Popular VPN disappears off the face of the Earth

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Where did VPNArea go?

A VPN running on a laptop
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Mark June 2024 in the history books as the end of VPNArea. What we once considered among the best VPNs on the market has seemingly now disappeared with not a bang but a whisper. 

First spotted by some eagle-eyed Reddit users, the company's website still appears in search engines but when clicked on will fail to load. VPNArea's X (formerly Twitter) account has also been silent since June 15th. The company, which is registered in Bulgaria as Offshore Security LTD, has also been silent on its LinkedIn page for over a week.

This is a massive shame, firstly because competition leads to a better product for the end user, but also because VPNArea appears to have vanished without warning. 

Using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, we can see that the site was working as normal as recently as May this year, 

What can subscribers do? 

The simple answer is to cancel your subscription – if you can. There are plenty of better VPN services now, but even if VPNArea does return just disappearing without a warning shouldn't fill users with confidence. 

VPNArea legal section

(Image credit: VPNArea)

Above is the contact section of VPNArea's now-defunct website. As a first port of call try support@vpnarea.com or billing@vpnarea.com, but if you don't hear back (which I suspect you won't) make sure you cancel your direct debit manually. 

If you're looking for a refund it might be difficult. With businesses like this, there is often little in the way of a bricks-and-mortar headquarters to write to. As mentioned the company was registered in Bulgaria but its servers are stored in Switzerland. 

Want an alternative VPN?

NordVPN on a range of devices

(Image credit: NordVPN)

If you have now found yourself missing a VPN then you might be asking what the best replacement is. Well, we think that NordVPN is the best choice for most people. 

One of the best things about VPNArea was the fact that it didn't collect any data logs from users, and that's also the case with Nord. On top of that, Nord also has servers in 111 countries compared to VPNArea's 55. 

NordVPN is only getting better too. Just this month, it launched its new Threat Protection Pro service that combines elements of antivirus services as well as automatic detection of suspicious URLs, malware and phishing schemes. 

Andy Sansom

Andy is a freelance writer with a passion for streaming and VPNs. Based in the U.K., he originally cut his teeth at Tom's Guide as a Trainee Writer before moving to cover all things tech and streaming at T3. Outside of work, his passions are movies, football (soccer) and Formula 1. He is also something of an amateur screenwriter having studied creative writing at university.