Mozilla VPN began life as a simple Firefox browser extension but its now a full standalone service that can shield all your internet traffic on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux.

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 focuses more on security and privacy than website unblocking, and our tests reflected that. The service didn't get us access to BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, or Netflix in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, or Japan.

There were one or two successes in particular countries. Mozilla got us into ITV and Channel 4 in the UK, for instance, as well as Australia's 9 Now.

Not a total disaster, then, but Mozilla is trailing far behind the best providers. ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Private Internet Access, ProtonVPN, PureVPN, and Surfshark all unblocked every one of our test platforms in their last reviews.

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 might appeal to fans of the company, and those who'd prefer a VPN from a well-known and trusted name. However, it can't match top providers like ExpressVPN and NordVPN in features, apps, locations, range of plans, or unblocking.  Demanding users will be happier elsewhere. 

• We've also highlighted the best VPN providers of 2023

VPNs can seem like a complicated technology, packed with geeky features that not everyone understands, but TunnelBear is a provider that does does their best to keep things simple.

The Canadian-based, McAfee-owned company doesn't drown you in jargon. The website has little talk of protocols, no mention of encryption types, and barely any technical terms at all. Instead, the company focuses on the fundamentals, such as clearly explaining why you might want to use a VPN in the first place.

This approach won't work for everyone. If you're an experienced user and want to get down to the technical details of the service, for instance, you're likely to be disappointed. Search for DNS on the ExpressVPN support site, for instance, and right now you'll get 56 hits. Search at TunnelBear and you'll get three.

• Want to try TunnelBear? Check out the website here

The service specs are fairly average. The network has a mid-sized 47 countries. There are apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android, as well as extensions for Chrome and Firefox. But there’s little support for getting the service working on Linux, routers, game consoles, or other not-so-common devices.

TunnelBear does have a free plan, though, and it’s great to see the company finally lift its monthly allowance from a miserly 500MB to a more usable 2GB. Although, if that’s still not enough, PrivadoVPN and Windscribe offer 10GB, while Proton VPN has no data limit at all.

There’s more good news for paying customers. TunnelBear has dropped its ‘five simultaneous connections’ limit, and you can now install and use the service on as many devices as you like.

We noticed a surprising technical improvement in support for ECH (Encrypted Client Hello), a valuable feature that protects the initial key exchange between the app and VPN server to keep it safe from snoopers. That earns a big thumbs up from us. Many otherwise more technically advanced VPNs don't support ECH yet.

TunnelBear has been busily enhancing its apps, too. Recent welcome additions include a kill switch for iOS (something you won't often see elsewhere), more reliable split tunneling, and handy usability pluses such as a Search box for the location list.

TunnelBear pricing

TunnelBear's free account offers only 2GB of traffic a month. It’s better than it was, but only enough for very occasional use. This doesn't restrict the number of locations you can use, though, unlike most of the free competition. It's ideal if you're looking for a simple way to check out the apps before you buy.

Its monthly plan gives you unlimited data for a reasonable $9.99 a month. The price drops to an effective $4.99 a month on the annual plan, or $3.33 if you sign up for three years.

These are competitive prices that beat many providers, although there are some with cheaper deals. Private Internet Access asks $2.03 a month on the first term of its three-year plan, and opting for Ivacy's five-year plan cuts the cost to a supercheap $1. To put that in perspective, handing $59.88 to TunnelBear gets you one year of coverage. Hand $60 to Ivacy and you're protected for five.

If you do sign up for TunnelBear, keep in mind that there's no money-back guarantee. The small print says: "While all amounts paid are non-refundable, certain refund requests for subscriptions may be considered by TunnelBear on a case-by-case basis." Presumably, you might get a refund if you've had really bad service, but it's entirely up to the company to decide. Not quite as friendly as the cuddly cartoon bears suggest, then.

TunnelBear used to support Bitcoin payments for its annual plan, but no more. With no PayPal, either, it’s now strictly card-only.

Privacy and logging

TunnelBear's privacy policy is one of the most thorough we've seen from any VPN provider, with in-depth information on everything the service collects, and everything it doesn't. We do mean thorough, too – the details go right down to the names, purposes, and expiry dates of the cookies used by TunnelBear.com.

The logging policy is clearly described, with TunnelBear explaining that it does not collect IP addresses visiting their website, IP addresses upon service connection, DNS Queries while connected, or any information about the applications, services, or websites users use while connected to the Service. As a result, the company says, it can't link any of its users to an action carried out by a specific IP address. Sounds good to us.

The service does record 'operational data', updating this when you connect. That includes the OS version of your device, TunnelBear app version, whether you've been active this month, and the bandwidth you've used. Not quite zero logging, then, but it's far less than we've seen elsewhere, and there's nothing here that could link you to any online action.

These aren’t just words either, TunnelBear backs up its claims with ultra-comprehensive annual audits of its apps, browser extensions, service infrastructure, backend and frontend systems, and the public website. Auditors Cure53 spent 42 days drilling down into the detail, one of the largest projects we've seen.

Unfortunately, the results weren't great. Cure53 found 32 issues in total, including two critical and eight high-severity security vulnerabilities. Cure53 described this as worrisome, but it's better to discover these from an expert auditor than after you've been hacked. And unlike some VPNs, TunnelBear hasn't hidden its audit report from potential customers. Anyone interested can access it directly from the company's blog post.  

Overall, we must applaud TunnelBear for its level of transparency. Most VPNs have never had any form of security audit, and the providers who have actually made some movement in this direction typically have one-off audits with a far narrower scope. That's just not good enough, and it's great to see TunnelBear leading the way on this front. 

But we'd still like to see less unpleasant discoveries in next year's report, please.

• Save yourself a packet with our exclusive TunnelBear offer here

Torrents

TunnelBear doesn’t say much about torrenting on its website – in fact, it barely mentions the topic at all – but the support team explained that it’s available in all locations.

Some may be more reliable than others, apparently. The company recommended we try Canada, US, UK, Romania, Netherlands, Germany, or Sweden if we had problems elsewhere.

How likely is it that you might have problems elsewhere, then? To get an idea, we tried downloading torrents from three of the other locations: Greece, Portugal, and Brazil. Despite not being on TunnelBear's 'recommended' list, they all completed without any issues, suggesting that you really should be able to use torrents right across the network.

• Check out our exclusive TunnelBear offer here

Windows app

TunnelBear's Windows app opens with all its locations highlighted on a gray world map. This has one or two nice visual touches, with cartoon palm trees in tropical areas, and snow-covered Christmas trees if you head further north. But it’s also very basic, with little map detail, and not even a zoom option to help find the locations you need.

You can also select your server from a more conventional location list. That’s probably easier, but if anything, it’s even more basic, with no ping times, server load figures, or Favorites system to save your most commonly-used servers.

Once you've chosen a location, clicking 'On' gets you connected, and the app displays a 'connection' animation, panning the screen and plotting a line across the map to your destination. It’s a cute visual effect the first time of viewing, but it began to annoy us by the 100th (unfortunately, there’s no way to turn it off).

WireGuard connection times were a little disappointing at 3-4 seconds, even for our nearest server (the best VPNs take around a second). But this didn’t change much over distance – even connecting from the UK to New Zealand took only 5-6 seconds – and times were reasonable overall.

The app displays notifications when it connects or disconnects, too, ensuring you always know when you're protected, and when you're not.

The app doesn't have many settings, but the few you get are very useful. You can have it load when Windows starts, for instance, then automatically activate the VPN whenever you access an untrusted Wi-Fi network (everywhere but home and work, say).

The Obfsproxy-based GhostBear attempts to make your activities look more like regular internet traffic, perhaps helping you connect in countries like China which try to detect and block the use of VPNs.

A VigilantBear setting is essentially a kill switch, blocking all internet traffic if the VPN drops to prevent any identity leaks. We found this had some issues in extreme situations – the kill switch could fail if the app crashed and it was restarted, for instance, but it performed well in simpler tests.

It’s great to see WireGuard supported in the Windows app, as well as OpenVPN and IKEv2. By default the app selects the most appropriate protocol for your network, but you can now also choose your preferred option.

Overall, TunnelBear's Windows app is easy to use, and the arrival of WireGuard is a major plus. There’s clearly scope for improvement in every part of the app, though, and the basic feature list could disappoint experienced users.

• Benefit from our exclusive TunnelBear discount

Mac and mobile apps

TunnelBear's Mac and mobile offerings all feature essentially the same colorful map and location list as Windows, along with WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2 support. That's good news, but what's less welcome is they also have odd variations, which could be confusing if you use more than one platform.

The Mac app is relatively basic, for instance, with no VigilantBear kill switch, automatic connection when you access untrusted Wi-Fi, or GhostBear to bypass VPN blocking.

The Android app includes a kill switch, and SplitBear, which is TunnelBear's take on split tunneling. If an app can’t connect when the VPN is running or it's too slow and doesn't require extra security, SplitBear allows it to bypass the tunnel and use your regular unencrypted connection, instead.

The Android app did have an odd technical issue at review time. The ability to switch protocols wasn't available on our Android 12 test system. TunnelBear told us this had been removed from 'newer operating systems' temporarily, while it diagnosed some reported problems, but the feature will return soon.

Unlike the Mac app, the iOS app does support the VigilantBear kill switch. However, you don't get GhostBear, and although there's the SplitBear feature, it's for websites rather than apps. So, if LocalTV.com refuses to stream when you're using the VPN, for instance, you can use SplitBear to have it connect via your normal connection.

Overall, these are all decent apps and the mobile offerings in particular outperform many competitors. But we'd like them to be more consistent across platforms, where possible, with features like SplitBear available across all platforms.

Browser extensions

Installing TunnelBear's browser extensions can make the service easier to operate, by allowing you to choose a location, connect and disconnect from inside your browser. The extensions work as proxies and so only protect your browser traffic, but if that's all you need, the extra convenience could make them worth a try.

The Chrome extension added an icon to our address bar, and tapping this enabled choosing new locations from a drop-down list.

Hit the 'Connect' button and, as usual with proxies, you're connected instantly. A tiny map updates to show your location, similar to the regular apps.

There are no extra features, no WebRTC or tracker blocking or anything else. But the extension does have a small usability plus in its keyboard shortcut support. If you want to keep your hands off the mouse, pressing Ctrl+Shift+U connects you to the VPN, and pressing it again will toggle the connection off when you're done. (A separate Alt+Shift+N shortcut toggles the connection on and off in Incognito mode.)

We checked the Firefox extension to see if it had any more options, but no, it looked and worked much the same as the Chrome version.

The browser extensions follow a very similar pattern to the apps, then – they are short on features, but relatively simple, and fine for the target audience of casual users.

• Our exclusive TunnelBear offer represents a hefty saving

Performance

To check out TunnelBear's performance, we first connected to our nearest server from a UK data center and a US location, each with 1Gbps test connections.

We then measured our download speeds multiple times using several benchmarking services including SpeedTest's site and command line app, Cloudflare, and others. Then we repeated each test in an evening session.

TunnelBear’s US OpenVPN speeds were excellent at 270-310Mbps. That's two to three times as fast as some providers, although a handful have done better. Mullvad even beat 500Mbps in recent tests.

Switching to WireGuard accelerated our downloads to 500Mbps. That's far behind the likes of NordVPN, Surfshark, and Hide.me, all of which beat 950Mbps in our last checks. Still, TunnelBear delivers all the speed that most people need and are able to use.

Speed can sometimes be affected if a VPN uses virtual locations. For example, you want to connect to Malta and get a Maltese IP address, but the servers are physically located in another country.

We tested some of TunnelBear's locations to get a feel for how the service works. The Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, and Slovenia servers all turned out to be in or very close to their advertised countries. There seemed to be a few virtual locations, but the host countries were never too far away (the Indonesia servers may be based in Singapore, for instance, while the Kenya location may be closer to South Africa.) If it's important that your VPN locations are close to their advertised countries, TunnelBear is a reasonable choice.

Netflix and streaming

One of the major selling points of a VPN is that it can make you appear to be visiting a website from another country, perhaps giving you access to content you wouldn't be able to view otherwise. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work, so we test all VPNs with Netflix and more to see if they can give us access to various streaming sites.

TunnelBear has a poor history in our unblocking tests, and this time was no different, as it failed with Netflix in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Japan.

There was some success elsewhere. TunnelBear failed with BBC iPlayer, but it got us into the UK's ITV and Channel 4. In Australia, the service was defeated by 10 play, but successfully unblocked 9Now. 

TunnelBear couldn’t really redeem itself with our last two tests. It failed with Amazon Prime, but we were able to view US content on Disney Plus.

There's a faint chance TunnelBear might unblock one or two smaller streaming platforms, but if accessing geo-blocked content is a priority,  ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Private Internet Access, ProtonVPN, PureVPN, and Surfshark all unblocked every one of our test streaming services in our latest round of reviews.

Support

TunnelBear support starts with its web-based help site. This is presented in a clear and simple way, with large icons pointing you to key areas (Getting Started, Troubleshooting, Accounts), and basic articles on the most common questions ('Why should I trust TunnelBear?', 'Why can't I access the content I want?', 'Does TunnelBear keep logs?').

Go searching for answers and you'll find TunnelBear's knowledgebase doesn't have a lot of content, but what you get is well presented and gives you a decent range of information. The Connection Issues page doesn't just offer generic 'reinstall'-type ideas, for instance. It links you to TunnelBear's Twitter page to look for service information, suggests trying out the service on another network, and points you to settings which might help.

Despite its beginner-oriented approach, there's also room for just a few more advanced tweaking ideas, with recommendations for ports which should be opened in some circumstances.

There's no live chat, but if you need more help, a Contact page allows you to send a message to the support team. We'd already noticed the Android app no longer had an option to change protocols, so fired off a question asking whether this was still supported. A reply arrived in less than an hour, and we quickly got into a conversation about the problem. 

“Tap this, then this, and the option is there.” The support agent recommended. “It's not,” we replied.

“Uninstall and reinstall,” said reply two. We tried and installed it on two more devices. It made no difference

“What device and version of Android are you using?” Asked the agent. 

We sent the details back immediately but had to wait a couple of hours before a reply finally explained that this was a known issue. It turned out that TunnelBear had removed the feature on later versions of Linux, and it wasn't available to anybody. All our troubleshooting efforts had been a complete waste of time.

There were some plus points to this exchange. The replies were quick, the agent was friendly, and he gave what would have been sensible advice (if the problem was on our system.) That's not unusual, TunnelBear's support has always generally delivered decent service.

This time, though, we're struggling to see how an issue as major as this, where a significant feature has been removed from an app in some situations, and support doesn't know about it. 

Hopefully, we were just unlucky, but this doesn’t look good.

TunnelBear review: Final verdict

It's not the largest, fastest, or most powerful of VPNs but TunnelBear's ease of use and strong focus on opening up its systems to scrutiny deserve a lot of credit. If you're looking for a gentle start to VPNs, or are tired of apps that are crammed with features you never, ever use, then TunnelBear could be a smart choice.

• We've also highlighted the other best VPNs around

VPNs can seem like a complicated technology, packed with geeky features that not everyone understands, but TunnelBear is a provider that does does their best to keep things simple.

The Canadian-based, McAfee-owned company doesn't drown you in jargon. The website has little talk of protocols, no mention of encryption types, and barely any technical terms at all. Instead, the company focuses on the fundamentals, such as clearly explaining why you might want to use a VPN in the first place.

This approach won't work for everyone. If you're an experienced user and want to get down to the technical details of the service, for instance, you're likely to be disappointed. Search for DNS on the ExpressVPN support site, for instance, and right now you'll get 56 hits. Search at TunnelBear and you'll get three.

• Want to try TunnelBear? Check out the website here

The service specs are fairly average. The network has a mid-sized 47 countries. There are apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android, as well as extensions for Chrome and Firefox. But there’s little support for getting the service working on Linux, routers, game consoles, or other not-so-common devices.

TunnelBear does have a free plan, though, and it’s great to see the company finally lift its monthly allowance from a miserly 500MB to a more usable 2GB. Although, if that’s still not enough, PrivadoVPN and Windscribe offer 10GB, while Proton VPN has no data limit at all.

There’s more good news for paying customers. TunnelBear has dropped its ‘five simultaneous connections’ limit, and you can now install and use the service on as many devices as you like.

We noticed a surprising technical improvement in support for ECH (Encrypted Client Hello), a valuable feature that protects the initial key exchange between the app and VPN server to keep it safe from snoopers. That earns a big thumbs up from us. Many otherwise more technically advanced VPNs don't support ECH yet.

TunnelBear has been busily enhancing its apps, too. Recent welcome additions include a kill switch for iOS (something you won't often see elsewhere), more reliable split tunneling, and handy usability pluses such as a Search box for the location list.

TunnelBear pricing

TunnelBear's free account offers only 2GB of traffic a month. It’s better than it was, but only enough for very occasional use. This doesn't restrict the number of locations you can use, though, unlike most of the free competition. It's ideal if you're looking for a simple way to check out the apps before you buy.

Its monthly plan gives you unlimited data for a reasonable $9.99 a month. The price drops to an effective $4.99 a month on the annual plan, or $3.33 if you sign up for three years.

These are competitive prices that beat many providers, although there are some with cheaper deals. Private Internet Access asks $2.03 a month on the first term of its three-year plan, and opting for Ivacy's five-year plan cuts the cost to a supercheap $1. To put that in perspective, handing $59.88 to TunnelBear gets you one year of coverage. Hand $60 to Ivacy and you're protected for five.

If you do sign up for TunnelBear, keep in mind that there's no money-back guarantee. The small print says: "While all amounts paid are non-refundable, certain refund requests for subscriptions may be considered by TunnelBear on a case-by-case basis." Presumably, you might get a refund if you've had really bad service, but it's entirely up to the company to decide. Not quite as friendly as the cuddly cartoon bears suggest, then.

TunnelBear used to support Bitcoin payments for its annual plan, but no more. With no PayPal, either, it’s now strictly card-only.

Privacy and logging

TunnelBear's privacy policy is one of the most thorough we've seen from any VPN provider, with in-depth information on everything the service collects, and everything it doesn't. We do mean thorough, too – the details go right down to the names, purposes, and expiry dates of the cookies used by TunnelBear.com.

The logging policy is clearly described, with TunnelBear explaining that it does not collect IP addresses visiting their website, IP addresses upon service connection, DNS Queries while connected, or any information about the applications, services, or websites users use while connected to the Service. As a result, the company says, it can't link any of its users to an action carried out by a specific IP address. Sounds good to us.

The service does record 'operational data', updating this when you connect. That includes the OS version of your device, TunnelBear app version, whether you've been active this month, and the bandwidth you've used. Not quite zero logging, then, but it's far less than we've seen elsewhere, and there's nothing here that could link you to any online action.

These aren’t just words either, TunnelBear backs up its claims with ultra-comprehensive annual audits of its apps, browser extensions, service infrastructure, backend and frontend systems, and the public website. Auditors Cure53 spent 42 days drilling down into the detail, one of the largest projects we've seen.

Unfortunately, the results weren't great. Cure53 found 32 issues in total, including two critical and eight high-severity security vulnerabilities. Cure53 described this as worrisome, but it's better to discover these from an expert auditor than after you've been hacked. And unlike some VPNs, TunnelBear hasn't hidden its audit report from potential customers. Anyone interested can access it directly from the company's blog post.  

Overall, we must applaud TunnelBear for its level of transparency. Most VPNs have never had any form of security audit, and the providers who have actually made some movement in this direction typically have one-off audits with a far narrower scope. That's just not good enough, and it's great to see TunnelBear leading the way on this front. 

But we'd still like to see less unpleasant discoveries in next year's report, please.

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Torrents

TunnelBear doesn’t say much about torrenting on its website – in fact, it barely mentions the topic at all – but the support team explained that it’s available in all locations.

Some may be more reliable than others, apparently. The company recommended we try Canada, US, UK, Romania, Netherlands, Germany, or Sweden if we had problems elsewhere.

How likely is it that you might have problems elsewhere, then? To get an idea, we tried downloading torrents from three of the other locations: Greece, Portugal, and Brazil. Despite not being on TunnelBear's 'recommended' list, they all completed without any issues, suggesting that you really should be able to use torrents right across the network.

• Check out our exclusive TunnelBear offer here

Windows app

TunnelBear's Windows app opens with all its locations highlighted on a gray world map. This has one or two nice visual touches, with cartoon palm trees in tropical areas, and snow-covered Christmas trees if you head further north. But it’s also very basic, with little map detail, and not even a zoom option to help find the locations you need.

You can also select your server from a more conventional location list. That’s probably easier, but if anything, it’s even more basic, with no ping times, server load figures, or Favorites system to save your most commonly-used servers.

Once you've chosen a location, clicking 'On' gets you connected, and the app displays a 'connection' animation, panning the screen and plotting a line across the map to your destination. It’s a cute visual effect the first time of viewing, but it began to annoy us by the 100th (unfortunately, there’s no way to turn it off).

WireGuard connection times were a little disappointing at 3-4 seconds, even for our nearest server (the best VPNs take around a second). But this didn’t change much over distance – even connecting from the UK to New Zealand took only 5-6 seconds – and times were reasonable overall.

The app displays notifications when it connects or disconnects, too, ensuring you always know when you're protected, and when you're not.

The app doesn't have many settings, but the few you get are very useful. You can have it load when Windows starts, for instance, then automatically activate the VPN whenever you access an untrusted Wi-Fi network (everywhere but home and work, say).

The Obfsproxy-based GhostBear attempts to make your activities look more like regular internet traffic, perhaps helping you connect in countries like China which try to detect and block the use of VPNs.

A VigilantBear setting is essentially a kill switch, blocking all internet traffic if the VPN drops to prevent any identity leaks. We found this had some issues in extreme situations – the kill switch could fail if the app crashed and it was restarted, for instance, but it performed well in simpler tests.

It’s great to see WireGuard supported in the Windows app, as well as OpenVPN and IKEv2. By default the app selects the most appropriate protocol for your network, but you can now also choose your preferred option.

Overall, TunnelBear's Windows app is easy to use, and the arrival of WireGuard is a major plus. There’s clearly scope for improvement in every part of the app, though, and the basic feature list could disappoint experienced users.

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Mac and mobile apps

TunnelBear's Mac and mobile offerings all feature essentially the same colorful map and location list as Windows, along with WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2 support. That's good news, but what's less welcome is they also have odd variations, which could be confusing if you use more than one platform.

The Mac app is relatively basic, for instance, with no VigilantBear kill switch, automatic connection when you access untrusted Wi-Fi, or GhostBear to bypass VPN blocking.

The Android app includes a kill switch, and SplitBear, which is TunnelBear's take on split tunneling. If an app can’t connect when the VPN is running or it's too slow and doesn't require extra security, SplitBear allows it to bypass the tunnel and use your regular unencrypted connection, instead.

The Android app did have an odd technical issue at review time. The ability to switch protocols wasn't available on our Android 12 test system. TunnelBear told us this had been removed from 'newer operating systems' temporarily, while it diagnosed some reported problems, but the feature will return soon.

Unlike the Mac app, the iOS app does support the VigilantBear kill switch. However, you don't get GhostBear, and although there's the SplitBear feature, it's for websites rather than apps. So, if LocalTV.com refuses to stream when you're using the VPN, for instance, you can use SplitBear to have it connect via your normal connection.

Overall, these are all decent apps and the mobile offerings in particular outperform many competitors. But we'd like them to be more consistent across platforms, where possible, with features like SplitBear available across all platforms.

Browser extensions

Installing TunnelBear's browser extensions can make the service easier to operate, by allowing you to choose a location, connect and disconnect from inside your browser. The extensions work as proxies and so only protect your browser traffic, but if that's all you need, the extra convenience could make them worth a try.

The Chrome extension added an icon to our address bar, and tapping this enabled choosing new locations from a drop-down list.

Hit the 'Connect' button and, as usual with proxies, you're connected instantly. A tiny map updates to show your location, similar to the regular apps.

There are no extra features, no WebRTC or tracker blocking or anything else. But the extension does have a small usability plus in its keyboard shortcut support. If you want to keep your hands off the mouse, pressing Ctrl+Shift+U connects you to the VPN, and pressing it again will toggle the connection off when you're done. (A separate Alt+Shift+N shortcut toggles the connection on and off in Incognito mode.)

We checked the Firefox extension to see if it had any more options, but no, it looked and worked much the same as the Chrome version.

The browser extensions follow a very similar pattern to the apps, then – they are short on features, but relatively simple, and fine for the target audience of casual users.

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Performance

To check out TunnelBear's performance, we first connected to our nearest server from a UK data center and a US location, each with 1Gbps test connections.

We then measured our download speeds multiple times using several benchmarking services including SpeedTest's site and command line app, Cloudflare, and others. Then we repeated each test in an evening session.

TunnelBear’s US OpenVPN speeds were excellent at 270-310Mbps. That's two to three times as fast as some providers, although a handful have done better. Mullvad even beat 500Mbps in recent tests.

Switching to WireGuard accelerated our downloads to 500Mbps. That's far behind the likes of NordVPN, Surfshark, and Hide.me, all of which beat 950Mbps in our last checks. Still, TunnelBear delivers all the speed that most people need and are able to use.

Speed can sometimes be affected if a VPN uses virtual locations. For example, you want to connect to Malta and get a Maltese IP address, but the servers are physically located in another country.

We tested some of TunnelBear's locations to get a feel for how the service works. The Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, and Slovenia servers all turned out to be in or very close to their advertised countries. There seemed to be a few virtual locations, but the host countries were never too far away (the Indonesia servers may be based in Singapore, for instance, while the Kenya location may be closer to South Africa.) If it's important that your VPN locations are close to their advertised countries, TunnelBear is a reasonable choice.

Netflix and streaming

One of the major selling points of a VPN is that it can make you appear to be visiting a website from another country, perhaps giving you access to content you wouldn't be able to view otherwise. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work, so we test all VPNs with Netflix and more to see if they can give us access to various streaming sites.

TunnelBear has a poor history in our unblocking tests, and this time was no different, as it failed with Netflix in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Japan.

There was some success elsewhere. TunnelBear failed with BBC iPlayer, but it got us into the UK's ITV and Channel 4. In Australia, the service was defeated by 10 play, but successfully unblocked 9Now. 

TunnelBear couldn’t really redeem itself with our last two tests. It failed with Amazon Prime, but we were able to view US content on Disney Plus.

There's a faint chance TunnelBear might unblock one or two smaller streaming platforms, but if accessing geo-blocked content is a priority,  ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Private Internet Access, ProtonVPN, PureVPN, and Surfshark all unblocked every one of our test streaming services in our latest round of reviews.

Support

TunnelBear support starts with its web-based help site. This is presented in a clear and simple way, with large icons pointing you to key areas (Getting Started, Troubleshooting, Accounts), and basic articles on the most common questions ('Why should I trust TunnelBear?', 'Why can't I access the content I want?', 'Does TunnelBear keep logs?').

Go searching for answers and you'll find TunnelBear's knowledgebase doesn't have a lot of content, but what you get is well presented and gives you a decent range of information. The Connection Issues page doesn't just offer generic 'reinstall'-type ideas, for instance. It links you to TunnelBear's Twitter page to look for service information, suggests trying out the service on another network, and points you to settings which might help.

Despite its beginner-oriented approach, there's also room for just a few more advanced tweaking ideas, with recommendations for ports which should be opened in some circumstances.

There's no live chat, but if you need more help, a Contact page allows you to send a message to the support team. We'd already noticed the Android app no longer had an option to change protocols, so fired off a question asking whether this was still supported. A reply arrived in less than an hour, and we quickly got into a conversation about the problem. 

“Tap this, then this, and the option is there.” The support agent recommended. “It's not,” we replied.

“Uninstall and reinstall,” said reply two. We tried and installed it on two more devices. It made no difference

“What device and version of Android are you using?” Asked the agent. 

We sent the details back immediately but had to wait a couple of hours before a reply finally explained that this was a known issue. It turned out that TunnelBear had removed the feature on later versions of Linux, and it wasn't available to anybody. All our troubleshooting efforts had been a complete waste of time.

There were some plus points to this exchange. The replies were quick, the agent was friendly, and he gave what would have been sensible advice (if the problem was on our system.) That's not unusual, TunnelBear's support has always generally delivered decent service.

This time, though, we're struggling to see how an issue as major as this, where a significant feature has been removed from an app in some situations, and support doesn't know about it. 

Hopefully, we were just unlucky, but this doesn’t look good.

TunnelBear review: Final verdict

It's not the largest, fastest, or most powerful of VPNs but TunnelBear's ease of use and strong focus on opening up its systems to scrutiny deserve a lot of credit. If you're looking for a gentle start to VPNs, or are tired of apps that are crammed with features you never, ever use, then TunnelBear could be a smart choice.

• We've also highlighted the other best VPNs around

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

Hide.me's network includes 2,100 servers spread across 78 locations. That's not bad at all and enough for most people but if you need more, the likes of ExpressVPN (3,000+ servers across 94 countries) and CyberGhost (9,200 in 91) give you even more options.

The company piles on the features elsewhere, though. Wide protocol support includes WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, SoftEther, and SSTP. Plus, there's protection against DNS, IP, and even IPv6 leaks and port forwarding is available if you need it.

The service can be used on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux, routers, consoles, and smart TVs. You can connect up to 10 devices simultaneously, and there's 24/7 live chat support if you run into problems.

• Want to try Hide.me? Check out the website here

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.

Furthermore, unlike some of the competition, Hide.me doesn't just make vague promises about its unblocking abilities. Its Unblock page lists the many sites it supports, including Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, ShowTime, and more.

Recent improvements have been more about enhancing the service than delivering huge changes. But they're worthwhile enhancements, in particular the ongoing upgrade of servers from 1Gbps to 10Gbps. Plenty of providers claim to be doing the same but are shy about telling you how many locations they've upgraded. Hide.me is much more transparent and highlight 10Gbps servers in the apps.

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. 

Whichever duration you choose, there is a wide range of payment options to purchase it. This includes cards, Bitcoin, PayPal, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, and perhaps other providers (the precise list depends on your location.)

If you hand over your cash and regret it later, no problem! You're protected by a no-questions-asked 30-day money-back guarantee. As long as you’ve never had a refund from Hide.me previously.

If you decide that you don’t want to pay anything, the free plan now supports eight countries (Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, United States). The restrictions include no streaming support, port forwarding, or multihop VPN. 

The good news is there's P2P support everywhere, and absolutely no annoying data limits. You can use the service as much as you like. 

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!

Connection times were good in most cases, with WireGuard getting us online in 1-2 seconds. The app doesn't appear to have a connection timeout, though, and a couple of times we found it hung on its 'Initializing service connection...' animation for minutes.

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

Hide.me's Mac app is a near clone of the Windows edition, with only the odd tiny visual detail and occasional caption changes to tell them apart.

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 which 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 with 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, 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 is a speedy and highly configurable service, which unblocks almost everything and has an array of unusual and advanced features – in short, one of the best VPNs around for more experienced and demanding users. If you're looking for power then go check out the free version right now, see what it can do for you. 

Windscribe is a very interesting VPN with some great value commercial products and loads of features, yet remains easy to use and has a generous free plan.

A decent-sized network provides locations in 110 cities spread across 66 countries. Windscribe claims its servers really are in these locations, too. Unlike some competitors who have most of their servers in US and Europe, and simply fake the location with false IP WHOIS data.

An array of apps keeps you covered on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux. Chrome, Firefox, and Edge extensions give you even more ways to connect, and the website has guides to help you set up the service on routers, Kodi, Amazon Fire TV, Nvidia Shield, and via any OpenVPN-compatible software or device.

WireGuard, IKEv2, and OpenVPN support with strong AES-256 encryption keeps all your VPN tunnel traffic safe from snoopers, while stealth technologies try to obfuscate your VPN usage, perhaps allowing you to get online even in countries that actively block VPN traffic.

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

There are no annoying limits on simultaneous connections, either. You can set up and use the service wherever you like, as long as the devices are yours (the small print forbids sharing your account with others).

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 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

Our performance tests involved connecting to the nearest Windscribe locations from both a UK data center and US location, each with 1Gbps test connections. 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.

Crunching the numbers revealed excellent OpenVPN speeds of 270-330Mbps, more than twice what we see with many providers.

Switching to WireGuard accelerated speeds to a blistering 950Mbps+, essentially maxing out our test connection. That puts Windscribe alongside NordVPN, Surfshark, and IPVanish at the top of our performance charts.

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

Connecting to a VPN server in another country may, in theory, allow you to access content you wouldn't otherwise be able to view.

Unfortunately, it's not always that simple, as many content providers now attempt to detect and block visitors they think are using a VPN.

To test a VPN's unblocking abilities, we log into at least three Windscribe servers in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Japan, then try to access local Netflix content and other streaming services.

Windscribe scored full marks in our UK tests, getting us into BBC iPlayer, ITV, and Channel 4.

The perfect record continued in Australia, as we managed to stream TV from 9Now and 10 Play.

Windscribe followed up by unblocking US Disney Plus, and allowing us to stream whatever we liked. The good news finally ended with US Amazon Prime Video, which detected our VPN use and locked us out.

Windscribe still managed to end on the highest of high notes, though, by unblocking every Netflix library we tried: the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Japan.

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.

• Save yourself a packet with our exclusive Windscribe offer here

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.

• Grab our exclusive Windscribe deal here

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. 

• We've also highlighted the best VPN

Some providers boast about their free VPN plans, but then hamstring them with limits and restrictions, hoping you'll upgrade as quickly as possible. Swiss-based PrivadoVPN is far more generous, and its free offering is something you might be able to use long-term.

PrivadoVPN's choice of locations goes well beyond the two or three countries you get with some providers. You get P2P-friendly servers in nine countries: US, UK, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Mexico, and Switzerland. Windscribe does a little better with eleven countries, but PrivadoVPN still tramples over most of the competition.

▶ Try PrivadoVPN for free

You get full access to all those locations, with a data limit of 10 GB every 30 days. That's better than some, but PrivadoVPN goes even further. If you use all 10 GB on day one, you're not cut off entirely. The app still gives you unlimited data via a single emergency server. It's very slow—1 Mbps, in fact—but at least it means you don't ever have to be unprotected.

There is one significant restriction: PrivadoVPN only supports connecting a single device at a time. You can install it on as many devices as you like, though, and keep in mind that other family members can also sign up and get their own 10 MB of data.

It's also good to see that, unlike some providers, PrivadoVPN doesn't try to punish free users by leaving out key features (WireGuard, kill switch, specialist unblocking of streaming sites, you know how it works usually). Yes, the company limits your choice of locations and data use, but otherwise free users have access to just about everything PrivadoVPN has to offer.

My final quibble is that the PrivadoVPN support site is incredibly bare-bones. There aren't a ton of articles, which makes it more difficult to troubleshoot issues if you do come across obstacles. Compared to ExpressVPN and PIA, there just aren't enough articles covering the basics, technical topics, and all the bits in-between.

Privacy and logging

PrivadoVPN scores highly on privacy at a technical level. A choice of the highly secure WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2 protocols shields your traffic from hackers. Private DNS keeps your browsing activities out of sight, and a kill switch blocks your internet if the VPN drops, ensuring your data is never exposed to attackers.

These technologies deliver what they promise, too. Multiple test sites failed to uncover the tiniest hint of a DNS leak, and no matter what sneaky tricks I used to shut down the VPN (and I know a lot of sneaky tricks), the kill switch unfailingly kept me safe.

It's worth noting that PrivadoVPN hasn't undertaken a no-logging or security audit, which means you'll have to take the provider's word that they're not misusing your data. Obviously, this isn't ideal, and I'd like to see the VPN take a step towards transparency by investing in regular audits. Doing so will ensure that PrivadoVPN doesn't lag behind the likes of TunnelBear (which has had four annual audits), and gives prospective customers an immediate heads up that their privacy really is the priority.

PrivadoVPN does at least have a clear and simple privacy policy, though. This explains that logging is kept to a minimum, and the company doesn't record anything that could connect any internet action to your account.

Windows and Mac apps

PrivadoVPN's desktop apps have a straightforward interface which makes it easy to find and access all its various features.

If your needs are simple, things can be as easy as clicking Connect when you need the VPN's protection, and Disconnect when you don't. The app automatically uses the nearest server, and the data left this month is always clearly visible, a handy reminder if you're close to running out.

Clicking the default location displays your options, with cities in an impressive (for a free VPN) nine countries. Some free VPNs force you to scroll down the full location list, and look for icons to separate the free and premium servers, but PrivadoVPN takes a much easier approach: it simply displays all the free servers at the top of the list, so there's no scrolling at all.

Connection times were excellent at around one or two seconds for my nearest location (the slowest providers might take 20 seconds or more).

The desktop apps don't have a lot of features or configuration options, but they cover the basics. You can choose from the WireGuard, IKEv2, and OpenVPN protocols. There's also an Auto-Connect option which tells the app to automatically connect to your preferred server when it launches, and a kill switch to protect you if the VPN drops.

However, the kill switch is of the 'hard' variety, which will block your access to the internet entirely if you're not connected to PrivadoVPN. It works like a treat, but it's somewhat extreme, and lacks the kind of customizability that other providers offer. Ideally, the kill switch would have a 'soft' alternative where users can still access the internet even if they switch off their VPN.

The Windows app now has a split tunneling feature. In a click or two you can choose apps that won't be passed through the VPN. That's useful for applications that don't need the VPN's protection, and there's another welcome bonus: the more traffic you route outside of the VPN, the less data you'll use, and the longer your allowance will last.

Overall, while PrivadoVPN's desktop apps don't lead the way in any specific area, they're strong all-rounders, thoughtfully designed, with a decent feature set suitable for beginners and experts alike.

Android and iOS apps

PrivadoVPN's mobile apps have a simpler and more stylish look than the desktop editions. Out go the high contrast colors and bright orange buttons, in comes a relatively subdued and stripped-back design—little more than a Connect button and the name of your currently selected location.

There are a handful of configuration options in the Settings box. The iOS app allows you to choose a preferred protocol from WireGuard, IKEv2, and OpenVPN, and the Android build goes a step further with split tunneling support.

Mobile app performance can vary considerably, depending on your device and network conditions, but both the Android and iOS versions worked very well for me. They connected faster than the desktop apps, even when using the throttled 'emergency' servers. My connections were reliable, with no unexpected drops or speed issues.

PrivadoVPN's mobile apps look a little underpowered compared to the competition, with most providers offering more features and configuration options. But they're fast and easy to use, and if those are your priorities, they could be a smart choice.

PrivadoVPN performance

Speed matters, even with a free VPN, so I put PrivadoVPN through its performance paces from a UK data center with a very capable 1 Gbps connection. The results were impressive, with the service delivering speeds of around 350 Mbps. That means PrivadoVPN has raced ahead to the number one spot in our fastest VPN rankings, overtaking Proton VPN.

Most free VPN plans don't include any form of streaming support, but PrivadoVPN is a rare exception. You get exactly the same unblocking abilities as paying customers, and I had no trouble accessing US Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video, and BBC iPlayer.

If your regular paid VPN has occasional unblocking issues, PrivadoVPN might be worth having around as an emergency short-term backup. (Netflix says its data demands can be as little as 0.3 GB per hour for low quality, 1 GB for standard definition, so you can squeeze a fair amount of viewing from your 10 GB a month allowance.)

I had no significant issues setting up or using PrivadoVPN, but if you're not as lucky, it's good to know there's help available. PrivadoVPN doesn't have live chat, but you can contact support via email. We sent a test question and received a thorough and accurate reply within a couple of hours, suggesting PrivadoVPN should be able to quickly solve most problems and get you up and running again.

Final verdict

Try many free VPNs and you're often annoyed by everything the service left out. Try PrivadoVPN and you're likely to be pleasantly surprised by everything you get: great speeds, a reliable kill switch, and unblocking results that beat many paid VPNs. A must-try provider.

At first glance, VyprVPN might seem much like any other small provider but look closer and you'll find there's much more here than you might expect.

The network 'only' has 700+ servers, for instance, but they're spread across 70+ locations in 60+ countries. The servers also don't have the same focus on Europe and North America that we often see with other providers. VyprVPN has 14 locations in Asia, 5 in the Middle East, 7 in Central and South America, 2 in Africa, and 5 in Oceania.

Even better, these servers are owned and managed by the company. That means there's no reliance on third-party web hosts, unlike most of the competition.

Welcome features include a zero-knowledge DNS service, a custom Chameleon protocol to help bypass VPN blocking in countries like China, WireGuard support to optimize performance, P2P support across the network, and 24/7/365 customer support to help you whenever you are in need.

• Want to try VyprVPN? Check out the website here

Wide platform support includes apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Tomato-based routers, QNAP, Anonabox, Smart TVs, and Blackphone.

The website also has 30 tutorials to help you set up the service on Linux, Blackberry, Synology NAS, OpenELEC, Android TV, Apple TV, and via DD-WRT, AsusWRT, OpenWRT, and more.

Whatever hardware you're using, VyprVPN supports connecting up to 10 devices simultaneously. That's more than most, but if you do have a lot of hardware to protect, keep in mind that Atlas VPN, IPVanish, PureVPN, Surfshark, and Windscribe have no fixed connection limits at all.

Change of ownership

VyprVPN was, until recently, run by a company called Golden Frog which was incorporated in Switzerland to take advantage of the favorable privacy laws. Its founders were behind some other big internet names including Usenet provider Giganews, 

This all changed during our review, and apparently, VyprVPN is now owned by the US-based Certida. It’s too early to say for sure what this means (apart from exposure to the much less favorable US privacy laws), but we’ve a couple of early thoughts.

The good news is that it might bring new investment. VyprVPN hasn’t had any significant updates for a very long time, and if it had just run out of money, a new owner might help bring it back to life.

The bad news is that VyprVPN hasn’t clearly explained what’s happening to its customers, and some parts of what’s happened raise warning flags with us.

VyprVPN used to have an ‘About Us’ page where it proudly boasted of its Swiss registration, for instance. When Certida took over, we would expect that page to be updated with the new details. Instead, it took the page down and added a much harder-to-find FAQ page with a handful of details on Certida.

Don’t think you can head off to the Certida page to find out more either. It’s basically a single page with links to VyprVPN and Giganews.

This all looks a little amateurish and doesn’t show anything like the transparency we would expect from a VPN provider. Still, it’s also very early days, and if the new ownership brings new ideas and investment, then maybe customers will be better off overall.

VyprVPN pricing

VyprVPN's pricing is surprisingly simple. There are just two plans: you can opt to pay $10 billed monthly or sign up for a year at $60 to reduce the cost to $5 a month.

That really is it. There are no special discounts, no free months, and the price won't double on renewal. What you see, really is what you get.

These aren't unreasonable prices. ExpressVPN, Hotspot Shield, IPVanish, NordVPN, and others ask $7-$8 or more on their annual plans after any starter deals expire. Still, if you want to save more, there are better deals available.

Private Internet Access' three-year deal is $2.03 for its first term, for instance, with three months free. Looking at the totals, handing $60 to VyprVPN gets you one year of protection; giving Private Internet Access $79 covers you for three years and three months.

Payment options include card, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and checking or saving accounts in the US. No Bitcoin, unfortunately.

If you sign up and aren't happy, you're protected by a 30-day money-back guarantee. A few companies give you more – Hotspot Shield and CyberGhost allow 45 days, for example – but 30 days should be long enough to identify any problems.

Private Internet Access' three-year deal is $2.03 for its first term, for instance, with three months free. Looking at the totals, handing $60 to VyprVPN gets you one year of protection; giving Private Internet Access $79 covers you for three years and three months.

Privacy

VyprVPN protects your privacy with well-chosen protocols and strong encryption capabilities. It supports AES-256-GCM and SHA384 HMAC for OpenVPN, with TLS-ECDHE-RSA-2048 to provide Perfect Forward Secrecy. Perfect Forward Secrecy is a smart technique that ensures that a different key is used for every connection so that even if an attacker obtains a private key somehow, they would only be able to access data in that particular session.

WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2 are supported across all platforms. VyprVPN's custom Chameleon 2.0 protocol is available on all platforms to help you bypass the most aggressive VPN blocking. Reports suggest this works well in China, although we don't test this so can't confirm it.

VyprVPN provides an encrypted zero-knowledge DNS service, DNS filtering, and other snooping strategies. Works for us, but if you've other needs, it's good to see the apps also allow you to use whatever third-party DNS service you need.

Individual apps have their own privacy-protecting technologies, too, including options to defend against DNS leaks and kill switches to reduce the chance of data leaks if the VPN connection drops. We'll look at these in more detail later.

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Logging

VyprVPN's privacy policy is clear on its logging policy. There's no recording of source or destination IP addresses, connection start or stop times, user traffic, or DNS requests.

The company verified this with a public audit by Leviathan Security Group. leviathan examined source code, logged into servers, inspected running processes, and more, and although it reported a few configuration mistakes, they confirmed that the company didn't log user activity.

While that's great news (and more than what most VPNs have done), the audit took place in September 2018, and can't tell us anything useful about what's happening now. We don't expect any provider to match ExpressVPN's level of audit enthusiasm (it's gone through 11 in the past year alone), but with more than four years since VyprVPN's last inspection, it's surely time for another.

Setup

Signing up to VyprVPN is easy, and once you've handed over your details, the website points you to an Apps page with a host of useful links.

There are downloads for the company's Windows, Mac, Android and iOS apps, the raw Android APK file if you need to install it somewhere manually, and VyprVPN's Chrome browser extension.

Setup is easy, and much the same as every other VPN app you've ever installed. Download and run the app, follow the instructions, enter your username and password when you're prompted, and essentially, you're ready to go.

You're not restricted to the apps either. VyprVPN's website has tutorials to help you manually set up the service on Chromebooks, Linux, Synology NAS, OpenELEC, Android TV, Apple TV, and on routers via DD-WRT, AsusWRT, OpenWRT and more.

These setup guides are, for the most part, relatively basic. Many are short, with only the bare minimum of text, and no screenshots (the Android TV guide says little more than 'you'll need the Android app, get it here or here'). They appear to cover the essentials, though, and should get you connected with minimal hassle.

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Windows app

VyprVPN's Windows VPN client looks and feels much like a mobile VPN app. It consists of a simple opening window that displays your connection state and preferred location, and a button you can click to connect or disconnect.

A capable location picker lists available locations by country and city, and it includes ping times to give you an idea of distance and provides a simple Favorites system to save your commonly used servers. Locations are sorted by country but you can also organize them by continent or ping time.

Although we're happy with the general design, a graphical glitch immediately spoiled the effect. The app displayed our default location using its long name, 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.' While this is correct, the app didn't wrap the location to fit it all on the window, and the beginning and end were cut off. It's a tiny issue, but also seriously unprofessional, and leaves us with other questions. If VyprVPN hasn't noticed or been concerned enough to fix such an obvious problem in more than a year, what else has it missed?

Back to the feature list, there's support for four protocols: WireGuard, OpenVPN, VyprVPN's proprietary Chameleon, and IKEv2. That's more than we usually see, so while this many are not necessary, it's always good to have options if one or two protocols fail.

Connection times are longer than usual, at up to 12 seconds for WireGuard. The best apps manage 1-2 seconds, and when you're used to that level of performance, an extra 5 to10 second delay can become annoying.

A Connection Details panel is just a click away and displays details including your upload and download speeds, the session length, your chosen server, protocol, and more. This isn't the most essential of features, but the stats could be useful occasionally, and we're happy to see them here.

A kill switch aims to protect you if the VPN drops, or that's the idea, but it didn't always work that way.

If we manually closed an OpenVPN connection the kill switch kicked in instantly, blocking internet traffic, displaying a warning, and giving us an option to reconnect.

If we did the same with an IKEv2 connection, though, the kill switch didn't appear to work, and our device used its regular internet connection instead. The app didn't display a 'Disconnected' notification, either, so if it was minimized or obscured by another app window, you wouldn't even realize there was a problem. Fortunately, it did automatically reconnect within a few seconds, limiting our exposure.

We found the kill switch protected us properly on WireGuard connections, which is important as we suspect most people won't use anything else. But again, the app warned us of connection troubles via its own window, rather than using desktop notifications as a more obvious alert.

VyprVPN's kill switch does a reasonable job in some situations but it can't begin to match the reliability of the best of the competition.

While testing, we noticed an odd technical issue. An app file called VyprVPNService.exe was constantly using 1-2% of CPU time, even when the app wasn't connected or even running. What was going on?

Digging deeper, the service seemed to be constantly running a task called 'NetworkStateMonitor.monitorThroughPut.' The app can display your current upload and download speeds whether you're connected or not, so from the name, it looks like this task is collecting those figures. Fair enough, but we expect the task to stop when you close the app, it's actually running all the time, whether you need it or not.

The Settings dialog includes all the usual options to customize how the app works. You can have it automatically connect when Windows starts or the application launches. DNS leak protection reduces the chance of others snooping on your web traffic, and an auto-reconnect feature automatically re-establishes your connection if the VPN drops.

If VyprVPN's zero-knowledge VyprDNS service doesn't suit your needs, you can switch it to any other DNS provider you like and you can configure the app to automatically connect to VyprVPN whenever you access untrusted Wi-Fi networks. That's not just a convenient time-saver, it’s a safety net too. There's always a chance you'll forget to connect when you’re on a public network and leave yourself inadvertently exposed to danger.

There's the core of a good app here. It’s easy to use, has a strong set of features, and VyprVPN's own Chameleon protocol helps you get online where others can't. It just needs a major update to fix the issues and generally get it running smoothly again. Hopefully, that's coming soon.

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Mac and mobile apps

Some VPN providers spend a huge amount of time polishing their Windows app but make little effort to provide the same level of power on other platforms. But not VyprVPN - it's done a far better job of making key features available everywhere.

The Mac and Android apps look and feel almost identical to the Windows version. Spend a couple of minutes with one, and you'll immediately be ready to use either of the others.

They include almost all the most advanced Windows features, WireGuard, OpenVPN, and Chameleon support, customizable DNS, auto-connect, and a kill switch to block your connection if the VPN drops. Mac and Android users also get the Connection per App feature, VyprVPN's take on split tunneling, which isn't available on Windows.

The Android app also supports URL filtering to protect you from malicious websites. Although we didn't test the effectiveness of the system, we noticed that it gives you more control than most competing services. If you hit a site on the blocklist, for instance, the system doesn't just block it. Instead, it displays a warning, and you can ignore this and proceed to the site if you're sure it's safe.

VyprVPN's iOS offering can't match Mac and Android for power and doesn't include a kill switch, split tunneling, URL filter, or many other settings. That's not really VyprVPN's fault though. Apple's security model means it's just not possible to deliver all the same advanced VPN features on iOS that we see on other platforms. 

There's still plenty to like. The iOS interface is clear and simple and most operations work just as they do with the other apps. Furthermore, with support for WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, and VyprVPN's Chameleon protocol, the iOS app should get you connected just as easily as the rest of the range.

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Performance

To understand the real-world performance of a VPN, we measure download speeds multiple times, with multiple speed test sites and apps including SpeedTest, Cloudflare, and Measurement Lab across multiple sessions, in both US and UK locations.

OpenVPN speeds proved epicly bad, with UK speeds averaging 40Mbps. Even poor providers typically reach at least 100Mbps. That's so low we'd normally assume it was a mistake, or a temporary glitch, if not for the almost identical 35-40Mbps we saw in our last review.

Fortunately, VyprVPN doesn't just support the OpenVPN protocol, and switching to WireGuard accelerated our downloads to 300-325Mbps. That's still on the low side – PureVPN reached twice VyprVPN's speed at 650Mbps in its last reviews, and is still only #12 in our last speed charts - but VyprVPN is likely to be enough for many devices, connections, and tasks.

Virtual locations

VPN performance can be affected by a provider's use of virtual locations. A provider might offer a location in Cambodia, for instance, which returns a Cambodian IP address, but uses servers that are physically based somewhere else. The service should work for unblocking, as you're getting the IP address you expect, but if you're in the country and the server is based far away, it'll be slower than you expect.

VyprVPN doesn't say much about virtual locations on its website, but our tests suggested they're used for several countries, and in some cases, the real server locations are some distance away. VyprVPN's Hong Kong and Marshall Islands locations appear to be in Hong Kong, for instance, while the company's Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, India, and Russia locations all appear to be served from near Amsterdam.

This isn't necessarily a problem. For instance, many providers host their India servers in a different country to avoid the country's upcoming data logging laws. If you happen to be in Amsterdam or Western Europe, having a local server for a distant location could improve speeds. The problem is,  VyprVPN's virtual and real locations can be further apart than we see with most providers. ExpressVPN not only says exactly which of its locations are virtual, but also tells you where they're really hosted, and we'd like to see other VPNs be just as open with their customers.

Netflix and streaming

VPNs for Netflix have become particularly popular. So, it’s no surprise VPNs often sell themselves on their ability to access geo-blocked sites, giving you access to content you wouldn't normally be able to view.

VyprVPN had some success in testing, getting us into US Netflix, Disney Plus, BBC iPlayer, the UK's ITV, and Australia's 9Now.

US Amazon Prime Video was a bit hit-and-miss. We could usually stream content but had occasional DNS errors. That might have been some temporary issue during the review and nothing to do with Amazon detecting our VPN, but we can't say for sure.

There were plenty of very clear failures, including Netflix Australia, Canada, Japan, UK, along with Australia's 10 Play and Channel 4 in the UK.

VyprVPN clearly has some unblocking skills, but others go much further. ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Private Internet Access, ProtonVPN, PureVPN, and Surfshark all unblocked every platform we tried in their last tests.

Support

VyprVPN support starts on its website, where a knowledge base provides setup instructions, troubleshooting guidance, and specific advice for various device types.

We noticed a link titled 'VyprVPN forum', clicked it to take a look, but got an 'Error 404: Page Not Found' error message. That looks very unprofessional and reinforces our earlier impression that no one's paying much attention to the details anymore.

There is at least a lot of content here, with plenty of guides covering setting up the service on a wide range of platforms. Regrettably, they're generally short, with few (or no) screenshots to help illustrate the points they're trying to make. FAQs can also be very basic, often no more than 'How do I turn on feature x?', with a few lines of text to point users in the right direction.

Still, there is some decent content here, and an accurate search system did a good job of finding relevant articles for all our test keywords.

If the website can't help, live chat is available to give you a near-instant response. We raised one test question and the support agent was talking to us within a couple of minutes and gave a helpful and informative response.

The final option is to send an email. We raised a simple product question and had a clear response within 15 minutes.

VyprVPN support has some issues and it's not as thorough or in-depth as top competitors like ExpressVPN. The website does give you basic information on a wide range of topics, though, and with speedy live chat support on hand, it shouldn't take long to get helpful advice on any service problems.

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VyprVPN review: Final verdict

VyprVPN isn't the fastest or most powerful VPN, and the various app issues and annoyances make it difficult to recommend. Still, the service is easy to use, with more features than most, and if you could benefit from VyprVPN's firewall-bypassing Chameleon protocol then it may be worth a look.