Takedowns of "bulletproof" VPNs allegedly used for cybercrime activities have become fairly common, and they often raise some interesting legal questions. First VPN is the latest such service to go down in virtual flames, thanks to a Europol-led initiative called Operation Saffron. The seizure caught 33 servers spread across 27 countries, reportedly identified 506 users, and led authorities to a Ukrainian residence.

According to the Europol report, Operation Saffron had the participation of 18 countries, with the main actors being France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Romania, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. First Net's regular and .onion domains were also seized, and they currently display a banner for the operation.

Besides the promise of anonymity, First VPN reportedly advertised itself as not cooperating with any judicial authority and that it would not be subject to any jurisdiction. Additionally, it apparently advertised exclusively in Russian-language cybercrime forums, and was predictably the source of extensive online criminal activity, with Europol stating the service came up in most every cybercrime investigation it was pursuing. The investigation was five years in the making, as it actually started back in 2021.

Although the definition is a little fuzzy, the key differences between bulletproof VPNs and privacy-minded services are in how they handle cooperation with authorities, how they deal with abuse reports, who they typically market their services to, what their terms of service are, and how deeply (if any) they are the source of cybercrime.

Whereas popular services like Mullvad or ProtonVPN offer a no-log, no-data-saved policy, they're designed and advertised in such a manner that ought to let them function normally in most jurisdictions. In fact, Mullvad graciously hosted six Swedish officers in 2023, who came away empty-handed as there was no data to hand over. Similarly, last year, a Greek court dismissed cybercrime-abetting charges against the CEO of Windscribe. Windscribe's servers only used RAM disks and had no permanent storage, and earlier this year, Dutch authorities amusingly shut them off and took them for inspection.

Online commentary generally expresses concern about the legal overreach of these takedowns. It's worth noting that while the investigations are coordinated between many authorities, the legal framework for seizures generally falls within the purview of local law. That means that, for example, the need for a warrant or supporting evidence for a seizure depends on which jurisdiction it takes place.

There's also some irony in the fact that the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights broadly states that keeping oneself's digital information private is a basic right, and the well-known GDPR has rather sizable teeth that chomp on data mishandling violations. Privacy-minded VPN services can arguably be interpreted as respecting not just the spirit but also the letter of the law, and yet they're subject to law enforcement activities under national-level rules.

Additionally, the long-standing concept of digital privacy in the EU is under fire, thanks to initiatives like ProtectEU that want data saved for law enforcement purposes, or the unpopular "Chat Control" framework that would allow for scanning private communications under the guise of protecting children. Chat Control almost became law but was shot down repeatedly... for now.

The European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) published a briefing paper this week describing VPN use as "a loophole in the legislation that needs closing," as governments across Europe and the U.S. expand laws requiring platforms to verify users' ages before granting access to adult content.

The paper noted that VPN downloads spiked after enforcement began in the UK and several U.S. states, with one app developer reporting an 1,800% increase in downloads in the first month following the UK's Online Safety Act taking effect last year. Some policymakers, including England's Children's Commissioner, have called for VPN services to be restricted to adults only.

The EPRS paper acknowledges that current age-assurance methods are "relatively easy for minors to bypass," but offers no technical workaround to prevent VPN circumvention. In March, Utah became the first U.S. state to target VPN use in its age-verification law when Governor Spencer Cox signed Senate Bill 73. However, such efforts are technically flawed because the only reliable method for identifying VPN protocol signatures is deep packet inspection at the network level, which the EPRS paper doesn’t mention.

VPN demand in Florida surged 1,150% within hours of Pornhub blocking access in that state, and Utah saw a 967% increase after a similar withdrawal. Mozilla, Mullvad, and Proton, among others, sent a joint letter opposing the UK's proposals to mandate age verification for VPN access on May 5th, urging officials “not to undermine the open internet.”

The EPRS research paper comes less than a month after the EU’s own age verification technology, which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described as being built to respect “the highest privacy standards in the world — failed a basic security test.

Security consultant Paul Moore found in April that the European Commission's official age verification app stored facial images from identity documents as unencrypted files and allowed its biometric authentication to be bypassed by toggling a single boolean value in a config file. Moore demonstrated a full bypass in under two minutes.

The EPRS paper also highlights France's "double-blind" verification model, in which the adult platform learns only whether a user meets the age threshold, while the verification provider doesn’t see which sites the user visits. California has taken a separate approach, requiring operating systems to collect age data at device setup. GrapheneOS has refused to comply with such laws.

Utah's law took effect on May 6th, defining a user's location as their physical presence, regardless of VPN use. The UK House of Lords voted 207-159 in January to ban VPN services for under-18s, while the EU Parliament adopted a resolution last November supporting a digital age of majority of 16 for social media.

To date, the only governments that have made meaningful progress blocking VPN traffic are authoritarian regimes with ISP-level surveillance infrastructure.

Utah's Online Age Verification Amendments, formally Senate Bill 73, take effect on May 6, making the state the first in the U.S. to explicitly target VPN use as part of age verification legislation.

Signed by Governor Spencer Cox on March 19, the controversial law establishes that a user is considered to be accessing a website from Utah if they are physically located there, regardless of whether they use a VPN or proxy to mask their IP address. It also prohibits covered websites from sharing instructions on how to use a VPN to bypass age checks.

NordVPN has called the law an "unresolvable compliance paradox" and a "liability trap," arguing that it holds websites responsible for identifying users whose tools are specifically designed to be unidentifiable. The EFF warned that the legal risk could push sites to either ban all known VPN IPs or mandate age verification for every visitor globally.

The law is also technically flawed, given that it assumes that a web provider can reliably detect VPN traffic and determine a user’s true physical location — they can’t. IP reputation databases such as MaxMind and IP2Proxy can flag traffic from known datacenter IP ranges, but commercial VPN providers rotate addresses constantly, and residential VPN endpoints are largely indistinguishable from standard home connections. Autonomous System Number analysis can catch traffic originating from datacenter networks, but can’t identify a personal WireGuard tunnel running on a cloud VPS, for example, which routes through the same infrastructure as ordinary web hosting.

The only detection method that reliably identifies VPN protocol signatures is deep packet inspection, which analyzes traffic at the network level, not system- or app-level. China's Great Firewall and Russia's TSPU system deploy DPI via ISPs, but a website operator can’t because it requires access to network infrastructure that sits between the user and the server, not on the server itself.

Meanwhile, setting up a personal WireGuard instance on any major cloud provider takes minutes, meaning the law will be more likely to negatively impact non-technical users who rely on commercial VPN services for legitimate privacy: journalists, people living under authoritarian regimes, political dissidents, and abuse survivors, among others.

Utah isn’t alone in trying to legislate the impossible into being. In the UK, the House of Lords — Parliament’s secondary chamber — voted 207-159 in January to ban VPN services for under 18s, with those amendments now due to be debated in the House of Commons. VPN use jumped by more than 1,400% on the first day of age verification enforcement in July last year. Meanwhile, France’s digital affairs minister, Anne Le Hénanff, has said that VPNs are “next on my list.” Wisconsin considered similar VPN provisions earlier this year but scrapped them due to heavy backlash.

To date, the only countries that have made progress in blocking VPN traffic with some success are authoritarian regimes with ISP-level surveillance.

Canada-based Windscribe, a VPN provider, just said that one of its European servers has been allegedly seized by Dutch authorities without a warrant. According to the company’s post on X, law enforcement said that they will return it to the service provider after they “fully analyze it.” It’s unclear why law enforcement impounded just a single rack from Windscribe’s cabinet, but the VPN provider said that it only uses RAM disk servers, meaning anyone who would look through the installed SSDs would only find a stock Ubuntu install on it, so the servers shouldn't hold any trackable data.

“THIS IS NOT A DRILL: The Dutch authorities, without a warrant, just seized one of our VPN servers saying they’ll give it back after they ‘fully analyze it’,” the company said in its social media post. “Windscribe uses RAM disk servers so that only thing the authorities will find is a stock Ubuntu install.”

The company maintains on its website that it doesn’t keep personal data about the activity of its users. Aside from that, it also says, “Our Transparency Report tracks real-time data requests from copyright and law enforcement agencies. To date, we have complied with zero requests, due to lack of relevant data.”

It’s unclear what the Dutch authorities seek from Windscribe’s server, but the company said in a subsequent X post that it gets “a handful of law enforcement requests every month” and that it always responds with “we have no logs.” However, the company claims that the authorities didn’t ask this time, saying that “they just snatched the server from the rack to look for the logs themselves.”

RAM cannot retain data after it loses power, which is why security-conscious companies use it over traditional SSDs and hard drives. But other X users were quick to point out that “it is standard practice to keep a seized server powered on or otherwise technically accessible until investigators can perform a live memory (RAM) capture in a forensic lab.”

We do not know what the Dutch authorities want to get from Windscribe’s servers, but this event will test the extent of the protections that it offers to its users. But no matter how great a VPN service is, it still cannot offer complete anonymity unless the user takes specific actions on their end to completely protect their identity. We reached out to Windscribe for comment and will update if they respond.

Koi Security has revealed that a popular Google Chrome extension with more than 100,000 installs has been taking screenshots of every website its users visit and sending them to a domain controlled by the software's anonymous developer.

The extension in question, FreeVPN.One, claims to be "the fastest free VPN for Chrome [sic]" and boasts a "Featured" badge that Google awards to extensions that "follow our technical best practices and meet a high standard of user experience and design." But it turns out FreeVPN.One has been undermining its users' privacy for months.

"While VPN extensions legitimately need permissions like proxy and storage for core functionality," Koi Security said, "this one asks for more permissions that enable broad data collection." The company identified a trio of permissions—tabs, and scripting—that allow FreeVPN to inject a script into every website its users visit. "Seconds after any page loads, a background trigger grabs a screenshot and sends it to aitd[.]one/brange.php, bundled with the page URL, tab ID, and a unique user identifier," the report explains. "No user action, no UI hint, the screenshots are taken in the background without you ever knowing."

FreeVPN.One's privacy policy does acknowledge that it can take screenshots of the pages its users visit, but it's only supposed to do so if users enable the so-called AI Threat Detection Feature, through which "a snapshot (screenshot) and related page information (such as the URL and visible page content) are transmitted from your browser to our secure servers and, if applicable, to our vetted analysis partners."

That suggests FreeVPN.One only enables its data collection features if users opt-in to the AI Threat Detection Feature... but the developer says in another paragraph that they "use anonymized usage data to build our threat intelligence database, whether or not AI Protection is enabled," which aligns with Koi Security's findings.

The policy has also changed recently. A copy of the policy from June 20 is missing the section about anonymized usage data, as well as the line "This system is in beta and provided 'as is' without warranties or guarantees of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to accuracy, reliability, or fitness for a particular purpose."

It's also missing the header stating that FreeVPN.One is operated by a company called CMO Ltd. There's no mention of who operates the extension at all; in fact, the only clue comes via the email Google provides for contacting the developer. The domain associated with that email redirects to a page for Phoenix Software Solutions with the URL "https://domain146.wixsite.com/phoenixsoftsol." Not exactly confidence-inspiring.

Koi Security's report includes a breakdown of FreeVPN.One's slow transition from a seemingly innocuous VPN to a privacy-invading extension between April and July, as well as a summary of the company's interactions with the software's developer. (Who apparently stopped responding to the researchers' inquiries as soon as they asked for "evidence of legitimacy, such as a company profile, GitHub account, or LinkedIn page.")

VPN providers often make ludicrous claims about the privacy and security benefits of using their services. It's worth remembering that using those services requires a significant amount of trust in the organizations providing them; such trust would almost certainly be better placed somewhere other than in a free Chrome extension operated by an unknown developer that screenshots every page its users visit.

Following Pornhub's decision to block access in Florida due to new age-verification laws, the state has experienced a significant surge in demand for VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). Data from vpnMentor indicates an astonishing 1,150% increase in VPN interest within the first few hours of the site's withdrawal on January 1, 2025.

This spike is attributed to Florida's implementation of House Bill 3 (HB3), which Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law. The legislation mandates that websites hosting adult content verify users' ages through official identification, aiming to prevent minors from accessing explicit material. Non-compliant platforms face fines of up to $50,000 per violation.

In response, Pornhub's parent company, Aylo, has restricted access to users in Florida, as it has in other states with similar laws, including Kentucky, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, North Carolina, Montana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, and Utah. Aylo criticized the age-verification methods as "ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous," expressing concerns over collecting sensitive personal information and potential risks to user safety.

The surge in VPN demand suggests that many Floridians seek ways to bypass these restrictions. Using a VPN, users can mask their IP addresses and appear to be accessing the Internet from different locations, thereby circumventing regional blocks. This trend mirrors similar increases observed in other states following the implementation of comparable laws. For instance, Utah experienced a 967% rise in VPN demand after Pornhub's exit, and Texas saw a 234.8% uptick.

Critics of the age-verification laws argue that such measures may inadvertently drive users toward less regulated and potentially unsafe websites that do not enforce age checks, thereby increasing risks for adults and minors. Aylo noted that in Louisiana, where age verification was implemented earlier, their traffic dropped by approximately 80%, indicating that users migrated to other platforms that may not prioritize user safety or content moderation.

The debate over age verification for adult content continues to evolve, with legal challenges pending in various jurisdictions. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a case challenging the legality of Texas's age verification law, which could set a precedent affecting similar legislation nationwide. As the situation develops, the balance between protecting minors from explicit content and ensuring user privacy and safety remains a contentious issue, prompting ongoing discussions about the most effective and secure methods to regulate access to adult material online.

If you aren't already using a VPN, you should be. 

Between ad networks keen on tracking our every move, traffic-snooping Internet Service Providers, and unsecured wireless networks, the state of digital privacy has never been more dire. A VPN doesn't prevent all forms of tracking, mind you. You'll need to pair it with an ad blocker and tweak your settings on social media for that. 

But it does still make you significantly harder to track. 

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you don't really care about your digital privacy. It doesn't bother you that people can see what you're doing online. You've got nothing to hide, so why should you care about using a VPN? 

Three words: region locked content. 

If you're paying the same amount of money as everyone else for a Netflix subscription, you should have access to the same content as everyone else. Unfortunately, this is not the case. This is largely because, to be blunt, international copyright law is an unmitigated disaster. 

Every country has its own rules and regulations, and streaming services must strike a delicate balance between all of them. Frequently, this means a series of intricate contracts and agreements with content providers. As you might expect, said providers are the real beneficiaries here — and it's the end user that suffers. 

A VPN provides you with a means of getting around these region locks, much to the chagrin of both content providers and streaming platforms. Typically, this comes with a few trade-offs, like traffic slowdown and having your IP address flagged by certain sites. Ivacy suffers from neither of these issues. 

Consistently rated as the fastest VPN on the market, Ivacy is also a pioneer in Split Tunneling Technology. This innovation, exclusive to Ivacy, allows you to configure which traffic is routed through the VPN and which goes through your regular connection. Paired with Ivacy's P2P optimized secure downloading technology, this allows you to connect, download, and browse the way you want on up to ten devices.  

With over 3500 servers in more than one hundred locations, Ivacy also directly unblocks seven major Netflix regions:  

• France
• US
• Japan
• UK
• Australia
• Germany
• Canada

The best part, however, is the price. For a limited time only, Ivacy is on sale for 90% off. That means getting five years of service for just $0.99 a month. 

Get Ivacy VPN

Although far from being one of the best SSDs, the Viper VPN100 is a solid SSD for the money. Unfortunately, the drive recently made the Reddit headlines because a consumer discovered that it arrived with different components than originally advertised. Patriot has provided an official statement to Tom's Hardware explaining the reason behind the component swap.

One Redditor recently purchased one of Patriot's Viper VPN100 2TB SSDs, and much to his surprise, the drive arrived with Phison's E12S SSD controller and 512MB of DRAM. This certainly raised the alarm since the SSD not only utilizes a different SSD controller but also came with 1/4 the DRAM. For comparison, the original Viper VPN100 2TB used the Phison E12 SSD controller and had 2GB of DRAM.

Like many vendors, including Adata and PNY, Patriot also fell victim to the global semiconductor shortage, so the company explored other options for its VPN100. Unfortunately, the majority of SSD manufacturers don't produce their own components and have to buy them elsewhere. The thing here is transparency, and if there is a substantial change to a product, then it's the vendor's responsibility to communicate the change to the consumer in a timely matter. That didn't happen in this situation, though. 

Despite the drastic difference in components, Patriot guarantees that both configurations offer the same performance in sequential and random workloads. The brand advertises the VPN100 with sequential read and write speeds up to 3,400 MBps and 3,200 MBps, respectively, depending on the capacity. Random performance is rated for 700,000 IOPS reads and writes.

In its statement, Patriot claims that the new E12S setup features the same endurance limits as the original E12 configuration "sans Chia mining." However, that doesn't seem to be the case. The original specification sheet had the VPN100 2TB at 3,115 TBW, while the new specification sheet reveals an endurance level of 900 TBW. We're following up for clarification. 

Although it's now public that there are two versions of the VPN100 on the market, consumers still have no way to really differentiate one from the other. Patriot seems to be using the same part number for both variations, turning the purchasing process into a lottery.

You can find Patriot's full statement below.

Patriot's statement:

We at Patriot would like to address the current situation surrounding our Viper VPN100 M.2 solid state drive. We have become aware that some customers have noted the reduction in cache on the VPN100 SSD. Over the past few days we have taken time to investigate this matter thoroughly internally and listen to the feedback generated online.

Due to the ongoing fab shortages affecting the global IC supply chain, in 2020 Patriot opted to utilize the Phison E12S controller in addition to the Phison E12 for the full VPN100 series (256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB). We confirm this is the only Viper SSD series affected. The E12S uses less cache but offers the same performance as the E12 controller because it is produced using the latest fab process and innovative firmware development. As an advanced version of the E12 controller, Patriot still guarantees that the VPN100 using the E12S will hit the same performance specs in sequential read/write, and random IOPS, and same endurance limits (sans Chia mining) as the VPN100 using the original E12 controller. Please see the comparison of performances below:

However, we do not deny that when doing so, we have failed to update our information sheets that are available online for public viewing and reference respectively, this should have been performed immediately. For this we apologize and take responsibility for any inconveniences caused to all partners and customers. Any consumer that has any questions or concerns regarding their VPN100 solution with E12S controller is free to get in touch with our Customer Service department at:

support@patriotmem.com

Going forward, we commit to our information sheets and website reflecting the actual available product specifications at all times.

We are excited to be introducing a new Viper Gen3 x4 m.2 SSD solution launching in Q4 2021 that will replace the VPN100 and hope it will continue to please hardware enthusiasts worldwide and meet their standards.

It has been a pleasure being a part of the IT hardware community for the past 35 years and we hope to continuously bring out ground-breaking products in a time where technology is ever-evolving.

Sincerely,

Patriot Memory, Inc.

NordVPN, one of the most popular VPN services, confirmed today that it experienced a data breach in 2018, which it only learned about itself a few months ago. The data breach's primary target was apparently NordVPN's hosting provider, with NordVPN customers being caught in the crosshairs.

NordVPN released a statement today confirming the data breach and also stating that its network is now secure against the leaked TLS keys. 

According to NordVPN, one of its hosting providers had been using a remote management system without NordVPN's knowledge. Malicious parties were able to exploit this system and gain access to the hosting providers’ customer data, including encryption keys used by NordVPN’s servers. 

NordVPN said its unnamed hosting provider launched the remote management system on January 31, 2018 and closed it by March 20, 2018, when the hosting provider discovered its tool had been compromised. However, NordVPN claimed that it wasn’t notified about the security issue at the time.

After learning about this incident only a few months ago, NordVPN fixed the issue and then double-checked that its network was no longer vulnerable to abuse of the leaked data. NordVPN also said that since then it has increased the security requirements it requests of its hosting providers. 

NordVPN has also started the process of moving its server operations completely to RAM. This would keep users’ logs from being stored on a hosting providers’ disks. If the company would choose hosting providers that take advantage of AMD Epyc’s Secure Encrypted Virtualization or Intel’s yet-to-be-released Multi-Key Total Memory Encryption, it could also further protect users’ data being used in RAM.

The VPN company took partial blame for the breach for choosing an "unreliable" hosting provider and not doing more to ensure customer security. However, it also noted that only one out of its 3,000 servers should have been affected by this data breach.

NordVPN said  it is working on a second no-logs audit of its infrastructure and preparing a bug bounty program. It also committed to launching an external third-party audit of its service next year.

NordVPN’s Compromised TLS Keys

Twitter user @hexdefined first revealed on Twitter yesterday that NordVPN’s expired TLS keys had been compromised. This would have potentially allowed malicious parties to run execute man-in-the-middle attacks against its customers using VPN servers that looked like they belonged to NordVPN. 

NordVPN claims a “no-log” policy, meaning that the company doesn’t track, collect or share private data. However, this wouldn’t have had any impact on the customers who got lured into using the fake servers, as those malicious servers would be able to collect the users’ data at will. 

The source for the initial rumor about the data breach was an anonymous 8chan user who linked to a Ghostbin page that seemingly contained encryption keys of NordVPN servers. Hexdefined was able to confirm that the keys worked to create a local NordVPN lookalike server.

TorGuard, a competing service that also seems to have had some its Certificate Authority (CA) keys leaked in the past few years, took the opportunity to point out that its customers’ data couldn’t have been impacted because it uses a secure public key infrastructure management. This means that its encryption keys are never stored on the VPN servers themselves, and, therefore, no one can decrypt its users’ VPN connections.

APT5, which is believed to be a state-sponsored Chinese hacking group, has been targeting the enterprise VPN servers sold by Fortinet and Pulse Secure, two enterprise cybersecurity companies. Some of these two companies’ customers failed to update their VPN servers in time, leaving them exposed to multiple security vulnerabilities that were disclosed at the Black Hat conference in August.

Unpatched Fortinet, Pulse Secure VPN Servers Affected

As reported by ZDNet this week, researchers from the security consulting firm Devcore unveiled multiple vulnerabilities found in VPN services, such as Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect, Fortinet FortiGate (FortiOS) and Pulse Secure’s Pulse Connect Secure (PCS) and Pulse Policy Secure (PPS). The vulnerabilities included authentication bypasses, command injection, session hijacking and cross-site scripting.

The researchers told the vendors about the bugs ahead of time, so Pulse Security started sending patches to its customers in April, while Fortinet sent the patches in May. 

However, as it happens with most software updates, not everyone updated their application clients immediately. This allowed the Chinese group to scan the Internet for the VPN servers that remained vulnerable and hack them. 

Some of Fortinet’s customers said on social media that they weren’t even aware that the patches were available, pointing to a potential lack of communication on Fortinet’s part. 

Pulse Security seems to have been much more active in trying to contact its customers about the vulnerability. A scan done in mid-August for the vulnerable servers revealed that about one-third (14,500 out of 42,000) of the Pulse Security VPN servers were still vulnerable. Two weeks later, 10,500 were still vulnerable.

Scott Gordon, Chief Marketing Officer at Pulse Secure, told ZDNet about the vendor's attempts to contact all of its customers:

"We not only issued a public Security Advisory - SA44101, but commencing that day in April, we actively informed our customers, partners and service providers of the availability and need for the patch via email, in-product alerts, on our community site, within our partner portal and our customer support web site.”

In addition, Pulse Security said that its support engineers have been available 24/7 to help customers apply the patches. Those who refused to update will now likely be at risk of having their intellectual property stolen and then handed over to Chinese competitors. 

Who Is APT5?

According to FireEye, another cybersecurity company, APT5 has been active online since 2007. It’s believed that the group actually consists of several sub-groups, each with their own tools and tactics. 

The group has been targeting primarily telecommunications and technology companies, as well as companies that do high-tech manufacturing and create military application technology. According to FireEye, APT5 uses malware with keylogging capabilities to target telecommunication companies' corporate networks, employees and executives.

CyberGhost is a VPN provider founded in 2011 in Bucharest, Romania. Its team, catering to more than 30 million users worldwide, consists of professionals based in Romania and Germany.

With a three-year plan it offers some of the best pricing in the market. But its sometimes slow connection times may have you looking elsewhere.

CyberGhost VPN Specs

Pricing

CyberGhost has one four pricing plans. They begin with the monthly plan that costs $12.99, continue with the 1-year plan at $5.99 per month and the 2-year subscription at $3.29 per month. Finally, the best value option is the 3-year subscription that costs $2.75 a month. An additional dedicated IP is available for $5.00 a month.

You can pay for your subscription using major credit cards, PayPal and Bitcoin.

If you’re disappointed with any element of CyberGhost’s services, you can ask for a refund within 45 days of payment. Obviously, this generous 45-day money-back guarantee isn’t available if you choose the monthly option, which instead has a 14-day money-back guarantee.

There’s a one-day free trial when signing up via Windows and a 7-day free trial if you do so via an iOS platform. Android users are also eligible for a 7-day free trial and don’t even have to sign up; just download and install the app.

Features

CyberGhost has more than 3,600 servers in over 60 countries across the world. It also comes with a long list of features focused on user anonymization. These include a data compression option on Android devices, torrent filtering according to the purpose (streaming, torrenting, et cetera), as well as a solution that blocks ads, trackers and malicious websites from hampering your online experience.

The provider’s services can be installed and used on a wide array of platforms, including Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Fire OS, Linux, Raspberry Pi, VU+ Solo 2, Chrome OS, routers and more. CyberGhost also has browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome. Clients for the major platforms can be downloaded from the website, which also has a large collection of guides, troubleshooting articles and FAQ if you need help with installation or usage.

CyberGhost facilitates access to services and websites restricted in certain regions, including streaming platforms like Netflix, BBC iPlayer, VUDU, Hulu and Amazon Prime. Although not all of the provider's servers are capable of streaming Netflix content, finding those that are is a piece of cake, thanks to the list of streaming-optimized servers for Netflix U.S. and certain localized versions.

CyberGhost also supports torrenting and even has a list of the most suitable servers for torrenting in its apps.

The provider enables simultaneous connections on up to 7 devices, which is a generous amount among VPN providers; although, some, like Surfshark, let you connect an unlimited number of devices. What’s more, if you install CyberGhost on your router, then you can connect as many devices as you want. However, make sure that your router supports this provider before making a commitment. You can’t access the same server at the same time with different devices - you have to choose a different server for each device. This rule doesn’t apply to routers as they count as one device.

In addition to a large library of product guides, troubleshooting articles, answers to FAQs and service updates, CyberGhost has a team of experts available to you 24/7. You can contact the customer support using live chat on the website or by sending an email.

Privacy

In terms of security, this VPN vendor applies the usual 256-bit AES encryption algorithm, as well as OpenVPN, IKEv2, PPTP, IPSec and L2TP transfer protocols. An essential part of every VPN service is a kill switch, and CyberGhost is no different. When activated, it blocks all internet traffic on your device if the VPN connection unexpectedly drops. This safeguards your private data from all prying eyes. Unfortunately, this mechanism isn’t available on Android or iOS; although, Android phones now come equipped with their own kill switch that you can enable with some tinkering in your device’s settings.

Android devices also have the benefit of the split tunneling option, which allows you to choose which of your apps you want to run under VPN and which you want to leave on your regular Internet connection.

CyberGhost has a special category of servers called NoSpy servers. The NoSpy system is located in Romania, a country that isn’t part of any intelligence-sharing agreements or alliances. In addition to added security, this system promises better performance in terms of speed and bandwidth, and it has backup generators that ensure it will never go down, not even if there’s a power shortage.

Your sensitive information is also protected by the company’s no logs policy. The policy states that CyberGhost has no intention to monitor or store any kind of traffic data, connection logs, or IP addresses when using its platform.

Every year since 2011 the company publishes a transparency report, which lists its qualities, all the DMCA complaints, malicious activity flags and police requests for data it gets that it cannot comply with as there are no logs to deliver.

Performance

CyberGhost delivers very good performance, although not as great as some of the other VPN services out there.

Download speeds were excellent, though sometimes they suffered some latencies for servers further away from your device’s location.

Connection times were also a bit longer than with some competitors. It could take up to 30 seconds while, for example NordVPN, usually takes around 15 seconds. But this didn't affect the overall experience terribly.

Bottom Line

CyberGhost is an affordable VPN service that offers all the qualities that most users demand. It enables access to many geo-limited services, allows torrenting and effectively hides your identity and protects your data with premium privacy mechanisms. Furthermore, its 7-device per account limit is generous one.

As disadvantages are concerned, we only had slight issues with the platform’s performance and short free trial periods.

Image Credits: CyberGhost

MORE: All Security Reviews

MORE: All Security Content

VyprVPN is a VPN platform developed by Golden Frog, a security software company founded in Switzerland. It was made in response to Room 641a, an infamous room in San Francisco, California where the NSA conducted surveillance on AT&T’s networks in the early 2000s.

With such roots, VyprVPN continues to maintain a strong reputation for privacy. But there are some drawbacks when it comes to options available for different accounts.

VyprVPN Specs

Pricing

VyprVPN offers two pricing plans: Standard and Premium.

The Standard account provides basic features, supports three simultaneous connections and is available as a monthly and a yearly plan at the price of $9.95 and $5 per month, respectively.

The Premium account supports up to 5 devices at the same time, the proprietary Chameleon protocol and VyprVPN Cloud (we’ll get to these in the Features and Privacy sections). Its monthly option is $12.95, while the annual plan costs $6.67 per month.

VyprVPN also has a Refer a Friend program. Subscribers can refer new users by sending them their personal referral link. You’ll receive a credit equal to the monthly value of the your current account level when a new user signs up with your link.

If you’d rather test the service out to see if it’s the right match, you can do so during a risk-free 3-day free trial. You still have to sign up for a subscription, but you won’t be billed until after the 3-day trial expires, which means if you want to cancel without any loss, you’ll have to do so during that period.

VyprVPN accepts major credit cards and PayPal. The website also states Alipay is accepted but the pricing page doesn’t show this option.

The VPN service doesn’t have a money-back guarantee. Its Terms of Service states that “no refunds will be considered for accounts deleted for violation of our Terms of Service.” There is some evidence of users being issued a refund on the company’s forum under special circumstances. We suggest contacting the staff if you want a refund for any reason, but know that it’s not guaranteed.

Features

VyprVPN offers access to 200,000 IP addresses and more than 700 servers in over 70 locations. All the servers are owned and managed by the company itself, making it a tier-1 VPN provider. In theory, this means better performance in terms of speed and bandwidth.

The Premium account comes with a VyprVPN Cloud, a user-friendly, highly secure VPN server deployment solution that allows users to use an additional layer of security when accessing public or private cloud servers. VyprVPN Cloud is currently available for DigitalOcean, Amazon Web Service (AWS) and VirtualBox.

The software can be installed and used on a wide array of platforms. You can download clients for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, while the manual installation is possible on a long list of other platforms, including Linux, Blackphone, smart TVs, routers and more.

The provider unblocks the most popular streaming and other geographically restricted services, including Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO, Sky Go and more. It also supports unlimited torrenting.

Installing the service on a supported router allows unlimited simultaneous connections as the router counts as only one device.

If you encounter problems while installing or using the service, you can consult the website’s large searchable support section. If you still can’t find your answer, VyprVPN’s staff can jump in if you contact them via live chat or submit a request for email support. They are available 24/7.

Privacy

Along with the 256-bit AES encryption algorithm, VyprVPN employs OpenVPN, PPTP and L2TP/IPSec transfer protocols.

In addition, Premium plan subscribers get usage of VyprVPN’s proprietary Chameleon protocol. It scrambles OpenVPN traffic metadata, thus protecting it from ISP deep packet inspection, connection throttling and VPN blocking.

An industry standard kill switch is used on VyprVPN clients (except iOS) to block all internet traffic on your device if the VPN connection malfunctions. This protects your sensitive information from leaking into the wrong hands.

The Connection Per App feature lets you select which apps you want to use with the VPN and which you want to leave on the regular internet connection, as well as select which apps will connect only if the VPN connection is on.

VyprVPN’s zero-knowledge DNS service hinders DNS filtering and other attempts to gain access to your online activities and private information.

VyprVPN has a zero logs policy, which means it doesn’t record or retain any data when you use its service. That data includes the user’s source IP address, the IP assigned when using VyprVPN, connection timestamps, the user’s traffic, or the content of any communications. This policy was tried and tested in an independent audit conducted by the Leviathan Security Group.

Switzerland, where Golden Frog is incorporated, has favorable privacy laws, like the Article 13 of the Swiss Federal Constitution, the Swiss Federal Data Protection Act (DPA) and Swiss Federal Data Protection Ordinance (DPO) that protect both personal data pertaining to natural persons and legal entities. On top of that, the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland ruled in 2010 that IP addresses are personal information and therefore cannot be used to track internet usage without the knowledge of the individuals involved.

Performance

VyprVPN delivers excellent performance in terms of speed and connection stability.

In our testing, we found that latencies can occur for some servers depending on how far away they are. But this didn't affect the general experience.

Bottom Line

VyprVPN offers all the features one would expect of a good VPN provider. It allows unlimited torrenting and access to popular geo-blocked streaming services, all accompanied by high speeds, sturdy security mechanisms and confirmed dedication to your privacy.

Our main issues with VyprVPN were the lack of a clear money-back guarantee, short free trial period and a somewhat limited standard plan.

If that doesn’t bother you, VyprVPN is a solid VPN choice with comforting Swiss roots.

Image Credits: VyprVPN

MORE: All Security Reviews

MORE: All Security Content

TunnelBear is a VPN provider based in Toronto, Canada and owned by cybersecurity giant McAfee, which acquired it in March 2018. The provider was established over seven years ago and has over 25 million users worldwide.

The VPN employs all the classic industry mechanisms aimed at protecting its users anonymity, in addition to proving its qualities through independent audits. But streamers and those with a lot of devices should look elsewhere.

TunnelBear Specs

Pricing

TunnelBear has a very limited free account that allows only 500MB of Internet traffic per month. For comparison, consider that Windscribe’s free plan offers 10GB.

As far as premium options go, there are only two: the 1-month or 1-year option for $9.99 and $4.99 per month, respectively.

*Free and Build A Plan (Windscribe only) options not shown

For payment, the provider accepts three major credit cards (MasterCard, Visa and American Express) and Bitcoin, although the latter is only accepted for the 1-year plan.

If you are not satisfied with the service for any reason, you can claim a refund within 30 days of your initial purchase. There’s no free trial for the paid version.

Features

TunnelBear has servers in about 20 locations around the world.

Clients are available for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, in addition to limited support and instructions for Linux. That’s as far as device support goes. The service cannot be installed on any routers, e-readers, Windows mobile devices, gaming consoles, smart TVs or Raspberry Pi. Chrome, Firefox, and Opera web browsers, however, can be secured with TunnelBear browser extensions.

The provider doesn’t unblock Netflix and BBC iPlayer, but it facilitates access to geo-restricted content on YouTube.

All of TunnelBear’s servers are P2P-friendly, meaning you can share large files via torrenting clients without any limitations. However, some servers are better suited for such purposes than others, which is something the TunnelBear can help with.

This VPN service allows you to connect up to 5 devices at the same time. Most other VPN platforms can be enabled on certain routers, which then act as only one device and therefore enable unlimited connections. This is not the case with TunnelBear.

Support for any aspect of the service is available on the website’s help section, where you can find articles that cover the basics, troubleshooting, announcements and more, albeit with somewhat modest content. If you still have unresolved issues, you can contact customer service for assistance. They cannot be reached via live chat, but there’s an option that lets you to describe your issue, upload a screenshot and leave your email address. Someone from the team will respond via email.

Privacy

This VPN vendor offers security that’s as strong as a bear, thanks to the OpenVPN and IKEv2 protocols used randomly in Windows and Mac clients. If you’re connected via the OpenVPN transfer protocol, you can choose whether you want a TCP or UDP connection.

Encryption is provided using the 256-bit AES algorithm, in addition to SHA1-HMAC with 160-bit Secure Hash Algorithm data authentication. Another privacy mechanism employed by TunnelBear is the 2048 Diffie-Hellman ephemeral key exchange and 2048-bit RSA certificate.

It doesn’t have plenty of features, save for the standard kill switch and an Android-only split tunneling feature. The kill switch, called VigilantBear, shuts down all the Internet traffic on your device in the event of a sudden VPN connection termination, protecting your data from becoming exposed. Split tunneling, dubbed SplitBear, allows you to select which apps you want to run on the VPN and which you want to leave on the regular connection.

There’s also the optional GhostBear feature, which makes your VPN traffic less detectable on your network.

TunnelBear does not collect, store, or log any of sensitive data -- like IP addresses, DNS queries  or any information about the applications, services, or websites its users use -- while connected to the VPN. The company also doesn’t disclose any personal data to other commercial parties under any circumstance.

If words aren’t enough to prove to you that security is a top priority, TunnelBear is also among the first in the VPN industry to regularly publish independent audits.

Performance

In terms of performance, TunnelBear delivers pretty solid results.

We didn’t experience any significant delays in connection times, and the connection itself was stable and reliable. Download speeds occasionally suffered from some latency, depending on the server location; although this is expected.

Bottom Line

TunnelBear is a modest VPN provider with the standard VPN features, meager server coverage and limited platform support and pricing options.

It doesn’t unblock the popular streaming services but supports unlimited torrenting, and regular torrenters will appreciate the solid performance. Another positive is that the company publishes regular independent audits.

TunnelBear offers basic VPN capabilities that are sufficient for those who don’t care about streaming or connecting more than 5 devices and are more interested in keeping their online activities private.

Image Credits: TunnelBear

MORE: All Security Reviews

MORE: All Security Content

Windscribe is based in Ontario and was founded in March 2016. It’s available as both a free and a paid platform that blocks ads and trackers, restores access to blocked content and helps you protect your privacy, plus unlimited streaming and torrenting on a wide range of devices.

However, performance struggles if you don’t use the OpenVPN transfer protocol. Plus, paid users have a limited amount of time to decide if they like the VPN service before missing out on any potential refund.

Windscribe Specs

Pricing

The provider’s free plan offers a generous 10GB of monthly data traffic. You only need to sign up and download the app to use it. If you don’t provide your email address, you’re limited to 2GB. The free version also has 48 fewer server locations available than the pro version.

For the full service, there are two pricing options. You can either choose the 1-month billing option for $9 or the 1-year subscription that costs $4.08 per month.

*Free and Build A Plan options not shown

Windscribe also allows customization of subscription plans under the Build A Plan scheme. This system gives you the freedom to select only those locations you want for $1 a month per location. You need to choose at least two locations, and each selected location comes with an additional bonus 10GB of bandwidth.

The money-back guarantee is a lot shorter than what most other providers offer. Refunds are only issued up to three commercial days after payment and if you haven’t surpassed 10GB of traffic.

You can pay via American Express, Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, Paymentwall and Bitcoin.

Features

Windscribe currently offers servers in 110 cities across over 60 countries, 10 of which are available to free users.

The service has apps for Windows, iOS, Mac and Android devices, in addition to browser extensions covering Firefox, Chrome and Opera. It can be installed on a range of additional platforms, like Linux, Windows Phone, Kodi, Amazon Fire and routers. You don’t need to be an expert to do this; the website offers installation guides and all the necessary configuration files.

Interestingly, the desktop clients allow importing of custom OpenVPN configuration files from other providers, displaying those servers next to its own.

The provider’s browser extensions let you change your time zone to match that of your selected VPN location. It also allows for random rotation of the browser user agent to circumvent fingerprinting.

You can easily reach Netflix, thanks to Windscribe’s servers that are oriented to specific localized versions of Netflix (U.S., Canada, UK and Japan). Windscribe facilitates access to other similar streaming services and other kinds of geo-restricted content as well, except for the BBC iPlayer.

Torrenting is another service you’ll have unlimited access to, but only if you opt for a pro subscription.

Windscribe allows for an unlimited number of simultaneous connections per account.

The Windscribe website offers plenty of help if you get stuck with the platform. You can check out the support section or blog for guides, troubleshooting or FAQs, as well as for service updates and explanations.

If you can’t find the information needed in the online materials, you can reach out to the company’s customer support staff. They are available through the ticket filing system, live chat  and a subreddit. However, given the sheer volume of their user base and lack of team members, you might need to arm yourself with a little patience.

Privacy

Windscribe offers military-grade privacy protection with the help of multiple mechanisms. In its desktop apps, it utilizes AES-256 cipher with SHA512 authentication and a 4096-bit RSA key. The provider’s browser extensions use TLS 1.2, ECDHE-RSA with P-256 key exchange and AES-128-GCM algorithm.

The provider has its own version of a kill switch called a firewall. In the event of a sudden VPN connection termination, Windscribe’s firewall jumps in and shuts down the entire Internet connection on your device, keeping your sensitive data safe beyond the reach of prying eyes. The firewall mechanism then immediately reestablishes the VPN connection.

In a mission to protect your privacy, Windsribe employs two connection protocols - OpenVPN and IKEv2. The provider also limits IPv6 traffic and blocks ads, trackers, malware and any other web content you might want to block, like gambling and fake news. The blocker option is called R.O.B.E.R.T. (Remote Omnidirectional Badware Eliminating Robotic Tool) and is Windscribe’s proprietary DNS-based mechanism that can be customized to block specific content.

The company takes your privacy seriously, as confirmed in its privacy policy and no-logging explanation, which clearly state it won’t store any connection logs, session logs, IP timestamps, or monitor any kind of online activities. The provider has to have a system to limit free account usage and prevent abuse, which is why it keeps track of when you last used the service and how much data was transferred on a monthly basis.

Windscribe is also devoted to proving its privacy policy isn’t just a bunch of empty words. Once a year, it publishes a Transparency Report listing all the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a U.S. copyright law) and law enforcement data requests it received but couldn’t fulfill because it had no recorded data to give.

Performance

Windscribe’s performance can be less than ideal if you’re using the OpenVPN transfer protocol instead of the company’s default and recommended IKEv2. Our testing found the connection times here are a bit longer, and the download speeds can be slower than what is seen in some other VPN platforms. However, when you switch to IKEv2, the performance gets better and more on par with competing VPN services.

Bottom Line

Considering all it has to offer and its price, Windscribe is a top-notch VPN provider. It ticks all the boxes - Netflix and torrenting support, bullet-proof encryption, wide platform support and plenty of payment options.

The only issues are with the very short money-back guarantee and poor performance with OpenVPN protocol, but these are not things that the typical VPN user will find devastating.

Image Credits: Windscribe

MORE: All Security Reviews

MORE: All Security Content

StrongVPN launched in 1994 as a small PC retailer in South Lake Tahoe, California. Quickly enough, it switched to offering dial-up Internet services and then to providing dedicated servers and colocation services. Since then, it has expanded its network to more than 650 servers worldwide.

But while we saw good performance with StrongVPN, it lacks the variety of features and pricing options of other VPN services.

StrongVPN Specs

Pricing

Strong VPN doesn’t give you a lot of wiggle room when picking a subscription. There are only two plans: monthly and annual. The 1-month plan is $10, while the annual subscription price drops to $5.83 per month. If that’s too pricey for you, you can check the StrongVPN website for coupons.

*Free and Build A Plan options not shown

There are no free trials, but both plans are covered by an “unconditional” and “risk-free” 30-day money-back guarantee, which allows you to fully test the service and receive a refund if you request it within this period.

You can pay via major credit cards, as well as PayPal or AliPay.

Features

StrongVPN’s server coverage includes over 650 servers in 46 cities across the world, providing as many as 59,500 VPN IPs. The provider supports VPN connections on up to 12 devices at the same time, which is more than enough for a typical household or even a small office. There is even a possibility to gain unlimited connections by installing the service on select routers that support VPN.

Most VPN users want access to geo-restricted services and platforms, like Netflix, HBO and Pandora. However, StrongVPN doesn’t claim to unblock BBC iPlayer and trying to unblock it yields inconsistent results. Nevertheless, the VPN supports an extensive list of streaming services inaccessible in certain regions.

Additionally, StrongVPN offers fast and unlimited file sharing via torrenting clients.

The list of platforms supporting the installation and use of StrongVPN is lengthy. You can download the clients for Windows and Mac OS directly from the website. Downloading the Android, iOS, or Fire TV apps, takes you to their respective app stores. The manual setup guides are available for all of the above, as well as for specific routers and other platforms, including Linux, Windows Mobile, Kodi, Amazon Kindle and Chromium. If you want the service on your router but don’t want to go through the hassle of installing the software yourself, then buying a preloaded router might be a better option.

StrongVPN’s website offers in-depth articles on various topics concerning its services as well as industry updates on its blog. The help section is divided into three categories - setup guides, troubleshooting and FAQ. If the site fails to address your concerns, then the company’s customer support team is at your disposal 24/7 via live chat on the website or through email. To send them an email, you can either use your preferred email platform or fill out the contact form on the website. The provider also has phone support available Monday-Friday (9 a.m. - 5 p.m. CT, UTC-6).

Privacy

StrongVPN has all the typical VPN privacy features but not many extras. There’s the usual kill switch, an essential mechanism which activates in the event of a sudden VPN connection interruption, safeguarding your sensitive data from leaking, the standard list of connection protocols -- OpenVPN, IPSec, IKEv2, L2TP and SSTP -- as well as the strong AES-256-CBC encryption algorithm.

The company also has its own secure DNS system to which you can sign up separately from the entire VPN service if you only want a way to unblock geographically restricted media. While VPN encrypts all of your traffic, StrongDNS doesn’t re-route it through the company’s servers or change your IP address. Instead, it connects you directly to the streaming server, ensuring the best possible speed.

StrongVPN is a zero-logging provider, which means it doesn’t monitor or keep any logs about your online activities. However, there aren’t any more specific details about the no-logs policy readily available. It would be helpful if StrongVPN followed in the footsteps of some other providers, like TunnelBear, that open their proverbial doors to independent auditors and publish the results.

StrongVPN is also under the jurisdiction of the U.S., a country with a history of pushing tech companies to share user data. If you’re privacy-obsessed, take this into account.

Performance

StrongVPN’s performance justifies its name.

During our testing, we reached the highest speeds when connecting to the U.S. servers. However, other locations yielded results that were almost as good.

Bottom Line

Although it doesn’t have as many features as some of its competitors, StrongVPN still offers above-average performance for the most typical VPN use cases. It unblocks Netflix and some other geo-restricted services, and also allows torrenting with no bandwidth limitations. The company also allows simultaneous connections on an unusually high number of devices.

There are some privacy concerns related to the company’s location and lack of details on the no-logs policy, but considering all the positives, it’s worth checking out. Just don’t bank on streaming BBC iPlayer.

Image Credits: StrongVPN

MORE: All Security Reviews

MORE: All Security Content

Using a VPN is the best way to safeguard your sensitive data from nosy nellies and regimes, as well as to access services unavailable at your current location for whatever reason. This is why it is important to choose a service that will not only do this diligently but at an acceptable price as well. One such VPN provider is U.S.-based IPVanish.

Specifications

Pricing

IPVanish has three subscription options. The 1-month plan costs $10, the 3-month plan $8.99 per month, while the best deal is the 1-year plan with a price tag of $6.49 per month. The website has a page where you can find coupons to reduce the price by up to 57%, so make sure to check that out first.

If you are not yet ready to commit, there is a 7-day free trial, but only for Apple users on the iOS app.

For others who sign up via its website, IPVanish offers a 7-day, money-back guarantee instead. If you choose to cancel your subscription before the end of its seventh day and have used a refundable payment method, you are eligible for an automatic refund.

There aren’t many payment options. You can only choose between the major credit and debit cards and PayPal. No gift cards or digital currencies are accepted.

Features

IPVanish has over 40,000 shared IPs and more than 1,300 VPN servers scattered across more than 75 countries. It also owns and manages all of its servers, giving it better control over how those servers are run. However, if you wanted to access servers in Russia, Turkey, Indonesia, Argentina, Thailand, or China, you’re out of luck.

IPVanish’s intuitive apps can be installed on a wide array of devices and platforms. These include Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, as well as Fire TV, Windows Phone, Chromebook, and routers. If you get stuck with the installation, check out IPVanish’s setup guides page for help. IPVanish does not have browser extensions.

The Android and FireOS clients have a split-tunneling feature that lets you choose which apps you don’t want to use with IPVanish.

Although Netflix had previously blocked most of IPVanish’s servers, there is a strong possibility you would now be able to access this service, at least when it comes to U.S. Netflix. The availability changes all the time, but IPVanish staff can assist you by providing information on servers that currently support Netflix.

You can also try accessing many other streaming services, like BBC iPlayer, or even switch to torrenting, without any download restrictions on all servers. The website has tutorials on accessing both. IPVanish also unblocks Kodi content.

This VPN provider supports a large number of simultaneous connections - up to 10. This can cover your entire household, which is rather cost-effective.It’s also more than rivals like ExpressVPN and NordVPN offer (three and six, respectively).

If you need help navigating all these features, IPVanish not only has a comprehensive help section, but also a solid customer service system that you can access via email or live chat 24/7.

Privacy

IPVanish guarantees privacy and prevents ISP Deep Packet Inspection with the help of standard AES-256 encryption, along with IKEv2, PPTP, L2TP with IPSec, as well as OpenVPN TCP and UDP connection protocols. However, this provider goes beyond just letting you choose between protocols.

Specifically, it gives you more control over your OpenVPN setup by letting you choose your OpenVPN port (1194 or 443). A very detailed visual guide leads you through all the necessary steps. The “Obfuscate OpenVPN Traffic” is an option you can use to further reduce the risk of your VPN tunnel being discovered and/or blocked by governments.

IPVanish also has a SOCKS5 Proxy Server that basically enables an additional protocol that hides your IP address. It does not use the encryption of a regular VPN, guaranteeing higher speeds. This method is suitable for torrenting, as it both masks your identity and provides maximum download speeds.

IPVanish also comes with a kill switch, albeit only on the desktop clients. If you want to use the VPN service on your Android device, it is recommended that you set up your device’s own kill switch (System Settings > Wireless and Networks > More > VPN, choose VPN app, enable “Block connections without VPN”), which is now possible on most Android devices. However, this might not be an easy option for beginners, and there is no kill switch solution for iOS.

Although IPVanish says it sticks to a “strict zero-logs policy,” an incident from 2016 caused concern about these claims. IPVanish provided certain information on a user’s activities to the US Department of Homeland Security. This happened before the 2017 acquisition of Mudhook Media’s parent company by StackPath. Regardless, the fact that IPVanish still belongs to the U.S. jurisdiction is a drawback privacy-wise.

Performance

Upon testing, we discovered that IPVanish’s performance was pretty solid, with only one failed connection out of 100 connection attempts, which is a superb result.

Connection times and download speeds were also outstanding and among the fastest on the market. That said, some of the non-U.S. locations produced poorer, although still acceptable, results.

Bottom Line

IPVanish has a good deal of high-end features. A relatively high number of servers, wide platform support, strong performance and access to geo-restricted and P2P services make it one of the best VPN services on the market.

But its no-logs policy is rather questionable because it previously shared a user’s log with the U.S. government and the fact that it belongs to the U.S. jurisdiction.

But if you’re looking for a larger number of connections (up to 10 and some low rates, particularly for 1-year plans, IPVanish is worth consideration.

Image Credits: IPVanish

MORE: All Security Reviews

MORE: All Security Content

VPN protects your privacy online, so it’s important to choose a suitable VPN provider for your home or business. Panama-based NordVPN is one of the largest names in the VPN industry. The service features an array of features, as well as a decent number of connection devices and large number of payment options.

Specifications

Pricing

NordVPN is among the most affordable VPN services. It has lower monthly rates than ExpressVPN, but some of its plans are more expensive than IPVanish’s alternatives.

The 1-month plan costs $11.95 (about £9.20), and a 1-year plan is $6.99 (about £5.37) a month. The 2-year plan costs $3.99 (about £3.06) a month, while the 3-year option is the cheapest, at just $2.99 (around £2.30) monthly. All options are fully refundable within the first 30 days if you are not satisfied with the provider’s performance.

NordVPN supports a wide range of payment options, such as major credit cards, debit cards and cryptocurrencies. There’s also a hidden perk -- a 7-day free trial. However, starting the free trial automatically signs you up for a 1-month subscription, which begins after the trial ends. But you can cancel any time during those 7 days without being charged. If you want to switch to a different plan, you can also do so at any time during this period.

Features

NordVPN is envied for its impressive security guaranteed by the AES-256-GCM encryption algorithm, said to be more secure than AES-CBC, and an automatic kill switch that blocks all internet traffic in the event that your VPN connection suddenly drops. This helps prevent your data from leaking into the wrong hands.

In addition, NordVPN has a bushel of extra features that separate it from the crowd. One of them is Double VPN, which ensures your data passes through two separate VPN servers, adding another level of security.

Another valuable feature, CyberSec, blocks all annoying ads and suspicious websites, preventing malware or other cyber threats from infecting your device. CyberSec also protects your device from participation in DDoS attacks if it is already infected.

Onion Over VPN is a special feature that combines all the benefits of The Onion Router (Tor) open source software with the regular VPN tunnel, adding yet another layer of security and anonymity.

NordVPN’s platform supports two protocols: IKEv2/IPsec and OpenVPN. The new WireGuard protocol is in the testing phase. It aims to offer even better performance than the IPSec and OpenVPN tunneling protocols.

NordVPN software is available for Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, Android and Android TV. You can also secure your browsing with extensions for Chrome and Firefox. Installing the client is very easy, and if you run into any obstacles, there are over 50 tutorials to guide you through manual service setup on all available platforms, which includes Chrome OS, Raspberry Pi, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, routers and more.

If you want to set up NordVPN as a Socks 5 or browser proxy, the company provides tutorials for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer, uTorrent, BitTorrent, Vuze, Skype and Deluge.

Accessing geo-restricted services, like Netflix, BBC iPlayer and YouTube, is also a piece of cake for NordVPN and one of its best features. The SmartPlay feature enables safe streaming without the buffering, bandwidth throttling or slow connections.

Those wondering about torrenting will be pleased to know you can count on NordVPN to facilitate that service too. The P2P traffic is, in fact, available on select servers, and the website provides a tutorial on proper server selection.

One NordVPN account supports up to 6 simultaneous VPN connections. That’s better than the 3 ExpressVPN offers but less than IPVanish’s 10.

If that isn’t enough, you can set up your router with NordVPN to connect even more devices.

We had no bones to pick with NordVPN’s customer support either. In addition to the help center and tutorials, the company’s customer support is available 24/7 via live chat and email.

Privacy

NordVPN comes with a standard no-logs policy, promising not to track, collect, or share your private data. This policy was confirmed in a public audit conducted by Price Waterhouse Cooper. Moreover, NordVPN is registered in Panama and owned by a local holding company called Tefincom S.A., which provides legal protection from investigation.

Performance

Although our first tests recorded a number of connection failures, the connection speed itself proved to be consistent with minimal latency. That said, download speeds would sometimes drop for servers in some of the more distant countries.

In addition, the Onion Over VPN feature slowed down the service, but this is the price you pay for additional security.

Bottom Line

Although we suffered some minor issues with connectivity, NordVPN nevertheless outperforms most of the other products on the market in terms of privacy, server count and unlocked services.

It’s also cheaper than competing VPN service ExpressVPN while offering twice as many simultaneous connections, although others, like IPVanish, can support more.

IPVanish also has a pricing advantage if you’re buying a 1-month or 1-year plan. But with its highly respected encryption algorithm and automatic kill switch, NordVPN is a viable option for privacy seekers.

Image Credits: NordVPN

MORE: All Security Reviews

MORE: All Security Content

Hotspot Shield is the flagship product of AnchorFree, an Internet privacy and security company founded in 2005 in the U.S. AnchorFree started out as a free sponsored Wi-Fi hotspot provider before focusing on developing software for a wider audience. This includes Hotspot Shield, a VPN platform with user base of over 650 million in 200 countries.

Hotspot Shield is a good choice for accessing geo-restricted content and sharing large files via P2P and torrenting clients due to its superb performance. Moreover, the clients are simple, clean and easy to use, even for beginners. However, certain privacy-related incidents and the provider’s location make it less than ideal choice if your main concern is anonymity. Also, the lack of router support makes the entire service more limited than other platforms.

Hotspot Shield Specs

Pricing

Hotspot Shield is available in both a free and premium version.

The free version can be installed right from the product’s website, but, as expected, it has some disadvantages that might make you want to sign up for a paid subscription. The free version is ad-sponsored, you can only connect one device at a time and it features a smaller number of servers than the paid one. Furthermore, it has a bandwidth cap of 500MB per day.

The premium version is ad-free, lets you connect up to 5 devices, features more server locations and has no daily bandwidth limitations. It has three pricing options. The 1-month option is $12.99. The more affordable 1-year plan is $5.99 a month, while the 3-year one costs $2.99 per month.

If you would rather test out all the features and perks that the premium version offers before paying, you can do so during a 7-day free trial. You do have to sign up for a subscription, but you can cancel it during the first 7 days without being charged.

If you’re less than satisfied with any part of Hotspot Shield’s service, you can ask for a refund, thanks to a generous 45-day money-back guarantee.

The VPN provider accepts credit cards, PayPal, gift cards, Neosurf, Alipay, Mint and additional options, depending on your location.

Features

Hotspot Shield provides access to more than 2,500 servers in 25 countries, with virtual locations available in as many as 70 countries. That said, this number depends on the platform you’re using. The iOS app boasts the highest server count, which isn’t saying much if you’re a PC user.

The Hotspot Shield apps are very easy to use, but are only compatible with a limited number of platforms. You can only use it with Windows, Mac, iOS and Android devices. Unlike most other VPN services we’ve reviewed, Hotspot Shield doesn’t cover additional devices, like routers, e-readers, smart TVs, game consoles, Fire OS, Linux, Windows Phone, Chromecast or Raspberry Pi. However, browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox are available.

Hotspot Shield enables super fast streaming of some popular geo-restricted services, like Netflix and Hulu, as well as supporting unlimited torrenting on all of its servers.

Hotspot Shield has a large help section on its website with articles about various VPN and internet-related topics that can also be reached via clients. You can reach customer support agents by filing a ticket or through the live chat if you’re a premium user. However, the live chat option is not always available (Hotspot Shield hides the button when no agents are available).

Privacy

Hotspot Shield doesn’t feature the usual list of connection protocols utilized by most VPN providers, like OpenVPN or IKEv2. Instead, it deploys its own technology, Catapult Hydra, which uses AES-128 encryption, 2048-bit RSA certificates, Transport Layer Security 1.2 (TLS), as well as the Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (EDCHE) for exchanging keys, creating new keys with each session.

Your sensitive data is protected in case of a sudden VPN connection breakdown, thanks to a kill switch. It immediately blocks all internet traffic in such an event. The kill switch isn’t available on Hotspot Shield’s mobile apps.

Hotspot Shield’s no logs policy states that the VPN service doesn’t collect any data, including IP addresses and online activities, that can be traced back to you. However, the company and its service providers monitor and store some data before connecting to the VPN, such as your mobile ID, device model, operating system and network information. Your real IP address may be used for analytics and marketing reasons.

That said, Hotspot Shield has been the subject of some controversy regarding the truthfulness of its no logging claims. Specifically, in 2017 Android Authority cited the Center for Democracy & Technology from Washington D.C. as finding that Hotspot Shield had been tracking its users’ behavior and sharing their browsing activity with targeted advertisers.

On top of that, in 2018, a security researcher found a vulnerability that leaked portions of user information, including their Wi-Fi network name and current country of location. Hotspot Shield admitted to the existence of the flaw and said it resolved the issue.

Another fact to bear in mind privacy-wise is the provider’s country of registration. Being in the U.S. carries potential privacy risks considering the federal government’s history of pushing for access to citizen data.

Performance

Hotspot Shield boasts top-notch speeds and performance, making it a great VPN platform for streaming geo-blocked content or torrenting.

During our testing, speeds remain unchanged regardless of the server location or content we tried to reach.

Bottom Line

Hotspot Shield offers a strong platform for torrenting and access to geo-blocked services, but Hotspot Shield is not the ideal VPN provider if your primary concern is privacy and anonymity, due to its past incidents around privacy and security and its U.S.-based location.

On the other hand, Hotspot Shield offers excellent speeds while browsing. Plus, users with minimal requirements can make good use of the free version.

Image Credit: Hotspot Shield

MORE: All Security Reviews

MORE: All Security Content

Based in the British Virgin Islands, the Surfshark VPN service is not as well-known as some of its high-profile rivals. But with an interesting lineup of unique features, it’s worth taking a closer look at, unless you’re looking for something to use on a monthly basis.

Surfshark Specs

Pricing

Surfshark offers three different pricing plans. All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

The first and the most expensive one is the 1-month plan for $11.95. The second-best is the 1-year subscription, which costs $5.99 per month, while the most cost-effective is the 2-year option at $3.49 monthly. Overall, the service is cheaper than competitor ExpressVPN although IPVanish has the advantage in monthly plans and flexibility.

As of this writing, when visiting the sign-up page for Surfshark for the first time, you’re immediately met with a coupon that reduces the price of the 2-year plan to just $1.99 per month.

In terms of payment methods, Surfshark accepts credit cards, PayPal, Google Pay and even some cryptocurrencies through CoinGate and CoinPayments provider.

To test the service out, you have to sign up for a subscription, since the company doesn’t offer a free trial. However, Surfshark says it can issue a full refund within 30 days of payment, “even if you’re 100% satisfied.”

Features

Surfshark has over 800 servers placed in over 50 countries across the globe. Unlike most other VPN providers, including the more expensive ones, Surfshark puts no limits on the number of devices you can put under its VPN protection simultaneously.

Torrenting and access to geo-restricted services, like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and BBC iPlayer, are among this VPN’s top qualities. If you also need access to specific services and websites while in countries with strict censorship mechanisms in place, the NoBorders mode makes this easier for you. It provides unlimited access to Facebook, Instagram, VoIP apps and more anywhere in the world.

Surfshark also boasts features most other providers don’t have, such as the MultiHop option, which supports connection to multiple locations at once for additional anonymity.

Another unusual privacy feature is Camouflage mode, used for tricking all potential snoopers and third parties (including even your own ISP) into believing you’re not using a VPN service.

This VPN service can be set up on a wide selection of devices, including Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and even smart TVs and some gaming consoles. Chrome and Firefox are covered with Surfshark browser extensions.

In addition to an outstanding blog and help section offering resources and assistance on a wide range of topics, Surfshark also has an excellent customer support team available 24/7. You can contact them by accessing the live chat option in the lower right corner of the website or by filling in the contact form to reach them via email.

Privacy

Surfshark’s privacy features include all the classics - a kill switch, an AES-256-GCM encryption algorithm, as well as IKEv2/IPSec and OpenVPN protocols.

The kill switch can be activated if there’s an unexpected VPN connection drop, protecting all your sensitive data from outsiders by blocking all internet traffic on your device. It uses two connection protocol combinations: IKEv2/IPSec is available by default, but you can switch to OpenVPN if preferred.

The company also has zero-knowledge DNS on all its servers, which acts as an additional mechanism protecting your privacy. Speaking of DNS, the provider also employs its DNS leak protection technology when using IPv4 stack.

The Whitelister feature basically does what other providers call split-tunneling - it lets you choose which apps and websites can stay on your regular internet connection, while the rest is covered by the VPN.

Surfshark’s no logs policy lists all the usuals - no logging of the IP address, browsing history, connection timestamps, network traffic, session information or the amount of bandwidth used. No one in the company will even know whether you’re using their apps or not. The provider doesn’t hide the fact that it does collect certain, non-sensitive information necessary for the creation of your account, like your email address and encrypted password, basic billing information and order history.

The British Virgin Islands doesn’t have laws requiring organizations to keep any data, which is one less thing to be concerned about with your VPN.

Although Surfshark’s no-logs policy is yet to be fully verified, the security features of Surfshark’s extensions for Chrome and Firefox underwent an audit by Cure53, which it passed with flying colors.

Performance

Surfshark’s performance is in line with most VPN providers on the market.

The connection times, download speeds and latencies are within the standard range. During our testing, we experienced no connection failures whatsoever.

Bottom Line

Surfshark isn’t as flashy as some other VPN providers but offers a robust security and anonymity platform for all your VPN requirements. It supports unlimited torrenting and access to popular geo-limited services, with some interesting privacy features not seen with its competitors.

While its pricing plans are limited, it’s still cheaper than others, including ExpressVPN, while allowing for more simultaneous connections.

If you’re planning on connecting a lot of devices and are looking to save some cash while doing so, Surfshark is a good fit.

Image Credits: Surfshark

MORE: All Security Reviews

MORE: All Security Content

VPN remains the most popular and reliable way for maintaining your privacy online. One of the most popular VPN platforms is ExpressVPN. It’s a strong and nicely designed tool that truly stands out from the crowd with a wide range of features, top-notch security and a large number of servers.

Specifications

Pricing

ExpressVPN offers a 7-day trial period to test its services on mobile apps but does not have a free trial for other devices. However, it does have a no-questions-asked, 30-day money back guarantee.

As for pricing plans, it has three:

These prices are a bit on the high side in comparison to other VPN services. For example, NordVPN’s one-month plan is $11.95, IPVanish’s is $10 and Windscribe’s is $9 a month.

Features

ExpressVPN has over 2,000 servers in 160 cities across 94 countries. Some of the locations covered include countries in South America, Africa and the Middle East that you won't find on the node lists of many other VPN services. ExpressVPN also has effective means of bypassing VPN restrictions in countries such as China and the United Arab Emirates.

You can select your preferred server or opt for the Smart Location feature, which automatically connects you to the server nearest to your current location.

Privacy is guaranteed with a 4096 SHA-512 RSA certificate (for server and client authentication in SSH connections), along with strong AES-256-CBC encryption and HMAC (Hash Message Authentication Code) protection against regular data alteration. Users can select one of the four protocol variations: OpenVPN/UDP, OpenVPN TCP, L2TP-IPSec and PPTP. There is also a default Automatic setting, which allows ExpressVPN to choose the most appropriate protocol for your network.

In addition, ExpressVPN has a few extra features to sweeten the deal. One of them is a Network Lock (essentially a kill switch) that keeps your data secure from leaking by terminating all traffic in case of a sudden VPN connection interruption. The integrated kill switch is also present in ExpressVPN mobile apps.

The second interesting feature is split-tunneling, which allows some of your apps to run on a normal internet connection while maintaining the VPN connection for others.

Furthermore, ExpressVPN provides DNS leak protection and even runs its own 256-bit encrypted DNS on each of its servers for an additional layer of protection.

This robust service supports a comprehensive list of platforms, including Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux and more, accompanied by custom firmware for routers and manual setup walkthroughs for Apple TV, Fire TV Stick, PlayStation and others. It also has a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox.

ExpressVPN is a great choice when trying to access geo-restricted services, such as Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime, Spotify, YouTube and Hulu. Additionally, the provider supports torrents with no limitations on bandwidth or data usage.

Although ExpressVPN allows 5 simultaneous connections per account, this limitation can be bypassed via the router support, which allows you to connect as many devices as you want. Setting up VPN on your router will automatically protect all your devices. You will not be going against any of ExpressVPN’s policies by doing this.

In case you run into any problems when using the service, support is available via 24/7 live chat and email. That is in case the vast troubleshooting section fails to address your issues.

ExpressVPN has a strict no-logs policy. That means it It does not keep any kind of logs that can be used to identify you, such as traffic data, IP address, VPN IP address, connection times and DNS queries.

That said, it does collect information such as dates (but not times) when you connected to the service, the total amount of data transferred per day, which apps were successfully activated and which VPN server locations you used. In ExpressVPN’s Policy Towards Logs page, the company states that it only uses this very limited amount of information to help tweak performance.

“None of the above data enable ExpressVPN or anyone else to match an individual to specific network activity or behavior. We are unable to answer questions related to data that we do not possess, such as how a customer has utilized our VPN service,” the page reads.

Performance

After intensive testing from locations in the U.S. and UK, we were left very satisfied.

Connection times were pretty consistent, with servers connecting within 2 to 5 seconds. As expected, latency depended on the proximity of the server location, as well as the infrastructure that is less than ideal in some places. In general, the latency did not affect our browsing experience, and there were virtually no issues with servers in close locations.

Bottom Line

ExpressVPN continues to uphold its status as a worthy contender for the VPN throne. With a wide range of handy features, including user-friendly software for almost any platform and geo-restricted service, sturdy security, an honest privacy policy and professional assistance available at all times, this provider offers everything you need for safe internet activities.

Of course, ExpressVPN is a paid-for service. If you’re not willing to pay for VPN, Windscribe VPN is currently our favorite free VPN service. However, download times can be slow, and mobile devices will miss their own client software.

But if you can overcome 5-connection limitation (without router support), then ExpressVPN is a splendid choice.

Image Credits: ExpressVPN

MORE: All Security Reviews

MORE: All Security Content

Russia's attempts to censor and surveil its citizens by cracking down on Internet services is extending into the VPN realm. Russian news agency Interfax recently reported that Roskomnadzor, the country's media and communications regulator, plans to block access to nine VPN services "within a month" for failing to comply with its demands.

Roskomnadzor reportedly told 10 popular VPN providers in March that it would block them from Russia unless they started to follow local regulations. That would require the services to prevent their users from accessing the Russian government's list of banned websites, effectively removing one of the easiest ways to bypass the country's internet censorship. Only one of the providers--Kaspersky Secure Connection--agreed to the regulator's demands.

The other providers contacted by Roskomnadzor include popular services like OpenVPN, NordVPN, four others with VPN in their names, IPVanish, TorGuard and Hide My Ass. Most were explicit in their refusal to comply with the regulator's demands, assuring their users that they weren't interested in perpetuating the Russian government's censorship. TorGuard wiped its servers in Moscow and St. Petersburg to reassure its users.

We don't yet know how successful Roskomnadzor will be in blocking access to these services. Most aren't located in Russia, which limits its ability to force the companies to do anything. But that doesn't mean it won't try, as it proved in April 2018, when it banned millions of IP addresses to stop banned services from using "domain fronting" to evade its censors, (which helped lead Google and Amazon to ban domain fronting on their platforms).

Russia has made it clear that it doesn't plan to ease the pressure on tech companies that limit its ability to control what its citizens access online. It asked Apple to block Telegram from the App Store in June 2018, for example, and recently pressured Facebook to store information on Russian users inside the country. Regulators were also believed to be working with Google to remove links to banned websites and services from its search results.

Soon Kaspersky Secure Connection may be the only major VPN service Russians can legally use. That's probably not a good look for the Moscow-headquartered cybersecurity firm, which moved from Russia to Switzerland to ease international concerns about its connections to the Kremlin. Nine of its counterparts refused to compromise their commitment to fighting censorship. What does Kaspersky being the outlier imply about the vendor and how it views its customers?

NordVPN, a highly rated VPN provider known for its privacy features, today launched the NordLocker file encryption tool.

The company's goal with NordLocker was to create a security utility that uses strong and modern encryption while remaining easy and pleasant to use by anyone, regardless of their tech skills.The tool encrypts the user’s files locally, so NordVPN itself can’t view what’s inside them, even as they are stored on the company’s servers.

NordLocker’s encryption algorithms include Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256) and 4096-bit RSA. The company also claimed to use a “zero-knowledge encryption process” so that there is no revealing or privacy-breaching metadata about the files being encrypted. Users will also be able to share their encrypted files with others while securely managing the access permissions.

Protecting Our Files in the Digital Age

NordVPN seems to believe that the more digital our lives become, the more interested we'll be in better protecting that data. It’s not just photos of ourselves or what we eat that we upload online these days -- it could also be credit card numbers, medical files, sensitive work documents, IDs, and so on.

If we truly care about protecting those files, we’ll also have to try to be more diligent with how we upload our data and who gets to access it. It’s not just about trusting cloud service companies not to sell our data to the highest bidder anymore, but also about trusting them to keep that data secure against hackers. Even the richest or most technologically advanced companies sometimes fail at this.

Encrypting files with our own local tools and encryption keys before they ever touch someone else’s server may be the best way to ensure the files remain both private and secure. Tools such as NordLocker or its competitors Cryptomator, Boxcryptor, Tresorit, Spideroak and others may not serve a huge market yet, but they may pave the way for the future.

Those who are interested in trying out NordLocker can sign up for an early access invitation today. The public beta will be available later this summer.

Time to Get Tactical

Patriot's latest SSD comes with a powerful and proven design from Phison, an impressive heatsink, and write endurance to handle any task. The Viper VPN100 is ready for some of the most intense gaming or work sessions you can throw its way, and the aggressive heatsink keeps the drive cool while it delivers speeds up to 3.45/3.20 GB/s. Better yet, Patriot's pricing still undercuts other top-end competitors to make the Viper VPN100 a sweet value.

The Viper VPN100 is based on Phison’s reference design for SSDs with the E12 NVMe controller. The SSD comes paired with Toshiba’s BiCS3 64L TLC flash, so performance is close to other E12-powered SSDs we’ve taken a look at already, like the BPX Pro and Aorus RGB. Similar to the Aorus RGB, the VPN100 features an impressive heatsink but lacks the RGB shine. Instead, Patriot takes a more tactical approach to the design.

In contrast to the Aorus RGB’s blingy appearance, the VPN100 has a matte black aluminum heatsink with multiple fins and cuts. It’s more about cooling performance than looks here, though it might be attractive to FPS players as it does look strikingly similar to the actual tactical rail on a military weapon. And, if the big heatsink isn’t enough, the Viper VPN100 features an external thermal sensor to provide accurate thermal data to keep it, as the company states, “cool and healthy.”

Specifications

The Viper VPN100 comes in capacities ranging from 256GB to 2TB, but the 2TB variant isn't available yet. The 256GB model retails for $0.21 per GB, and the 512 and 1TB variants are a bit cheaper at $0.17 per GB, which is fairly competitive.

The drive delivers speeds of up to 3.45/3.2 GB/s of read/write throughput. Patriot also lists the Viper VPN100’s random read and write performance as up to 700K IOPS, but that is either based on a test system that isn’t patched with the Spectre and Meltdown mitigations, or just overzealous marketing.

In addition to its blisteringly fast speeds, the drive comes with a plentiful helping of write endurance up to 3.1 petabytes at the 2TB capacity. But while the endurance is class-leading, the warranty is not. While most established SSDs come with lengthy five-year warranties, the VPN100 comes with just a three-year warranty.

The Viper supports standard features like Trim, S.M.A.R.T. data monitoring, and Secure Erase.

Software and Accessories

Patriot enables product monitoring and firmware updates through its SSD Toolbox. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, it’s a bit hard to find on the company's website. In fact, it is actually mislabeled as a firmware download on the product page. If you manage to get the download, the SSD Toolbox will allow you to monitor the device’s S.M.A.R.T. data and update the firmware.

Additionally, you can Secure Erase the SSD even when it is in use as the active operating system drive. Be careful: The software will allow you to execute the command while the OS is running on the device. Once you execute the command, there’s no going back. The system will blue screen once the command goes through, and all the data will be lost forever. That's good for James Bond-type missions, we guess.

A Closer Look

Patriot’s Viper VPN100 comes in an M.2 2280 form factor and uses a PCIe 3.0 x4 link and the NVMe 1.3 protocol to communicate with the host. As we mentioned earlier, the drive features a Phison’s latest E12 NVMe controller and Toshiba BiCS3 64L TLC flash.

Our 1TB sample has four flash packages, two on each side of the PCB, and unlike the BPX Pro, the VPN100 doesn’t have much factory overprovisioning. That leads to an extra ~60GB of storage capacity after you format the drive in Windows. The drive also has two 512GB DDR4 DRAM packages for a total of 1GB for caching the device’s file translation layer.

Measuring in at 12mm at its thickest point, the heatsink is a bit thicker than the Gigabyte Aorus RGB’s and WD Black SN750’s. There are no clearance issues for graphics cards and other AICs when it is plugged into an onboard M.2 slot. The heatsink is bigger, but we found that the heatsink doesn’t fully touch the surface of the NVMe controller on our sample. Instead, the thicker NAND packages created a slight gap between the heatsink and the controller. While it may seem like a crucial mistake, temperatures mostly ranged within the 40’s while using the device, which is more than acceptable. 

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

1TB Performance Results

Comparison Products

Our comparison products represent many of the most popular options on the market. For starters, we pit the Viper VPN100 against the all-mighty Samsung 970 Pro and EVO Plus, as well as WD’s newly revised Black SN750. We also threw in the SMI 2262EN-powered HP SSD EX950 and Adata XPG SX8200 Pro. The lineup wouldn’t be complete without MyDigitalSSD’s BPX Pro with updated 12.1 firmware and Intel’s SSD 660p.

Trace Testing – PCMark 8 Storage Test 2.0

PCMark 8 is a trace-based benchmark that uses Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield 3 to measure the performance of storage devices in real-world scenarios.

Samsung’s 970 Pro took the win as the fastest flash-based product on our charts, followed by the Silicon Motion-powered SX8200 Pro and EX950. Patriot’s Viper VPN100 came in behind the 970 EVO Plus, taking sixth place overall.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

The Final Fantasy XIV StormBlood benchmark is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

The Viper's game load times weren’t at the top of our charts. To the contrary, it ranked last in our comparison pool of flash SSDs and was even beat by Intel’s QLC 660p. But, at 22 seconds vs. 20 seconds, the total load time wasn’t far off from some of the best. That’s not to mention it was over 30% faster than an archaic HDD.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with our own custom 50GB block of data. Our data set includes 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos. We copy the files to a new folder and then follow up with a read test of a newly-written 6 GB file.

Moving files around on the Viper VPN100 went quickly. While you would think that the extra over-provisioning from the BPX Pro would give it the lead over the Viper VPN100, we can see that wasn't the case without the burdens of a heavy enterprise-class workload. With an average of 292MB/s, it essentially tied the BPX Pro and was significantly faster than a SATA SSD or HDD. The Viper ranked eighth overall during the 50GB copy test, and second in read performance.

SYSmark 2014 SE

Like PCMark, SYSmark uses real applications to measure system performance. SYSmark takes things much further, however. It utilizes fourteen different applications to run real workloads with real data sets to measure how overall system performance impacts the user experience. BAPCo's SYSmark 2014 SE installs a full suite of applications for its tests, which includes Microsoft Office, Google Chrome, Corel WinZip, several Adobe software applications, and GIMP. That also makes it a great test to measure the amount of time it takes to install widely-used programs after you install a fresh operating system.

The Viper installed SYSmark in 14 minutes and 51 seconds, the same as Intel’s Optane 905P, which was quite impressive.

ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. It also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

The Viper VPN100 delivered impressive results, but it just wasn’t as impressive as some other drives. Following a similar performance result as the BPX Pro, the Viper's read and write performance hit the rated target speeds of 3.45/3.00 GB/s of read/write throughput in ATTO. But it took a hit along the way. At the 128KB file size, write performance dropped before it improved to its rated specification.

CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark (CDM) is a simple and easy to use file size benchmarking tool.

Sequential performance came in at 3.47/3.05 GB/s read/write at a queue depth (QD) of 32. Scaling our workload down to a more realistic QD1 revealed performance wasn’t quite as good, but competitive nonetheless. At QD1 the Patriot Viper VPN100 delivered ~2.1/2 GB/s of sequential read/write throughput.

At QD1 the Viper delivered over 13,000/43,000 read/write IOPS, but this wasn’t as impressive as some of its competition. Pushing harder to a QD of 64 unlocked 380,000/~500,000 random read/write IOPS. The BPX Pro's overprovisioning seemed to give it a slight advantage in both reads and writes, but overall, the Viper VPN100 is far more capable than any SATA SSD.

Sustained Sequential Write Performance

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSD makers implement an SLC cache buffer, which is a fast area of SLC-programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the SLC cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We hammer the SSDs with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the SLC buffer and performance after the buffer is saturated.

Like all Phison E12-powered SSDs, the Viper VPN100 has an SLC cache that absorbs inbound writes. While the Viper is rated for up to 3 GB/s of write throughput, we found that it is limited to a cache capacity of about 24GB (the same as the BPX Pro). Once the cache is full, the controller pushes any remaining inbound data directly to the die, causing performance to drop to roughly ~1075 MB/s until the drive is completely full.

Power Consumption

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is a very important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a new drive for your laptop. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state faster, which ultimately saves power.

At idle the Viper consumed a little under half a watt with ASPM disabled and sipped just 48mW with the feature enabled. The drive maxed out at 5W during our 50GB copy test and averaged 2.66W. Putting that together with our transfer speed data, we see that the Viper VPN100 is fairly efficient–more so than the Samsung 970 series and BPX Pro.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

Conclusion

We were surprised to see the slight mating issue with the Viper's heatsink. With the NAND packages being slightly thicker than the controller package, there was a slight gap left between the controller and the heatsink on our 1TB sample. While not a deal breaker, it isn't optimal because heat still radiates out from the NAND. It also isn't the attention to detail we like to see.

The design actually keeps the NAND cooler than the controller, which is the opposite of what you want to happen: NAND prefers higher temperatures during operation. If anything, the controller should have a thermal pad between it and the heatsink, as this is the most critical component to cool.

Furthermore, unlike the Gigabyte Aorus RGB, the Viper VPN100’s PCB is blue rather than black, and the heatsink isn’t easily removed. Patriot bonded the heatsink to the PCB via a very strong adhesive, so removing it may leave you with a broken SSD. In contrast, the Aorus RGB SSD allows you to swap the heatsink to either side of the PCB by removing and replacing two small screws. That allows the drive to work in M.2 slots on both the left and the right side of the motherboard.

Who wants to buy an item for looks if it is going to sit upside down in the M.2 socket? These are small details, but they are vital to creating a more attractive and user-friendly device.

While the heatsink still looks great on its own, we’re a bit disappointed with the lack of RGB. There was a missed opportunity here to match the Viper RGB RAM and to make the Viper VPN100 an even cooler buy. Sure, many of the anti-RGB union will be delighted with this revelation, but there are many out there who enjoy the accent of a well-made RGB product. An aura of illumination throughout the slits of the heatsink, in my eyes, would have been the cherry on top.

On a more positive note, Patriot’s Viper VPN100 is still a really good value. As an NVMe SSD, it’s classed with many competitors that are priced significantly higher than SATA drives, but the VPN100 is closer to SATA pricing than most of its competition. It isn’t a chart-topper, but it is pretty efficient and can keep up with some of the best NVMe SSDs at times. The Viper certainly has what it takes to put both hard drives and SATA SSDs to shame.

Speaking of best, the Viper VPN100 does feature one of the best endurance ratings for a consumer SSD. With a rating of just over 1.6PB of endurance, our 1TB sample is bound to outlast even some of the most demanding consumer and workstation workloads. Whether you have a content-driven workflow where you are constantly working with large media files or you game at a competitive level, or even if you just sit around and watch cats of the internet all day, the VPN100 will keep on chugging. It really is a good value option.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

On the footsteps of the company’s launch of the private DNS service with the 1.1.1.1 IP address, Cloudflare today announced the launch of the free Warp VPN service that it claimed will not only keep your data private, but also make your internet connections faster.

What Is Cloudflare Warp?

Warp is Cloudflare’s first attempt at building a VPN service that anyone, even non-technical people, can use through the company’s 1.1.1.1 mobile application, launched in November, last year.

Warp promises not just an easy-to-use interface free of the clunkiness of most other VPN clients, but also a level of performance and security that the vast majority of VPN services don’t have.

For starters, Warp uses the much more modern Wireguard protocol, not OpenVPN. WireGuard has only 4,000 lines of code, was written in the memory safe Rust programming language (among other implementations) and uses fast and secure modern encryption algorithms. In contrast, OpenVPN combined with OpenSSL has a total of over 600,000 lines of code. That means WireGuard has a much smaller attack surface and is also easier and quicker to audit.

WireGuard is not the only reason why Warp is fast compared to other VPN services. Cloudflare, which offers content network delivery services, DDoS mitigation services and other similar services, is in a good spot to offer fast connectivity to many websites whose content Cloudflare may already be caching near you.

Beyond the Advertising Model

Cloudflare noted that most VPN services that are free also tend to sell your data. Cloudflare promised never to do that. It aims to pay for the free service via its premium “Warp+” subscription plan that users can buy to gain access to an even faster private Cloudflare infrastructure, plus other features. The company said the monthly cost will be low but hasn’t announced it yet.

The Warp VPN service is not yet available for use but should be soon, Cloudflare said. The company announced today in order so the news would land exactly one year after it launched its private DNS service, but it will take a little longer to finish developing it. However, you can sign-up to be notified about Warp’s availability within the 1.1.1.1 mobile app.

Mozilla this week announced a partnership with ProtonVPN, the virtual private network (VPN) service offered by the same company behind ProtonMail, the popular end-to-end encrypted email service.

What Is A VPN Service?

The company said that many of its users have consistently asked for a solution to protect their privacy on public networks such as those offered in cafes and airports.  A VPN is a secure tunnel through which your internet traffic passes. It’s most useful when the vites you visit don’t use HTTPS encryption.

Sometimes, even HTTPS encryption is not enough if an attacker can interpose themselves between you and the site you intend to visit as a “man-in-the-middle.” An HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) server policy can protect against that, but most websites don’t yet make use of it. A VPN obviates the need for either HTTPS or HSTS.

Mozilla will start offering the ProtonVPN service for $10 a month (the “Plus” version of the ProtonVPN service) starting with October 24. The majority of the revenue from the subscriptions will go to Mozilla, while the rest will go to ProtonVPN to pay for the operating costs of the service.

Mozilla to Offer ProtonVPN in Firefox

Mozilla said that over the next few months it will run an experiment in which it will offer the ProtonVPN service to a small group of Firefox users. These users would have to sign-up for a $10 per month ProtonVPN subscription and then download the application for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, or Android. The VPN software can be disabled and enabled at will and the subscription can also be cancelled at any time.

Offering a VPN service seems to be a synergistic move for Mozilla, in the sense that it both furthers the company’s privacy focus and it also provides it with an alternative revenue source. Mozilla makes it money primarily from search services - in other words, from Google, which is also Mozilla’s primary competitor in the browser space. It makes sense for Mozilla to diversify its revenue sources, especially if the new sources don’t depend on advertising and tracking users.

Why Mozilla Chose ProtonVPN

Mozilla said that its security team considered a “long list of market-leading VPN services. Our team looked closely at a wide variety of factors, ranging from the design and implementation of each VPN service and its accompanying software, to the security of the vendor’s own network and internal systems. We examined each vendors’ privacy and data retention policies to ensure they logged as little user data as possible." Mozilla also considered other factors, such as track record, transparency and quality of support, it said. 

At the end of this evaluation, Mozilla selected ProtonVPN, which is operated from Switzerland, a country with strong privacy laws, is operated by a well known privacy-focused company, and also has an easy-to-use interface.

Cisco's revelation of the VPNFilter malware-slash-botnet in May was scary enough. The company said at the time that VPNFilter affected more than 500,000 devices that could be used to gather information, misdirect investigations of cyber attacks, or cut off hundreds of thousands of people's internet access. Now the company has released new research showing that VPNFilter is more widespread--and dangerous--than expected.

The first discovery showed that VPNFilter wasn't limited to select products from Linksys, Netgear, TP-Link, and MikroTik. Instead, Cisco said in a blog post that devices from Asus, D-Link, Huawei, Ubiquiti, UPVEL, and ZTE have also fallen victim to VPNFilter. More products from the original batch of manufacturers were also found to be affected by the malware. These discoveries mean VPNFilter has more potential victims than originally thought.

Cisco also discovered that VPNFilter has additional capabilities beyond the ones it outlined in the announcement of the malware. The company said:

"We have also discovered a new stage 3 module that injects malicious content into web traffic as it passes through a network device. At the time of our initial posting, we did not have all of the information regarding the suspected stage 3 modules. The new module allows the actor to deliver exploits to endpoints via a man-in-the-middle capability (e.g. they can intercept network traffic and inject malicious code into it without the user's knowledge). With this new finding, we can confirm that the threat goes beyond what the actor could do on the network device itself, and extends the threat into the networks that a compromised network device supports."

Another module is designed to allow other modules that didn't previously include a "kill" command to completely disable the device they've infected. Cisco said this module also removes all traces of VPNFilter before rendering the compromised device unusable, which means someone could activate the malware and nobody would be any the wiser. They'd probably just assume the device in question "died" of natural causes.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced shortly after VPNFilter was revealed that the Department of Homeland Security and FBI had crippled the malware by seizing a domain used by its command-and-control infrastructure. Yet the new discoveries from Cisco drive home the fact that VPNFilter was wounded, not defeated, and that it poses a greater risk to an unknown number of devices from who-knows-how-many manufacturers.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it has disrupted the VPNFilter botnet revealed by Cisco's Talos Intelligence Group. After obtaining permission from Pennsylvania courts, the FBI seized a domain used by the botnet's command-and-control infrastructure, effectively crippling its ability to act on infected devices. Yet the Justice Department was careful to note that VPNFilter has been crippled, not slain outright.

Cisco said when it revealed VPNFilter that more than 500,000 devices in 54 countries--with a particular focus on Ukraine--had been compromised by the botnet. The malware targeted small and home office (SOHO) products from Linksys, Netgear, TP-Link, and MikroTik, as well as unidentified NAS devices. These products make particularly good targets because they're rarely protected by antivirus solutions and other security tools.

Targeting SOHO products and NAS devices also gives VPNFilter's operators plenty of options. Cisco said the malware could be used to collect information that passes through the infected devices, to conduct attacks that appeared to be conducted by their victims, and even to render the devices completely inoperable, which could in turn potentially disrupt the internet access of hundreds of thousands of people.

Cisco also said that it had noticed two spikes in VPNFilter activity in May (one on May 8, one on May 17) which is why the company decided to reveal the botnet's existence before finishing its research. It's no wonder, then, why the Justice Department announced that it was taking action to disrupt VPNFilter the same day it was revealed. VPNFilter isn't a potential problem; it's considered a real threat to national security.

Here's what the Justice Department said about its efforts to disrupt VPNFilter:

In order to identify infected devices and facilitate their remediation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania applied for and obtained court orders, authorizing the FBI to seize a domain that is part of the malware’s command-and-control infrastructure. This will redirect attempts by stage one of the malware to reinfect the device to an FBI-controlled server, which will capture the Internet Protocol (IP) address of infected devices, pursuant to legal process. A non-profit partner organization, The Shadowserver Foundation, will disseminate the IP addresses to those who can assist with remediating the VPNFilter botnet, including foreign CERTs and internet service providers (ISPs).

The Justice Department also advised anyone who owns SOHO or NAS products that may have been infected by VPNFilter to restart their devices. That should temporarily remove the second stage of the malware from the device, and even though the first stage will linger and attempt to reinstall the second stage, the FBI's seizure of the domain used by VPNFilter's command-and-control infrastructure should block those efforts.

VPNFilter Appears To Be The Work Of Russian Hackers

Cisco didn't attribute VPNFilter to any particular organization, but it did talk about what nation-state actors could do with the botnet, prompting fears that it was controlled by a government organization. The Justice Department went a step further and outright attributed VPNFilter to the Sofacy Group, which also goes by APT28, Fancy Bear, Pawn Storm, and other aliases and has been active since at least 2007.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security said in December 2016 that the Sofacy Group was connected to Russian intelligence services and government officials. Combine that with VPNFilter's apparent focus on Ukraine, where Russia currently holds a military presence, and the connection between this botnet and an organization with at least some loose ties to the Russian government becomes even clearer.

That doesn't mean other countries have nothing to fear from the botnet, however. Cisco said it had already found infected devices in 53 countries outside Ukraine, and the apparent targets (Linksys, Netgear, etc.) ship products around the world. Hence the Justice Department's swift response.

Cisco's Talos Intelligence Group revealed that new malware, which it dubbed VPNFilter, has infected at least 500,000 devices in 54 countries. The malware is said to target Linksys, Netgear, TP-Link, and MikroTik small and home office (SOHO) products as well as unidentified NAS devices. Activating the malware could render affected devices inoperable, which could, in turn, cut off hundreds of thousands of people's internet access.

VPNFilter is said to have steadily infected more and more devices since at least 2016. Cisco said the malware doesn't rely on any specific exploit--instead, it spreads by taking advantage of known vulnerabilities in each individual product. That's made possible at least partly because people neglect to update these devices' firmware, and because they're rarely covered by antivirus solutions and other consumer security tools.

Cisco said VPNFilter could be used for three major purposes: conducting attacks that are mistakenly attributed to the malware's victims; collecting information from devices connected to the affected products; and cutting off victims' access to the internet via the built-in "kill" command. None of these possibilities are particularly welcoming, but the last one, in particular, could be devastating if it's used on many devices.

Unfortunately, knowing about VPNFilter doesn't make it all that much easier to defend against it. Cisco explained in its blog post:

Defending against this threat is extremely difficult due to the nature of the affected devices. The majority of them are connected directly to the internet, with no security devices or services between them and the potential attackers. This challenge is augmented by the fact that most of the affected devices have publicly known vulnerabilities which are not convenient for the average user to patch. Additionally, most have no built-in anti-malware capabilities. These three facts together make this threat extremely hard to counter, resulting in extremely limited opportunities to interdict malware, remove vulnerabilities, or block threats.

It's important to note that Cisco published this report before it finished its research into VPNFilter. That's because the company detected a spike in the rate with which the malware was infecting new devices on May 8, with "almost all" of the newly infected devices being located in Ukraine. Another spike occurred on May 17. Cisco decided to reveal VPNFilter's existence before finishing its research because of these spikes.

A Big Problem Borne Of Many Small Ones

Remember that VPNFilter doesn't rely on new vulnerabilities in networking or NAS products. Instead, the malware spread by taking advantage of a bunch of known flaws that simply haven't been fixed, either because the product makers didn't fix them, or device owners didn't install them. The reason why doesn't matter--what matters is that VPNFilter provides another example of how small vulnerabilities can grow in importance.

This is why experts keep advising companies to stay on top of their products' security, telling consumers to stay up-to-date with security patches, and pleading with regulators to force action on these issues. VPNFilter poses a very real threat to hundreds of thousands of people, many of them in the already embattled Ukraine, and there isn't anything just one company will be able to do to address this threat. It takes a village.

Cisco said in its blog post:

While the threat to IoT devices is nothing new, the fact that these devices are being used by advanced nation-state actors to conduct cyber operations, which could potentially result in the destruction of the device, has greatly increased the urgency of dealing with this issue. We call on the entire security community to join us in aggressively countering this threat.

OpenVPN, an open source VPN client on which a majority of VPN services rely, will be audited by cryptography and network security professor Matthew Green. The audit will be funded by Private Internet Access (PIA), one of the major VPN service providers in the United States.

Rise Of VPN In Surveillance States

Although VPN services saw much of their growth from customers looking to bypass geo-blocking of certain video streaming services, the new growth should be fueled by people’s desire to protect their privacy. With all the recent surveillance laws appearing in democratic countries, VPN services seem to have become more important than ever.

However, before using such a service, one also has to trust that it can guarantee the privacy it offers. Not too long ago we learned, thanks in part to Edward’s Snowden’s revelations but also to Dr. Green and his colleagues’ research, that up to two thirds of VPN service providers were vulnerable to NSA interception. That was because of the weak default Diffie-Hellman (DH) primes used by many internet servers, including VPN services, and the Logjam attack, which could downgrade connections to using the weak DH prime.

This sort of attack was believed to have been used by the NSA, and potentially other nation states, to easily spy on VPN users.

Dr. Matthew Green’s Audit

To ensure that such situations are avoided in the future and that there is no backdoor in the popular OpenVPN client used by most VPN service providers, Dr. Green will audit the open source software.

Dr. Green has also led the TrueCrypt audit project, has participated in the creation of Zerocoin/Z-cash privacy-friendly cryptocurrencies, has done research on Apple’s flawed iMessage encryption, and has commented on many other encryption and security issues more recently, including Android Nougat’s storage encryption weaknesses.

Dr. Green will audit version 2.4 of OpenVPN, which is the latest iteration (and is still in beta at the moment). As soon as it exits beta, the audit will commence.

“The OpenVPN 2.4 audit is important for the entire community because OpenVPN is available on almost every platform and is used in many applications from consumer products such as Private Internet Access VPN to business software such as Cisco AnyConnect,” said Private Internet Access in a recent announcement.“Instead of going for a crowdfunded approach, Private Internet Access has elected to fund the entirety of the OpenVPN 2.4 audit ourselves because of the integral nature of OpenVPN to both the privacy community as a whole and our own company,” PIA added.

After the audit is complete, PIA will share the results with the OpenVPN project and will work with OpenVPN’s team to fix all the issues before making the results available to the public as well.

Opera announced that it added the SurfEasy VPN technology it bought last year into its browser, so now its users can benefit from a free out-of-the-box VPN service.

VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks, allow users to have a different IP address, either for privacy purposes or to avoid geo-blocking. Opera’s SurfEasy service supports IPs from Canada, the U.S. and Germany. VPNs also encrypt web connections, which can be useful when connecting to an open Wi-Fi network that could steal your passwords as you log in to unencrypted websites.

VPNs are also used to bypass various censorship mechanisms in certain countries, either to communicate with family abroad or to simply be able to read news articles that aren’t allowed in those countries. It can be a good way to bypass firewalls, as well.

According to the Global Web Index, people tend to use VPNs for the following main purposes:

To access better entertainment content (38%)To keep anonymity while browsing (30%)To access restricted networks and sites in my country (28%)To access restricted sites at work (27%)To communicate with friends/family abroad (24%)To access restricted news websites in my country (22%)

Most VPN services are paid, or if they are free, they come with significant limits on bandwidth or total traffic allowed per month. Opera plans to give everyone a VPN service that requires no subscription, is unlimited, and uses its browser out-of-the-box. This seems like a significant step forward in increasing web security and privacy in most case, for those that use the Opera browser.

However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all the other VPN services are now pointless. Opera makes its money through advertising and mining the data that goes through its servers. Meanwhile, there are other paid VPN providers out there that offer a “zero knowledge” service, where logs are deleted almost as soon as they are created for a higher level of privacy.

If Opera’s data-mining seems reasonable to you, then you can benefit from most of a VPN’s regular features for free. The new VPN feature is only available in the developer version, which can still be downloaded from the company’s website. However, if you’d rather get the stable version, then you’ll have to wait a few more months for it.

Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. 

Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

As you might imagine, mobile security has been a big theme here at Mobile World Congress this year. Many of the new products we saw were aimed at the enterprise. But Keezel, an Amsterdam-based company that first emerged on IndieGogo late last summer, was demonstrating the final version of its VPN hub for consumers.

For those who really want to keep their communications and web interactions private, or access the resources without restriction no matter where they are, there are many popular VPN service offerings. Sign up, pay your money, pick your server/geo, and away you go. But for those who don’t want to do that on their own, Keezel’s VPN hub aims to solves that problem and a couple more. 

[Note: With the help of many Tom’s Hardware readers, we’ve evaluated and chosen some of the best VPN services here.]

For $99, you get the slick-looking oval gadget, powered by a dual core ARM processor (using the V7 architecture) that has two wireless controllers. There's one to connect your devices over Wi-Fi (it uses WPA2 for security), and the other connects to one of three VPN services: PureVPN, Le VPN and ProXPN. We haven’t evaluated any of these services, but Keezel claimed that collectively, they have access to about 1,250 servers in over 160 countries.

That’s the basic premise. For one thing, then, it simplifies the VPN service part -- choosing one, signing up for one, and having to log into the service each time you want to connect (with The Keez you just connect). For another, it lets you log into the Keezel device rather than, say, a Starbucks hotspot. That’s notable because...well, privacy for one thing, but also, those hotspots tend to get saved on your device, or they could easily be hijacked by rogue hotspots, according to Keezel.

Other devices, like your Sonos system, your AppleTV, or your Chromecast, on which you can’t install VPN software, can connect to the Keezel.

Because it has a 7000 mAH battery, it should last up to 10 hours of solid use, but it also has enough juice to recharge a phone a couple of times over. The unit has a USB host port and a micro USB charging port.

The product ships this June. Although you can buy just the device for $99, it’s $109 for the device and a one year VPN service subscription, and there are two-year and lifetime pricing models, too.

Fritz Nelson is the Editor-In-Chief of Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Introduction

Based on open source software, AirVPN has a strong anti-censorship and pro-net neutrality stance and maintains security and anonymity as a top priority.

When we asked Tom’s Hardware readers to rate some of the top VPN choices, we weren’t expecting to see such a strong and positive response from AirVPN supporters. Although AirVPN did not receive the most ratings (PIA won with over 170 reader ratings), it was the top write in choice with 18 reader responses. The VPN service also had the most positive score with an average overall rating of 4.78 and no ratings below 4 stars, beating PIA at 4.39, TorGuard at 4.57, IPVanish at 4.45 and HMA at 4.07.

Overall, readers were most impressed with AirVPN’s reliability and speed, claiming solid connections and a good privacy and security policy. Several readers commented on the service's ease of use, proactive customer support and regular engagement with AirVPN’s community. Though many seemed to think AirPVN offers a good amount of servers and locations, one reader pointed out that most of the currently available servers are based in North America and Europe, with few or no options in Asia, Latin America and Australia. Also, a couple of responders commented on the lack of a DNS leak tool and poor documentation on how to fix DNS leaks.

Features & Specifications

AirVPN is the highest rated VPN service by our readers because of the company's commitment to using strong modern cryptography, its zero-knowledge privacy policy, open source clients, and ease of use. While other VPNs have been found vulnerable to LogJam and other DNS hijacking vulnerabilities, AirVPN users have always been protected against those types of attacks thanks to the team’s careful configuration of its security and its DNS leak protection features. AirVPN is also highly reliable and has no time, traffic or speed limit.

Supported Encryption

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: 
The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy ServiceMORE: 
Private Internet Access VPN Service Review
MORE: Hide My Ass! VPN Service ReviewMORE: IPVanish VPN Service ReviewMORE: TorGuard VPN Service ReviewMORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Interface & Setup

AirVPN offers an open-source client under the GPL license for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. After you log in to the app, you're given the choice to connect to a recommended random server in the Overview tab or select one from the Servers tab at the top of the application.

In the Servers tab, you can order the servers by Country, Score, Location (city), Latency, Load or Users, which makes it easy to select exactly the kind of server you want. Then you can double-click on one of them.

Next to the Servers tab, there's a Countries tab as well, where you can whitelist or blacklist certain countries. This can be useful, for instance, if you never want to (randomly) connect to a server in some of those countries. Most are from Europe, a few from Asia, and of course North America (U.S. and Canada). Right now, AirVPN doesn't seem to have servers in the Middle East, Central or South America.

There is also a Speed tab, where you can see a real-time graph of how much bandwidth you're getting at any given time, a Stats tab and a Logs tab, which shows what kind of actions AirVPN is taking in your PC.

In the top-left corner, when you click on the AirVPN name, you also get a menu with links that seem to open only in Internet Explorer, as well as a Preferences option, where you can further customize your connection settings.

One strong point in AirVPN's care for security is that, even though the recent LogJam paper said up to 66 percent of VPN services could be affected by the vulnerability, AirVPN said that it was never affected by this issue. The company has been using 2048-bit DH primes since its birth in 2010. Then it switched to 4096-bit primes in 2014. It also didn't use the same default primes millions of other sites and services used, which made them most vulnerable to LogJam. Therefore, AirVPN has always been safe against both of the security issues reported in the LogJam paper: using a default prime or one of a small size (under 2048-bit). AirVPN even uses a different 4096-bit for each of its servers.

Another recent paper exposed some security vulnerabilities that could allow DNS hijacking and IPv6 address-leaking by VPN services. AirVPN claimed it wasn't vulnerable to DNS hijacking because the vulnerability only affected an older version of OpenVPN (2.0.9), which the company had already stopped supporting. For those who want to avoid IPv6 address-leaking, the quickest way to do it with AirVPN is to "Activate Network Lock" with a single click. The Network Lock mode also blocks network connections that don't go through AirVPN's secure tunnel (whether you're connected to a server or not) to ensure no other data leaks. 

Although not directly related to its VPN service's security, AirVPN's website gets an A+ on Qualys' SSL Labs test, which once again shows the company's commitment to using best-in-class cryptographic protocols. Users would probably be less likely to trust a VPN service that doesn't even use HTTPS for its website, for instance, which is why care for such things matters. Plus, information that identifies users could also be gathered by attackers from those who visit an unencrypted or poorly encrypted VPN website, thus weakening the service's promise of privacy.

AirVPN offers a choice of 17 countries and more than 100 servers, which makes it easier to hide your IP and location. The VPN service also changes your DNS server to DNS servers from other countries so that the domain names you visit aren't resolved by your local ISP, which could help identify you. AirVPN supports the OpenNIC DNS servers, which are part of a project that aims to circumvent censorship and protect people's privacy. Additionally, AirVPN doesn't keep any logs of its users' traffic, so nobody can later hack into its servers or request the logs because the company doesn't have them in the first place. 

AirVPN has also taken a strong anti-censorship stance, especially when it comes to what the company considers abusive domain seizures from the past few years by the U.S. ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) division of the Department of Homeland Security. The VPN service allows all types of protocols, including P2P protocols. It also helps its users get around geo-location bans imposed by some Web services. The circumventing of geo-location restrictions is a major reason why many people use VPN services, so this comes as no surprise. If some ISPs try to disrupt the OpenVPN connections, users of AirVPN could connect over SSH or SSL, which means those ISPs won't be able to differentiate VPN traffic from regular browser traffic.

Test Results

*Source/target combos are comparable to the five other VPN services we've reviewed.

We connected to one of AirVPN's servers in its home town of Alblasserdam, Netherlands, and then pointed Speedtest.net to a location in Alblasserdam as well to test the maximum speed and minimum latency. Speedtest showed a 37.60 Mb/s download speed, a 33.47 Mb/s upload speed and a ping of 48ms, which was close enough to the one shown on AirVPNs Servers window of 45ms.

We then did a London-to-London test by choosing the usual TreudlerGroup's server. This resulted in a 25.50 Mb/s download speed, a 27.90 Mb/s upload speed and a 63ms ping, which was higher than the 50ms ping shown in AirVPN.

Selecting the Phoenix (U.S. West Coast) server in AirVPN and then the same London server on Speedtest.net resulted in a 4.42 Mb/s download speed, 8.67 Mb/s upload speed and a 362ms ping.

Choosing the Miami server in AirVPN with the same London target in Speedtest.net showed a download speed of 4.54 Mb/s, an upload speed of 9.91 Mb/s and a ping of 284ms.

When we reversed roles and went with the London location in the AirVPN client and then selected Hood River, Oregon (U.S. West Coast), the download and upload bandwidth, as well as the latency, improved greatly to 23.05 Mb/s, 18.28 Mb/s and 204ms, respectively. The numbers from London to Miami are even better at 28.88 Mb/s download speed, 35.28 Mb/s upload speed and only a 160ms ping.

Finally, with the AirVPN client connected to Phoenix and with the Hoover River, Oregon (U.S. West Coast) server selected on Speedtest.net, we can see a download speed of 6.20 Mb/s, an upload speed of 2.05 Mb/s and a ping of 257ms.

The reason the download and upload speeds are so much lower and the latency so much higher when testing the American servers is because the test was done within Europe. Therefore, the links to the U.S. show significantly worse throughput and latency compared with the tests done with European servers (for both AirVPN and Speedtest.net). Users in North American that connect to the U.S. AirVPN servers should see much better download/upload speeds and latency (similar to those seen within Europe). However, when connecting to a European AirVPN server before routing back the U.S., the speeds should decrease and the latency should increase because of the traveled distance.

AirVPN looks like a solid VPN service, especially if what you care most about is security and privacy. The latency between U.S. and Europe is not that great, so you probably shouldn't game competitively over the VPN service, but for browsing the Web or watching streaming video (which is usually buffered before it starts anyway), it should work quite well.

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: 
The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy ServiceMORE: 
VPN Services in the Forums

Five-Star Reader Ratings

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: 
The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy ServiceMORE: 
VPN Services in the Forums

Four-Star Reader Ratings

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: 
The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy ServiceMORE: 
VPN Services in the Forums

Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware, covering News.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

TorGuard Review And Reader Ratings

Torguard presents us with a dilemma. On the one hand, with an average reader rating of 4.57, it had the highest score out of the four VPN services we have evaluated thus far. On the other hand, with 14 votes, it had the lowest reader "turnout" of the four. When juxtaposed with the 170 responses PIA received (with a score of 4.39), that 4.57 hardly looks stable. Even compared with the 4.45 score of IPVanish, which got 29 votes, it looks a little dangerous. So please bear that in mind.

The reader ratings and comments appear verbatim at the bottom of this page.

We're presenting all 14 reader responses at the end of this page. Most readers lauded the connection speeds, server location choices, ease of setup and support. The negative comments were sparse, with too many readers saying "nothing," which makes us just a little suspicious. Most of the true issues readers brought up were one-off complaints.

Features And Specifications

Supported Encryption

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service


MORE: Hide My Ass! VPN Service ReviewMORE: IPVanish VPN Service ReviewMORE: Private Internet Access VPN Service Review

MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Interface And Setup

TorGuard doesn’t veer too far from the norm. Like PIA, TorGuard offers a very simple client, although you can only disconnect TorGuard via the system tray rather than select your VPN target region. The service spans 43 countries and “thousands” of IP addresses, promising “unlimited VPN speeds and bandwidth.” Well...we’ll see.

TorGuard supports all of the usual OSes along with DD-WRT and Tomato router scripts with its own clients. You can also download a modified version of the Viscosity OpenVPN client if you prefer deeper control and traffic data. Along with OpenVPN, TorGuard supports PPTP, L2TP, SSTP, IPSec, SSH Tunnel and other connection options. Interestingly, the company accepts over 80 payment options, including PayPal, Bitcoin, WebMoney and even oddities like Subway gift cards. TorGuard emphatically denies storing any logs, time stamps or anything else that might sacrifice a user’s identity.

As you peruse TorGuard’s list of available VPN servers, you’ll note two symbols that pop up next to some, but not all, systems. The first is a BitTorrent icon. Obviously, torrents chew through an unfair share of bandwidth, so TorGuard specifically calls out which VPN servers are better suited to this application. Also, you’ll note a different icon that looks like a sonar readout. TorGuard refers to this as Stealth. Here’s how the company describes it:

“TorGuard has engineered special ‘Stealth’ connections that are guaranteed to bypass Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) firewalls and provide ‘invisible’ VPN access anywhere in the world. Stealth VPN options are provided to all clients at no additional charge and can be accessed by selecting a Stealth enabled server option on the TorGuard lite app. Access the web in countries like China, Iran, UAE, or behind strict corporate wifi networks. Unlike normal VPN traffic which can be filtered or blocked by an ISP, TorGuard Stealth VPN service will appear as regular HTTP traffic making it virtually impossible to block. This VPN service connection also features increased encryption protocols making it the most secure VPN experience possible, worldwide.”

Test Results

During our testing, TorGuard, like IPVanish, pulled the Istanbul/Cyprus switcheroo on us (when we selected Istanbul, it used Cyprus), but the service lacks an Israeli location (this was our fallback with IPVanish). The closest we could get was Cairo. As you’ll see in the following numbers, the Cairo results were lackluster at best. Whether that’s because of TorGuard’s choice in partners, the local infrastructure conditions, or other factors is open to debate. Conversely, we were pleased to see TorGuard’s Phoenix location also bust through our download ceiling at one point, like PIA's did. Apparently, Phoenix is the place to go for fast Internet.

Overall, TorGuard lags behind IPVanish by a bit, and it clearly trails Private Internet Access, especially after considering the latter's annual pricing discount. Global coverage is fair, and we do like the Stealth feature. TorGuard does not advertise allowing more than one connection at a time. If you want more, you can dig into the Upgrade/Downgrade page within your online account management and pay $1 for every additional simultaneous feed. Additional Viscosity licenses cost $2 each, and a dedicated IP runs $7.99.

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Five-Star Reader Ratings

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Four-Star Reader Ratings

Three-Star Reader Ratings

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Private Internet Access Review And Reader Ratings

We asked readers to rate and provide commentary on 30 VPN services. PIA received, by far, the most reader ratings (170) from the Tom's Hardware audience. Its overall average rating was 4.39, which put it in second place. Given its popularity among our readers, and the fact that it scored less than .2 lower than TorGuard, it's probably a pretty good choice. In fact, the best choice.

Because we had so much reader feedback, however, we took careful pains to select the commentary that we deemed most helpful (see bottom of page). Readers really offered some good insights and some cautions. Verbatim reader ratings and comments appear at the bottom of this page.

Overall readers seemed to collectively think PIA was easy to use, had phenomenal speed, and a good price. Many readers commented on the breadth of client support, and the company's stance on privacy. On the down side, many readers commented on connectivity issues -- that it sometimes failed to connect, that it doesn't connect on reboot, that it randomly disconnects (and ungracefully at that). Also there were a few pleas for more countries supported, a complaint we didn't hear about the other services.

Features And Specifications

PIA (Private Internet Access) is blazing fast according to our testing and reader experience. But it stands out in many significant areas, including client support, its barebones setup, its encryption options, the lack of logging and its excellent price. Readers did complain about a variety of connectivity issues, and asked PIA to support more countries.

Supported Encryption

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service


MORE: Hide My Ass! VPN Service ReviewMORE: IPVanish VPN Service Review


MORE: TorGuard VPN Service ReviewMORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Interface And Setup

PIA might instantly grab your attention with its payment methods advertised on its home page. Unlike most other services, PIA accepts anonymous gift cards. Did somebody give you a Best Buy or Walmart card for your birthday? Psshhh! You don’t need more junk from them! Give yourself the gift of privacy -- anonymously -- from card sources ranging from Adidas to Williams-Sonoma. You can also procure a PIA “gift card” for someone, who then obtains PIA subscription time upon entering the card’s code.

Like other services, PIA offers Windows, Mac OS X, Android, iOS, Ubuntu and other device installers. We installed the Windows client, but it is not the pretty, many-tabbed toy that HMA! or IPVanish provides. Rather, it’s just a stripped-down settings window you can view in either Simple or Advanced modes. The former merely prompts for your username, password, start-up options and which of PIA’s 21 server regions you wish to connect with. The Advanced view adds pull-down menus for encryption, authentication and handshake methods, along with the note that PIA recommends you use the default settings (AES-128 / SHA1 / RSA-2048). It’s completely bare. No maps, nada. You have to check the system tray just to see if the PIA icon is green or red (active or not), although this icon also gives you a quick way to select from the full list of regional server locations.

PIA advertises a “massive network with 2091+ gateways” across “13+ countries.” It also claims to have “the most anonymous VPN service,” presumably thanks to its numerous encryption options and lack of logging. Like HMA!, PIA also supports port forwarding and disconnect protection, although we did not see a way to have PIA automatically and periodically change IP addresses. We do appreciate that PIA allows for five simultaneous devices. Especially at PIA’s prices, that’s pretty generous.

Test Results

While testing PIA's London location and selecting our usual London server, hosted by TreudlerGroup U.K., that server vanished from Speedtest.net's options for a few minutes. In that time, we selected a different London server, hosted by Namesco. This yielded a bizarre 180ms ping, 4.02 Mb/s download and 6.70 Mb/s upload. Aside from the strangeness of this exceeding our home ISP’s 5 Mb/s upload limit, the download number is half of what TreudlerGroup's server delivered minutes later — more proof that being able to select your server matters. If your VPN provider won't let you choose your server, at least make sure that they’ve got the performance to indicate that their auto-sensing processes are doing the job you want.

We got lucky in that PIA offers a Seattle location. The rest of the West Coast is a bit less specific. It turned out that our selection of "US California" actually pegged to San Jose, and "US West" mapped to Phoenix. Bingo -- a match for comparison to IPVanish. We scored again with PIA's Israel region, although our IP indicated a Haifa location rather than Tel Aviv, but that's close enough.

As for performance, the numbers speak for themselves. PIA blows HMA! and IPVanish out of the water. In particular, we remain baffled by how the Phoenix region can deliver downloads over twice as fast as our FiOS performance ceiling through that FiOS connection. That is some serious VPN wizardry right there. Overall, PIA about doubles the overseas performance of IPVanish, which, combined with PIA's pricing, lays IPVanish's claims of being the best deal around to rest. IPVanish is good, but not PIA good. For this, we can live without a snazzy client interface.

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Five-Star Reader Ratings

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Four-Star Reader Ratings

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Three-Star Reader Ratings

Two-Star Reader Ratings

One-Star Reader Ratings

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

William Van Winkle is a Senior Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Introduction

Readers rated almost 30 VPN service providers. IPVanish had the third-highest response rate, with 29 readers weighing in, and it finished in third place with a stellar average rating of 4.45. Actual reader ratings, along with verbatim comments, are provided at the bottom of this page.

IPVanish got high praise for how easy it is to use, and the number of server locations. Time and again, readers said things like "it just works." On the downside, there were several readers grumbling about client issues on various OSes, but nothing consistent. However, other readers pointed out a lack of encryption offerings. At the bottom of the page are a smattering of representative responses, accompanied by your ratings; we've tried to provide the responses that offer the greatest variety of experience, reflect the high score received, and also things that might be helpful before purchasing IPVanish.

Features And Specifications

Supported Encryption

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: Hide My Ass! VPN Service Review
MORE: Private Internet Access VPN Service Review

MORE: TorGuard VPN Service ReviewMORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Interface And Setup

IPVanish’s product slick isn’t shy. “IPVanish is the only true tier-1 VPN service in the world,” it trumpets. “We deliver the best VPN speeds, the most secure connections, and the most competitive pricing anywhere.”

Well, we’re not sure exactly what constitutes a “tier-1 VPN,” and let’s ignore that there are free alternatives and cheaper subscription services, including Private Internet Access (below). With pricing pennies away from that of HMA!, IPVanish covers the gamut on client compatibility: Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Ubuntu, router installation and even Chromebook. Yes, we’d say IPVanish’s UI is just a pinch friendlier than HMA!’s, even though it lacks some of HMA!’s sweet speed diagnostics. It’s a close call, but we do like that within the Server Selection page, you can sort with By Use, List and Map tabs. The By Use option is a bit simplistic: You can select either “Fastest Server” or “Media and Gaming” for the U.S., U.K. or Canadian regions. But sure, if you want a shortcut that avoids sorting through ping times or map dragging, there you go.

All told, IPVanish boasts over 140 VPN servers across 76 cities in 61 countries. This accounts for over 14,000 IP addresses. The company allows you to have two simultaneous VPN connections and offers your choice of OpenVPN, PPTP and L2TP protocols. Also note that IPVanish comes with 24x7 human support and a seven-day money-back guarantee. The company reports that they perform no user activity monitoring or logging.

Test Results

When we selected any of IPVanish’s three Seattle servers, Speedtest.net reported us as being right around Cocoa, FL, just east of Orlando. Clearly, there can be a difference between the server you select and the IP address you receive. We substituted the next closest location, San Jose, CA, and observed the same thing. When we moved off the coast into Phoenix, AZ, though, Speedtest matched our expectations. London similarly matched server and IP locations with no issues. The closest IPVanish server to Syria is in Israel, which we thought might have an unfair infrastructure advantage. Thus we took a hop westward to Istanbul, Turkey. Once again, while Whatismyip.com correctly placed us in Instanbul, Speedtest.net believed we were working from the island of Cyprus. Ugh. As download speeds from Instanbul/Cyprus were terrible — well under 1 Mb/s — we switched to Tel Aviv, which detected correctly and provided better numbers. (Torguard had the same Istanbul/Cyprus issue.)

IPVanish's Israel server trounces HMA's Syrian system, and while we're hard pressed for apples to apples comparisons, we'd say that IPVanish's flagship West Coast site in Vancouver trails HMA!'s downloads out of Seattle -- and that's with Seattle not being HMA's choicest option. On the other hand, IPVanish's London site outperforms HMA!'s. The moral of the story may well be that you need to try the server(s) in the location of your choice before picking a service. However, IPVanish does switch between servers faster than HMA!.

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Five-Star Reader Ratings

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Four-Star Reader Ratings

Three-Star Reader Ratings

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy ServiceMORE: VPN Services in the Forums

William Van Winkle is a Senior Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Introduction

We asked readers who were VPN service customers to rate the services they have used. Those responses yielded a handful of top-notch providers, HMA! among them. HMA! received the second-highest number of reader responses at 45, but it finished in fourth place with an average rating of 4.07. That's a bit harsh, given the quality of that score but at some point we have to line 'em all up in order. You can read the verbatim reader comments and accompanying ratings at the bottom of this page.

Readers generally gave HMA! high marks for ease of use, customer service and -- a response we saw quite often -- the number of server locations. On the negative side, speed was the most often-cited knocks on HMA!. While some readers thought HMA! was easy, a small handful didn't; while some marked it down for its lack of speed, others thought the speed was more than adequate. There were a few comments about the cost of the service as well -- generally unfavorable comments. Below (at the bottom of the page) we've provided a smattering of representative responses, accompanied by reader ratings; we've tried to provide the responses that offer the greatest variety of experience, and also things that might be helpful before plunging ahead with HMA!.

Features And Specifications

Supported Encryption

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy ServiceMORE: IPVanish VPN Service ReviewMORE: Private Internet Access VPN Service Review


MORE: TorGuard VPN Service ReviewMORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Interface And Setup

While HMA! offers instructions on its software download page for running manual VPN setups, you’ll likely want to grab one or more of its various clients, available in Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android versions. The Windows version we evaluated proved remarkably intuitive and easy to navigate, plus HMA! throws in some eye candy with a handy global map of available VPN servers. And what a list -- 620 VPN servers across 75 countries as of this writing, comprising over 77,000 available IP addresses. A little over half of these are located in the U.S.

During our performance testing, we at first relied on the application's Speed Guide tab. This uses your native IP location to list the geographically closest HMA! servers to you. We strongly recommend using this tool. When we first began using HMA!, we thought the choice of best-performing server would be obvious: the closest one, which, in our case, was Portland (LOC1). The software’s Express Test revealed — and further testing proved — that this was far from the best option. Portland LOC1 traffic was barely able to drag itself the 19km back to our location. Seattle proved several times faster, and Vancouver, British Columbia, was faster yet. The Speed Guide polls all HMA! VPN servers, so don’t be shy about testing any of them regardless of proximity.

Also, if you happen to pick on a server loaded at over 30 percent more than other servers in that city, you’ll receive a load balancing warning asking if you’d like to connect to the least loaded server instead. Nice.

Other pleasant perks in the HMA! Pro VPN app include the ability to randomly change IP address according to a timed interval you choose as well as “Secure IP Bind,” which forces applications to only work when under the protection of HMA!’s encryption. This way, if there’s an unexpected disconnect from a VPN server, applications won’t be trying to reconnect while using an unencrypted feed. You also have the ability to bind only individual applications, such as a browser or torrent client.

In an effort to keep things simple, HMA!’s drop-downs only offer two security protocols: OpenVPN and PPTP.  If you’re not picky, keeping the other cipher concerns hidden and handled should be no problem.

Test Results

Discussing specific performance of this or that VPN service is tricky, because results are dependent on the server chosen and general Internet conditions at the time. We tested over a Frontier FiOS connection, which guarantees and reliably delivers 15 Mb/s down and 5 Mb/s up to our home office. Obviously, there are faster services available, including from Frontier, but this suffices for a comparison.

When we ran with no VPN enabled and let Speedtest.net select the best nearby test target, we fetched an 18ms ping, 15.40 Mb/s download and 5.57 Mb/s upload. This is right against the ceiling that Frontier clamps over our account.

To illustrate what a difference a slow VPN server will make, we connected to the ill-advised Portland LOC1 and tested a server in nearby Hood River, Oregon, roughly 80 miles away.

This yielded a ping of 33ms, a downlink of 8.48 Mb/s, and a 0.15 Mb/s uplink.

From there, we had HMA! VPN into the Seattle, WA LOC1 and retest the same Hood River server.

Our ping climbed to 41ms, but downloading jumped to 13.25 Mb/s and uploading to 3.67 Mb/s. Clearly, that’s not too shabby. Yes, you take a little performance hit, but for most applications, including streaming content, the results will be acceptable if you mind your server numbers before connecting.

What if you want to VPN from overseas? We experimented with this in ways, but a couple of examples will suffice. We connected to the London LOC2 VPN server and the Ad Darah, Syria server. In both cases, we had Speedtest.net select its best, closest target and then our Hood River, OR server using OpenVPN protocol. All of this together yielded the following:

As you can see from the charts above, when you keep your VPN server and the remote server you're accessing close to home, the impact is fairly light. Once we hop across the pond, though, throughput tumbles. Of course, there will be plenty of times when losing most of your bandwidth in exchange for privacy and protection is a fair trade. Just set your expectations accordingly.

HMA! is one of the costlier services available, but its user-friendly interface, very accessible and thorough support, and global server distribution make this one of our favorite VPN options.

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Five-Star Reader Ratings

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Four-Star Reader Ratings

MORE: Best VPN Services Of 2015MORE: The Pros And Cons Of Using A VPN Or Proxy Service
MORE: VPN Services in the Forums

Three-Star Reader Ratings