives users unlimited simultaneous connections to play with. So, if you have a lot of devices you need to protect, or want to share your account with friends and family, you only need to pick up a single subscription. It's great value for money that you don't see everywhere.

Prices are fair. Monthly billing is only $9 – many VPNs charge $10-$13. Pay for a year upfront and the price falls to an equivalent $5.75. That's not cheap but it's within the range we expect for a premium VPN, and it's still far lower than some. ExpressVPN and Hide.me both ask $8.32 a month on the annual plan, NordVPN charges $8.29 from the second year.

If low prices are top of your priority list, though, there's money to be saved elsewhere. As we write this, Private Internet Access has a three-year plan that's only $2.03 a month for the first term, while Ivacy's five-year offering is only $1 a month. Sure, we don't like long-term contracts either, but look at the totals. Hand over $69 to Windscribe and you get one year of protection. Give Ivacy $60 and you're covered for five.

Windscribe does offer a 'Build a Plan' scheme that cuts costs by allowing you to buy only the locations you need for $1 each. Each location adds 10GB to your free bandwidth allowance, and your plan must have a minimum of two locations.

For example, providing your email address gets you 10GB of data a month. Add the US and UK locations, and you'll get 30GB of data for $2 a month. You can upgrade to unlimited data for another $1, or a total of just $3 a month, and that's billed monthly. No need to sign up for years.

If you only use a VPN for occasional short trips, say, that looks like a great deal. Surfshark's monthly-billed plan is more than four times as expensive at $13, for instance – okay, that's the full service with all the locations, but if you don't need them, who cares?

Another option, ScribeForce, enables signing up a group of users (a business, a family) with the same account. There's a five-user minimum, but you'll pay just $3 each, billed monthly, for access to the full and unrestricted service.

Unusual add-ons include static IP addresses. Adding a US or Canadian residential IP costs $8 a month (data center IPs are $2) and could greatly improve your chances of accessing any blocked sites, and enable connecting to IP-restricted business and other networks. Once you have a static IP, you can also enable port forwarding in the Windscribe web console.

Whatever your preference, Windscribe supports payments via card, PayPal, Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies via CoinPayments.net, along with gift cards and assorted other options via Paymentwall.

Windscribe doesn't have the lowest headline prices, then, but it's fairly priced for the features on offer, and there are huge savings to be made if you're covering multiple users.

There is a small catch in Windscribe's money-back guarantee, which only covers you for three days and if you've used less than 10GB of traffic. So, if you think that might be an issue, download and try the free version before you buy to make sure it delivers what you need.

Privacy and logging

Windscribe's privacy features include strong AES-256 encryption, SHA512 authentication, a 4096-bit RSA key, and support for perfect forward secrecy (keys aren't re-used, so even if a snooper gets hold of a private key, it will only allow them to view data within one session).

The apps use multiple techniques to reduce the chance of data leaks, including redirecting DNS requests through the tunnel to be handled by the VPN server, and optionally using a firewall to block all internet access if the connection drops.

We checked Windscribe's performance on a Windows 10 system using the websites IPLeak, DNSLeakTest, and DoILeak and found no DNS or other leaks.

Windscribe claims its ROBERT DNS filter can protect your privacy by blocking trackers, but how well does it work? We connected to our nearest server, then tried accessing 156 common trackers, and ROBERT blocked 147. That's one of the best results we've seen. ROBERT did even better at keeping us away from malicious sites, and the ad blocker scored an excellent 93% (most VPN ad blockers managed 40-90%.)

We enabled the Windows app's firewall (similar to a kill switch) and began using various tricks to forcibly close the VPN connection and see what happened.

We found the app didn't display a notification to warn that we'd been disconnected. If it wasn't able to reconnect immediately, that might leave the user with no internet, and no idea why.

This situation probably won't last long, though, as the app tries to reconnect as soon as it spots the problem, and we were typically online again within a few seconds. This may be a small usability issue, but in privacy terms, the client worked perfectly, handling every oddball situation we threw at it and always protecting our traffic.

Windscribe's stance on logging is covered in a clearly written and refreshingly short privacy policy which explains what the company does and doesn't collect.

There's a tiny amount of very minimal long-term logging, but it's limited to the total bandwidth you've used in a month (essential to manage usage on the free plan), and a timestamp of your last activity on the service to allow identifying inactive accounts.

The system collects some connection details – username, VPN server connected to, time of connection, bandwidth used during the session, number of devices connected – but these are held in the VPN server's RAM only, and are lost when the session closes.

Other than that, there is no logging of connections, IPs, timestamps or browsing history. Or as the privacy policy puts it, 'we do not store any logs on who used what IP address, so we cannot tie user activity to any single user.'

As there is no data on your activities, Windscribe points out that there's nothing to share. This is backed up by a transparency report which covers the numbers of DMCA and Law Enforcement data requests over the year, and in both cases states that: 'Exactly zero requests were complied with due to lack of relevant data.'

This is all good, but we would like to see Windscribe go further. Many VPNs have had their systems publicly audited to check for logging or other privacy issues, and that gives far more reassurance to potential customers than comforting words on a website. We hope that Windscribe (and all other VPN providers for that matter) will soon do the same.

In June 2023, Windscribe's Co-Founder and CEO, Yegor Sak, was hit with a lawsuit in connection with alleged offences committed by an unknown user. Fast forward to April 2025, and the case was dismissed in court due to a lack of evidence, becoming a landmark victory for no-log VPNs as law enforcement bodies increasingly pressure VPNs to keep lawfully accessible records of user records.

In the meantime, it's worth remembering that Windscribe gives you 2GB of data per month, for free, without requiring an email address or any other personal data. If you're just looking to protect email and basic browsing, and can live with the data limit, this automatically gets you more guaranteed anonymity than you'll have with almost everyone else.

Performance

We put Windscribe's performance to the test using a 10 GB line and a local UK-based server. We then measured download speeds using benchmarking services including SpeedTest (both the website and command line app), Cloudflare, Measurement Lab, and more. We ran each test using at least two protocols and in both morning and evening sessions.

Windscribe's WireGuard speeds are, in a word, awesome. The VPN clocked in at 840 Mbps - making it one of the fastest providers in our most recent round of testing, beating the likes of PIA and ExpressVPN (using the Lightway protocol).

OpenVPN speeds tend to be a little slower than their WireGuard counterparts, primarily because the protocol isn't as streamlined and efficient. It's made up of more lines of code, too.

So, it wasn't a huge surprise when we saw Windscribe clock in at 368 Mbps using OpenVPN. It's not a chart-topping performance, as ExpressVPN and Surfshark were both faster, but you'll still have no trouble checking out HD streams or enjoying stable torrenting.

We can only measure the speeds for our test locations, of course, and you may see different results. If performance is a top priority for you, using the free version gives you the chance to check local speeds (from the 11 free locations) without as much as handing over your email address.

Alternatively, Windscribe's 'Build A Plan' option could give you a month of unlimited traffic to a couple of locations for only $3, a low-priced way to run all the intensive speed testing you need.

Netflix and streaming

Plenty of today's biggest and best streaming platforms geo-restrict their content - meaning the shows you love won't be available if you head overseas on vacation or for work. Luckily, VPNs like Windscribe can help you regain access by geo-spoofing your location. All you need to do is connect to a server back home.

However, some platforms are cracking down on VPN usage, blocking IP addresses known to belong to VPN services. It's why only the best VPNs, and the ones that frequently refresh their IP address pool, actually work as streaming VPNs.

To put Windscribe's unblocking powers to the test, we first threw it at a selection of Netflix libraries, including the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Japan libraries. We're happy to report that it worked like a charm every time.

The good news continued. We had no trouble tuning into Disney+, BBC iPlayer, Channel 5, and Australian services 9Now and 10 Play.

The only hiccup we encountered happened when we attempted to check out Prime Video. The site sniffed out our VPN usage and refused to display any streaming content until we relented and switched Windscribe off. This isn't a deal-breaker in our books, but it is something to keep in mind if a lot of the content you love is exclusive to the platform.

Failing only one of our test sites is a very impressive result. If only a 100% track record will do, though, ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Private Internet Access, ProtonVPN, PureVPN, and Surfshark all unblocked every one of our test services in their last review.

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Torrents

VPN providers generally don't boast about their torrent support, and it can be a challenge to figure out what you're allowed to do. TunnelBear was so quiet about its P2P policy that we had to email tech support to ask.

Windscribe is much more open and transparent. Just point your browser at the company's Status page and you'll see its full list of locations, which of them support P2P (most) and which of them don't (India, Lithuania, Russia, and South Africa, at the time of writing).

Your options are just as clear in the Windscribe apps. Locations where torrents aren't allowed are marked with the same crossed-out 'P2P', but select anything else and you can download whatever and whenever you like.

We don't like to take a provider's website promises for granted, even when they're from a VPN we trust, so we tried downloading torrents from three P2P-approved servers. Everything ran smoothly, and our downloads completed with no connection or performance issues at all.

Factor in Windscribe's free plan and various anonymous payment options (cryptocurrencies, gift cards), along with its decent performance levels, and the company makes a great torrenting choice.

Client setup

Tapping the 'Get Started' button on the Windscribe site took us to the Download page. The website detected and highlighted the best choice for our laptop – the Windows client and Chrome extension – but there were also links to downloads for Mac, Android, and iOS, extensions for Firefox and Edge. Plus guides to cover setup on routers, Linux, Kodi, Amazon Fire TV, and other devices.

Still not enough? No problem. Paying customers get tools to build custom configuration files for OpenVPN, WireGuard, and IKEv2. These can be used to manually set up connections with third-party apps, routers, and more.

Installing the Windows app is easy. You're able to create an account just by entering a username and password, which gets you 2GB of data a month. Hand over your email, too, and you get 10GB. Tweet about Windscribe, just once, and you get an excellent 15GB a month forever (not just a one-off.)

To put all that in perspective, TunnelBear's generosity stops with a 2GB monthly data allowance, and Avira Phantom VPN's free package gives you a tiny 500MB.

• Check out our exclusive Windscribe offer

Windows app

Windscribe's Windows app has real visual panache, with rounded corners and classy flag backgrounds (check the screenshot above) to highlight your current location.

It's more cluttered than most, with plenty of text, icons, and buttons crammed into a very small space, but there's also been real thought put into the design and overall it works well. Hover your mouse over an icon, for instance, and a tooltip explains what it's about.

The app displays your current protocol and port, always helpful, but it's not just a static label. Click it and you can change the protocol and settings to whatever you need. The app even offers to set the protocol as a default for that network. So, if you have to use one protocol to get online at the library and another at the coffee shop, you don't have to change them manually. Once you've connected, allow the app to save your settings for that network, and it'll automatically connect next time.

Tapping Locations displays the full location list. This opens with a list of countries and you can expand any of these to view its available servers. Each server has a latency indicator to help you find the fastest option. You can also mark countries as Favorites, displaying them at the top of the list for zero-scroll reconnections later.

The interface is very configurable. You can order locations by alphabet, latency, or location. You can even display latency as bars or figures, have the interface docked or a free-floating window, display notifications for events or hide them, and the list goes on.

There are many interesting connectivity features, and these are often as tweakable as the UI.

Supported protocols include WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, Stealth, and WStunnel, connection times were speedy at 1-2 seconds, and the app uses helpful notifications to tell you when you're connected, and when you're not.

OpenVPN is securely configured with AES-256-GCM encryption and SHA512 authentication. We couldn't find any issues with Windscribe's WireGuard setup, and it's good to see IKEv2 connections that don't store your credentials and are configured to use maximum-strength encryption so that they're not vulnerable to theft.

Split tunneling allows you to decide which traffic is routed through the VPN, and which bypasses it. Unlike most VPNs, this isn't just for apps, you can set up rules for specific IP addresses and host names, too.

Unusual extras include the ability to set up your device as a Wi-Fi hotspot (if your OS and network adapter supports it), or as a proxy gateway for use by TVs, gaming consoles, or anything else that can work with a proxy server.

One surprising feature is that Windscribe's desktop clients can import custom OpenVPN and WireGuard configuration files from other providers, and then display those servers alongside their own. If you use another VPN but its app is underpowered, you might be able to use Windscribe's instead. You don't need a subscription.

There's a lot to like here, especially for advanced users who like to tweak every aspect of their VPN. If you can find the settings you need, that is. We got lost several times scrolling up and down, clicking various icons, opening drop-down lists, and generally trying to figure out what's what.

If you're happy with the basics, the good news is you won't even see most of the complexities unless you go looking. As long as you can choose a country from a list and click a Connect button, Windscribe's apps will work just fine.

Mac app

If you're a Mac user then you'll doubtless be very familiar with VPN providers largely ignoring all your needs, saving their best features for Windows and leaving you with the bare minimum. But here's some good news: Windscribe hates that approach just as much as you do, and its Mac app is as close a match to the Windows edition as anyone could expect.

Take the interface, for instance. There are no pointless variations, no 'do it this way on Windows, but that way on Mac' rules to remember. It's the same stylish look, the same icons, the same main menus, and almost the same options, all in the same order.

Mac VPN apps generally don't have as many advanced features as Windows, mostly because Apple's security model doesn't give them as much control over your device. Seems like no-one told Windscribe this, though, because its Mac app has all the key features we saw on Windows: WireGuard support, the firewall (kill switch), custom DNS settings, MAC spoofing, split tunneling, port and protocol options, network allow-listing, proxy support and more.

If your VPN needs are simple, or you're just not interested in the low-level tech, all this power might sound intimidating. No need to worry, though: unless you click the Menu icon and go exploring, you'll never even know these options are there.

Whether you fine-tune every setting or ignore them entirely, the Mac app is generally very easy to use. Tap the On/Off button and you're speedily connected to your nearest server, then tap again to disconnect, and there's a list of other locations if you need them.

The app still looks a little more complex than some of the competition, just because it has more icons, buttons and status information. But, generally, it's a well-designed mix of functionality and ease of use, and a must-see for any Mac user looking for a little extra power.

Mobile apps

Windscribe's Android app follows a similar design to the Windows version, with the same gorgeous background flags, the big On/Off button, and details on your new IP and preferred protocol.

A list of countries (expandable to city level) makes it easy to find the server you want. You can switch to list Favorites and specialist Streaming locations. There's also a Custom Config list that might enable using other VPN servers with Windscribe's interface and features.

A comprehensive Preferences screen comes absolutely stuffed with features. The Connection panel alone enables choosing between WireGuard, OpenVPN UDP, TCP, IKEv2 or Stealth, and selecting your preferred port, as well as choosing which apps use the VPN, and which don't (split tunneling). It also provides integration with Android's Always-On feature to let you set up a system-wide kill switch, or enable GPS spoofing, define a packet size, allow or block local network traffic, and more.

A Network Whitelisting tool enables automatically connecting to Windscribe whenever untrusted networks are accessed while ignoring others. So, for instance, you can configure the service to automatically connect when you access Wi-Fi on the train, but stay offline when you're at home or work.

Windscribe's iOS app earned bonus points immediately for an unusual privacy plus. The app detects your external IP and network but can blur them, ensuring you won't give away clues to your identity if you share a screenshot.

Although the app can't match the Windows edition for power, it still has wide protocol support, kill switch, and ad, malware, and content blocking. That's already outperforming most iOS apps, but it's Windscribe's more unusual options that really help it stand out from the crowd. Most VPN apps can't access servers from another provider, for instance, or allow you to set a preferred protocol depending on the network you connect to.

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Browser extensions

Windscribe's Chrome, Edge, and Firefox extensions provide a quick and easy way to connect to the VPN from your browser. This has its limitations – they're simple proxies and only protect your browser traffic – but if you only need the VPN for basic browsing tasks, they're your most convenient and straightforward option.

The extensions make an immediate positive impression, courtesy of a stylish interface along the lines of the desktop and mobile apps. The basic operations work much as you'd expect. Autopilot mode enables connecting to the best location with a click, you're able to choose countries or individual cities from a list, and set your most commonly used cities as Favorites.

Need more? The extension can block WebRTC leaks, fake your GPS location, time zone, and language to match your chosen Windscribe server, keep switching your browser user agent to make you more difficult to track, stop websites begging you to let them show notifications, and even delete first or third-party cookies when you close the tab.

The browser extensions support Windscribe's ad and malware-blocking tool ROBERT, even for free users. Known malicious and phishing sites, bandwidth-sapping ads, trackers, social media widgets, and other nasties can all be exterminated in a click or two.

The sheer volume of options can make the extensions look complicated but Windscribe does a lot to help. A small start-up tutorial explains which buttons do what, and a useful additional introduction is that the many settings each have a sentence or two describing what they're all about.

Put it all together and this is a very capable extension that delivers far more than you'll get with other VPN providers, and even many standalone Chrome privacy extensions. Don't just take our word for it – the excellent 4.7 rating on the Chrome store suggests most users agree.

Support

If you have any technical troubles, Windscribe's support site is a good place to begin looking for answers. Resources start with collections of articles on common topics, including 'getting started' guides, technical troubleshooting, billing questions, and some general FAQs.

These tutorials don't always have the range and depth we'd like, but they more than cover the basics. The Android setup guide doesn't just say ‘go install the app at Google Play', for instance, as we often see with lesser providers. It quickly explains what a VPN is for, gives a link to the Play Store, an alternative direct APK download if you need it, and covers the setup and usage basics, complete with helpful screenshots.

If your problem isn't covered by the website, you can always contact support directly via a ticket system (there's no live chat). In our experience, replies can sometimes take around a day to arrive. When they do, they're friendly, accurate, and complete. We think they're generally well worth the wait.

Windscribe review: Final verdict

Windscribe is a likable VPN, with good-looking and powerful apps, expert-level features, and one of the most generous free VPN plans around. The array of advanced options and settings means this probably isn't the best choice for newcomers or anyone only looking for the VPN basics. If you're unsure about Winscribe, there's an easy and risk-free way to find out for sure. Just install the free version and see how it works for you.

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