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PureVPN Review

This PureVPN review looks at a highly regarded Hong Kong-based VPN service while its track record isn’t the cleanest with the murky data logging, which happened back in 2017.

There was also the leaks found in the windows app.

However, that was then, things change, and things can be fixed. Is PureVPN any different now, or is it still in the same position?

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Special Deal 88% Off


Recommended For:

  • Lots of streaming options available with optimized servers
  • P2P file sharing and torrenting with added protection against malware and virus
  • Works great for Linux

Pros

  • Large server network
  • Can be used as a VPN hotspot
  • 24/7 customer service
  • 31-day money-back guarantee
  • Kodi app

Cons

  • Slow refund and can only do so by email
  • Connectivity issues on some servers
  • Issues with some client apps

Plans and Pricing

If you select either the one-year or the two-year plan, then the PureVPN price is a great value.

They used to have a PureVPN lifetime subscription, but this has since finished.

If you look at NordVPN vs. PureVPN on the monthly plan, they work out cheaper and deliver a lot of features for this price.

2 Years $2.88 per month Billed as $69.00
1 Year $3.33 per month Billed as $39.96.
Monthly $10.95 per month Billed as $10.95 per month

When you look at payment options, there are more than enough. You can pay with credit cards, PayPal, Alipay, Paymentwall, Cryptocurrencies, Cashu, and gift cards.

No matter which plan you purchase, they all come with a 31-day money-back guarantee, which used to be 7-days.

There are no longer the same restrictions, but a PureVPN refund can take up to another 30-days to process.


Key Features

Privacy

PureVPN is based in Hong Kong and is free from Chinese restrictions and data retention laws. However, recently, there are struggles where Chan wants to embrace Hong Kong as part of its own fully.

Pure VPN delivers plenty of features for security and is considered one of the most secure VPN’s.

After the past leaks, the question of Is PureVPN Safe? Hang around for a while, but now that has been left far behind.

It uses the best in the industry OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, SSTP, PPTP, and IKEv2 protocols along with AES 256-bit encryption. This puts it right up with the best in the industry.

Logging

In the privacy policy, PureVPN changed the wording from zero-logging to “no browsing logs.” In testing, there were no leaks of any kind, no matter what was being performed at the time. So, does PureVPN keep logs?

In the policy, they claim not to retain connection logs, VPN’s assigned to users, sites visited, outgoing traffic, or any content or services that was accessed.

The company even got over 80% on Trustpilot for being reliable. They do keep some information

Ease of Use

Get PureVPN

Special Deal 88% Off

Supported Devices

You can have a maximum of 5 devices connected using PureVPN. It does have one trick up its sleeve that you will see.

Apps

The app range is impressive and leaves many other major VPN’s wanting. The VPN supports:

Windows, Mac, iOS (new app) and Android, Routers, Android TV, Amazon FireStick, Roku, TV boxes, game consoles, and Chromecast, to name a few. PureVPN also comes with one app, which isn’t seen very often.

PureVPN Kodi add-on can be installed and accessed directly from inside Kodi.

Sign Up

Signing up is easy; all you need to do is click the get PureVPN button, select your plan, and choose your payment option.

You then receive your confirmation email, which contains your new username and password. This allows you to download PureVPN apps for your device and log in.

Setup

The installation of the apps is quick and straightforward. When installation finishes, and you make your PureVPN login, you are asked to select one of five modes.

These are the “Stream, Internet Freedom, Security/Privacy, File Sharing or Dedicated IP”

When you do this, the settings are optimized for the task. Security makes sure you are secure while streaming and file sharing change, so you get the best speeds. However, there is no indication of what each section does under the surface.

You can then select locations from the app dashboard. All through operation, you get notifications so you can see what is happening.

There are lots of other settings you can tweak if you dive into the menu, but for most users, this may not be necessary. You can filter your PureVPN server list by city or by country.


Advanced Features

There are quite a few features, which come with PureVPN. Gravity is one of the main ones.

This stops access to malicious sites and can perform safe-search on the primary search engines. Here it can block specific categories of websites, or you can whitelist/ blacklist sites at your leisure.

On top of this, it performs as an effective ad-blocker, as well. There is also split tunneling, port forwarding, and their Ozone feature, which works along with Gravity.

There are also a number of tools built into the apps. You can check your IP and use the PureVPN DNS leak test tool.

One feature you don’t see on other VPN’s is the ability to turn your laptop into a VPN hotspot. This allows other devices to connect and be protected without installing the client.

Browser Extensions

There are browser extensions for Chrome, and there is now a new one for Firefox. The PureVPN Chrome extension offers tracking free browsing, access anything, and stream at the fastest speeds.

The new one for Firefox performs in much the same way and allows a choice of 30 countries for your streaming.


Performance

Speed Test

A couple of different tests were conducted. One with the extensions and one with the apps.

In these tests, speeds were very good with little drop-off around the US, UK, and India.

Using the app saw a further drop in speed, but still acceptable and better than a few. One thing to note is the Linux version performed better than the Windows client in performance and the way it worked.

The speeds were sufficient for most tasks, but if you stream heavily, especially when using Kodi, the drop-offs that all VPN’s may introduce buffering at some stage. This will ruin your viewing experience.

Customer Service

Before this review, the customer support was bordering on none existent. Now, things are very different, and they have 24/7 support, which is a must for any VPN.

This may be by ticket, but the response was much faster than previously. The staff knowledge when answering wasn’t the best for technical questions, however.

The support pages are vastly improved and are quite extensive. When checking the dates, it also appears the dates the files were updated are all recent.

The live chat can be found on every page and asks if you are a user, your email address, and the department you want. These are just support and sales.

Netflix

With the Stream Control in the client, all you need to do is select this, and you have the option for Netflix. As it says, it supports Netflix, and it worked well enough.

The same can be said for other streaming services, which were accessed without too much of a problem.

Torrenting

Like accessing streaming sites, torrenting worked with no effort by selecting the right selection in the app.

Even with the optimizations, it would be nice to see better PureVPN download speeds for this activity.

The company also makes no statements about they don’t condone torrenting, so you are free to download at your leisure.


Wrap Up

For the money when you tie yourself up, PureVPN is now a very different VPN service than it was previously.

However, the answer to should users jump straight away isn’t as easy to answer like that.

It does offer a lot, and the feature list is impressive. Most of which work as intended. However, they are still average when it comes to speeds, even if they have a decent-sized network.

Add onto this the lack of transparency, which still hangs over the company, and it can make you think twice. One thing which needs fixing for a start is the Windows client.

It is very close to earning a recommendation, but it may be better to watch it for a while to make sure these improvements remain in place and are not only because they are new.


Bottom Line

A much-improved VPN that does a lot right. It just doesn’t do enough at the moment. (Get PureVPN at 88% Off here)

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Streamr Go

StreamrGo is always about privacy, specifically protecting your privacy online by increasing security and better standard privacy practices.