CyberGhost Review

After studying CyberGhost’s privacy policy, we were comfortable using it despite some logging of data for “statistical purposes.” It’s not identifiable data and precautions are taken to anonymize it.

We are also reassured by the fact that CyberGhost has invested in a diskless server network. This means any data is stored virtually and makes it impossible for information to be seized via physical hardware.

We also like CyberGhost’s commitment to regularly publishing transparency reports that detail the number of legal requests it receives. Furthermore, in 2022, CyberGhost commissioned Deloitte to undertake an audit of its logging practices, which confirmed a privacy-friendly logging policy.

This is all reassuring, but we have some concerns. Firstly, the transparency reports do not detail the number of legal requests that CyberGhost has cooperated with. Secondly, CyberGhost refuses to share its full audit report, “to ensure none of the audit results are taken out of context and misunderstood.”

We’ve criticized PureVPN for withholding audits, so it’s only fair we criticize CyberGhost too.

If you’re a privacy purist and want to avoid all risks, we recommend PIA. It’s proven its no-logs policy in multiple court cases.

CyberGhost is incorporated in Romania. This is in the EU, which is usually a terrible place to base a VPN due to the organization’s Data Retention Directive that compels the widespread collection of personal data.

However, we did some digging and found that Romania is the only member state to have successfully and consistently refused these directives, declaring it unconstitutional.

The Constitutional Court of Romania’s (CCR) decision declares data processing as unconstitutional.

As such, Romania remains a privacy-friendly country in which to base a VPN company.

While Romanian authorities may still collect citizen’s online data, this is under specific and legitimate circumstances, as opposed to the indiscriminate collection of data we see in other member states.

CyberGhost was founded by a tech entrepreneur in 2011 and was eventually purchased by a company called Crossrider in 2017.

A scandal erupted when it was discovered that Crossrider has a controversial history of ad-injections, which goes against the ethos of online security and privacy.

To signal a shift in priority towards privacy and security, the company rebranded to Kape Technologies. Since then, Kape has become a huge company, purchasing ExpressVPN and PIA, too.

As an independent business ourselves, we like to see independent VPNs thrive. But we’ve seen no evidence to doubt Kape’s trustworthiness and commitment to privacy. Its VPN products are industry-leading and free of scandal.

Over the years, we’ve used CyberGhost with up to 120 global streaming sites and found that it unblocks 77 of them.

We’ve always been impressed by its unblocking capabilities, especially as it has optimized servers in countries like Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, and Poland, which we used to access local sites like CBC Gem (Canada), Canal+ (France), and Joyn (Germany).

It’s always been a particularly good VPN for UK streaming, reliable with BBC iPlayer, Channel 4, ITVX, and the UK’s Netflix.

We streamed the new series of ‘Wolf Hall’ using CyberGhost’s UK servers.

You can actually use CyberGhost to switch between 10 Netflix libraries in total, which is more than most VPNs can unblock. Only Windscribe and ExpressVPN unblock more libraries.

But there are downsides that prevent it from reaching our list of the very best VPNs for streaming: it doesn’t unblock DAZN, and it unblocks fewer overall streaming sites than ExpressVPN (104), NordVPN (102), Surfshark (96), and PrivateVPN (84).

Here’s a table showing CyberGhost’s speed test results when connected to a variety of servers around the world:

On same-country or neighboring servers, CyberGhost is very fast, delivering an average speed of 94Mbps. When browsing the web and streaming we didn’t notice any difference from our normal internet.

However, connecting to countries far away in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and Oceania, we did begin to notice slower loading times and some buffering when streaming in 1080p (Full HD).

Our data shows an average international speed of 81Mbps. In a market where Hotspot Shield achieves a 1% international speed loss, CyberGhost needs to improve.

Based on these simple facts, CyberGhost is currently ranked an underwhelming 31st in our speed rankings.

We ran CyberGhost’s software through a series of security tests. We can say that it’s safe to install and use, without malware or viruses, and that its apps don’t leak WebRTC or DNS requests.

Using the Wireshark tool, we were reassured to see that CyberGhost definitely encrypts our traffic, obfuscating all data that passed through our device through a selection of protocols, including the best: WireGuard with ChaCha20.

This essentially means CyberGhost is doing what a VPN should be doing.

Unfortunately, our kill switch tests revealed that CyberGhost’s doesn’t protect your real IP address when you switch between servers.

We can easily imagine someone innocently switching servers without knowing that their real IP address can be associated with online activity you’d rather keep hidden.

The perfect kill switch should hide your real IP address all the time. CyberGhost should fix this.

It could also advance its security offering by using quantum-resistant servers and moving to open source apps. Currently, without you having to pay extra, CyberGhost is only offering the basic security requirements of a VPN, which is why it’s ranked 30th for security.

Since we’ve been using CyberGhost we’ve seen its server network gradually expand, now covering 100 countries.

The vast majority of CyberGhost’s countries are spread across Europe, North America, and Asia. Because of its wide server network and multi-city choices, we recommend CyberGhost in our suggestions for countries like Germany, France, Indonesia, and South Korea.

It’s made particular progress in Oceania, increasing its Australia and New Zealand server count substantially in recent time.

We like how the server list shows whether it’s a physical server or a virtual one. Many VPNs aren’t transparent about the distinction, but there are VPN users out there who care.

Currently, only 30 countries use virtual location, which is impressive on a network as large as CyberGhost’s.

While an entirely physical network is preferable to some, in our opinion it’s a worthwhile sacrifice to get an even spread of servers in countries all around the world. This is particularly in regions where it’s difficult to build servers, like the Middle East and Africa. After all, you don’t have to use them.

We’d prefer it if CyberGhost owned its entire network. Currently, it rents a number of them. This isn’t unconventional, but VPNs like IPVanish show the privacy benefits of a well-maintained, self-owned server network.

Signing up to CyberGhost is easy, with the choice of 3 plans and an optional add-on of Dedicated IP.

CyberGhost lets you download the VPN software without creating an account, but you’ll have to create one to sign in — only takes a minute.

Installation is quick, and the app opens immediately, presenting you with the login screen.

CyberGhost’s interface isn’t pushing any boundaries, but it’s simple and good for beginners.

It organizes its servers neatly between streaming, torrenting, and its entire network. It also helpfully lists each server’s congestion load with a percentage.

Settings are easily accessed, but we wish they didn’t open in a new window, which pollutes your desktop.

CyberGhost isn’t as invisible or seamless as some of the very best VPNs that work in the background without issue. Connection issues forced us to engage with the app more than we would have liked.

These issues are most apparent on its macOS app. We were logged out a lot and, most annoyingly, it takes ages for CyberGhost to open after clicking the icon in the dock. You think it’s broken and then, after many seconds, it will suddenly appear.

Occasionally, our internet would stop working entirely and the CyberGhost app would be frozen. We had to force shut down our device a few times.

Over years of use, we’ve noticed that CyberGhost doesn’t update its software often, which could be part of the problem.

In terms of anonymity, CyberGhost is good for torrenting. Its privacy policy shields you against copyright trolls and there’s a kill switch to stop your real IP ever being accidentally exposed.

But its speeds are an issue. Despite the vast majority of its server network being optimized for P2P file sharing, we recorded an average bitrate of only 3.9MiB/s — a 61% speed loss.

For context, the best VPNs for torrenting lose less than 10%, such as PIA, which has an average bitrate of 9.6MiB/s.

We could feel this when torrenting on a local server; it took us 81 minutes to download a 20GB file. Without a VPN it took us 32 minutes. Using PIA it took us 33 minutes, only adding 1 minute.

Nor can you try to improve your torrenting speed with port forwarding. CyberGhost does not offer it, citing privacy reasons.

While you reduce your security risk using CyberGhost, we recommend using a more powerful VPN to torrent.

CyberGhost has developed apps for every platform and its browser extensions are notable because they aren’t just proxies – they actually encrypt your data. They also work with streaming sites effectively, including for US Netflix.

To rank higher for device compatibility, CyberGhost could build an app for router. Currently, you have to manually install it. This is the case with nearly every VPN, but after experiencing ExpressVPN’s seamless router app we hold every VPN to the same standard.

We were also surprised by CyberGhost’s ungenerous 7-device allowance. Once you go over the limit you’ll be asked to remove one device.

Some VPNs allow you to sign in to as many devices as you wish but restrict how many are connected to the VPN at once. But CyberGhost stops you from installing it at the device level.

CyberGhost has a Smart DNS that enables you to stream geo-restricted content without connecting to the VPN.

Most VPNs that include a Smart DNS restrict use to US streaming sites (often the most desirable). However, CyberGhost allows you to establish connections in 5 countries, including US, UK, Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands.

CyberGhost has lots of additional features included in its standard package, such as an ad blocker that blocks 83% of ads and trackers. This isn’t as good as uBlock Origin, but it can’t hurt to have it toggled on.

Split tunneling is also a feature we’re pleased to see. It allowed us to direct certain websites outside the VPN encryption. For example, we excluded Amazon from our VPN encryption, because we want to access our local version when shopping.

One of our favorite CyberGhost features is Force HTTPS, which redirects insecure URLs to HTTPS versions. It’s rare to find a website using HTTP, but they do still exist and CyberGhost ensures you never land on them.

NoSpy servers are unique to CyberGhost. They are essentially first-class servers, reserved in a private data center for those happy to pay more — exclusive and, according to CyberGhost, a lot safer. They use top-shelf hardware, dedicated uplinks, and come with more bandwidth.

CyberGhost has also developed a token-based dedicated IP system. Think of dedicated IP’s as private parking – it’s an IP address reserved for you alone. It provides the benefit of accessing geo-restricted content easier, as well as avoiding CAPTCHAs, because multiple users aren’t sharing the same IP and exposing the use of a VPN.

CyberGhost just misses out on our top picks for iPhone.

To get around the privacy risks of only using one IP address, CyberGhost provides token that you use to access your dedicated IP. This way, CyberGhost can’t link your account to any specific IP address. This is a neat workaround that manages to balance performance and privacy.