PureVPN Review – Is it Worth It Again in 2020?

PureVPN Overview

PureVPN currently has a reputation of being a VPN service provider that isn’t very truthful with its clients. Now, though, the updates and additions to PureVPN’s features may turn the tables once more. From finally adding a live chat option for support to putting out a new set of Terms & Conditions, PureVPN seems to be listening to the demands of its users. PureVPN, as it stands now, is a solid VPN service for users looking for an affordable VPN subscription.

PureVPN Review – Pricing and Accounts

To start with subscription prices, PureVPN is considered an “affordable VPN” service provider. The pricing plans are very direct, there’s one plan and you get discounts the longer you subscribe for. Here’s how the offers break down:

• Monthly Plan: $10.95 per month.
• 12 Month Plan: $4.14 per month. Paid in Bulk ($49.68).
• 3 Year Plan: $1.94 per month. Paid in Bulk ($69.84).

PureVPN offers a 31-Day Money-Back Guarantee on new orders and order renewals. Their previous 7-day refund policy was outed as being not-so-transparent (it came with a bandwidth and user session contingency). This time around PureVPN is offering a genuine “no questions asked” refund. Do keep in mind that it could take up to 30 days for the payment to show up back into your bank account.

As an added offer, PureVPN now has a 3-day trial account offer for only $2.50. The account has no data cap or usage restriction to it, so you can test out the service without going over your budget. This offer is non-refundable.

As for the accounts, PureVPN allows up to 5 simultaneous device connections, a good offer for people who want to use their VPN to cover most of their devices (or for

families).

PureVPN Review – Payment Options

To pay for your subscription, you can use any one of the options listed below:

• Credit Cards (like Visa and MasterCard)
• PayPal
• Alipay
• PaymentWall (like WebMoney and GiroPay)
• BlueSnap (like Skrill and Sofort)
• Gift Cards ( like gift cards from Walmart, Sears, JCPenny, Costco, Starbucks, and Sephora)

PureVPN Review – Servers and Locations

When it comes to servers and their locations, PureVPN has upped its game. It now offers servers in 140 countries, over 180 cities, with more than 300,000 IP addresses on offer.

Let me explain what that means in a way where the less tech-oriented of us can understand.

Usually, a VPN will have a certain number of IPs on offer per server. When you connect to a server, you share an IP with a few other people who have also connected to that server. This is great for your privacy because no one can really pinpoint who’s doing what with the IP. Now, PureVPN maintains anything between 120-150 individual IP addresses for each server. This means 2 things:

1. Servers don’t get overloaded that easily, so the connections should get faster.
2. PureVPN can now unblock Netflix. I’m not really sure how long this will go on, but so far it looks like the provider is back in the Netflix unblocking game!

You can check out all of their server locations here. It’s important to note that they have some really neat options in locations where VPN providers don’t usually have servers in (Asia, Africa, and South America are covered very nicely).

PureVPN – Privacy and Security

Here is where this gets interesting. Things have really changed with PureVPN.

Privacy

As you may recall, PureVPN received a huge backlash from the VPN community after it cooperated with the FBI. While it’s commendable of them to help out in an investigation, it still shocked their user base to the core. This was a provider that said it had a zero log policy, and it turned out that that was a lie.

After the backlash, people started giving up on PureVPN. In a way, the company’s downfall might have been its greatest asset: PureVPN changed up their ToS, now its logging policy is way clearer than it used to be. PureVPN directly states that it collects:

• The day you connect to a particular server.
• Your ISP.

That’s it. It doesn’t collect your IP address, connection timestamps, the IP of your chosen server, or DNS requests. In other words, PureVPN finally provides the privacy is have always advertised for: nothing you do online with PureVPN can be traced back to you.

To add to this, PureVPN is located in Hong Kong, which has no mandatory data retention laws. In other words, it’s not a legal requirement to store user data or share the data with third parties (like it would be had it been based in the US). This, coupled with PureVPN’s new no-logs policy, is a great added security feature for PureVPN’s users.

Security

As for its security features, again PureVPN underwent a bit of a revamp. They now offer:

• Military-grade 256-bit encryptions.
• Ozone add-on for proactive protection.
• Port Forwarding add-on
• A working Kill Switch
• DDoS Protection add-on
• Dedicated IP add-on
• DNS leak protection
• Web RTC leak protection
• IPV6 leak protection
• Built-in Ad-blocking
• Split Tunneling

The one downside I found is that when connected to its desktop app, the default VPN protocol is IKEv2. The good thing is that this could be easily changed to OpenVPN in the drop-down list in the settings menu. PureVPN offers the following VPN protocols:

• IkEv2
• L2TP/IPSec
• OpenVPN (TCP/UDP)
• PPTP
• SSTP

PureVPN Review – Clients and Apps

PureVPN offers both native apps and setup guides for configurable devices. Its apps works on:

Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Nintendo, PlayStation, Roku, Xbox.

You can also configure PureVPN onto the following routers:

Asus, Linksys, Synology NAS, Belkin, MikroTik, Tomato, DD-WRT, Pfsense, TP-Link, D-Link, Sitecom Gigabit.

You can find a handy how-to guide for router installations on their website, too.

PureVPN Review – Speed, Streaming, and Torrenting

I won’t lie and say PureVPN is the fastest VPN provider out there. It doesn’t really compare with the speeds of ExpressVPN, for example. However, server tests have shown that PureVPN servers are consistent in their individual speeds and provide steady streaming and download speeds on a regular basis. However, it may be better for you to pick a server that isn’t very far from your actual location, as the download speeds for distant servers is a little lacking.

PureVPN can also be used to Torrent, as its servers to support P2P file sharing, fantastic upload speeds, and low latency in popular locations. As an added bonus, PureVPN’s IP range has brought it back into the “Unblock US Netflix” club, which is always a nice perk to have.

PureVPN Review – Support

With new releases come new features. PureVPN has finally added a live chat option for their customer support. From what it looks like so far, though, it seems they can only really help teach someone how to use the PureVPN. Despite that, PureVPN’s website does have a comprehensive support center filled to the brim with guides and troubleshooting advice.

PureVPN – The Verdict

PureVPN definitely isn’t the best VPN on the market, but it still counts as a solid choice for me. It’s affordable, has managed to get its privacy issues in check, and has an awesome amount of servers. I understand being discouraged from subscribing with PureVPN based on the reputation it garnered in 2017, but for all intents and purposes, the VPN does seem to be getting its act back together. I would definitely recommend giving PureVPN another shot. If you aren’t all that convinced with what this VPN service provider has to offer, check out these PureVPN alternatives instead.

PureVPN Review

Description: PureVPN are finally taking all the right steps towards becoming a top VPN service provider.

• VPN Apps
• Support
• Speed
• Access to Geo-blocked Sites
• Security

4.5