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Saturday, January 28th
Pure VPN is a Pakistani company that recently moved its operations from Hong Kong to the British Virgin Islands. They claim to provide all the primary features of popular VPN services, protecting your devices and you from people and governments attempting to view your online activity.
Affordable, But Beware Digital Wallets for Refunds
Pure VPN costs $10.95 per month billed monthly, $3.24 per month billed annually, or $1.99 per month billed every 2 years + 3 months free. There is a 31-day money-back guarantee in case you decide to cancel. Be careful if you pay for it via digital wallets like Google Play Store or Apple App Store because there is no support for refunds through those payment methods.
Lots of Servers, Connections, and Features
Pure VPN now has over 6,500 servers globally in over 95 locations with 300,000 IP addresses. They have unlimited bandwidth with split tunneling and access for up to 10 users. The operating systems supported include Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Android. Extensions for Chrome, Brave, Firefox, and Edge browsers are available. Pure VPN supports devices such as Android TV, Firestick TV, Huawei, Chromebook, and routers. You can switch servers as much as you want.
Other key features
More key features of Pure VPN include 256-bit encryption, port forwarding (as a paid add-on), an internet kill switch, dedicated IP address (also a paid add-on), DDoS attack protection, DNS leak protection, IPv6 leak protection, Web RTC leak protection, P2P VPN, anti-throttling of bandwidth by your ISP, and iOS VPN on Demand. Support includes live chat.
Too Many Glaring Problems to Mention
After reading the overwhelmingly positive feedback from Pure VPN customers on prominent review sites, we also compared what was being said by IT experts who dug deeper into the VPN software. There was a stark difference between what everyday users said and the cautionary warnings by IT experts. Alarmingly, the experts noted that Pure VPN was caught logging user data and sending it to the FBI. Given that the service was, at the time, based in Hong Kong, it was outside of United States jurisdiction and was under no legal obligation to provide log files to the FBI.
Trouble with the basics
Beyond that major and glaring issue, experts had trouble with Netflix access, general connectivity stability problems, slow speeds compared to other VPN services we've reviewed, and DNS leaks. They also reported that the apps were awkward and difficult to use.
Avoid This VPN Service
Pure VPN is not a VPN service we can recommend due to their having breached their no logs policy and because of the connectivity, privacy leaks, and usability problems. You've got much better options among our higher-ranked providers.
A VPN is a virtual private network that allows you to browse the Internet securely. It makes a private network for you that is encrypted (scrambled) so that all the data coming to or leaving your computer is unreadable to anyone trying to peek at your browsing habits. But if you have nothing to hide, why would you want to use a VPN?
The reality is that there are plenty of people in the world who would love to access your private information such as passwords and bank account numbers. For example, a hacker might want to steal your password as you submit it from your computer to your email provider to log in. There are also people who want to know what you're looking for on the Internet. Marketers want to see your exposed data about what you like to shop for. Governments desire to know at every moment what their citizens are discussing, searching, and browsing.
Your credit card information is particularly important to protect. Most websites these days have end-to-end encryption to protect sensitive purchase information. But for the ones that don't, or for when that technology fails, a VPN adds a layer of protection to keep hackers from "sniffing" out your credit card information.
Another bonus? If you want access to streaming media that is only available in certain countries, a VPN can make it look to the streaming services in those countries as if you're a resident, and therefore you'll have no restrictions on accessing your favorite TV shows and movies.
Do you browse the Internet from public Wi-Fi connections in places such as airports, coffee shops, or shopping malls? If you do this without a VPN, your data is openly exposed to hackers who make a habit of monitoring unsecured Wi-Fi signals for data to steal.
You can't even trust your own internet service provider (ISP) with sensitive information about your browsing habits. They are often looking for additional revenue streams, including selling information about which websites your IP address has been accessing. A VPN hides that information from your ISP.
For people living in countries where the government has little or no respect for the right to privacy, a VPN is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, government bureaus, agencies, and leaders could have full access to everything you say or do online, including planning protests, criticizing laws and policies, or donating money to political organizations.
Therefore, it's critically important that you research the features, reputation, security, performance, customer service, and cost of various VPN services before you decide which one to subscribe to. Here are some factors to consider.
TopConsumerReviews.com has compiled a report of the best VPN services available and ranked them in the order of quality and reliability. We hope these reviews will help you find the right VPN service to make browsing the Web 100% secure!
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