Bitdefender Premium VPN Review – Tech Advisor

Value When Reviewed

From $2.50 per 30 days

Greatest Costs In the present day: Bitdefender Premium VPN

Bitdefender is greatest recognized for its antivirus, however branched out into VPNs by partnering with Hotspot Defend. Because it initially launched the service, as a part of its Complete Safety suite, it has made the VPN a totally standalone service, with separate apps and the choice to pay only for the VPN.

There are different adjustments and enhancements, too, such because the addition of a kill swap, extra choices to routinely connect with the VPN, cut up tunnelling and assist for widespread streaming providers, permitting you to observe them in the event you’re in a distinct area.

Its community has additionally expanded significantly, with over 4000 servers now overlaying 53 nations.

The low month-to-month price for the one-year subscription appears tempting, too, however is Bitdefender a worthy rival to NordVPN and others? Let’s discover out.

Options and apps

You may get Bitdefender Premium VPN for Home windows, Android, iOS and macOS. Sadly, there aren’t any apps for sensible TVs or streamers such because the Amazon Firestick. Neither are there any browser extensions or choice to run the VPN in your router to guard all of your units.

Options fluctuate between working programs. Home windows and Android, as normal with VPNs, get probably the most. Which means ‘correct’ cut up tunnelling the place you possibly can select which apps do or don’t use the VPN, however on iOS and macOS, you possibly can solely choose which web sites bypass the encrypted connection.

Equally, though you get a primary ‘Auto-connect on public Wi-Fi’ possibility on iPhone, on Home windows there’s way more management. You may select to attach everytime you launch a peer-to-peer app, and even set your personal checklist of apps and web sites.

In the principle, the apps will use Hotspot Defend’s proprietary encryption protocol, Hydra, however there’s the choice of WireGuard and OpenVPN on Android. On iOS you possibly can select the outdated IPsec protocol, however on Home windows there’s no alternative in any respect. Bitdefender says it’ll roll out WireGuard to all apps “very quickly”.

The apps have a barely up to date interface and are easy to make use of. You may simply faucet the “energy” button to connect with the optimum server, or you possibly can select a rustic from the checklist.

Solely Canada, UK and US have a number of places: three in Canada, two within the UK and 15 within the US.

Jim Martin / Foundry

There’s no approach to favorite places, however the last-used one shall be chosen subsequent time you go to attach. Even within the Home windows app the place there’s a brand new Dashboard view, you possibly can solely see your “High related places”.

Jim Martin / Foundry

The apps maintain issues easy, and don’t present how busy every location is, or its ping. And that’s primarily as a result of you possibly can’t see particular person servers: choose a rustic and the server is chosen for you routinely.

One other new characteristic is an advert blocker and anti-tracker. You may allow these individually and also you’ll discover them in all apps.

Jim Martin / Foundry

The ‘Powered by Hotspot Defend’ wording has been moved from the house display and hidden within the About part of the settings, and that’s as a result of Bitdefender is just utilizing Hotspot Defend’s service and making it obtainable by way of its personal app.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Amazingly, Bitdefender Premium VPN works out loads cheaper than you should purchase the standalone VPN service from Hotspot Defend.

It’s price noting, although, that Bitdefender doesn’t supply a reside chat service like a whole lot of different VPN providers. So in the event you want some tech assist, put together to attend for a solution by way of e mail in the event you can’t discover a answer within the on-line assist articles.

Privateness

One of many largest considerations with any VPN service is the privateness coverage. This outlines precisely how a lot – if any – data it logs about you and your use of the service. Bitdefender says it collects solely sufficient data to offer the service similar to machine IDs and hashed IP addresses.

Lately Hotspot Defend is owned by Pango (previously AnchorFree), which itself is owned by Aura. Precisely who does what along with your information isn’t amazingly clear from Bitdefender’s privateness coverage, however in any case, Aura is a US-based firm. The US doesn’t have privacy-friendly legal guidelines for information retention and HotSpot Defend hasn’t had a current audit to verify that it doesn’t log your information.

Finally, it implies that whereas Bitdefender Premium VPN could be protected to make use of, it’s nonetheless a lot much less reassuring in comparison with utilizing a VPN that has been audited lately.

In fact, you won’t care an excessive amount of about privateness. Which leads us to efficiency.

Efficiency

We used a gigabit broadband connection that has the identical add and obtain speeds to check Bitdefender. As normal, we examined utilizing the Home windows app and Ookla Speedtest. The outcomes aren’t fairly.

Though the speeds could also be quick sufficient for you, and probably quicker than your personal broadband connection, they’re significantly slower than the quickest providers supply. Add speeds have been significantly poor, with even the comparatively shut New York server slowing our connection from round 900Mbps to beneath 60Mbps.

Utilizing the automated choice improved issues dramatically, with a a lot nearer server in San Jose delivering over 750Mbps down and 680Mbps up. So Bitdefender is able to nice pace, however the likelihood is that you simply received’t get these if you might want to choose a server that’s far-off.

Jim Martin / Foundry

We discovered no issues when checking for IP and DNS leaks, which is nice.

There was an issue, although. Though Bitdefender instructed us that it’s now capable of unblock widespread streaming providers, we couldn’t watch BBC iPlayer or different UK-based video providers when related to any of the the UK servers. Neither wouldn’t it permit us to signal into and watch exhibits on the Australian 9Now service.

However in the event you’re solely occupied with Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and different US-based providers, try to be okay, as Bitdefender unblocked these with no points.

Value & availability

Upgrading to Premium VPN prices £2.50 / $2.50 per 30 days and also you solely should commit for a 12 months, which is half (or perhaps a third) of the time that a whole lot of VPNs need you to pay for up entrance. You do nonetheless should pay the £29.99 / $29.99 multi functional go, and it doubles when your subscription renews ranging from month 13.

Likewise, it’s good to see a extra reasonably priced one-month subscription: most VPNs cost much more with a purpose to persuade you to as a substitute go for a 12 months or two.

Jim Martin / Foundry

There aren’t any nameless fee choices, solely the same old card and PayPal strategies, plus financial institution switch.

Verdict

Bitdefender Premium VPN has definitely improved since we first checked out it, however nonetheless isn’t your best option, even whether it is moderately priced. For those who’re keen to pay extra up entrance and don’t thoughts a two-year subscription, there are a great few alternate options (NordVPN, Surfshark and Personal Web Entry) which supply higher general speeds, a much bigger number of apps (which even have extra options similar to double-VPN), extra servers in additional locations, and higher unblocking of streaming providers.

Plus, fairly a number of of these rivals (together with the three talked about) even have current unbiased audits that present reassurance that they don’t log something, one thing HotspotShield (and Bitdefender) lacks.

If you have already got Bitdefender Complete Safety, you may profit from the free VPN service when utilizing public Wi-Fi. It’s easy to make use of and no trouble.

The massive query is whether or not it’s price paying for the Premium model. Put merely, in the event you simply desire a VPN for on-line privateness and anonymity, it’s completely nice and fairly priced. However in the event you’re extra demanding, wish to unblock streaming providers and have a higher stage of safety and extra settings, you’d be higher off with
NordVPN,
PureVPN or 
ExpressVPN.

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