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 isn’t a VPN for total anonymity.

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.

Here’s a table showing VPN Unlimited’s speed test results:

As the data above shows, VPN Unlimited has relatively slow local and international speeds. It’s not the slowest VPN, but hardly compares to its competitors, reaching consistent results above 90Mbps.

Specific data points that hold VPN Unlimited back massively include its speeds to Brazil (40Mbps) and Australia (45Mbps). Granted, both these locations are further away from where we test in the US, but we see other VPNs like Hotspot Shield recording average international speeds of 71Mbps.

To put KeepSolid VPN Unlimited’s speeds in context, here a chart comparing its local and international speeds to other VPNs:

Decent Ping Times

KeepSolid VPN Unlimited has decent ping times, averaging around 6ms on a local New York connection and just 73ms connecting to the UK.

But it doesn’t have the download speeds to make it an ideal VPN for gaming. Overall, there’s simply other VPNs for a cheaper price that deliver better speeds and lower latency.

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

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.

Secures Your Traffic with Industry-Standard 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. But this is now a separate service that you have to purchase on top of your VPN subscription.

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

VPN Unlimited offers a decent-sized network. It covers the most popular locations across 50 countries.

But if you need access to servers in less well-covered places there are better VPN services out there to do the job.

In terms of individual servers, VPN Unlimited has a fairly small number – just over500.

VPN Unlimited has a decent sized server network.

Customer support refused to tell us the number of IP addresses they offer, saying that it’s against their policy. This leads us to suspect that there aren’t many more than 500.

This is disappointing when compared to the 50,000+ IPs offered by some of its rival services (VyprVPN, for example, has over 200,000). It’s likely that the servers will clog up pretty quickly, resulting in poor performance. Not ideal.

When it comes to the US, the spread is good. 13 different US cities are distributed from East (Florida) to West coast (California), and the South (Texas), too.

Likewise, VPN Unlimited has good European options, with city-level options in UK, France, and Germany.

Asia coverage is decent, with VPN Unlimited servers in Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea and one bridging the continental divide in Turkey. Yet South America is limited to Brazil and Chile only, and the sole option in Africa is South Africa.

VPN Unlimited also withdrew its India servers following the introduction of data-retention law, which was a good move.

VPN Unlimited’s custom apps are sleek and user-friendly.

The main screen of the desktop app displays your connection status, chosen server location and a button to have a look at your new IP address on a pretty (if somewhat redundant) world map.

It would be better to see it a little more streamlined to fit in a smaller window, but you can do much worse than this from a VPN (trust us – we’ve seen it).

If you’re looking to customize, advanced settings are located behind the burger menu (the three horizontal lines) and are quite neatly laid out with some helpful integrated support regarding the different VPN protocols.

You can turn on the kill switch function in the settings menu (and we recommend you do), but 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 and scroll through a long list, plus there’s a dedicated tab for streaming-optimized servers. Want to watch Netflix? VPN Unlimited makes it easy.

Also, VPN Unlimited servers that allow torrenting are clearly marked to make them easy to find.

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 4.1MiB/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 isn’t 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.

You can also buy pre-configured WiFi routers with the software already installed, saving you having to setup multiple apps on individual devices.

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.

We would like to see some native apps for these in the future – apps designed for specific consoles and streaming devices – especially as it is offered by rivals, including Windscribe.

Still, VPN Unlimited is generous enough to allow up to five devices connected to the one VPN subscription simultaneously. That comes in handy.

Also handy are the extensive manual set-up guides for plenty of these devices on the support section of VPN Unlimited’s website.

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 beginners rejoice!

VPN Unlimited caters to more browsers than most VPNs, which usually have extensions for Chrome and Firefox only, if that.

Be aware that proxies are not VPNs – they’re unencrypted connections. But they’re helpful for lightweight browsing while hiding your IP and changing the country you appear to be connecting from.

VPN Unlimited’s browser extensions are incredibly easy to download and use, available within a matter of seconds if you already have the main program installed.

They also include the WebRTC Leak Blocker. This is a tool that helps to prevent a browser issue that could potentially expose your true IP address. That’s all well and good, but we think that should be standard anyway.

Select Apps to Bypass VPN with Split Tunneling

VPN Unlimited offers split tunneling on Windows and Android, so you can select apps to bypass your VPN connection. The feature is easy to find in the app, but we spotted the description of the feature isn’t so useful.

Effective AdGuard Custom DNS Feature

VPN Unlimited’s ad blocker utilizes Adguard’s custom DNS servers. As you can see below, it blocks around 79% of online ads, which is pretty good for a VPN. However, this custom DNS feature isn’t available on every device.