For those that prioritize safety and security above all else in the best VPN, VyprVPN will be an interesting proposition. Known for its airtight privacy policy as well as being able to make the rare claim that it owns each and every one of the servers it uses, on paper VyprVPN is a strong contender.
Add to that excellent features like protocol camouflaging and auto-connection on public Wi-Fi, and it looks like a great product – but can its usability match up to its top-notch security credentials?
In this full VyprVPN review, we’ll be looking in-depth at every aspect of this virtual private network, and by the end you should be able to make the decision on whether it’s the best VPN for you and your needs.
VyprVPN 1-minute review
If you only sign up for a month, VyprVPN is pretty expensive at $12.95. However, sign up for longer and prices drop, and currently you can bag a three-year plan for just $1.66 a month, which is excellent value.
VyprVPN's strong suit is its commitment to privacy, and you'll be covered by seriously powerful encryption. VyprVPN also runs its own zero-knowledge DNS service, which avoids any third-party intervention at any stage.
When using OpenVPN, VyprVPN's speeds are somewhat disappointing, but now WireGuard has been introduced, connections are far more competitive, averaging at around 160Mbps. We'd like to see OpenVPN improved, but at least now we have an option that's speedy.
VyprVPN's pretty good for streaming, with a good range of Netflix librarys, fresh Disney+ support, plus iPlayer, Hulu, and YouTube unblocking, too. Unfortunately it's not able to sidestep Amazon Prime's VPN blocking tech, though, and some Netflix libraries were off limits when we tested. Torrenting, however, is fully supported.
The desktop apps are strong, with plenty of options and useful server sorting tools like favorites and ping time. However, we noticed the kill switch didn't always act as expected, which isn't great. The mobile apps are more powerful that most, and are fairly similar to the desktop versions. There are also tons of supported platforms not seen elsewhere, like a number of niche routers and privacy-focused mobile and streaming devices.
In terms of support, you'll get live chat, effective email support, and tons of written articles. The range isn't quite class-leading, but it's close.
Overall, VyprVPN is an excellent service that's great value, and it's only let down by some minor bugs and poor OpenVPN speeds.
Latest updates
The biggest update since our last VyprVPN review is the inclusion of WireGuard support. This means VyprVPN can avoid one of our main complaints – poor OpenVPN speeds – and also shows the provider's commitment to keeping up with the rest of the pack.
Otherwise, there's not a huge amount to report, except that the December 2020 sale has seen prices drop to an all-time low, plus the number simultaneous connections increase to a huge 30 for a limited time.
VyprVPN on paper
Number of servers: 700+
Number of countries: 70
Platforms supported: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, QNAP, Blackphone, Anonabox, routers, smart TVs, Blackberry, Boxee, DD-WRT, AsusWRT, Synology NAS, OpenWRT
Simultaneous connections: Five (30 with special offer)
Split tunneling: Yes
Kill switch: Yes
Supported protocols: WireGuard, OpenVPN UDP, OpenVPN TCP, IKEv2, Chameleon
Country of registration: Switzerland
Support: 24/7 live chat, email, knowledgebase
VyprVPN price: how much is it, and is there a VyprVPN free trial?
VyprVPN has a monthly plan at $12.95/month, which is a little higher than most competitors. However, the annual plan drops the price significantly to a competitive $3.75/month, and that price doesn’t increase after your first year, unlike some other providers.
The last time we reviewed VyprVPN, it had a two-year plan for $2.50/month. This has currently been replaced with a three-year plan charging just $1.66/month, which is certainly one of the cheapest prices that we’ve seen from a cheap VPN provider (if you can pay for three years in advance). Considering that’s only $60, it’s certainly tempting, but this is a short-term deal.
Payments can be made through credit card, PayPal, or UnionPay. You’re asked for payment details upon signing up, though you won’t be charged for three days, so you can treat it like a short free trial. Even after your three days have expired, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee.
It’s worth mentioning that there’s some disparity when it comes to pricing across different territories. So, one month in the US is $12.95, but the same plan in the UK is £12.95. That’s a fairly significant difference.
So – and bear with us here – if you’re keen on signing up to VyprVPN, we’d recommend downloading a free VPN first to change your location, and see what the best deal you can find is. It’s counterintuitive, but it does go to prove one of the best VPN uses is helping you save money on online subscriptions.
- More: See how the new Firefox VPN stacks up
How private is VyprVPN?
By default, VyprVPN uses strong AES-256-GCM, SHA384 HMAC encryption with TLS-ECDHE-RSA-2048 on OpenVPN connections. This means that even if an attacker could somehow obtain the private key to your connection, they could only access data from that particular session and not future sessions.
Even better, WireGuard and IKEv2 are now supported across all platforms. Older, less secure PPTP and L2TP protocols have been dropped. VyprVPN even offers its own Chameleon 2.0 protocol, which helps get around aggressive VPN blocking. That said, we haven’t been able to test this feature from a country like China or Iran that actively blocks the use of most VPNs.
To avoid potential man-in-the-middle attacks, VyprVPN uses its own encrypted no-knowledge DNS service. It’s a good way to sidestep the few security holes in VPN connections. The apps include kill switches too, to minimize the chance that your real IP address will be leaked if your VPN connection dies.
VyprVPN is clear and transparent about its no-logging policy. User traffic, connection logs, IP addresses, and DNS requests are not logged at all. While many VPN providers say the same thing, VyprVPN has gone further and had the platform audited by third-party Leviathan Security Group.
An in-depth report shows that VyprVPN is not logging clients’ VPN activity. It’s been a few years since this audit, though, and we’d like to see VyprVPN catch up with providers like TunnelBear that have annual independent security audits of its service.
How fast is VyprVPN?
We tested all of VyprVPN’s servers for connection time, speed, latency, and connection failures. We had connection errors seven times during our testing, which is a little higher than average but not terrible. Connection times have improved by about five seconds since our last VyprVPN review, which is a significant enhancement.
However, OpenVPN speeds in our US and UK testing locations were poor. We got 30Mbps in the UK and around 55Mbps in the US. Thankfully, VyprVPN supports the WireGuard protocol, which bumps up speeds significantly. Using WireGuard, we got speeds of around 160Mbps in the UK. This brings it up to the average speed of the VPN market, though it doesn’t compete with fast VPN providers Hotspot Shield and NordVPN, which averaged over 340Mbps in our recent testing.
Just to test the worst-case scenarios, we connected from the UK to New Zealand. This resulted in a reasonable speed of 15-20Mbps, which is fast enough for browsing and streaming HD content.
How good is VyprVPN for streaming and torrenting?
Most VPN providers state that you’ll be able to access geo-blocked content if you connect through their VPN, but few deliver. VyprVPN is better than most, but it doesn’t unblock everything.
VyprVPN can be considered a reasonably good Netflix VPN. In our testing, it could unblock Netflix content in the UK, US, Canada, and Germany. However, it couldn’t unblock Netflix content in France or Japan, which appears to be a theme across quite a few VPN services. Perhaps those countries take a more aggressive approach to identifying and blocking connections that come through VPNs.
We tested VyprVPN on several other streaming services too. Connecting from the UK, VyprVPN could unblock US YouTube and Disney+. Note that in our previous review, VyprVPN struggled to unblock Disney+, so there has been some service improvement. From the US, we were able to unblock BBC iPlayer. Sadly, however, VyprVPN could not unblock Amazon Prime Video.
Overall, VyprVPN performed better than most VPNs at unblocking geo-blocked content, but it didn’t get full marks. We do recommend it as a streaming VPN, though, as it’s particularly transparent about what it can block and what it can’t. A status page on the VyprVPN website keeps you informed on which streaming sites currently work and which don’t. It even includes advice on which are the best servers to choose to access particular content.
VyprVPN says all peer-to-peer traffic is allowed on all servers. No logs are retained from sessions, and no ports are blocked. This makes VyprVPN a fine torrenting VPN.
How good are the VyprVPN desktop apps?
VyprVPN is notable for its wide platform support. Besides the usual Windows, iOS, and Android apps, there are apps for Smart TVs, QNAP, routers, Anonabox, Chromebooks, and Blackphone. There are tutorials on the VyprVPN website for setting up other devices too, from Apple TV and OpenELEC to DD-WRT and OpenWRT. Typically, you’ll set up these other devices using the APK file or OpenVPN configuration file available from the VyprVPN website.
Despite all this, VyprVPN doesn’t have extensions for browsers. While there are many third-party extensions that you can find on app stores to shore up your browsing privacy and security, many VPN companies include their own browser extensions for enabling and disabling the VPN. This level of convenience isn’t available with VyprVPN.
Signing up for VyprVPN brings you to a download page for the main app, and there’s a good amount of information here on the protocols that each support, the minimum requirements, and what’s changed. If you prefer to use your own client, there are OpenVPN configuration files available for all the servers.
Installation is a matter of running the file and entering your username and password when prompted. The VyprVPN desktop app feels like a mobile app in its simplicity. Server locations are sorted by country and city, but you have the choice to organize by ping time. A simple favorites system can help you keep your most-used server locations at the top.
Four protocols are available: OpenVPN, WireGuard, IKEv2, and VyprVPN’s own Chameleon. The app has a built-in kill switch, so if your VPN connection drops for any reason, your internet connection will be blocked momentarily to stop your true location from being broadcast. Unfortunately, in our testing the kill switch feature wasn’t reliable. When we forcibly dropped an IKEv2 connection, the app only displayed a Disconnected alert but didn’t close the connection. When we forcibly closed the VyprVPN WireGuard service while connected via WireGuard, the VPN didn’t notice, even though our traffic was no longer going through the VPN.
VyprVPN’s settings menu hides a few other options, like the option to use your own DNS server or connect the VPN automatically when you connect to untrusted Wi-Fi networks.
How good are the VyprVPN mobile apps?
A mobile VPN can help protect your identity and improve security when you’re out and about connecting through insecure public networks.
VyprVPN’s Android VPN carries over the look and feel from the desktop client and includes most of the features too. Notably, there’s DNS leak protection, a kill switch, custom DNS options, and automatic startup options. There are now even more protocols from which to choose, including WireGuard, OpenVPN, and VyprVPN’s proprietary Chameleon, but there’s no support for IKEv2. You can choose to bypass the VPN for particular apps. If you’re an advanced user, you can install the Android app using the APK file from the VyprVPN website.
The VyprVPN iPhone VPN looks similar to the Android client but lacks a few of its features. You don’t get a kill switch, for example, but you do get support for WireGuard. Overall, the VyprVPN mobile apps are more powerful and versatile than most on the market, particularly the Android app.
What customer support does VyprVPN offer?
VyprVPN has many articles on its support site, covering setup instructions, advice on specific devices, and troubleshooting steps. There are around 30 articles on the mobile apps and over 50 on manually setting up lesser-known devices. However, the guides are typically short and lack screenshots or videos. That said, the search function works well.
There are two other options for support: live chat and email. We tested the live chat and got a friendly, knowledgeable response within minutes. When we emailed, we got a response within an hour. Overall, VyprVPN has good support, but it doesn’t excel like ExpressVPN’s support does, for example.
VyprVPN: Final verdict
VyprVPN is a powerful, great value service that has a couple of small issues that stop us from recommending it wholeheartedly, the biggest of these being the middling OpenVPN speeds and unreliable kill switch feature. However, it performed reasonably well in unblocking tests, and it’s a good VPN for torrenting.
On the whole, it can’t stand up against the likes of ExpressVPN, which performed better than VyprVPN on all these metrics. However, it does have an incredibly cheap three-year plan if budget is your main concern, and for the price it’s a remarkably fully featured option.
