VPN Unlimited Review

VPN Unlimited is owned and run by KeepSolid Inc. It was founded in 2013 by Oleg Bocharnikov and Vasiliy Ivanov, who set up what was then-called Simplex Solutions, a business in Odessa, Ukraine.

KeepSolid Inc. is now incorporated in the US and its HQ is in New York.

This isn’t a good thing. Being based in the US means that US law enforcement agencies can force the company to log and hand over customer data.

In its privacy policy, VPN Unlimited states it will hand over personal data in order to comply with laws that require such disclosure.

We’re comforted by VPN Unlimited’s policy to only store personally-identifiable information (your IP address) for the duration of your session.

However, it is worrying that data can be handed over without your consent. VPN Unlimited is not a VPN for total anonymity.

KeepSolid VPN Unlimited’s logging policy is disappointing. It is private enough for most, but let’s look at what it does collect.

Yikes. That’s a lot of information. However, it is not as bad as it sounds as this data is deleted after each VPN session.

This is non-sensitive aggregated data and much less of a privacy threat.

However, we don’t like that the policy doesn’t state how long this information is stored for, so we can’t trust VPN Unlimited completely.

VPN Unlimited is actually quite limited when it comes to speed.

Here’s what our speed tests found:

Long-distance speeds

These are the average speeds we saw when connecting from the UK to the following locations:

VPN Unlimited is particularly poor if you connect long-distance to countries in Asia or North and South America (we test from the UK).

The USA delivered very slow speeds, Singapore was better but still hit-and-miss, and if you’re in Australia, you’re out of luck – VPN Unlimited doesn’t have a single server there.

At least local connections were better, with speeds often above average.

In recent days, VPN Unlimited has upgraded a number of its European servers to offer 10Gbit/s connection speeds, available on:

• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Italy
• Poland
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland

This is a positive development but we’d like to see them upgrade the overall server network.

How about ping/latency? That’s way too high too. On local UK connections we recorded 19ms, which is simply too high for anyone serious about gaming.

For gamers and torrenters out there, you should find another VPN service due to the sluggish latency/ping and plenty of P2P restrictions.

If you’re a gamer, you should look for ping times as low as 1ms to prevent lag. There are snappier alternatives out there for this purpose, including ExpressVPN and IPVanish, while you can read our review of the excellent PrivateVPN here.

VPN Unlimited is a good choice for unblocking video streaming platforms, especially compared to other mid-range VPN services such as Avast SecureLine.

Due to its optimized servers, VPN Unlimited provides quick, hassle-free access to Amazon Prime Video, US Netflix, BBC iPlayer, HBO Max, and Hulu.

VPN Unlimited consistently unblocks US Netflix.

VPN Unlimited also has dedicated streaming servers for:

• ESPN+
• Hotstar
• Popcornflix
• Rai.tv
• Sony Crackle

We’ve had no problems unblocking online streaming servers with VPN Unlimited – it’s extremely consistent, one of the most reliable VPNs on the market.

VPN Unlimited’s streaming game is strong, but we can’t say the same for torrenting. It has a very slow average bitrate speed of 1.5 MiB/s. In comparison, ExpressVPN records 9.4 MiB/s on the same test connection.

Torrenting Websites Banned on US Servers

On the 13th of January 2022, VPN Unlimited agreed in US court to “block BitTorrent traffic” and to block access to major torrenting websites on its servers in the US. VPN Unlimited had been accused by film studios of encouraging its subscribers to violate copyright law using its service.

As of 15 March 2022, our testing found that the ban is now being enforced. The websites listed in the image below are blocked via a firewall, when connected to a US VPN Unlimited server. California and New York P2P dedicated servers have also recently been removed from the service.

Excerpt from KeepSolid’s Stipulation of Dismissal stating they would block BitTorrent on US servers.

There are only three VPN Unlimited servers permitted for torrenting. These include:

• Ontario, Toronto (Canada)
• Paris (France)
• Bucharest (Romania)

If VPN Unlimited allows torrenting, it seems to do so reluctantly. In its FAQ VPN Unlimited says: “The primary use of KeepSolid VPN Unlimited is not to download torrents, but to offer online security.”

We recommend checking out IPVanish if you would like more server options for torrenting.

On the plus side, it has a kill switch that can prevent your IP address from being leaked if VPN Unlimited disconnects.

Despite China’s recent VPN crackdowns, VPN Unlimited is still a reliable option for people wishing to connect out from that country.

We’ve tested it on our own China servers and can report consistent success bypassing the firewall.

VPN Unlimited’s KeepSolid Wise protocol enables users from China to overcome the Great Firewall by making their VPN traffic appear as standard HTTPS web traffic. This makes it extremely difficult to detect and block, therefore allowing the majority of people to beat the government censors.

It should be noted that Chinese users only currently have access to five VPN nearby free speech countries, but this does include Singapore which is the best option if you’re looking for good speeds.

Due to this proprietary protocol, VPN Unlimited is also a fantastic choice for people in other high-censorship countries such as the UAE, Turkey and Iran. A good-sized global network is helpful here, as it means you’ll never be too far from a server in a free speech country.

VPN Unlimited has some solid security features. If you’re an experienced VPN user, you may find advanced options lacking.

With VPN Unlimited, you can choose between these protocols:

• OpenVPN
• IKEv2
• KeepSolid Wise TCP/UDP
• TLS Encryption
• IPSec
• WireGuard

KeepSolid Wise TCP/UDP is a proprietary protocol, which is to say it’s an exclusive, first-party protocol. It makes use of the TCP 443 port used by secure web traffic (HTTPS).

Tech jargon aside, this means it’s far more difficult for ISPs and government censors to detect that you’re using a VPN, as your traffic simply appears as that of a normal browser.

However, which protocols you can select are dependent upon the device that you’re using. For example, Windows mobile is limited to L2TP encryption.

We always recommend selecting OpenVPN or WireGuard where possible.

VPN Unlimited’s encryption is also strong. AES-256, as it’s called, is a top cipher said to be unbreakable. The US federal government uses it, so you can trust it to be robust.

VPN Unlimited has also introduced the essential VPN kill switch function, which means that if your connection drops for any reason, it will block online traffic, preventing your true IP address from being exposed.

However, VPN Unlimited could do better by providing its own DNS servers. It currently uses Google Public DNS, which are still considered to provide a very high level of performance and security, though.

VPN Unlimited does have a nice DNS Firewall feature that protects you from malicious websites, phishing web pages, malware infections, and even pop-up ads.

You can activate the DNS Firewall by logging into your VPN Unlimited account, and selecting the types of websites you wan’t to block. Or you can create a custom blacklist.

We also did not detect any DNS leaks when using VPN Unlimited. You can test it for yourself using our leak test tool.

VPN Unlimited offers a high standard of customer support, and has recently introduced a live chat feature.

When we put it to the test, the support agents were helpful, friendly, and quick to respond. We can’t ask for much more than that from a VPN service.

VPN Unlimited’s customer support responded to our team in 10 minutes.

Agents often referred us to FAQ pages to find our answer, which is annoying, but they were happy to provide more details if asked.

Unfortunately, this live chat isn’t available 24/7, a service most top-tier providers offer. You can email the VPN Unlimited support team around the clock, though. Here the response time was very quick – we often received answers within an hour.

Should you not want to contact the support directly, you can find solutions in VPN Unlimited’s online resources section.

This is well organized and comprehensive, and the FAQ search feature enables you to look up keywords rather than scrolling through a long list of answers.

We all know the pain of scrolling through an FAQ for an answer that often isn’t there.

As well as a fantastic selection of set-up manuals, there was good material on more general subjects such as online security, bypassing censorship, and data privacy, which is always useful.