StrongVPN Review

StrongVPN does occasionally run ‘free trial’ promotions, but the downside to this is if you participate in one of these you won’t be eligible for a refund payment, which is a little disappointing. Refunds can take up to seven working days to appear in your bank account, but this is pretty much standard with all providers, making signing up to StrongVPN relatively risk-free (as long as you don’t pay with Bitcoin).

We found latency to be less impressive, coming in at 10ms even on same-country connections. Considering some of our top-tier providers boast super low ping times of less than 1ms, keen gamers may want to look else.

StrongVPN takes a while to connect, averaging around 15 seconds, so remember to activate the kill switch to ensure that your IP address isn’t exposed while the VPN is connecting. Performance isn’t as reliable as we’d like it to be, with some servers producing very different results from one test to the next, which is pretty frustrating.

Upload speeds are even better than downloads, coming in at an impressive 94Mbps in the UK and around 85Mbps across the rest of Europe. Performance isn’t as good across long-distance connections, with Australia struggling to reach 3Mbps, however this is to be expected and won’t be a problem for the majority. P2P is also supported on all of StrongVPN’s servers, making it very appealing to torrenters.

Whilst there are providers out there that offer much higher speeds on individual servers, StrongVPN is a great choice if you’re looking for solid performance across both local and international connections. If you’re planning on setting the VPN up on your router and streaming in Ultra HD across multiple devices you might need to look elsewhere, however the software is more than quick enough for everyday internet users.

To read about our speed testing methodologies, please read How we test for VPN speed performance.

The advertised 650 servers sounds a lot more impressive than it really is as two-thirds are PPTP-only servers. This legacy protocol should really only be used as a last resort as there are known insecurities. StrongVPN does however maintain an incredibly high number of individual IP addresses at almost 60,000, meaning it’s far easier for you to get ‘lost in the crowd’.

We were pleasantly surprised to see a choice of 12 US cities in a network this size, putting StrongVPN up there with some of the top providers for coverage in that country. There’s also city-level choice in the UK, Brazil, Canada and Germany, which is great to see.

As usual, Europe and North America are best represented, accounting for 16 out of the 26 available locations. Asia has a few options such as Hong Kong, Japan and Malaysia, but South America is served by just Brazil. Unfortunately, there aren’t any servers in Africa.

You can find the complete list of StrongVPN server locations by country and city on their website below.

There are also manual setup guides on the support section of StrongVPN’s website for those devices lacking native apps, such as Linux, Amazon Kindle and Kodi. You can also find step-by-step instructions on how to manually configure your existing router to work with the software if you don’t want to buy a new one.

There are setup guides for some of these devices, such as Kodi, on the support section of StrongVPN’s website. If you’re stuck, we’d highly recommend searching through the customer forums, as we found lots of helpful tips on how to manually configure a ton of other devices. Admittedly these aren’t official website resources as they’re submitted by users, however they may come in handy if you encounter any issues.

Unfortunately, during our latest tests, we weren’t able to access BBC iPlayer through any of the UK servers. It’s been possible in the past, but it seems StrongVPN has fallen victim to the BBC’s recent crackdowns on VPN traffic. If watching shows on iPlayer is a priority check out our dedicated roundup of the best VPNs for that purpose.

StrongVPN remains popular with fans of other streaming services such as Hulu, Sky, and HBO due to easy access and decent speeds. Torrenters will love that P2P activity is permitted on all servers worldwide, and a strict zero-logs policy means all your online activity remains anonymous.

The VPN kill switch was the most welcome addition as it blocks all web traffic should the VPN connection drop for any reason, preventing your true IP address from being exposed. StrongVPN also operates its own zero-log DNS servers, meaning there’s no chance of your web traffic being routed through less-secure third-party servers that could potentially reveal your browsing activity to your ISP. Protection against DNS and IPv6 leaks are added bonuses not offered by every other provider.

StrongVPN also gives users the ability to ‘scramble’ their OpenVPN traffic, which adds an additional layer of obfuscation and therefore makes it easier to bypass censorship measures. The option to manually select your port is also very useful.

The broad choice of protocols is really helpful for those in China, as even if one is blocked there are several others you can try, however bear in mind they don’t all offer an equal level of security. The additional obfuscation (scramble) tool is another great feature, as it means your web traffic is far less likely to be detected as a VPN connection, therefore allowing you to overcome the Great Firewall more easily.

This means StrongVPN is also a solid choice for people in other high-censorship countries such as Iran, Turkey and the UAE, as governments will find it a lot more difficult to tell that you’re connecting using a VPN. There are however providers out there that offer much more reliable performance due to larger server networks, so if you need consistently fast speeds you might want to take a look at other options.

Because they collect absolutely no customer data, there is no way any of your browsing activity can be traced back to you as an individual, which is great news. If you’re seeking complete online anonymity, you should most definitely consider StrongVPN.

StrongVPN states that it will comply with valid subpoena requests, but it can’t provide information that it does not have. Therefore if such a request were to be made, it would simply respond by stating it keeps no customer logs and therefore cannot be of any further assistance.

A limited range of settings can be found behind the cog icon along the top of the app, however these are very basic, restricted to protocol selection and a few on/off toggles for more general options such as the kill switch. We would have appreciated a few more configurable options here, such as DNS and IPv6 leak protection, as currently these are baked into the software so there’s no way of controlling them.

We love that you can set up the desktop client to automatically connect on launch, meaning you don’t even have to remember to click connect before you start browsing. The mobile apps are also very good; simple and effective with a big button in the middle of the screen, but lack some security features, such as a kill switch. StrongVPN offers a sleek, user-friendly experience but hardcore users who want to manually configure a load of settings will probably want to look elsewhere.

There are detailed set-up guides for most major platforms on the site, which include lots of helpful screenshots so you can make sure you’re doing the right thing. The installation prompts are straightforward enough to follow, but should you get stuck just refer back to the guides and they should get you on the right track.

It’s the same story with the help section on the website, which offers a great range of setup manuals for loads of different devices, including video tutorials and screenshots, but lacks comprehensive troubleshooting guides. For basic instructions the FAQ section should do the job, but for anything beyond this you’ll have to contact the support team. Thankfully, there’s a search feature, meaning you should be able to find answers pretty quickly. Overall it’s decent enough, but could do with some improvements.

In terms of privacy, StrongVPN is a true zero-logs VPN that doesn’t even store temporary connection metadata, mitigating the fact it’s based in the privacy-unfriendly US. Additional obfuscation tools mean it works well in China and other high-censorship countries, and a VPN kill switch and first-party DNS servers are great bonus features.

We love StrongVPN’s redesigned set of custom apps, now offering a far more user-friendly experience, although we would like to see some more configurable options added in the near future. Those looking for sheer speed will be disappointed, but if you’re looking for a simple, click-and-forget VPN to browse and torrent securely, StrongVPN is an excellent choice.