Pure VPN Review

Reliability & Speed Tests

PureVPN is faster than most VPN providers we tested. They own their entire network and control their own servers. They have no third parties interferring, and are thus able to ensure fast servers on their own with no outside interference. When connected, you can typically expect speeds with 90% of your maximum without a VPN. This compares well to most other VPNs, and puts them in the upper range speed-wise.

Pricing & Payments

Pure VPN has some of the most reasonable pricing plans that we have seen:

• $3.33 per month on a one-year plan. You will sign up for one year with all payments upfront.
• $8.00 per month on a three-month plan. You are billed in full every three months.
• $10.95 per month, billed monthly.

Features

The Pure VPN software is easy to install. It comes in a configuration for any type of OS or device you care to name, and a few you likely don't even know. The software also has some great features built into it, and they're quite easy to use:

• Antivirus/Antimalware


• Ad blocking


• Internet kill switch


• Split tunneling


• NAT Firewall


• DDoS protection


• Unlimited bandwidth


• P2P enabled


• Ozone


• IPv6 leak protection


• DNS leak protection


• WebRTC leak protection

• Dedicated IP addresses


• Port forwarding


• DDoS protection


• P2P protection

Servers & Countries

PureVPN has more than 2,000 servers and 180 server locations in 140 countries worldwide. Below is a breakdown of servers in each region:

• North America: 662 servers


• Europe: 801 servers


• Asia: 321 servers


• Africa: 150 servers


• Oceania: 93 servers


• South America: 84 servers


• Central America: 12 servers

Support

We have nothing against PureVPN, but after recently experiencing bad customer support, and receiving complaints from customers in our feedback on the site, we have to rate PureVPN’s support poorly.

We contacted PureVPN in regards to an issue. An automated reply was sent right away, telling us that we should expect a reply within a few hours. We never did. We decided to contact customer support again using our alias (that we used to purchase PureVPN’s service) regarding a similar issue... Silence again! We tried for a third time, this time posing as a potential customer. Bam! A response came right away.

In short, our experience showed that there is customer support. However, it’s only there to sell the company’s service and will ignore you if you have an issue. The logic behind this makes no sense, but this fact alone ruins everything else that was good about this company.

PureVPN support methods

PureVPN have support, when they respond, in these ways:

• FAQs & Tutorials: One of the most extensive tutorial and FAQ sections we've found. If your question isn't answered here, good luck to you.


• Email Support: Email tickets are the primary way of contacting them, and were what we had a serious issue with. Good luck to you if you need to contact them through it as our experience is that they are more sales staff than support staff.


• Live chat: Not to be used for anything serious, can be more trouble than it's worth.

Policies & Logging

PureVPN keeps you anonymous and secure whenever you’re online, and it only logs a minimal amount of information. PureVPN logs server connection attempts only to track abuses. It does not log which websites you visit or outgoing traffic.

However, the provider’s logging policy came under fire in late 2017 when its logs helped FBI track Ryan Lin, a cyber stalker who had been harassing and hacking his victims’ accounts. PureVPN’s logs aided the prosecution’s case, leading to the suspect’s arrest.

This incident led PureVPN to update its privacy policy to this:



The provider explained that it only keeps network logs—bandwidth consumption and user timestamps, among others. It doesn’t keep logs that contain any personal information and browsing habits of users. However, the FBI case somehow casts a shadow over PureVPN’s “no logging” policy.

Technical Assessment

Expert Recommendation

We want to recommend PureVPN, as the company is a great option for SSTP (a very secure encryption method). It also offers dedicated IP addresses and a few other awesome features. Unfortunately, we cannot push for a VPN with bad customer support—which is the case with PureVPN—especially to those who are not tech savvy and frequently need help.

We also can’t recommend a provider whose logging policy is dubious. Although we condemn the use of VPNs for criminal activities, it’s still alarming to know that PureVPN can actually help any third party trace a user. They caught a stalker, but they could just as easily aid a stalker of someone who is trying to hide themselves.

There are plenty of alternatives that you’ll find in our Top 10 VPN list (link below). If you absolutely need some of PureVPN’s unique features, we’d say tread carefully as the features are also available on other VPN providers with better customer support.