StrongVPN Review

StrongVPN’s privacy policy claims to store no user data or identifiable information. However, we recently discovered that StrongVPN tracks your IP address on iOS, albeit for the duration of the VPN session. While this won’t compromise your anonymity, we’re confused as to why this isn’t disclosed in the privacy policy.

In addition, we’re unable to verify StrongVPN as genuinely ‘no-logs’ as it hasn’t been audited or tested by real-world events. Even worse, StrongVPN is based in the US, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, meaning the US government can demand access to your user data.

Although StrongVPN states that it will comply with valid subpoena requests, it has never done so in its 19-year history. This suggests it is in fact no-logs as it’s unable to hand over any user data. Based on this track record, our analysis of its logging policy, and our correspondence with its development team, we find it likely that StrongVPN is a private VPN service.

Owned by Ziff Davis

StrongVPN was launched in 2005 by Strong Technology, LLC. It has changed hands a number of times over the years. In 2019 it was acquired by J2 Global, an American technology company.

In October 2021 J2 Global split in two as a company, becoming Consensus Cloud Solutions, Inc. and Ziff Davis. Its VPN properties now fall under ownership of Ziff Davis, a conglomerate digital media, affiliate marketing and technology company.

Despite this confusing latest change of ownership, we’ve seen no reason to believe that StrongVPN has changed as a service.

After 5 years of testing and regular use, it’s become clear to us that StrongVPN is an unreliable choice for streaming. While it can unblock major US streaming services, like Hulu, we’ve occasionally found our connection blocked when testing Amazon Prime Video or US Netflix.

Continue reading below for a detailed analysis of Strong VPN’s streaming performance.

Unblocks US Netflix, but No Other Regions

At the time of writing, Strong VPN now works with US Netflix on several of its servers. While this is great, we’ve noticed a trend in our testing data that suggests StrongVPN switches between working and not working with Netflix every few months. For guaranteed access, we suggest using CyberGhost which has never failed to unblock US Netflix in our experience.

StrongVPN’s Chicago server unblocked US Netflix.

Though StrongVPN streamed US Netflix in HD quality, we were unable to unblock any other Netflix region. We tested over 10 libraries, with no success.

In comparison, NordVPN unblocks 17 Netflix regions, including Germany and the UK.

StrongVPN’s Inconsistent Access to BBC iPlayer

We found StrongVPN even more unreliable for BBC iPlayer. For instance, we were sometimes able to load the streaming service only to be blocked later that same day.

StrongVPN’s London server unblocked BBC iPlayer.

To prevent this from happening to you, we regularly test StrongVPN with BBC iPlayer and record which UK servers are still working:

If you’re still unable to load the service, there are more consistent VPNs for BBC iPlayer available.

Regularly Unblocks Hulu & Max

StrongVPN has never failed to unblock Hulu or Max in our testing, with all 15 US server locations working. We’ve tested this across multiple platforms and during peak times for viewership.

For example, we used StrongVPN to stream the live finale of ‘The Penguin’ and we never noticed any buffering or drops in video quality. This isn’t always the case as some VPN services, like Windscribe, can buffer while streaming live content or drop out entirely.

Though not US-based, StrongVPN is one of the best VPNs for unblocking Channel 4 (All 4), either through its VPNs servers or Strong DNS. It maintained a 100% success rate in our testing, beating top-rated VPNs such as IPVanish, PIA, and Surfshark.

As you can see, StrongVPN is extremely fast on long-distance connections. A one of the fastest VPNs we’ve tested, it maintains impressive speeds across continents to Europe and Asia.

Most notably, we recorded only 1% speed loss connecting to Canada and 4% speed loss connecting to the UK.

StrongVPN’s local connection speeds are also impressive. It manages to reach 95Mbps on a 100Mbps connection, which is more than enough for full HD streaming and uninterrupted torrenting.

Here’s a chart comparing StrongVPN’s local and international download speeds to other high-quality VPNs:

These results show that StrongVPN’s download speeds almost catch up to the fastest VPN available, Hotspot Shield, and even outperforms IPVanish and NordVPN on international speed stability. Though, it doesn’t perform as well when comparing upload speeds with other top-tier VPNs.

Lowest Latency Recorded

In our 2024 speed tests, we found that StrongVPN has the lowest local ping times out of all the 61 VPNs we’ve reviewed.

At just 4ms, it beats other top-tier VPNs like NordVPN and Hide.me. Using StrongVPN, we’re able to play fast-paced online games, like CS:GO and PUBG, without lagging and connection drops.

Here’s a table comparing ping times between top VPNs:

Ping times refer to the time it takes for data to be transmitted from your device to a server and back again. A lower ping time (or latency) is one of the most important features to a good gaming VPN because it reduces the amount of lag you experience gaming online.

Encryption & Tunneling Protocols

We tested StrongVPN’s encryption by analyzing our VPN traffic with Wireshark. Our results confirmed that StrongVPN fully encrypted our browsing activity.

StrongVPN uses ChaCha20 with WireGuard, by default. You can switch to AES-256 with OpenVPN, but we suggest sticking to WireGuard as its faster and more modern. There’s also SSTP for Windows users, which excels at bypassing firewalls.

StrongVPN offers multiple secure protocols on desktop and mobile.

We were also pleased that StrongVPN uses its own DNS servers, meaning your traffic won’t be routed through a middle man.

Effective Data Leak Protection

We personally tested StrongVPN for IP, WebRTC, geolocation, and DNS leaks. Thankfully, we found no worrying data leaks with StrongVPN.

StrongVPN passed our leak tests.

StrongVPN’s kill switch works well on Windows, but it leaked our IP address on macOS when switching servers. Though disappointing, many VPNs choose not to protect a server change, like ExpressVPN and PrivateVPN.

Using our kill switch test tool, we verified that StrongVPN includes a kill switch on Android on iOS. It isn’t visible within the settings and can’t be turned off, but it activates reliably.

Security Features

While we trust StrongVPN to keep your data secure, it’s missing the necessary features to guarantee your online safety. We’ve listed the most important ones below:

StrongVPN’s total number of server locations exceeds the industry average of 40, but its global distribution is poor. Around 52% of its servers are located in Europe, compared to 41% with NordVPN.

A narrow server coverage limits the IP addresses you can get and the content you can access. For example, you can’t use StrongVPN to unblock any streaming services based in Japan.

That said, we were pleased to see StrongVPN provide city-level choice in five countries:

• Australia (4 cities)
• Canada (3)
• France (3)
• UK (5)
• US (15)

The city-level choice in the US is excellent, covering both coasts. However, we were disappointed to see the number of UK locations drop to 5 in recent weeks, with the Maidenhead server gone.

Similarly, Strong VPN has removed city-level choice from Germany and Brazil. This limits your options if you need a server close to you for better speeds or if you want to try a different IP address.

StrongVPN’s South Africa servers have been removed entirely and its India servers limited to just Mumbai. In comparison, ExpressVPN has servers in four African countries (South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, and Algeria), and three in India (Mumbai and Chennai).

StrongVPN’s server list on iOS.

StrongVPN only supports 950 servers in total, which is 22 per location. As such, you may experience slower speeds from multiple users connecting to the same server during times of peak usage.

First-Party Server Ownership

StrongVPN owns and operates all of its own servers, just like its ‘sister’ VPN, IPVanish.

Ownership of its “infrastructure of global servers” is one of StrongVPN’s best selling points because it eliminates the risks associated with rental servers. It guarantees there is no “third-party meddling with [its] users’ activity,” and only trusted employees have access to the physical servers.

The exception is India due to its intrusive VPN laws that allow the government to seize servers. In our experience, this hasn’t affected our connection speeds, but we’ve noticed that you sometimes need to refresh the StrongVPN app for the India server to appear.

Installation & Setup

We found it straightforward to install StrongVPN on all platforms. Unlike with NordVPN or IVPN, we were able to download the Mac app directly from the provider’s website using an installer that worked on all versions of macOS.

On average, the installation process took less than 2 minutes to complete. If you do encounter any problems, StrongVPN provides helpful setup guides.

Interface & Ease of Use

Due to its simplicity, we think StrongVPN is a good choice for beginners. Its main screen is very stripped back, displaying only the most important connection details.

To start using the VPN, tap the green ‘Connect’ button to initiate the connection. Though simple, we didn’t like how little the app changes to indicate a successful connection. Much better VPNs, like ExpressVPN, use in-app animations and change their color scheme so you’ll notice a disconnection.

To avoid this happening, we suggest keeping notifications enabled in StrongVPN’s settings. They can be annoying and intrusive, but it’s better than your VPN disconnecting without you noticing.

All of its apps use a minimalist design with only two elements: a world map and a solid background color. Unlike with IPVanish and NordVPN, this map can’t be interacted with and serves no function. We don’t mind this on macOS and Android where it looks sleek, but on Windows and iOS the map is lazily superimposed onto the background.

It’s also worth noting that the kill switch on macOS is only compatible with OpenVPN or L2TP. This is an unnecessary and frustrating disparity that we’d like StrongVPN to correct.

For a complete overview of how StrongVPN’s apps differ, you can use the table below:

Day-to-Day Experience

In general, our experience with StrongVPN was mixed. An issue across all apps is that clicking a server location doesn’t automatically connect you to the VPN. You have to select your location first and then connect to the VPN, which is an unnecessary extra step.

On PC, we resented that the app wouldn’t close normally but instead required to be manually shutdown in the system tray. We also found its notifications disruptive, especially when streaming.

Our user experience was much smoother on mobile, and we enjoyed experimenting with its Siri Shortcuts. For the most part, we had no issues with the VPN and were able to browse without any disruption. Our only criticism is that we experienced some eyestrain using StrongVPN on our iPhone as its font is too small and blurry.

In our standardized P2P speed tests, we detected minimal speed loss from our baseline of 10MiB/s. Without the VPN, we were able to download a 22GB movie in 35 minutes. While connected to StrongVPN’s New York server, we downloaded the same file in 36 minutes.

Torrenting with StrongVPN, connected to a UK server.

While StrongVPN doesn’t explicitly label its servers as P2P-friendly, all of its servers support BitTorrent traffic. Using StrongVPN since 2019, we’ve never had our connection throttled or blocked while file-sharing with the VPN.

We’re also pleased that StrongVPN owns its entire server network as this prevents the VPN from receiving any DMCA requests. For example, TorGuard stopped its users from torrenting on US servers as its server provider received too may copyright notices.

No Port Forwarding

Port forwarding speed ups file seeding, and is a feature experienced torrenters often look for in a VPN.

StrongVPN no longer sells dedicated IP addresses, which made port forwarding available. This is because all of StrongVPN’s servers now use shared IP addresses.

StrongVPN is one of a handful of VPNs in our top 25 that doesn’t have apps for Apple TV or Android TV. While you can use StrongDNS for both devices, it doesn’t provide any VPN encryption. You can also manually install StrongVPN on your router to sidestep this problem, but it isn’t as convenient to use as a dedicated app.

Thankfully, StrongVPN provides an app for Amazon Fire TV devices, but it’s not as user-friendly as our highest-rated Fire TV VPNs.

While StrongVPN doesn’t have a dedicated router app, you can buy it pre-flashed or you can use an automatic installer script to bypass most of the more technical setup.

StrongVPN is compatible with over 125 router models — around a 100 more than VyprVPN. This is a great option if you want to use the VPN on devices that don’t support native VPN apps, like a PlayStation 5 or Smart TV.

Smart DNS Supports 42 Countries

StrongVPN’s Smart DNS tool, StrongDNS, is the only one we’ve tested that unblocks content in over 10 regions. In fact, StrongVPN allows you to access content from any of its 42 server locations.

This is superior to ExpressVPN’s MediaStreamer which only works to access the US or PIA’s tool which is limited to 5 locations.

Customer Support

Live chat is available 24/7, but most of the time we just ended up talking to a sales agent who copied and pasted answers from the FAQs section.

This was a little disappointing, but whenever they couldn’t solve our problems they did forward our details on to the tech team, who were always quick to respond.

The official StrongVPN website provides a great range of setup manuals for many different devices, including video tutorials and screenshots.

Split Tunneling

StrongVPN’s Android app allows you to split tunnel your connection, so you can choose which apps to bypass the VPN connection. It’s a handy feature if you want to make sure your maps or weather app stay on your real location while connected to StrongVPN.

We would like to see this feature on all of its apps, though.

Additional Features We’d Like to See

StrongVPN has fewer additional features compared to its many rivals. Here’s a list of features we’d like to see added to its apps: