KeepSolid VPN Unlimited Review

VPN Unlimited is an attractively-priced, solid VPN that’s available on a wide range of platforms. Speeds on local connections are fairly good but performance across the network is a little less consistent, with sluggish latency and P2P limited to a very small number of servers. Access to Netflix and iPlayer is quick and hassle-free through servers optimized for video. User-friendly custom apps are available for loads of devices, including the Amazon Fire TV Stick, as well as routers.

VPN Unlimited offers some solid privacy features and a recent update introduced the essential VPN kill switch for Android, Mac and Windows. Its logging policy is vague and misleading, which isn’t ideal for a company based in the privacy-unfriendly US. The proprietary KeepSolid Wise protocol means the apps work in China, and customer support is informative and helpful but lacks live chat.

VPN Unlimited offers a range of pricing plans to help you decide which is best for you. These all have the same features but the longer subscription you choose, the less you pay each month. VPN Unlimited has also recently introduced another set of pricing plans that allow 10 simultaneous connections, rather than their standard five.

The most expensive option is the single month package at $9.99, but this is reduced by a 50% to a very affordable $5.00 if you sign up to the 12-month plan. VPN Unlimited is also one of the only providers we’ve seen that offers an Infinity subscription, and at just $199.99 it’s fantastic value for money if you’re planning on using a VPN for the foreseeable future. It is also currently running a 5-year deal for just $1.66 a month.

VPN Unlimited offers both a free trial and a money-back guarantee. The free trial gives you full access to the service for seven days, so you can check that you’re making the right choice before you hand over any of your payment details. All you have to do is create a KeepSolid account, click on the link in your verification email and you’re able to download and use the apps free of charge. Unlike many other providers, you’re not automatically upgraded to a paid subscription when the trial ends, which we love.

If you aren’t completely satisfied with VPN Unlimited, you’re entitled to a full refund within the first seven days. This is a genuine ‘no questions asked’ money-back guarantee with no hidden restrictions or data caps, but it does seem a little on the short side when compared to providers like CyberGhost which offers a refund period of 45 days.

VPN Unlimited offers decent speeds on local connections, peaking at 57Mbps in the Netherlands and consistently reaching 35Mbps+ across Europe (we test from London). Connecting out to the US East Coast is even better than on some local connections, reaching speeds of around 45Mbps. It was also great to see that performance on more distant servers such as Australia is still more than quick enough for HD streaming, coming in at 31Mbps.

We found latency overall to be very sluggish, coming in at a laggy 22ms on same-country connections. Gamers may wish to look for snappier alternatives, with some top-tier providers offering ping times as low as 1ms.

VPN Unlimited connects in around 12 seconds, which is a little slower than we’d like as during this time your true IP address can be exposed. However once we were up and running, performance was very reliable with very few connection drop-outs, so as long as you have a stable internet connection you shouldn’t have any problems.

Uploads were good enough on nearby servers with peak speeds of 36Mbps, but not as solid as downloads. All locations outside of Europe (barring the US and Canada) struggled to reach speeds of 10Mbps, which is pretty disappointing. Australia was incredibly slow, just about reaching a paltry 3Mbps. P2P is only permitted on a handful of servers so torrenters may wish to look elsewhere.

If you only need to connect to nearby servers, VPN Unlimited could be a good choice, however if you need quick international uploads and downloads then it’s perhaps not the best option due to lack of consistency across its global network.

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

VPN Unlimited offers an average-sized server network, covering the most popular locations across 54 countries. This will probably be more than enough choice for most, however should you need access to servers in any unusually exotic places there are other providers that do offer these.

VPN Unlimited has a fairly small number of individual servers at just over 400. Customer support told us it’s against their policy to reveal the number of IP addresses they offer, which leads us to believe it isn’t many more than 400. In comparison to the 50,000-plus IPs offered by some of its rival providers, this is a little disappointing and  also means that popular servers reach full capacity very quickly, resulting in a reduced level of performance, which isn’t ideal.

We love seeing a choice of 13 different US cities at this price point, with a good east/west coast spread as well as options in southern states. There’s also city-level choice in the UK, France, Germany and Canada.

As usual, Europe offers the most choice with over 30 server locations, but it was good to see two servers in India plus one in Turkey. Coverage in Asia is decent, including Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea. South America offers Brazil and Chile only, and the sole option in Africa is South Africa.

You can find the complete list of VPN Unlimited server locations by country and purpose on their website below.

VPN Unlimited offers a good range of custom apps for the usual popular platforms, including Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS and Android. They have also partnered with FlashRouters so you can buy pre-configured routers with the software already installed, saving you having to setup multiple apps on individual devices.

VPN Unlimited additionally provides a range of manual set-up guides for devices lacking dedicated apps such as AppleTV, Amazon Fire TV and Chromecast. There are also step-by-step instructions on how to manually configure your existing router to support the software, which are very user-friendly and include lots of helpful screenshots.

VPN Unlimited also offers proxy extensions for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers. They are incredibly easy to download and use, and can be added to your browser in a matter of seconds if you already have the main app installed. As an added bonus they feature a WebRTC Leak Blocker, an extremely useful tool that helps to prevent a browser issue that could potentially expose your true IP address.

Whilst these are great additions to the main apps, it’s good to note that these are proxies rather than true VPN extensions, meaning they don’t encrypt your web traffic. A good choice for heavy browser users seeking a more lightweight experience.

You can use VPN Unlimited on a range of games consoles and streaming devices either by connecting them to a configured router or sharing the VPN connection with another device already running the software, such as a laptop or smartphone. This includes devices such as AppleTV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick and many more, which is where VPN Unlimited’s generous limit of five simultaneous connections really comes in handy. We would love to see some native apps for these devices in the future, which are already offered by rivals including Windscribe.

There are extensive set-up guides for loads of these devices on the support section of the website which are incredibly easy to follow. It’s rare for a provider to offer so many manual workarounds for such a large range of streaming devices, and we love that VPN Unlimited has gone to so much effort to make the process as simple as possible.

VPN Unlimited is a fantastic choice if you’re looking for fast, hassle-free access to all the major streaming services due to its servers optimized for video. Watching US Netflix is made simple with the ‘Streaming Netflix’ server, which is located within the ‘streaming’ tab on the server list. We’ve had absolutely no problems accessing this service in any of our tests, and have actually found it to be one of the more reliable options out there.

The story is the same with BBC iPlayer, which is easily accessible through its dedicated streaming server. Great speeds on the UK server mean you can take advantage of the HD option and watch your favorite shows in excellent quality.

Easy access and decent speeds means VPN Unlimited is also popular with fans of other streaming sites such as Hulu, as it can be used across many different services. Avid torrenters might want to look at more P2P-friendly providers such as IPVanish, as currently P2P is only permitted on five servers in total.

VPN Unlimited offers some strong security features that should satisfy even the more privacy-conscious VPN user. You can choose between OpenVPN, IKEv2 and two proprietary protocols in the desktop app, but we’d recommend selecting OpenVPN as it’s offers the best balance between performance and privacy. Encryption is via AES-256, a top cipher used by the US federal government.

A recent update has introduced an essential VPN kill switch function, which means that if the VPN connection drops for any reason, it will block online traffic, preventing your true IP address from being exposed. We also like the option to switch on DNS leak protection that prevents DNS requests from being accidentally sent to your ISP. However, VPN Unlimited could do better by providing its own DNS servers, although it currently uses Google Public DNS, which are considered to provide a very high level of performance and security.

VPN Unlimited also offers its own proprietary KeepSolid Wise protocol that makes use of the TCP 443 port used by secure web traffic (HTTPS). This means it’s far more difficult for ISPs and government censors to detect that you’re using a VPN, as you will simply appear as normal browser traffic.

Even despite China’s recent VPN crackdowns, it would appear that VPN Unlimited is still a fairly reliable option for people wishing to connect out from that country.

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 regions, 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.

We found VPN Unlimited’s logging policy rather confusing and a little too vague for our liking. It claims it doesn’t monitor or log any of your online activity, which is reassuring, however it does keep a temporary record of your basic connection details, such as data usage volume, timestamps and total number of simultaneous connections for maintenance purposes.

After delving a little deeper, we found out that VPN Unlimited does in fact keep traffic data logs so that it can suspend users it suspects are violating the terms of service. This isn’t too much of an issue, however we don’t like that this isn’t made clear in the privacy policy, and we had to directly email the support team in order to find this out.

VPN Unlimited is incorporated in the United States, which many potential users might see as a red flag. This means that law enforcement agencies could force it to log and hand over customer data, and in its privacy policy it does state that it will hand over personal private data in order to comply with laws that require such disclosure.

This shouldn’t raise too many concerns as VPN Unlimited only stores your data for a maximum of seven days, however it is slightly worrying that this data can be handed over without your consent. Those seeking complete anonymity should steer clear.

VPN Unlimited’s custom apps are modern-looking and incredibly user-friendly. The main screen of the desktop client displays your connection status, chosen server location and a button to check your new IP address on a nice-looking (if somewhat redundant) world map. We would prefer it to be a little more streamlined so it would fit in a smaller window, but overall you could do a lot worse.

Advanced settings are located behind the burger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top left and are very well laid out with some helpful integrated support regarding the different VPN protocols. You can switch on the kill switch function in the settings menu, however DNS leak protection is hidden within the protocols menu, which is a little confusing. We love that you can search for a server rather than having to scroll through a long list and there is a dedicated tab for streaming-optimized servers too. Servers which allow torrents are clearly marked to make them easy to find.

There are a fair few redundant elements that could be removed to make the app a little more polished, such as the Information section which is mainly general facts about the company. The mobile apps are pretty similar, with a fresh and modern feel that makes them very accessible to new users.

VPN Unlimited is incredibly easy to download and install, and the whole process only takes a few minutes from start to finish. Whatever device you’re using, there are loads of detailed set-up guides on the support section of the site. It’s as simple as downloading the relevant software from the website and following the prompts given to you by the installation wizard, then all that’s left to do is enter your login credentials and you’re ready to go.

The prompts themselves are very straightforward to follow but should you get stuck, the set-up guides should get you back on the right track.

VPN Unlimited offers a high standard of customer support and has recently introduced a live chat feature. The friendly support agents were very helpful and we received answers promptly. They often referred us to the FAQ pages, but were happy to provide more details if asked. Unfortunately, live chat is not available 24/7, a service most top-tier providers offer, but you can email the support team around the clock. Response times are quick and we often received answers within an hour.

The online resources are comprehensive and well-organized, and we love the FAQ search feature that means you can look up key words rather than scrolling through a long list of answers. 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.

VPN Unlimited is an affordable VPN offering a decent level of security and performance, however it does have some flaws. It’s one of the only providers with a lifetime subscription option, meaning there are huge savings to be had if you’re willing to use the service for the foreseeable future. Speeds are good enough on local connections, but international performance is inconsistent. High latency and P2P restrictions mean heavy torrenters and gamers should look elsewhere.

In terms of privacy, VPN Unlimited has upsides and downsides. We love the proprietary KeepSolid Wise protocol that offers an extra layer of encryption to help overcome government blocks in high-censorship countries and the VPN kill switch is a great new addition to the app. However, its logging policy is also pretty questionable, so steer clear if absolute privacy is your priority.

We love the user-friendly software for desktop and mobile, with optimized servers for Netflix and BBC iPlayer to make streaming a breeze. Additional obfuscation tools mean it can be made to work in China, although you’ll only have access to six server locations. Inexperienced users will love this solid, well-rounded VPN that comes with a helpful support team and easy-to-use, attractive software.