VPNs used to be just something that was reserved for corporate employees, allowing them to securely log into their company intranets safe from prying eyes. But if the news about increased hacks from nefarious individuals and even governments continue to increase, more and more people are turning to personal VPNs to up their digital security.
One of the most popular VPNs on the market is PureVPN. We took the VPN for a spin to see if it's really as good as people say.
PureVPN Review: Privacy
PureVPN has one of the best logging policies out there. The company records the time you login to their VPN and the amount of data used–and that’s it. It doesn’t care about the sites you visit or the files you download. PureVPN is based in Hong Kong because of the special administrative region’s lack of mandatory data retention logs, which is why it can offer such a great privacy policy.
PureVPN Review: OS and Device Compatibility
Another great feature about PureVPN is its sheer scale of support for multiple and varied OSes. PureVPN supports Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and even Linux. However, it’s not just devices that run those OSes that PureVPN supports. It also supports games consoles like the Playstation and Xbox, Smart TVs, and even media streamers like the Roku, Amazon Fire, and Chromecast.
PureVPN Review: Performance
I never saw any downtime when using PureVPN, which can’t always be said for VPNs. It’s a strength PureVPN boasts about, saying its service has 99.99% uptime–something I found to be true. The PureVPN also offers 750+ servers in 141 countries, so you can virtually connect from almost any location you want–great if you want to access the Netflix catalog of the United States or Japan, for instance.
Another really nice feature is that PureVPN gives you five logins, so you can login from multiple devices, such as a laptop, tablet, smartphone, console, and media streamer at once. However, note that sharing your login information with others can get you banned from the service. Unlimited server switching is also a huge plus as is the company’s generosity with its server package: no matter which pricing tier you subscribe to, you have access to all the servers on their network.
People who like to download large files will appreciate that PureVPN has no data limits–you can download as much as you want through their servers. The company also offers a feature called Split Tunneling, which allows you to send certain data through your regular ISP and other data through PureVPN’s servers. And as is expected, PureVPN offers AES-256-bit encryption.
PureVPN Review: Cost
If there is one drawback to PureVPN it’s that they don’t offer a free trial period. But when your VPN service is this good, you don’t have to. What they do offer is a seven day money back guarantee, however, so if you don’t like the service you can get a full refund within the first seven days.
As for pricing, PureVPN offers three main plans: $10.95 (about £8.80) for a month-to-month plan; $2.95 (about £2.30) per month for a 24 month plan; or $8.95 (about £7.20) per month for a 6 month plan.
What’s really nice is PureVPN offers dozens of ways you can pay, including the usual credit or debit card, PayPal, and such. But also if you want to remain anonymous, you can pay via Bitcoin and other virtual currencies or even via third-party gift cards.
