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We have compared three major VPN providers, including Vypr, in another article, weighing up the pro’s and cons of each. In this article we would like to drill down in more detail into the Vypr VPN service, examining features, functions and reliability on the basis of a free trial we have been offered as an affiliate. So how does Vypr VPN stack up as an overall package?
We have found VyprVPN to be an excellent VPN service offering lots of positives such as good choice of global servers, good speeds, strong security features, multiple protocols and an excellent troubleshooting feature that never failed to get us online.
Minor issues such as reliability of some servers are slight niggles and were always easily resolvable. Let’s look at the Vypr VPN service in more detail below.
Quick Summary – What’s the Purpose of a VPN?
Chances are you only reading this article if you already know about VPNs and are wanting to compare different ones before buying. However, in the chance we have some readers new to VPNs, we would like to just briefly run down in layman’s terms what a VPN does and why and when it is important. Apologies to our already informed audience!
Simply put, a VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and is a piece of software that creates a secure, private, encrypted internet connection on whichever device it is installed. The VPN software creates a virtual “tunnel” for just your data, encrypting or scrambling all data at each end and only decrypting or unscrambling it once it reaches it’s destination.
A VPN creates a virtual tunnel that encrpyts or “scrambles” all traffic to and from your device for privacy and security
This means that all browsing when using a VPN is secure and private. VPNs are very difficult to hack and therefore provide excellent security and privacy from hackers and snooping.
They also allow you to mask or cover your current location or IP address, and appear from another location, either in the same country or a different country altogether, which can be helpful for circumventing censorship in countries where the internet is heavily regulated and blocked.
For brevity we won’t go into more depth here; please see our full article on using VPNs for more details. They are essentially good tools to make your internet connection (particularly if on Wi-Fi) more secure and private, particularly on public Wi-Fi networks, which we will go into in more detail below.
What Features Does Vypr Offer?
Quick Summary:
- Fast speeds – easily strong enough for streaming
- Hundred of servers in well over 50 worldwide locations
- Up to 5 devices allowed.
- Compatible with many different devices and apps.
- Strong clear privacy policy – based in Switzerland. No logs
- Multiple protocols to balance speed against security
- Excellent troubleshooting feature to resolve any connection issues
- Competitive Pricing – $3.75 per month for Standard. Even less for a 2 year package.
- 30 day money back guarantee for a 2 year subscription.
- Chameleon protocol to conceal VPN usage for Premium memberships
- Cloud VPN feature for Premium memberships
- Kill Switch – stops any data transfer if your connection drops, to preserve privacy.
Click here to check current VyprVPN packages.
Vypr VPN is available for most devices
Drawbacks:
- Some servers seemed unreliable at times; plenty of alternatives though.
- Does not reliably work streaming Netflix and BBC iPlayer services; may work with some patience and persistence.
Vypr VPN does offer some advanced features which may appeal to more advanced and privacy conscious users
Let’s look at some of the main features of Vypr VPN in more detail:
Speed – The main biggest positive that Vypr VPN offers is speed of servers – whenever connected we always got impressive speeds easily good enough for video streaming, never experiencing buffering on videos, which is impressive given that traffic is being encrypted and routed through servers sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Servers – Another big positive is the choice and number of servers, with hundreds of servers available in well over 50 countries, so you will most likely be able to pick a server close enough to you to get good speeds wherever you are in the world. Though they can’t quite match Nord VPN for the choice of servers and countries, they will still have more than enough locations for most users.
Vypr VPN offer plenty of servers around the world
Privacy – In addition they have a strong clear privacy policy. Whilst they cannot claim to have zero logging of users as other VPNs do, they do only very minor and short term logging of users to improve reliability and performance. Moreover they are based in Switzerland which has very clear and strict data protection and privacy laws so we consider them to be a very safe VPN service.
2020 Privacy Update – Vypr have updated their policies, so now there is no logging of users to address privacy concerns.
Protocols – Vypr VPN also has multiple different protocols for users to choose from, based on whether they want speed or privacy to be their main focus. You can choose between PPTP, L2TP/IPsec, OpenVPN or Chameleon (for Premium accounts) protocols, all of which offer varying degrees of speed versus security depending on what you are after with your current browsing.
Censorship Bypassing – Their Chameleon Protocol is particularly helpful in countries such as China where internet censorship is very strong; it is a propietary masking software which attempts to conceal the VPN use to prevent it being blocked by Government and organisation firewalls. It appears to work very well, with customers praising Vypr VPN as the only service they can consistently get online with in China. It was also our go-to protocol when any other ones failed to get us online. You need a Premium Account to get this feature though.
Troubleshooting – Which brings us to the related issue of Troubleshooting whenever we had problems getting online. On the occasions we did have problems, Vypr VPN usually started up an excellent troubleshooting feature that ran through all the other protocols if a particular one failed to work, until it found one that did work and got a connection. This feature never failed to get us online eventually even if we had difficulties at first so we have to flag this up as a big positive for the service in terms of reliability. There is also a 24/7 customer support feature – the few tickets I raised were usually responded to quickly.
Pricing – The pricing is also very competitive as well and good value considering the speeds and service you get. The standard plan is available at $3.75 per month for 3 devices when billed annually, with the Premium package costing $5.00 per month for 5 devices billed annually and offering the Chameleon and Cloud VPN features as well. Prices increase slightly after the first year. Month by month plans are also available but are more expensive.
Whilst there are cheaper VPNs out there, there are also more expensive ones as well and we consider the price you pay for Vypr VPN to be very fair considering the speeds you get in particular. Also there are often seasonal and special promotions where their prices are reduced so it is always worth checking them out to see if any discounts are active.
Packages are very competitively priced, especially if you sign up for 2 years
Vypr VPN Compared to a Few Other Providers (links are affiliate links)
| Provider | Price (12 months paid in advance) | Number of servers/countries | Number of Devices Allowed | Main Benefits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private Internet Access | $3.33/month | 10,000/84 | 10 | Review here |
| VyprVPN | $5/month | 700+/70+ | 5 | Review here |
| ExpressVPN | $8.32/month | 1700+/94 | 5 | Good for streaming |
| AtlasVPN | $3.29/month | 750+/34 | Unlimited | Cheap no nonsense option |
| PrivadoVPN | $2.50/month | 61/47 | 5 | Great value plans |
Are There Any Drawbacks to Vypr VPN?
We did find a few negatives with Vypr VPN, but nothing that was a deal breaker for us.
Reliability – Firstly, some of the servers did prove unreliable and kept dropping connection, particularly, when we first used the software. For example, when we just selected “fastest server”, it connected us to the Ireland server, which kept disconnecting for some reason.
This is not really a major issue however, as there are loads of servers and locations to choose from with Vypr, so we just switched and tried a few more locations and we soon found a reliable server. The locations of servers are well spread out across the world as well so you have a very good chance of finding a reliable fast server wherever you are.
Some of the protocols also failed to work first time, but as we said the troubleshooting feature usually kicked in and resolved this anyway. If the troubleshooter doesn’t load automatically you can manually select a different protocol from the options menu and this never failed to work for us whenever a single protocol failed to get a connection.
Streaming Services – The biggest drawback however is that Vypr VPN does not reliably work for streaming Netflix and BBC iPlayer services. This is unfortunately not unique to Vypr VPN though as Netflix has launched a war against VPN usage in the last few years, aggressively blocking VPN IP addresses from all providers, so it is hard to find a VPN service that does reliably work with Netflix these days.
There is however some evidence that with a little patience and trying different protocols and servers, Netflix can sometimes still be unlocked using Vypr VPN; see here and here for a couple of interesting articles explaining how Netflix has been blocking VPN use and how the VPN companies have been responding. Unfortunately Netflix streaming can’t be 100% guaranteed with Vypr VPN though.
2020 Update – Vypr VPN is now reported to work with both Netflix and other on demand streaming services like BBC iPlayer. They have worked very hard to solve this issue, though sometimes you may need to use the most advanced Chameleon feature to get them to work, with slightly slower speeds as a result.
Summary on Vypr VPN
Overall we have found Vypr VPN to be an excellent VPN offering good speeds, many servers, and a reliable protocol and troubleshooting system that never failed to get us online even when there were initial difficulties.
The only really major negative we could find was the lack of reliable Netflix streaming, though this is a problem for most VPNs and not just Vypr. This now also appears to have been resolved as well, though there is a constant “cat and mouse” game between the on demand streaming services and the VPN providers, so this may change going forward.
For all other uses though we are happy to recommend Vypr VPN to anyone looking to increase their privacy and safety online. We particularly recommend using a VPN when browsing on public wifi networks such as those in bars, hotels, airports and libraries, especially when entering sensitive information and passwords, as these networks are not known to be very secure and are vulnerable to hackers stealing private information.
We tried using Vypr VPN on several public wifi networks, and we always got online quickly and easily once connected to the network, meaning we could log into emails and other accounts with confidence, knowing our connection was secure and private using Vypr VPN.
If Netflix streaming is not a must for you then we see no reason not to go for Vypn VPN as we have found it to be an fast, reliable, good value VPN service.
Click here to check current VyprVPN packages.
