Snap VPN Review

Here’s all the information that Snap VPN logs:

Snap VPN doesn’t log data enough to identify you, but it’s still not a trustworthy service.

Its privacy policy moved to a self-hosted, secure HTTPs website in 2022 – a big improvement compared to what is was before. However, we find it odd that it isn’t hosted on Autumn Breeze’s own website.

Company Ownership

Snap VPN was previously owned by a company called Lemon Clove PTE Ltd., but that has since changed to Autumn Breeze. It is unclear if Autumn Breeze is a rebrand or a new company altogether.

However, on multiple occasions throughout its privacy policy Snap VPN makes reference to Lemon Clove – this lack of attention to detail further erodes our confidence in the document as a whole and is part of the reason why we don’t trust Snap VPN.

The privacy policy states that Snap VPN’s Singapore jurisdiction has “no special data retention laws and no guidance pertaining to e-discovery or disclosure to foreign law enforcement agencies.” However, this is simply not true – Singapore is a member of the SIGINT data sharing alliance and we’d rather a VPN not be based there if possible.

Our research into the Chinese ownership of free VPNs has also revealed that Snap VPN has links to mainland China, a big, obvious drawback for privacy.

Excessive Advertising Permissions

An overabundance of in-app adverts is one of our biggest complaints about Snap VPN. These ads interrupt your user experience and get access to your personal data.

Third-party ad services AdMob, Unity AD, Vungle, and Startapp all have permission to place “their own cookies, pixel tags, and similar technologies” on your device via Snap VPN and may use them to “access information about you which they may collect over time and across different online services.”

In-app ads are common with free VPNs, and are one of the many reasons you should consider using a cheap paid-for VPN instead, but Snap VPN’s permissions are still far more invasive than most other free VPNs.

To calculate Snap VPN’s overall speed rating, we connected to five of its servers around the globe and compiled an average speed for each location.

You can use the table below to see Snap VPN’s complete speed test results:

Snap VPN produced the exact same download speeds in every location we tested. In each instance, it was unable to exceed a 2Mbps average download speed, regardless of where the server was. Coupled with the fact that its upload times were substantially faster in comparison, we are certain that Snap VPN throttles your download speeds.

We consider anything greater than a 50% drop in download speeds when connected to a nearby server to be poor – Snap VPN is over 98% slower. That makes it one of the slowest VPNs we’ve ever tested.

There are significantly better free VPNs available that won’t throttle your connection. For example, Proton VPN Free is a reputable service and almost 50 times faster than Snap VPN.

Here you can see the streaming services that Snap VPN works to unblock:

Snap VPN is unable to unblock the vast majority of streaming services that we test. We were blocked from logging into most platforms and, in some cases, we couldn’t even load the login screen.

While we were able to unblock BBC iPlayer and ITVX, Snap VPN throttled our speeds. As a result, the stream always took at least 2 minutes to load and buffered constantly.

We found this frustrating and distracting from the viewing experience, especially across multiple hours of testing.

To avoid this, we suggest you use a VPN optimized for streaming that won’t throttle your connection or limit you to UK streaming services.

Previously, Snap VPN made it clear on its Play Store listing that P2P downloads were not permitted. Although this warning has since been removed, you still cannot use Snap VPN for torrenting.

When we attempted to torrent a test file, it simply sat in our client and failed to download. We tried changing VPN protocols and servers to fix this, but our traffic was blocked each time.

This isn’t unusual for free VPNs with many services banning torrenting to regulate bandwidth usage and encourage users to upgrade to a paid subscription.

That said, there are free VPNs that support torrenting and allow you to file-share safely.

Much like its stance on P2P activities, Snap VPN was previously very clear about its effectiveness in China:

“For policy reason [sic], this service is not available in Mainland of China. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

It has now changed its Play Store listing to claim that you can use Snap VPN to access any blocked website, but this is not true.

As is the case with most free VPNs, and even many paid ones, Snap VPN lacks the necessary obfuscation to bypass strict web censorship. While we were unable to test this ourselves, as our remote Shanghai server doesn’t work with Android, we’re almost certain that Snap VPN cannot bypass the Great Firewall of China.

We’d like Snap VPN to add VPN obfuscation features in a future update, such as a stealth protocol or servers optimized for restricted regions.

You can see the protocols, encryption ciphers, and additional security features available with Snap VPN in the table below:

Ambiguous VPN Protocols & Encryption

Snap VPN only lets you connect with a protocol labelled as “IPSec”. It is unclear whether this is the secure IKEv2 protocol or the unsafe and outdated L2TP/IPSec.

Despite previously offering it as part of its free tier, Snap VPN paywalls OpenVPN as well as the Android exclusive protocols SSR and ISSR. It isn’t obvious you can’t use these protocols as Snap VPN makes no effort to gray them out or highlight them as unavailable.

There’s also no information given about Snap VPN’s encryption. We contacted the support team and clarified that Snap VPN uses industry-standard AES-128 and AES-256 encryption. This is reassuring but we’d like to see it advertised on the VPN’s Google Play listing.

Passed Our Leak Tests, but Lacks a Kill Switch

We ran Snap VPN through several tests and found that there were no IP, DNS or WebRTC leaks.

As shown above, Snap VPN uses Google DNS which is considered secure. However, we’d encourage Snap VPN to operate its own private DNS servers, like ExpressVPN and PIA, for total anonymity and security.

We were unable to test Snap VPN’s kill switch as it doesn’t have one.

That means that if the VPN connection drops suddenly, your personal data will be left exposed. This lack is inexcusable and makes Snap VPN fundamentally unsafe.

Technical Features We’d Like to See Added

Aside from its recent addition of split tunneling, Snap VPN fails to provide basic technical features that we expect all VPN services to have. Below is a summary of the most important ones it’s missing:

You can contact Snap VPN’s customer support in the following ways:

Snap VPN doesn’t have a website – its only web presence is the website of its developer, Autumn Breeze. All information about the app is contained on its Google Play Store listing.

There is a customer support email but its replies took up to a week and were often unhelpful and incoherent.

Snap VPN even went as far to inform us that it won’t disclose any information about the VPN service until we “fairly” evaluate the product.

Our most recent email also came from “Master VPN Customer Service Department”, which is particularly confusing.

However, after several exchanges we were eventually given answers to our questions. We expect more guidance and professionalism from a VPN service, free or not.