VPNhub Free Review

VPNhub is a good option if you like watching Netflix or Disney+ on your mobile phone. Our tests show that VPNhub’s US server unblocks US Netflix, and that it’s a good free VPN for accessing the Disney+ Star hub.

But, it won’t work with Amazon Prime Video. When testing VPNhub on Prime Video, the VPN was detected and we couldn’t unblock any geo-restricted video content.

Amazon Prime Video detects VPNhub.

Moreover, VPNhub is neither a HBO Max VPN nor a Hulu VPN we can recommend. We couldn’t unblock either US streaming service.

For the simple reason that it has no UK servers, you won’t be able to watch BBC iPlayer, or any other content from across the globe.

Overall, VPNhub is a good free VPN to watch US Netflix on mobile phones.

Remember, VPNhub doesn’t have a free desktop app or European servers, and it won’t unblock many other streaming services. But, for no cost, it’s a viable free streaming VPN.

While you can torrent on VPNhub’s US server, its imperfect privacy policy means we caution against using it.

It does have a kill switch but its server is not P2P-optimized, and the speeds aren’t the fastest for file sharing.

In our VPN torrenting tests, we recorded a very disappointing average bitrate of 1.5MiB/s. We expect at least 5.0MiB/s (from a 10.0MiB/s benchmark).

VPNhub Free doesn’t require any account information to register, but it still collects some activity and device information. This includes:

• Unique mobile ID
• Operating system and platform
• Browser type and version
• Network information

Most worryingly, VPNhub collects your IP address. However, this is pseudonymized, encrypted, and lasts only for the duration of your VPN session.

We’d rather your IP address is never collected, but VPNhub’s security methods are risk-free, so we’re not too concerned about it.

They also log aggregated activity data. But none of this is associated with the websites you visit and you cannot be identified.

While this isn’t a zero logs VPN service and you may be put off by the amount of aggregated data it collects, VPNhub anonymizes and deletes this data appropriately and safely.

Most concerning, VPNhub is able and willing to sell your data to third-party advertisers. Its privacy policy reads:

“We may also collect, use and share your data to produce and share aggregated data that do not identify you and therefore not considered as Personal Information.”

It’s also worth knowing that if you visit the VPNhub website, it records other websites that you visit before and after.

None of this comes close to being a no logs VPN service. But it’s mostly private and far from the worst free VPN privacy policy that we’ve seen.

Operates from privacy-unfriendly countries

VPNhub is owned by Pornhub, a Cyprus-based private company that provides online pornography. It’s headquarters are in the Cypriot city of Limassol, meaning the Cypriot government has legal jurisdiction to demand information from the company.

Pornhub was established in 2007 and is a subsidiary of MindGeek, which is owned by Feras Antoon and David Marmorstein Tassillo. MindGeek is headquartered at 32 Boulevard Royal, 2449 Luxembourg. Luxembourg is an original member of the European Union, making it subject to intrusive European surveillance.

To build VPNhub, Pornhub had to partner with a company called AppAtomic. AppAtomic Limited is based in Nicosia, Cyprus, but its servers are in the US.

The US is where VPNhub user data will be processed, which is bad news: the US is one of the worst countries on earth when it comes to online snooping.

Whichever way you look at it, these are bad jurisdictions for privacy-conscious VPN users.

VPNhub claims to support a number of security protocols, including:

• IKEv2
• OpenVPN (TCP and UDP)
• L2TP
• IPsec
• SSTP
• PPTP

That’s a lot of protocols. But you can’t manually select which one you want, and you can’t find out which is protecting your data through the free app.

For all you know VPNhub could be encrypting your data with PPTP, which VPNhub should retire as it’s very outdated at this point.

We asked VPNhub and it told us that IKEv2 is used for iOS and OpenVPN for Android. Both are strong protocols, but OpenVPN is the best of the bunch.

We were also told that the app uses AES-256 encryption. This is a great cipher, virtually unbreakable, which is great news for security.

There’s also the all-important kill switch. This is an essential feature that protects against your real IP address being exposed should the VPN disconnect for whatever reason.

We didn’t experience any DNS or IPv6 leaks and, while VPNhub doesn’t own its servers, it uses those owned by StackPath, the cloud giant used by the popular no-logs VPN, IPVanish.

All in all, this is a pretty good free VPN when it comes to security. We’d like to see more transparency and customization, but as a free security package, VPNhub hits the mark.

VPNhub’s free service has no obfuscation tools to get around strict internet blocks in highly-censored countries.

In all our tests using our test server in Shanghai (China), the VPN didn’t unblock a single website. In other words, VPNhub Free is useless as an anti-censorship VPN.

As VPNhub only lets you connect to one server location, we could only test its long-distance speeds when connecting to a randomly assigned city in the US (we test from London, UK).

But these results were not bad, featuring minimal speed loss for such a long distance connection – 27% loss of download speeds, and 12% loss in upload speeds.

Before using VPNhub we recorded a 70Mbps download and 18Mbps upload connection.

Download speeds of 52Mbps and upload speeds of 16Mbps is quite good, enough for torrenting or browsing with ease. For a free service, VPNhub’s speeds are impressive.

VPNhub’s customer support is lacking. It’s not entirely surprising given that it’s a wholly free VPN service, but we would like to see something more than an FAQ.

There is no live chat, guides, or troubleshooting tops.

There’s zero information about any of the technical specifications of the app, or any means to ask a simple question.

The FAQ in the app is much better than the website one, but both are still lacking in detail or assistance.

Under ‘Support’ you can report technical issues through an online form, with the option to add screenshots. But we found the response time to be slow.

VPNhub Free uses a contact form for support.

We waited three days for a short, impersonal response that lacked depth and detail.

This isn’t good enough.