Home » Private Tunnel Review

Private Tunnel Review

Private Tunnel is a VPN provider that was launched way back in 2001. This provider has racked up over 50 million downloads since its inception, and that’s pretty impressive. According to its website, Private Tunnel has integrated a suite of leading-edge networking and software technologies to deliver virtual network software for secure, reliable, scalable communication services.

Private Tunnel has average features. It lacks some fundamental features like a no-logging policy, kill switch, torrenting support, and DNS leak protection. It doesn’t have a big server network, and the speed and stability of its servers are not guaranteed. Its customer support is probably the best part about this provider. It has content-rich customer support sections, and the live chat support treated us nicely.

While we can see the appeal of Private Tunnel VPN, as they are good at what they do and with what they offer, but we feel that there are better overall choices in our List of the Top 10 VPN providers.

Features

A top-quality VPN provider has features which Private Tunnel is currently lacking ,and this holds them back in our ranking. Private Tunnel offers the following features:

  • AES 256-bit encryption method
  • 24/7 customer support
  • Hotspot protection
  • Protection against malware and DDoS attacks
  • OpenVPN core
  • Unlimited server switching
  • Unlimited data usage
  • Compatible with Windows, iOS, MacOS, and Android

This provider sadly doesn’t offer torrenting support. We also weren’t able to find other essential features, like a kill switch, DNS leak protection, and a no-logging policy. This set of features certainly isn’t enough to provide absolute protection while you’re online.

Private Tunnel VPN Features

Servers & countries

Private Tunnel offers access to only 50 servers sprinkled over 12 countries, not even enough to label the company as average in this category. If servers get crowded, be prepared to endure a slower and unstable connection. Private Tunnel has servers in the following countries:

  • The US
  • The UK
  • Canada
  • Netherlands
  • France
  • Spain
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • Sweden
  • China
Private Tunnel VPN Server List

The speed and reliability of a VPN connection is directly correlated to the physical distance between the server and the user. If you’re far away from any of these server locations, don’t get your hopes up that you’ll get a fast and stable connection. Look at the VPNs we recommend for geo-unblocking instead.

Speed & reliability

Speed and reliability are metrics that are particularly important to users. There are plenty of top VPN providers who don’t throttle and destabilize your Internet speed connection, so we recommend that you don’t settle for a VPN provider that doesn’t promise unlimited speed and bandwidth.

When it comes to Private Tunnel, they don’t state anything about unlimited speed, but do offer unlimited data usage. They claim to provide ultra-fast server speeds, but there is no conclusive evidence supporting that statement.

Private Tunnel VPN Statement on Server Speed

On the support page, Private Tunnel refrains from revealing any concrete information about its connection capabilities. All this page shares is advice on how you can improve your VPN connection by checking for any potential factors that may cause the connection to drop or throttle. That doesn’t sound very convincing to us.

Pricing & payments

Private Tunnel offers two pricing plans which share the same features. There is a seven-day free trial for both plans. You can purchase either the monthly plan or the yearly plan.

Private Tunnel VPN Pricing Plans

Private Tunnel accepts most payment methods, including major credit and debit cards, PayPal, and Apple gift cards through the iOS app. Unfortunately, paying through cryptocurrencies is not yet available.

Support

Customer support is a vital part of what constitutes a reliable and caring VPN provider. Users generally prefer to be able to solve their issues in a quick and easy manner. A VPN provider that offers responsive and friendly customer support will naturally rank better.

This is the type of customer support offered by Private Tunnel:

  • FAQ
  • Knowledge base
  • Connection questions
  • Billing questions
  • Account questions
  • Media press
  • Email support
  • Live chat support
  • News
  • Blog

As you can see, Private Tunnel offers rich customer support content-wise. You can also reach the company through live chat or email.

We contacted the live chat support to check things out. An agent responded to our inquiry in five minutes. The response was friendly but not very informative. We asked them about the average speed of Private Tunnel’s servers. Once again, they responded with the extremely an vague statement “our servers offer very fast speeds.”

Private Tunnel VPN Live Chat Support

Policies & logging

Another important aspect is the customer protection policies that a VPN provider offers. You should pick a VPN provider that is strict about protecting your personal information. Here are the customer protection policies present on Private Tunnel’s website:

  • Privacy policy: Private Tunnel collects personal data when you register, make a payment, or respond to a survey. The company collects your name, email address, phone number or credit card information. Any collected information will be used to improve the website, improve the customer support service, or process a transaction. Private Tunnel uses a variety of security measures to ensure the safety of your personal data. It doesn’t sell, trade, or rent your personal information to third parties, though this does not include third parties assisting Private Tunnel in operating its website. The company also uses cookies to measure the website’s effectiveness and improve the functionality of its services.
  • Refund policy: Private Tunnel offers an initial seven-day free trial period. After the initial seven-day period, users won’t be eligible to request a refund. For the yearly subscriptions, refunds are available for up to 60 days.
Private Tunnel VPN Yearly Subscriptions Refund

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a no-logging policy. This means that you won’t be totally safe and protected while you’re using Private Tunnel’s VPN services. With that being said, we can’t recommend Private Tunnel to anyone who wants to browse the Internet safely. You’d be much better off choosing a VPN with a no logging policy.

Private Tunnel VPN Refund Policy

Expert recommendation

We have mixed feelings about Private Tunnel. As much as we’d like to focus on the good and ignore the bad, we simply can’t recommend a provider that has much work to do to be deemed as a top-quality VPN provider.

Private Tunnel has an average set of features, with its military-grade encryption being its most prominent feature. The lack of torrent support, kill switch, and DNS leak protection lead to its feature set being labeled as somewhat average.
Their customer support is good, with the live chat support being responsive and friendly.

Private Tunnel Review

With only 50 servers in 12 countries, Private Tunnel is nowhere near to being suitable for geo-unblocking. It also can’t brag about offering high speeds, as it explicitly stated on several occasions that it couldn’t guarantee the speed and stability of its servers. Private Tunnel doesn’t have the best customer support policies. Without a no-logging policy, it’s hard to compete against the best VPN providers in the business.

All in all, we don’t recommend Private Tunnel. We instead recommend that you take a look at the best VPN providers we’ve reviewed on our website so that you get more for your money.