Bitdefender VPN Review

The Bitdefender suite of security software (mainly its antivirus) was developed in Romania in 2001, but its predecessor – a program called Antivirus Expert – was developed under the company name Softwin in 1996.

The company continues to be based in Romania, which isn’t a member of the Five, Nine or 14 Eyes data sharing agreements.

But, Romania is an EU member state, which is subject to data retention laws. Bitdefender’s jurisdiction does make the quality of its logging policy all the more important.

If Bitdefender VPN was no-logs then there wouldn’t any internet data to hand over. Sadly, Bitdefender VPN’s privacy policy confirms the service collects personally-identifiable information.

Bitdefender’s privacy policy covers all home solution products, and includes just two short paragraphs about the VPN service:

Aura (formerly Pango, and before that AnchorFree) acts as a data processor for Bitdefender. This means that while Bitdefender collects and has authority over your information, Aura processes some of it on Bitdefender’s behalf.

Aura has been the subject of some controversy in the past, which you can read about in our Hotspotshield VPN review. The complaints centered around the company’s use of data from the free version of the Hotspot Shield app.

While these issues have been resolved, we think it’s important that users know about this before they commit to a VPN product managed in some capacity by Aura.

Because Bitdefender has a very vague privacy policy, Aura’s can give some idea of how your data will be handled.

Fortunately, the company does not log any user activity:

But this does not make it truly no logs.

Aura keeps much more than we consider necessary to maintain a VPN service. It tracks:

• Your IP address – although encrypted, and only stored for the duration of your connection
• Connection timestamps – which are stored for up to three years
• Bandwidth used in each session – again, stored for up to three years
• Device information – including unique device identifiers, browser type, operating system and wireless network information
• Aggregated website logs – at the domain level (i.e. not full URLs) and not associated with the individual
• Approximate geographic location – derived from IP information (not GPS), and used to find the nearest VPN server

The only thing Aura guarantees is that it does not collect any data which connects you to your VPN browsing activity.

Since Aura is a data processor, not a data controller, it should only be storing information Bitdefender requests. In the absence of a fleshed out logging policy from Bitdefender, though, it is difficult to say for certain what it does or doesn’t log.

Your data should be handled by as few people as possible – having a second company involved is a needless extra step (not to mention confusing).

Bitdefender is one of a few VPNs to run on Hotspot Shield’s proprietary Catapult Hydra VPN protocol.

This is because Bitdefender has outsourced its VPN infrastructure to Aura, the company that owns Hotspot Shield.

Bitdefender isn’t the only antivirus company to do this. In our McAfee VPN review we explain how its service also uses a Hotspot Shield white-label.

The VPN’s speeds are fast both locally and internationally, although we experienced a few problems maintaining our connection over longer distances.

These are great speeds from Bitdefender, although we’ve tested even faster VPNs.

On a less positive note, latency was bad across the board. The ping time to the nearest VPN server was 10ms, which is good enough for online gaming.

However, the French server had a ping of 19ms, and every other server at least 30ms. This latency is simply not good for gaming online without lag.

International Speed Test Results

In Europe, connections to the Netherlands and France servers were fast. However, we suffered a 90% download speed drop connecting to the Germany server.

Connections to North America and Asia were adequately quick, with the exception of Japan which saw a 70% drop in both download and upload speeds.

These were our speed test results for Bitdefender VPN around the globe:

• USA: 48.65Mbps (download) & 65.02Mbps (upload)
• Germany: 8.67Mbps (download) & 19.31Mbps (upload)
• Singapore: 42.84Mbps (download) & 49.31Mbps (upload)

Bitdefender is quick to claim that its VPN can “unlock media from all over the world.” That’s not true, though. Bitdefender is in fact a poor VPN for streaming.

In our streaming tests, Bitdefender VPN didn’t work with Netflix on any server, including the UK and US servers. It also failed to unblock HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video.

Based on our regular tests, Bitdefender simply cannot compare to the best Netflix VPNs and HBO Max VPNs we’ve found.

Surprisingly, we unblocked BBC iPlayer through the UK server, which a lot of VPNs struggle to unblock.

Like most other VPNs, Bitdefender VPN also streams geo-blocked content on YouTube, which is valuable if the website is blocked at your school or workplace.

Torrenting is allowed on Bitdefender’s VPN network, and we registered quick file-sharing speeds in our P2P tests.

But, we don’t recommend torrenting using Bitdefender VPN.

During our tests Bitdefender VPN suffered from DNS leaks. While DNS leaks don’t reveal your download activity on its own, DNS information can used to identify you.

Your ISP won’t know what you’re torrenting, but it will know when and where you’re torrenting.

In short, it’s not worth running risks using Bitdefender VPN. Instead, our recent IPVanish P2P tests confirm the VPN service is still one of the safest torrent VPNs to use.

Bitdefender VPN won’t bypass internet censors in countries like China, the UAE, and Turkey.

It’s not a surprise, though, considering Bitdefender even states on its website that it restricts use of the VPN in the below countries:

• Belarus
• China
• Iran
• Iraq
• Oman
• Russia
• Turkey
• UAE

We don’t recommend using Bitdefender VPN if you intend to travel to a highly-censored nation, because it just won’t work.

To beat aggressive web censorship, use our best China VPNs, Russia VPNs, Turkey VPNs or UAE VPNs, instead.

In its FAQ section, Bitdefender describes its VPN as a service which “secures your online activity”:

But is this VPN software really secure? Not as far as we’re concerned.

Bitdefender suffers from DNS leaks

When we tested Bitdefender VPN we didn’t find any IPv4 or IPv6 leaks, or any WebRTC leaks. But, we did detect DNS leaks on every single server we connected to.

Here is what our VPN leak test looked like:

From the screenshot above, you can see we were correctly assigned a Danish IP address, but our UK DNS servers were also visible.

This means that while your ISP won’t see what you’re doing online, it can see and record every website you visit while Bitdefender VPN is active, and potentially prevent you from accessing any censored sites.

DNS leaks also increase your risk of falling victim to man-in-the-middle attacks.

DNS leaks are a fatal flaw for a modern VPN – particularly since the mainstream adoption of HTTPS means that your non-DNS is already end-to-end encrypted between you and the site you are visiting.

AES-256 encryption and a kill switch

On a positive note, the VPN uses AES-256 encryption, and every application comes with the recently-added kill switch.

VPN split tunneling is also available, in case you want certain apps to use your real Internet address.

VPN protocol selection

The VPN protocol behind Bitdefender VPN is Hotspot Shield’s proprietary Catapult Hydra.

The Hydra protocol is very fast, but its make up is less clear than other more mainstream protocols, like OpenVPN and WireGuard.

Sadly, neither WireGuard nor OpenVPN are protocol options within the Bitdefender VPN applications.

When we first reviewed Bitdefender VPN we found its customer support frustrating, but it’s made some definite improvements since then.

Livechat is quick and helpful (although not quite available 24/7 in our experience): perfect for customers all around the globe.

Bitdefender also provides setup guides and troubleshooting instructions for most common problems, which are well set out and should solve most issues you may encounter.

The forums are pretty helpful too, although these are mostly user-operated so aren’t the most reliable source out there.