NordVPN Review

Despite advertising itself as a “true no-logs VPN,” NordVPN retains a small amount of user data: your username and connection timestamps for 15 minutes after a session ends. While we prefer no logs, this is not enough to link your online activity back to you.

To ensure no user data is permanently logged, the VPN uses a RAM-only server network. All of its servers run on volatile memory that wipes your data following a server reboot. This prevents any third-party from extracting your personal information, including the VPN service itself.

This was proven when NordVPN was ordered to surrender user data, as part of a criminal investigation. Thankfully, it was only able to disclose payment-related data and confirmation that a particular email address was also used by a NordVPN account.

Though this isn’t enough to compromise your privacy, we strongly recommend signing up with an anonymous payment method and an email alias.

Private Jurisdiction, Despite Ownership’s EU Location

NordVPN is legally incorporated in Panama, a privacy-friendly jurisdiction with no affiliation to any international surveillance alliances. Panama has strong data privacy protection, allowing the VPN service to only retain minimal user data.

NordSecurity, the company behind NordVPN, is registered in the Netherlands. After contacting it, a representative confirmed this does not affect NordVPN’s Panama jurisdiction.

NordVPN itself—and other VPN review sites—credit the VPN’s streaming performance to its branded SmartPlay feature, which switches between DNS servers to help you access geo-blocked content.

But here at Top10VPN, we aren’t swayed by marketing buzz and tell it straight. While this feature is highly effective, it’s not unique to NordVPN at all: it’s actually used by many top streaming VPNs like Windscribe and PrivateVPN.

NordVPN’s superior performance is most evident with Netflix, where it successfully unblocked 17 libraries. What impressed us most is that the VPN automatically connects you to a server that works with US Netflix, a feat no other VPN matches.

NordVPN works reliably with US Netflix.

However, the VPN is currently unable to access Netflix’s India and Netherlands libraries. This needs to improve, especially given that rivals VPNs like Windscribe and ExpressVPN successfully unblock these regions.

This problem isn’t unique to Netflix, as we found that the VPN service generally struggled to access Indian platforms. For example, we were left frustrated trying to stream JioHotstar with NordVPN, and ended up using ExpressVPN instead.

Thankfully, it excels in other international regions, and remains our definitive choice for watching BBC iPlayer. Over years of testing, the VPN has consistently bypassed geo-blocks on the platform, allowing us to stream live and on-demand content in 1080p (Full HD).

NordVPN is our recommended choice for BBC iPlayer.

It’s an excellent option for US streaming services, too. We used its New York server to watch YouTube TV, Peacock, and many others, from overseas. Though it often worked first-time, NordVPN also has servers in 21 US cities to switch between if you have any issues.

You can also use its generous spread of US servers to bypass local restrictions on NFL games. It works almost every time, as long as you select a location outside of the blackout zone.

Aside from its consistency, we also liked how compatible the VPN is with most streaming devices. That said, we’d like to see it take a page out of ExpressVPN’s book and introduce a router app for maximum coverage.

Even in locations as far away as Australia, NordVPN maintained incredibly fast speeds — well above what we typically see from other VPNs.

In fact, out of our top 10 highest rated VPNs, NordVPN delivered the fastest download speeds when connecting to Japan and Canada.

It can sustain this excellent speed performance as it has more servers than any other VPN. It also automatically connects you to a less-congested server, preventing overloaded servers and throttled performance.

For download speeds even faster than NordVPN’s, in every location, we suggest using Hotspot Shield. Buyer beware, though, as its close-to-zero speed loss comes with the drawback of an intrusive logging policy and a close-sourced VPN protocol.

In the chart below, view how NordVPN’s local and average international download speed compares to other top VPNs:

All of its apps use NordLynx by default, which is simply WireGuard with the addition of double NAT. Don’t be fooled by this marketing trick: its configuration is no different to any other VPN that uses WireGuard.

The reality is that NordVPN has chosen to brand its protocol to try and differentiate itself.

The VPN uses ChaCha20 to encrypt the traffic in its VPN tunnel and establishes the connection with a 2048-bit DH key.

To verify this worked, we analyzed the data packets passing through our network using Wireshark. As you can see in the screenshot below, NordVPN’s encryption meant that our internet traffic was shown as random text, preventing any third party from monitoring our activity.

NordVPN secured our internet traffic.

Its kill switch also successfully prevented our real IP address from leaking, when we simulated a sudden VPN connection drop.

The VPN is unusual in that it provides two types of kill switch: an internet kill switch and an app kill switch. The former works as usual, cutting your internet if the VPN disconnects, whereas the app kill switch lets you designate specific apps for protection.

We recommend using the system-wide internet kill switch for added security, especially if you’re torrenting files.

The VPN passed all of our data leak tests.

Multiple audits have proven the VPN’s security infrastructure, including a recent Cure53 audit which reviewed the source code of all NordVPN apps and extensions.

You can use NordVPN to connect to almost anywhere in the world.

Using NordVPN, you can browse the internet as if you’re located in many popular countries, including the US, UK, Australia, and Canada.

But what really sets the VPN apart is its amount of server locations in Africa and Asia, two continents regularly overlooked by most other VPN services (including ExpressVPN).

This represents an expansion of over 80% compared to 2023, when the VPN had servers in just 60 countries.

One area that needs improvement is its availability of city-level server options, especially in the US. Despite a recent increase, NordVPN provides servers in 29 less US cities than PIA, and 36 less than ExpressVPN.

All of NordVPN’s apps use the simple, but effective, blue and white color palette. It makes the apps look crisp, stylish, and easy to read on all screen sizes.

However, there are some unintuitive design choices across all platforms.

You can find out how each app looks and feels below:

As shown in its transparency reports, NordVPN has never forwarded a DMCA request to a user. This proves that users’ downloads are kept private and untraceable.

Though we can’t fault its commitment to user privacy, we don’t find it the easiest VPN to use for torrenting. While all of ExpressVPN’s servers include built-in P2P support, NordVPN requires you to select a dedicated server.

You can find these under the “Speciality servers” tab, labelled as “P2P”. This is a separate server list with 14 less countries than its standard server network, including Argentina, Israel, and South Korea.

Any attempt to torrent in a non-P2P location causes the app to automatically reroute your traffic through servers in Canada or the Netherlands. Depending on your physical location, this can massively slow down your file-sharing speeds.

We suggest you use a P2P server for the fastest download bitrate.

In the table below, you can compare how fast NordVPN downloaded a 20GB torrent versus other VPNs:

As you can see, NordVPN downloads files faster than most competing services. We’d like to see port forwarding added for further improvement, but it isn’t essential.

If this is a sticking point for you, Proton VPN includes port forwarding and is an all-round excellent VPN.

You can use NordVPN on multiple devices at once.

If you need to use the VPN on more than 10 devices, you can install it on your home router. This only counts as one device toward your limit, but it protects every device connected to your WiFi router.

That said, NordVPN only supports manual router setup, which is hard to set up and use. We’d like the VPN to develop its own dedicated router app, like ExpressVPN has, to make extending device compatibility much simpler.

Alternatively, you can use a VPN that offers unlimited simultaneous connections, such as Surfshark.

NordVPN is one of only a few VPNs to include a multi-hop feature. Unlike a standard VPN connection, this routes your internet traffic through two separate VPN servers and encrypts the traffic twice.

This improves your network security by making it more difficult for an attacker to track your traffic and identify your real IP address.

To enable it, find the ‘Specialty servers’ option in the app’s server list and select Double VPN.

NordVPN’s multi-hop servers work perfectly.

Having said that, we would like to see multi-hop servers added in more locations. As it stands, they’re limited to just 10 countries, all in either Asia, North America, or Western Europe.

NordVPN’s Threat Protection feature is one of the best VPN ad and malware blockers we’ve used.

According to our research, the VPN’s ad blocker blocked 100% of ads and 79% of analytic trackers.

An ad blocker improves security as malicious ads are sometimes used to infect your device with malware. By preventing most ads from loading, Threat Protection reduces the risk of your device being compromised.

Meshnet is a unique feature of NordVPN. Available for free, it allows you to route internet traffic through a regular internet-connected device, like a laptop, rather than a VPN server.

The VPN service primarily promotes Meshnet as a tool for file-sharing and LAN gaming, but those are both rather niche. Instead, we recommend using Meshnet as a way to get a residential IP address for free.

If you’re overseas, you can connect to your PC at home to get your regular ISP IP address. This is a completely free way to bypass geo-restrictions and even Netflix’s password sharing ban.

We got a residential IP address for free using Meshnet.

The VPN provides a dedicated IP feature for an additional $4.19 per month. However, we were horrified to learn that the dedicated IP address is directly connected to your NordVPN account.

This means law enforcement has direct access to a user’s full details if they suspect the IP is tied to criminal activity.

NordVPN’s dedicated IP address is linked to user accounts.

Other VPNs, like CyberGhost and ExpressVPN, have addressed this issue by using a token-based system which keeps your identity anonymous. We hope that NordVPN eventually does the same.