AdGuard VPN Review: Does The Basics

Value When Reviewed

From $2.99 for a two-year plan

Finest Costs At the moment: AdGuard VPN Premium

AdGuard VPN is a freemium product that, like all VPNs, masks your id by providing you with a unique IP deal with and subsequently making you look like at a unique location, and thus masking your web exercise.

Servers will be inside your personal nation, or will be in one other a part of the globe, which means you might be able to entry content material that isn’t obtainable regionally. For instance, if you happen to set Adguard VPN to a USA server, you’ll be capable to see the broader vary of Netflix content material availability there, or watch reside TV that has been “geoblocked” in your location. 

Regardless of what you might think about, AdGuard VPN doesn’t block adverts. The ad-blocking service, which the corporate has efficiently supplied for a few years, stays separate and requires an extra subscription.

Whereas AdGuard has accomplished nothing unsuitable right here, this might be made a bit clearer on its web site, as some folks might assume ad-blocking is included due to the title. Plus, AdGuard is kind of glad to ship subscribers emails telling them what they haven’t acquired, however can have for an extra price. 

Options

As a freemium product, you possibly can obtain AdGuard VPN and use it with out paying. Nonetheless, the free model is proscribed. You may solely use the free model for as much as 3GB of information per 30 days – which is barely sufficient for an HD film, and it throttles your web velocity at 20Mbps.

That’s adequate for many issues, however in case you are paying for a a lot larger velocity out of your supplier, it would irk to make use of a product that slows your web down. Generally, we’d at all times advise paying for a VPN, however you may like to present the free model a strive earlier than deciding whether or not to subscribe.

From right here, subsequently, we’re trying solely on the paid product.

AdGuard VPN is on the market for Home windows, Mac, iOS and Android as a standalone app, providing whole-system safety. Alternatively there’s a browser extension obtainable for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Opera. This limits the safety to your net searching, however as with so many ‘VPN’ extensions, AdGuard makes use of deceptive wording to make you suppose it’s a VPN when it’s, the truth is, only a proxy service which doesn’t encrypt your connection like a VPN.

Chris Merriman / Foundry

A paid AdGuard subscription covers you for as much as 5 simultaneous connections, however you possibly can set up the app / extension on as many gadgets as you want.

Android customers additionally get an additional characteristic not obtainable to free customers: AdGuard’s DNS servers. These guarantee your personal ISP’s DNS isn’t used, which may reveal your exercise, and probably your location. There’s even a alternative of filtered and unfiltered, in case you’re establishing the app on a toddler’s system and wish to defend them from grownup and different inappropriate content material when looking out the online. There are different choices, too, reminiscent of utilizing Google’s DNS, CloudFlare and extra.

Oddly, this isn’t in AdGuard VPN’s different apps.

There’s additionally an app particularly for Android/Google TV, which opens the door to streaming content material from overseas in your TV, nevertheless it’s a disgrace there isn’t an equal for Amazon Firesticks.

AdGuard notes that it isn’t in a position to unblock content material from the NBC streaming service Peacock. NBC content material is notoriously tough to entry exterior the US, and makes many VPNs stumble, but when that’s a deal-breaker for you, it’s price understanding. It does, nonetheless, work with among the fundamental streamers – Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and HBO Max.

Chris Merriman / Foundry

On the draw back, for extra superior customers, the corporate has chosen to make use of a bespoke protocol, moderately than the extra extensively used OpenVPN or WireGuard. That signifies that you received’t be capable to configure your router with AdGuard to protect your complete residence community, or unblock streaming on gadgets that don’t assist VPNs reminiscent of video games consoles and the Apple TV & Roku gadgets.

Chris Merriman / Foundry

One superior characteristic is split-tunnelling. This lets you use each your common web connection and the VPN on the identical time. Utilizing a black- or white-list, you might, for instance, set it to solely use the VPN for Netflix, or set it to make use of it for every thing besides the BBC. This can be a helpful characteristic that provides to AdGuard VPN’s attraction and, though customary on the likes of ExpressVPN and NordVPN, it isn’t a given with each VPN supplier.

Privateness

When you’ve chosen from the 100+ servers in 44 international locations, AdGuard VPN has a kill swap. Which means that if it drops its connection, it would block web entry solely, moderately than instantly expose your actual connection. Whereas we have been testing, we didn’t expertise any drops. 

Chris Merriman / Foundry

From a privateness viewpoint, AdGuard VPN has a no-logs coverage. That signifies that if the corporate was requested to supply details about who makes use of their service and when, they couldn’t, including to the extent of safety and anonymity supplied. Sadly, this haven’t been independently checked, so on this one, we’ve got to take the corporate’s phrase for it that it actually doesn’t log something.

AdGuard’s jurisdiction is Cyprus, which means all knowledge is protected underneath European GDPR guidelines, providing better safety than firms basing themselves in, for instance, the USA.

AdGuard VPN doesn’t provide the choice to run a “double VPN”, which providers reminiscent of NordVPN do. That is the place your connection is routed to 1 server after which one other, so there’s even much less of an audit path and it prevents even essentially the most decided from monitoring you.

That’s not an enormous loss for most individuals, nonetheless, and such options can usually have a big effect on velocity. The excellent news is that AdGuard does permit Bittorrent site visitors, so if you happen to’re making an attempt to obtain, shall we embrace, “delicate” recordsdata, you are able to do so anonymously. 

One factor that impressed us was that after we handed the account login to a colleague to run velocity assessments, AdGuard’s system noticed the login try from a unique location and briefly locked the account. That is the primary time we’ve seen that occur and is a reassuring further layer of safety.

Efficiency

AdGuard didn’t leak our IP or DNS throughout our testing: the primary essential hurdle to clear for any VPN.

When it comes to unblocking, we had no points watching content material from the providers it claims to unblock, besides Prime Video. And it wouldn’t permit us to observe HBO Max or BBC iPlayer both.

AdGuard’s velocity check outcomes have been lower than stellar. Utilizing a Gigabit connection within the Bay Space of the US, with a base connection velocity of 773Mbps obtain and 945Mbps add, we discovered that utilizing AdGuard VPN considerably slows down your searching – listed here are the outcomes for 4 key servers:

• LA: 158 / 98
• NY: 78 / 57
• London: 96 / 55
• Tokyo: 8.5 / 9

Though you received’t really feel a noticeable slow-down on many residence broadband connections beneath 100Mbps, if you happen to’re fortunate to have Gigabit broadband, you will really feel the distinction. As we talked about, AdGuard VPN intentionally throttles the connection to its free prospects and these outcomes have been roughly as anticipated:

• New York: 21/10
• London: 21/22
• Turkey: 10/8

(We couldn’t check on the Tokyo/LA servers as these aren’t obtainable to free customers.)

Assuming that AdGuard doesn’t intentionally throttle its paid prospects, we are able to solely conclude that its efficiency isn’t that nice. Now that quick broadband connections have gotten widespread, AdGuard must optimise its protocol or enhance its infrastructure as a result of, proper now, it might probably’t compete with the perfect VPNs.

We additionally discovered an issue with the Home windows app. When waking the check laptop computer from sleep, Adguard VPN was unable to recuperate and required us to shut down this system and relaunch it. There’s an “Try to Get well” possibility, nevertheless it didn’t achieve a number of makes an attempt throughout our check and this turned very irritating. 

Value & Availability

VPNs are inclined to run particular provides on a regular basis, significantly if you happen to’re ready to pay for a 12 months or two upfront. At time of assessment AdGuard VPN was promoting a deal for at $2.99 per 30 days (approx. £2.52) for a two-year subscription. That is paid upfront, so prices $71.76 (round £60.50). Paying by the month is far more costly, at $11.99 (£10). 

Examine this to our present favorite, NordVPN, and it’s a couple of greenback per 30 days cheaper. NordVPN’s two-year plan prices $4.15 per 30 days, which is $99.63 upfront.

Nonetheless, on condition that NordVPN provides a a lot wider vary of extras – together with an adblocker(!) – and a lot better speeds, it makes AdGuard VPN seem to be poor worth, although it’s price including that Nord actually hikes its costs at renewal after your subscription ends. AdGuard doesn’t. 

Verdict

Finally, AdGuard VPN is tough to advocate. It doesn’t excel in any specific space, and it prices as a lot as, or greater than, different extra succesful providers that provide higher speeds, extra apps, don’t completely use proprietary protocols and bundle ad-blocking for no further price.

When NordVPN, Surfshark and Cyberghost all embrace adblocking as customary, the truth that AdGuard doesn’t seems like an enormous personal aim, particularly when the mix of the 2 providers makes it costlier than these rivals.