PrivateVPN Review

The only information that PrivateVPN retains is your email address, which is only used for logging in to the service. PrivateVPN confirmed to us that this is not linked to your activity in any way. This level of privacy is typically reserved for more expensive services.

PrivateVPN is one of the few VPN services that has had its no-logs privacy policy verified by a real-world case. The VPN has been unable to give away user data, despite being asked by law enforcement on several occasions.

We do not condone any illegal activities performed while using a VPN, but these real-world cases act as a trustworthy and practical test for a VPN’s logging practices.

One drawback, though, is that PrivateVPN doesn’t use diskless VPN servers. As these servers don’t contain storage devices, connecting to one removes the possibility of logging data altogether. We’d like PrivateVPN to add these soon.

Failed to Disclose Data Gathering on Free Trial Users

Our research found that PrivateVPN previously logged the IP addresses of users signing up for its free trial. PrivateVPN told us these IP addresses were securely stored in a “dummy database” and linked to “no other data.”

Although this type of logging was done privately and only to prevent abuse of its free trial, the problem is that PrivateVPN did not disclose its logging anywhere.

To its credit, after we raised this issue with PrivateVPN, it swiftly changed its behavior. The VPN no longer tracks the IP address of new free trial sign-ups.

PrivateVPN includes dedicated IP servers, which assign IP addresses exclusive to your account and, in our experience, perform much better for streaming than a standard VPN IP.

The ‘catch’ is that these IP addresses are only available in 11 locations, restricting where you can bypass geo-restricted content. We saw this first-hand in our Netflix testing, where the regions the VPN unblocked broadly lined up with its dedicated IP locations.

You must use the New York dedicated IP to stream US Netflix.

Yet even within this list, streaming performance varied substantially: connecting to Japan and Ireland saw our video constantly buffer and drop to SD, whereas our video resolution was much higher in the US and Canada.

This inconsistency continued in our US streaming tests, where trial and error revealed that you have to connect to the New York dedicated IP to stream US Netflix. Interestingly, this restriction doesn’t apply to other US-based streaming services where we were able to use the main server list to access subscription services like HBO Max, Peacock, Hulu, and Prime Video, in full HD.

The VPN performs best in the UK, where it punches well above its weight. Despite having just two UK server locations, PrivateVPN consistently unblocks BBC iPlayer — something even big-name rivals like ExpressVPN occasionally struggle with. It also streamed Sky Go, ITVX, and Now TV, making it one of our favorite budget-friendly options for British content.

PrivateVPN successfully bypasses BBC iPlayer’s notorious VPN blocks.

Outside of the US and UK, our experience varied by dedicated IP availability. In Germany, for instance, the absence of a dedicated server made it impossible to stream Joyn, RTL+, or the German version of DAZN. Despite the VPN’s success with Netflix India, we were also blocked from accessing JioHotstar on every attempt.

We tried PrivateVPN’s Berlin server with DAZN.

Aside from the above, the other major downside to using PrivateVPN for streaming is its poor compatibility with TV-connected devices. Though it has an app for Fire TV and Android TV, it doesn’t have a Smart DNS feature for Apple TV and games consoles. Plus, there’s no router app to use it on Roku and Chromecast devices.

To maintain fair and unbiased speed testing, we measured our internet speeds before and after connecting to PrivateVPN servers around the world. We performed a series of tests over several days and then took the average numbers from each.

PrivateVPN is fast on nearby servers.

As you can see, PrivateVPN’s short-distance speeds are impressive. We recorded a speed of 96Mbps, which matches the performance of other top VPNs that cost a lot more.

However, the reductions in speed much larger than expected when connecting to some far-away servers. Our download speed dropped by 39% connecting to South Africa and 24% connecting to Australia.

To prevent server congestion, the other VPNs listed above have 10Gbps servers in more locations and have server networks much larger than PrivateVPN. We’d like PrivateVPN to address both of these issues in a future update.

By default, the VPN tunnels your internet traffic via OpenVPN with AES-256 encryption. There’s nothing wrong with this setup — it’s secure and industry-backed — but we’d like the option to select WireGuard.

PrivateVPN has partially addressed this by allowing you to manually configure a WireGuard connection, but this process is cumbersome, limited to one server location at a time, and requires some technical knowledge. We’d much prefer the ability to select WireGuard directly within the app, as we can with the other protocols.

Even more perplexing, the VPN still lets you use PPTP: an outdated and unsafe protocol from the 1990s. Why this is available in your PrivateVPN app but WireGuard isn’t, we don’t know.

Thankfully, PrivateVPN’s default setup is more than secure enough, which we tested ourselves using a data packet analyzer. The VPN encrypted our network traffic and displayed it as indecipherable ciphertext:

PrivateVPN’s encryption worked as intended.

To implement this encryption, the VPN uses Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS), authenticates the data handshake using an SHA-384 hash, and encrypts the traffic with the AES-256 cipher.

In short, these protocols work together to ensure your data is kept safe, secure, and private.

The VPN has a kill switch for desktop and mobile, but it’s not enabled by default so make sure you have it turned on within the ‘Connection Guard’ tab of the settings menu. This feature is vital for cutting your internet connection in case of a sudden VPN timeout, so it’s concerning that PrivateVPN requires you to enable it manually.

When testing Connection Guard, it worked flawlessly to prevent our real IP address from leaking during an unexpected disconnect. However, we discovered that PrivateVPN’s app leaked our IP address when changing servers. The app does show you a warning before this happens, giving you the option to cancel and disconnect first, but it’s disappointing that the service hasn’t fixed it.

Your personal data is exposed when changing servers.

Leaks IPv6 Addresses on Linux

Our research found that PrivateVPN leaks IPv6 addresses on Linux. Although its standard VPN apps come with IPv6 leak protection, this is absent from the Linux software.

This is a serious privacy issue that should be fixed as soon as possible. In the meantime, you’ll have to disable IPv6 from the Linux system settings.

Running on Ubuntu, PrivateVPN leaked our IPv6 address.

Servers are available in popular locations like the US, the UK, Australia, Japan, Germany, and Canada. All of these include a choice of city-level servers, too, so you can connect to the nearest server to you in a specific country.

We particularly appreciate that PrivateVPN has servers in six South American countries, as many other VPN services only offer a Brazil location.

That said, there are some popular regions that we’d like PrivateVPN to add in a future update. As it stands, PrivateVPN doesn’t offer IP addresses from popular regions like India and Egypt. Many other VPNs, including Proton VPN and ExpressVPN, have servers in these countries.

PrivateVPN’s interface is customizable, meaning you can choose between ‘simple’ view and ‘advanced view’. The latter lets you change specifics like your protocol, level of encryption, and other settings in tabs on the left.

We found ourselves using the advanced view more often in our daily lives, but if you preset your settings, the simple view is perfect for a quick connection.

Expand the sections below to find out how the VPN looks and feels across platforms:

We tested PrivateVPN with various torrent clients, and each time we were able to download a torrent file without any interruptions. You won’t have any trouble downloading large files like movies, music, and software.

PrivateVPN is among the fastest VPNs for torrenting.

Although torrenting is allowed on all of its servers, we recommend you only connect to a location from the ‘Dedicated IP’ server list.

These servers are owned and controlled by PrivateVPN, unlike all other servers which are rented from third parties. This allows for an additional layer of control and security, which is essential when it comes to keeping torrenting activity private.

Additionally, these servers allow all ports to be forwarded automatically, so you don’t have to configure it manually. This allows PrivateVPN to be faster than many other VPNs for torrenting.

To show this, here’s a comparison table showing PrivateVPN’s performance compared to other leading torrenting VPNs when downloading a 20GB torrent file:

Given PrivateVPN is designed for streaming, we were very disappointed to discover that it does not offer a Smart DNS proxy. Compounding this, the VPN doesn’t have a router app or offer any pre-installed routers for sale.

This means you’ll have to set it up on your router manually to unblock streaming sites on devices like a PS5 or Apple TV. Unless you’re tech-savvy, we don’t recommend doing this as it can brick your router.

Using PrivateVPN, you can connect up to 10 devices to a VPN server at once. This is the standard amount and more than enough unless you’re sharing an account with family or friends.

Dedicated IP Servers

All of PrivateVPN’s apps come with a separate tab allowing you to connect to ‘Dedicated IP’ servers. Unlike most other VPNs, this feature doesn’t cost extra and is included with every subscription.

When you connect to one of the servers, your IP address will not be shared with any other user. As the IP address is exclusive to you, these servers are excellent for bypassing streaming geo-blocks. These IP addresses are still dynamic, too, so you will get a different IP when you reconnect.

PrivateVPN owns all of these servers, with none rented from third parties. This makes these servers excellent for privacy and security, as it removes any additional intermediaries that are responsible for your data.

PrivateVPN provides dedicated IPs in 11 locations.

PrivateVPN’s dedicated IP servers are one of the VPN’s main strong points — allowing tighter security and more reliable streaming. However, the VPN does not promote these servers anywhere, nor does it provide guides to educate users about their use. We’d like to see it focus on these more in the future.

PrivateVPN Works in China

PrivateVPN is one of the most reliable VPNs to use in China. We found it works around 82% of the time. Other top-rated VPNs, like NordVPN and Surfshark, have a China uptime of 0% and 35% respectively.

PrivateVPN works reliably in China.