Thursday, February 9th
2023 VPN Service Provider Reviews
Tor Guard
- 7-day money-back guarantee
- Unlimited speeds
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Port forwarding
- 8-12 simultaneous connections
- Anonymous email option
- Pay with cryptocurrency
TorGuard, an Orlando, FL company, is a VPN service that is marketed to users who have a better grasp of the technical aspects of using a VPN connection. It is quite a bit more expensive than the other offerings we have reviewed. It has 3,000 gigabit servers with unlimited bandwidth in 68 locations across 50 countries. The service has three main offerings: Anonymous VPN, Business VPN, and Anonymous Email.
Confusing Pricing
On the home page, the cost appears to be different from other VPNs, which typically bill you less per month when paying over a long period of time. With this service, you pay monthly and that's it. It's $9.99 per month for Standard, $12.99 per month for Pro, $32.99 per month for Business VPN, and $3.58 per month for Anonymous Email. That may seem simple but also is unappealing to people who want to save money over longer terms.
Monthly or annual billing
However, after clicking to see the details of one of the plans, we were presented with an alternative that did include monthly or annual billing. Also, the pricing columns on the home page are different from this plan page. TorGuard isn't exactly helping their potential or current users by presenting the information in this confusing manner. At this point, maybe the 7-day money-back guarantee doesn't matter or cannot be trusted.
Lots of Features
With TorGuard's Anonymous VPN Standard package, you get unlimited speeds, unlimited bandwidth, port forwarding, 8 simultaneous connections, OpenVPN, WireGuard, IKEv2, and internal encrypted DNS. You also get 24/7/365 support, and no logging or DNS leaks.
With TorGuard's Anonymous VPN Pro package, you get everything in Standard plus a free dedicated IP address, streaming, and 12 simultaneous connections. That doesn't seem like a lot more for the additional cost.
Business cost triples
If you're using a VPN for a business, the cost triples from Standard. The Business VPN includes everything in Pro plus IP management, dedicated VPN instances, a dedicated account manager, secure remote work VPN, an isolated secure network, and private email.
Inexpensive anonymous email
The Anonymous Email offering is considerably cheaper than the other plans, but it is also only geared towards email and not general connectivity. You get 5 email aliases, up to 5,000 emails per day, email scheduling, YubiKey strong two-factor authentication, secure document sharing, secure video streaming, secure OpenPGP encryption, and encrypted mail file storage.
Additional features
Additional features that appear to apply to all plans include ad and malware blocking, bypass throttling, Shadowsocks, internal encrypted DNS, and SSL VPN via OpenVPN, WireGuard, OpenConnect, or browser extensions. All of TorGuard's software runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android. Not supported are Android TV or Amazon TV.
Payment Options and Support
If you prefer a payment source other than the typical credit card options, you can pay with cryptocurrency, Paymentwall, or PayGarden. TorGuard support is 24/7 and available via knowledgebase, community forum, or email. There is no phone or live chat support.
Impolite Support
The Better Business Bureau listing for TorGuard has remained at a non-accredited "F" rating since the last time we reviewed them. There are lots of positive comments on other popular review websites. However, when we read the negative reviews, we were shocked at the level of "sass" with which TorGuard responded to individual complaints. They regularly called out users who complained about payment problems or issues with the service by boldly lecturing them on their misunderstandings of the technology or by accusing them of not having created support tickets and instead damaging the reputation of the company. This was quite shocking to see and antithetical to best practices in customer service. It smacked of a "tech bro" attitude of superiority.
No Good Reason to Choose TorGuard
Because of the confusion over pricing and payment periods, limited support, and the level of rudeness seen on the public review sites, we are not recommending TorGuard to anyone other than those who can stomach these inconsistencies and discourteousness.
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The 12 Best VPN Service Providers
Who Has the Best VPN Service?
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.
VPN Service Provider FAQ
Continued from above...
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.
- Features: What does the VPN offer that makes it better than any other VPN service? What is the purpose of those features?
- Cost: How much does the VPN subscription cost? Is there a free trial? What about a money-back guarantee? Does the VPN service offer a lower cost per month if you pay annually?
- Reputation: Does the VPN company enjoy a good reputation among its customers? If not, why not, and can you live with that? If others had a bad experience, how long had they been customers, and what was done, if anything, to resolve their concerns?
- Security: What features does the VPN system include to keep you protected at all times from people snooping into your data stream? Do they log your activities? Do they have enough IP addresses for you to connect through so that it's harder for government officials, marketers, and hackers to deduce a pattern around your browsing? What's in place in terms of automatic cutoff in case the VPN service fails without your knowledge?
- Performance: How fast is the VPN connection while you browse? Does it connect and disconnect quickly?
- Customer Service: What are the options for contacting support if needed? Do they have live chat, email, and telephone support? Are they courteous and quick when answering questions?
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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