VyprVPN is a VPN service provider by Golden Frog LTD. The company is located in Switzerland where personal data is strictly protected. That enables VyprVPN to be a privacy-friendly solution for VPN users.
Furthermore, VyprVPN has so many claims on its website such as being the fastest, true no-log provider, the best solution for gaming, etc… Yet, are those true?
In our VyprVPN review, we will buy the service, install it on our devices, and see how it performs along with all those assertive statements.
Pricing and refund policy
VyprVPN used to have only two plans with an expensive pricing policy. However, as the VPN market is booming and pricing becomes more competitive, VyprVPN has changed its plans and pricing policy.
Currently, the company offers three different plans:
- 1 Month plan: 12.95$/month
- 12 Months plan: 3.75$/month
- 24 months plan: 2.50$/month (%80 off)
The pricing policy looks fair and competitive when compared to other players in the market.
First of all, there is a huge discount on the 12 months plan and it does not force you to choose the 24 months plan, either.
Secondly, with the new pricing, VyprVPN becomes one of the cheapest, yet quality VPN providers in the market. It seems that competition does favor the customer.
So! If you made your mind up to the plan, we can make the payment now.
VyprVPN accepts payments through these third parties:
- Visa
- Amex
- MasterCard
- Union Pay and
- PayPal
While these services highly available in many countries, unfortunately, VyprVPN does not have a dynamic payment solution depending on the customer location. Furthermore, it does not support Google Pay, Apple Pay, or CryptoCurrencies.
Lastly, the prices you see on the plans are final and you are not required to pay taxes.
What if you are not happy with the service?
Well then, all you need to do is ask for a full refund within 30 days. No matter which plan you have, you will receive your money back asap. However, in order to be eligible for the refund, you must not violate VyprVPN terms of service.
VyprVPN compatible apps
Now that we have a VyprVPN account, it is the right time to download compatible apps for our devices.
As of now, I do have Macbook Pro and Realme Pro 6 Android devices to test this service out. Before jumping into my own experience, let us see what types of platforms VyprVPN supports.
- PCs: Windows, macOS
- Smart devices: Android, iOS, iPad; Android TV; Blackphone
- Browsers: N/A
- Others: Routers, QNAP, Anonabox, Boxee,
As seen above, VyprVPN offers a variety of apps to install automatically. Yet, as for the routers, QNAP, and Boxee, you are required to take manual action.
Please visit VyprVPN’s app page and download the compatible one for your device.
I did so and below you can see my Macbook Pro experience…
Keeping up with the minimal trend, VyprVPN has a super neat PC app. Contrary to its previous versions, VyprVPN has shrunk both in size and features. Such an alteration in the software brought not only user-friendliness but also meant less complexity for the users.
The main connection menu helps you connect to the chosen location with a single click.
On the right, we have a “Search” bar where you can find the coveted VPN connection. However, the search bar is not sticky on the scroll that you have to swipe up to the top to use it again.
You can also sort the locations by country, region, or speed. That way, server categorization will be less confusing.
Last but not least, there is a “Customize” menu where you can tweak VPN settings such as:
- Block malicious sites: You can block websites trying to inject infections into your devices.
- Connection per app: You can limit VPN connection to specific apps.
- Kill Switch: In case, you lose the VPN connection, VyprVPN will cease your online traffic to prevent possible leaks.
- Protocols: You can choose from four different protocols.
- DNS: You can use your own DNS servers to prevent IP/DNS leaks.
Similar to the PC software, VyprVPN offers the same features on its mobile devices as well. However, on mobile, you cannot block malicious websites.
Overall, it is amazing to see VyprVPN adopting minimal design and bringing us user-friendly apps. Still, there is some space for improvement. I am excitedly looking forward to seeing ads/cookie blockers both on PC and mobile apps. Additionally, the company should make the search bar sticky on the scroll for easier navigation.
Privacy policy and encryption technologies
Privacy takes the lead as a number one concern when using a VPN service. Each user has to pay close attention to the VPN provider of their choices. To do that, I compiled up three sub-topics depicting whether the VPN is reliable or not.
In that sense, the jurisdiction location of the VPN headquarters takes the lead. Each different country has its own data retention policy. In terms of privacy concerns, running a VPN business in a country where there is no binding data retention law is a must.
In addition to that, we will check how VyprVPN mingles the software encryption technology along with its server infrastructure.
And ultimately, we will try to find out if there is any trusted and detailed audit for this service.
Privacy on the company end
- Jurisdiction: VyprVPN is located in Switzerland where data/personal privacy is highly valued. Even if Switzerland has a close relationship with the EU and US laws, it performs its own data protection laws and makes any piece of data unavailable to third parties unless there would be a court order. Learn details on their commitment page.
- Log policy: On the GoldenFrog website -the company VyprVPN is bound to, VyprVPN states that they do not:
– “log user’s source IP
– analyze assigned IP address
– connection timestamp
– user activity when connected to VPN”
So how the company can make no-log policies possible?
Privacy on the service end
Leaving some questions in our minds, the privacy policy looks okay. Now, it is time to analyze how the company backs up its assertive privacy claims both on the software and server-side.
- Encryption: VyprVPN offers 4 different protocols to choose from WireGuard, IKev2, Chameleon, and OpenVPN. Each protocol comes with standard 256-bit encryption.
- Private DNS: VyprVPN has its own DNS servers to keep you off the record. It is active by default and the technology prevents possible IP/DNS leaks.
- Server Infrastructure: VyprVPN is the only VPN provider in the world that owns and operates its server and network infrastructure. In other words, VyprVPN configures, deploys, and manages servers for each location. No other hands touch the servers.
Third-party audit
VyprVPN prides itself on being the first and true no-log VPN provider in the market. Audited by an independent cybersecurity firm, Leviathan Security, VyprVPN faced 6 security issuesGoldenFrog fixed the addressed issues quickly and Leviathan adds up in the audit:
- “As a result, it can provide VyprVPN users with the assurance that the company is not logging their VPN activity.”
Server coverage and speed performance
Now that we are done with the purchase and the installation of the service, it is time to analyze the speed performance. In this section, we will evaluate server coverage, how the servers perform, and if they are capable of unblocking most requested streaming services such as Netflix libraries and BBC iPlayer.
Keep this in mind! A no-log VPN without decent speed performance would ruin your online browsing experience. Right after privacy, stable and satisfactory speed is a must.
Let’s take a look at VyprVPN can meet our expectations.
Server coverage
VyprVPN is one of the oldest players in the market. Currently, the company offers 700+ servers in 70 different locations.
When compared to competitors, the server number might seem insufficient. However, as there is no third party on the server management and the company deploys servers by themself, the growing speed is slower than other VPN providers.
Yet, not the numbers but the performance matters most.
Speed performance
When we first ran our speed test with VyprVPN, the performance was idling under 10 MBps. However, the latest improvements on the server infrastructure made it possible to get better results.
Region | Download (MBps) | Upload (Mbps) |
---|---|---|
USA – New York | 78.98 | 3.62 |
USA – Austin | 80.83 | 4.08 |
USA – San Francisco | 12.9 | 3.71 |
Canada | 68.88 | 3.44 |
Brazil | 3.49 | 6.62 |
UK – London | 91.25 | 4.39 |
Germany | 88.98 | 4.09 |
France | 48.59 | 7.34 |
Hong Kong | 64.7 | 2.09 |
Japan | 3.1 | 2.68 |
With the performance given, you can have a seamless social media experience, stream up to 4k videos and browse the internet quite fast.
Still, it is not enough. I ran the test when the VPN server gets crowded. The results both in the US and the EU seem to improve. However, VyprVPN falls behind its competitors such as SurfShark or ExpressVPN.
Torrenting
Here comes another speed test. Torrenting! You can download torrent files with VyprVPN on any server of your choice. Just hit the connect button and start downloading.
Below you can see my P2P experience with a small torrent file.
In our first test, VyprVPN offered an average speed of 2 Mb/sec. It seems that the server investment pays off and now VyprVPN helps you download P2P files up to 6 Mb/second.
At the begging, there was a spike up to 2.5 Mb/sec. It took around a minute to reach maximum performance (collecting seeds). As seen in the image above, I had a stable P2P experience and downloaded a 470 Mb file in two minutes. Not perfect, yet an acceptable performance.
Dedicated servers and streaming
Another category where a VPN service is used is streaming. There are millions of people traveling around and in need of local IP addresses to access geo-restricted content abroad. In that case, a VPN service comes handy and helps you stream shows as if you are in the homeland.
While VPNs can easily bypass normal streaming server bans, there are two big challenges they have to overcome. These are Netflix Libraries and BBC iPlayer.
Let’s take a look at VyprVPN’s streaming servers and see if it can bypass the restriction or not.
VyprVPN Netflix the USA library ✔
VyprVPN has its own DNS service offering a comprehensive streaming experience for Netflix lovers. When you connect any one of the USA servers, you can easily unblock Netflix US libraries abroad.
I tested the VyprVPN New York server with “The Office (U.S)”, US only Netflix Library show. As seen above, I was able to watch “The Office” show outside the US.
Moreover, similar to SurfShark’s Netflix library, VyprVPN also offers different options for its users. At the moment, you can access Canada, Germany, the US, and the UK only libraries.
VyprVPN BBC iPlayer ✔
BBC iPlayer is another popular streaming platform operating only in the UK. The company started a fight against VPN providers and only a few of them can bypass BBC’s embargo.
Similar to Netflix, I had a smooth streaming experience with BBC iPlayer. Right after connecting to the UK server, I was able to bypass the geo-restriction and watched my favorite BBC Earth shows.
Overall, VyprVPN is one of the rarest VPN providers in the market offering dedicated streaming servers. The speed is decent and I did not have any buffering issues.
Gaming
There is one special unique feature many do not know about VyprVPN. That is VyprVPN is the first gaming VPN provider in the market with a sister company -OutFox.
As a hardcore Dota 2 and Mobile Legend player, I wanted to give VyprVPN a shot if it can provide us a stable and low ping gaming experience.
Before connecting to the VPN server, check my ping rates below.
After connecting to the Luxembourg server where Dota 2’s Europe West server is located, I got the ping rates below.
While there were some gaps between the West and East servers, VyprVPN offered us decent ping rates.
As a critical point of 100 MS, I was able to get green values depicting a smooth gaming experience. Yet, the lower ping rates, the better the gaming experience is. There is still some room for extra improvement when we compare VyprVPN with the best gaming VPNs in the market.
Customer support
Sometimes, things might not go as expected. That is the right point when you need assistance. As for VyprVPN, I had some problems with their notorious Chameleon protocol that even can bypass restrictions in China. Simply, the protocol did not work in Turkey because of deep pocket inspections.
I sent them a request on LiveChat and asked for help.
The question:
- “I cannot connect to the VyprVPN servers in Turkey. Can you please help me?”
Hendry connected to the chat only after 10 seconds and we started to find out a way to fix this problem by trying different types of protocols.
After a few trials and errors, subsequently, we came to the conclusion that only the WireGuard protocol is working in Turkey at the moment. The problem is solved!
Besides having live chat support on their website, VyprVPN also offers a dedicated knowledgebase and a forum where users interact with each other and solve their problems.
What is more interesting is that along with English, you can get support in Deutch, Spanish, France, and Chinese languages as well.
Worth mentioning
Before summing up the review, I would like to depict some points about VyprVPN:
- Censorship: The company puts lots of efforts to keep its service running in China. However, it fails in some countries where deep pocket inspection is in active use by ISPs.
- Gaming VPN: Even VyprVPN offers dedicated servers just for gaming, it is not as good as SurfShark or UltraVPN. Ping values are okay but higher than its competitors.
- Servers: It is not clear if VyprVPN is using normal or RAMdisks. The company should describe its infrastructure with up-to-date data.
- Audit: GoldenFrog fixed all possible problems after the audit. However, the audit is from 2018 and VPN users are might be exposed to newer problems when using the latest version of this service. Looking forward to seeing a new audit!
Summing up VyprVPN review
In this detailed VyprVPN review, we analyzed the service from tip to toe.
In order to join the competition in the market, VyprVPN decreased its price to as low as 2.5$/month and now offers simultaneous connections up to 5 devices. Dedicated apps for different devices also help you complete the installation in a few seconds.
Secondly, VyprVPN makes perfect use of Switzerland jurisdiction to keep the as minimal log as possible. It’s self-deployed and managed servers are also great examples of privacy measurements to keep parties off the record.
2018 Leviathan audit also approves VyprVPN’s no-log policy as well. However, the audit is old and we need newer ones for the latest version of the apps.
In terms of speed, VyprVPN is okay but not good enough. After years of investment, the company was able to improve the average 10 Mbps download speed to greater numbers (20+, 30+ Mbps).
While in most cases such speed performance would be enough, the one yearning for maximum performance might find VyprVPN’s speed insufficient. My P2P experience with the half performance of my connection speed is a good example of that.
Additionally, VyprVPN has dedicated servers for Netflix and BBC iPlayer. If you are keen to streaming such services abroad, VyprVPN offers 4 different Netflix libraries as well as quality streaming servers for BBC iPlayer.
You can make use of all these features starting from 2.5$/month. If you are not satisfied with the service, you are under a 30-day moneyback guarantee.
I’m a part-time traveler on a mission: to explore the world and uncover the intricate demands of VPN usage. Fueled by curiosity, I meticulously navigate the realms of privacy, streaming, and unblocking needs in every destination I visit. With a keen eye, I analyze the local and global VPN demands of each country, translating my findings into informative articles about VPN-related topics.