VPNBook Review

Located in Zurich, Switzerland, VPNBook is a VPN service provider that offers most of its services free of charge, but they display ads to you to pay the bills.

VPNBook says it doesn’t log your activity, though we found that it does log your IP address and connection time. It does offer solid features, like a strong encryption method and unlimited bandwidth. It doesn’t have a kill switch feature, and its server network is average. Even though VPNBook’s services are free, it offers pricing plans for its dedicated VPN services.

VPNBook is like many other ‘free’ providers we’ve reviewed. They don’t charge you money, but you do have to pay in the form of being shown ads, and having your time wasted by slow connections. If cost is a huge factor, you’re better off using a cheap VPN of high-quality instead.

Features

VPNBook is a free VPN service provider, so don’t expect it to have the strongest set of features. Its features, however, aren’t that bad for a free VPN provider:

No bandwidth limit
AES 256-bit encryption
No-logging policy
VPN servers run on their dedicated hardware for optimized speeds
Smart CDN Fallback
No website restrictions
P2P support
PPTP, OpenVPN, Dedicated VPN

In all honesty, we still think this is an average set of features. Some fundamental features are missing, like a kill switch feature and DNS leak protection. For a free VPN provider, you can’t ask for anything more than this set.

In return for providing you with free services, VPNBook serves you ads. That is how the company can function without charging for its services.

Countries & servers

When it comes to VPN servers, the more servers a VPN provider offers, the better and stronger your VPN connection is. VPNBook comes short in this area. There is virtually no information on its website regarding the size of its VPN network. All that we were able to find was the fact that it has servers deployed in the following countries:

The US
The UK
Canada
France
Poland
Germany
Netherlands

New Canadian PPTP & OpenVPN server launched.
— vpnbook (@vpnbook) May 13, 2019

VPNBook is adding more servers, with its most recent server addition taking place in Canada. Nonetheless, there can’t be any word about VPNBook being ideal for geo-unblocking.

If you want to access geo-restricted content, and enjoy a swift VPN connection at the same time, we recommend you take a look at some of the finest VPNs for geo-unblocking that we have reviewed on our website.

Speed & reliability

We point out, once again, that VPNBook is a free VPN provider. Speed and performance are metrics that require serious investment in software, and these are the least to be expected from free VPN providers.

Still, VPNBook states that it has no bandwidth limit and that its VPN servers are built for performance. The VPN servers run on their own dedicated hardware which aids toward achieving optimum connection speed. The company claims that its VPN servers are properly optimized to maximize your connection speed while allowing you to browse the Internet anonymously.

Pricing & payments

VPNBook claims that its dedicated VPN services are designed to assist businesses and are ideal for commercial, high-demand, and personal use. The dedicated VPN services are available for $7.95 per month.

Users can pay via Visa, Maestro, Discover, MasterCard, and American Express. There is also a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Support

VPNBook doesn’t do a very good job when it comes to offering customer support. It doesn’t have live chat support, and you can only reach the company through email support on the contact page. VPNBook offers content-based support only in the following sections:

News
Set up guides
FAQ

Without a blog, live chat, and knowledge base, all we can say is that VPNBook offers below-average customer support. This is another cost of using a free VPN.

Policies & logging

Customer protection policies are the provider’s way of protecting its users. Top VPN providers forge iron-clad protection policies that serve to enhance the security and safety of its clients. From what we were able to find on its website, VPNBook offers the following customer protection policies:

Privacy policy: VPNBook doesn’t collect any personal data. It only collects your IP address and the time your connection started. It logs this information to reduce abusive activities and keep services available to all legitimate users.
Refund policy: VPNBook offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for its dedicated VPN services.
No-logging policy: VPNBook doesn’t store any of your online activity. It does store your IP address and the time the connection was made. Connection logs are removed automatically every week.

Even though we liked the no-logging policy and the fact that VPNBook doesn’t store a lot of your personal data, it does not state whether or not it shares your personal data with third parties. This can be a potential issue, especially because VPNBook runs its VPN services based on advertisements and donations.

Expect recommendation

VPNBook didn’t leave us with much choice but to say that it is an average VPN provider. For a free VPN provider, VPNBook does offer some tempting features. However, given that it runs its services based on ads, we don’t think that your personal data will be kept private.

VPNBook offers a standard set of features, except for major ones like a kill switch and leak protection. When it comes to their server network, it doesn’t offer a big one. It has servers in a small number of countries, making them unsuitable for geo-unblocking. The customer support was insufficient; you can only make contact through email support. VPNBook does have a no-logging policy, which is good, but it doesn’t say whether or not it shares your data with third parties.

All in all, VPNBook is an okay VPN provider, but not good enough to be consistently reliable. If you want to enjoy a safe, private, uninterrupted VPN connection, check out some of the top VPN providers we have reviewed on our website.