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Psiphon Review

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Simon Migliano
Simon Migliano

Simon Migliano is a recognized world expert in VPNs. He's tested hundreds of VPN services and his research has featured on the BBC, The New York Times and more. Read full bio

Fact-checked by Callum TennentAdditional Testing by Alyx Morley

Psiphon appRanked #55 out of 61 VPNs
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Our Verdict

Psiphon is a free tool designed to unblock content in highly-censored countries. Surprisingly, we found that the free proxy is actually slightly better than the paid VPN service. That said, it caps your speed at unusably slow levels, has an invasive logging policy, and is full of ads. In short, neither version is recommended for privacy or security online.

1.9/10
Overall Rating Summary
Best Rating
9.6/10
Average Rating
5.6/10
Worst Rating
1.1/10
This rating is calculated by combining the ratings from our 9 testing categories, each weighted according to its relative importance.
Read our VPN testing methodology to learn more.
  1. 0.0/10
  2. 1.5/10
  3. 0.1/10
  4. 0.5/10
  5. 3.4/10
  6. 5.0/10
  7. 6.8/10
  8. 4.5/10
  9. 1.5/10

Psiphon Proxy Pros & Cons

  • Free apps don’t require email address or payment details
  • Open source code increases transparency
  • Unblocks BBC iPlayer

  • No apps for Linux or routers
  • VPN mode uses unsafe L2TP/IPSec protocol
  • Proxy mode doesn’t encrypt traffic
  • Extremely slow speeds
  • macOS app requires M1 chip

1.7/10
Overall Rating Summary
Best Rating
9.6/10
Average Rating
5.6/10
Worst Rating
1.1/10
This rating is calculated by combining the ratings from our 9 testing categories, each weighted according to its relative importance.
Read our VPN testing methodology to learn more.
  1. 0.4/10
  2. 0.0/10
  3. 0.1/10
  4. 3.5/10
  5. 0.5/10
  6. 0.0/10
  7. 6.8/10
  8. 4.5/10
  9. 3.2/10

Psiphon VPN Pros & Cons

  • Open source code increases transparency

  • No server choice with VPN mode on Windows
  • No apps for Linux or routers
  • macOS app requires M1 chip
  • VPN mode uses unsafe L2TP/IPSec protocol
  • Proxy mode doesn’t encrypt traffic
  • Extremely slow speeds

Psiphon is a free censorship circumvention service that’s highly-regarded among internet freedom advocates such as Access Now.

But our testing found Psiphon to be a terrible VPN and proxy in almost every respect. It logs your IP address, fails to unblock censored websites in China, delivers dreadful speeds, leaks your DNS requests, and doesn’t include a kill switch feature.

It includes two different tools: a circumvention proxy, and a VPN mode. Confusingly, its free proxy is marginally better than the VPN version in certain categories.

Psiphon Free Proxy lets you choose from servers in 21 countries on Android – but it doesn’t encrypt your web traffic, making it useless at hiding your browsing history.

In contrast, Psiphon VPN doesn’t even let you choose a server location. Instead, you are randomly assigned a server, most likely in Singapore.

Psiphon Free Proxy has awful speeds that hardly reach past 4Mbps on a local connection. It’s too slow to stream video or play games online – though it might be fast enough to load basic web pages in some countries.

To make the service even more complicated, there are also two separate versions of the app on Google Play Store: Psiphon and Psiphon Pro. Neither of these mobile apps have a VPN mode; they both use unsafe Psiphon’s Free Proxy service.

Despite its reputation, Psiphon is not a tool that we’d recommend using for privacy and security reasons. If you need a free VPN for use in a highly-censored region, we recommend Windscribe Free instead.

EXPERT ADVICE: There are a number of fake apps impersonating Psiphon with spyware and malware embedded inside. To avoid this risk, we recommend simply steering clear of this service altogether.

Pricing Plans

LengthPsiCash
1 month$3.00
12 months$99.96 ($8.33/mo)

Free Trial Options

Money-Back GuaranteeNo
Free TrialNo
100% Free PlanYes
Data CapUnlimited
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