AnonymousVPN is going to be the star of today’s review and I’ve got to say, attempting to find this provider on various search engines can prove to be difficult sometimes, thanks to its generic name that’s often used to describe a trait rather than be set as a title.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Try googling “AnonymousVPN” or “Anonymous VPN” in your search engine and take a look at the results. The app’s homepage isn’t even mentioned in the first entries; instead, other providers that are ranked higher in the index show up, bragging about their “Anonymous VPN services.” See what I mean?
However, this might be a long read, even for an avid text devourer, so we suggest that you use the table of content below. If you want to go through our whole review we won’t mind, just that you have a clear overview below of what’s going to be discussed, and you can skip parts that you simply don’t find appealing.
- Company background check
- The concept behind AnonymousVPN
- Terms of service analysis
- 14 Eyes Alliance allegiance
- A quick look at the Privacy Policy
- Signing up for an account
- Keep an eye out for emails
- Downloading the application to your device
- Installing AnonymousVPN
- Checking for malware
- Different credentials system
- Signing in and using the app
- The advanced view
- Modifying the parameters
- The kill switch
- The list of servers you can connect to
- Services it can unlock
- Torrenting with Anonymous VPN
- Our experience with the customer support
- Extensive help yourself section
- Testing for holes in the system
- Security results, fresh out of the oven
- Speed test results
- Trial but no dice
- Subscription plans
- Conclusion
Company background check
After a rather lengthy exploratory journey on their website, we weren’t able to extract much on the company, other than the fact that it’s called Gate 100 Ltd and that’s pretty much it. We found on other websites that the company is based in Seychelles and that it was established back in 2015, but in their Terms of Service, you can see that the company’s address is somewhere in Gibraltar.
However, the fact that the company lacks any explicit details about their existence on their website isn’t necessarily an evil thing. Look at it this way: if they’re THIS protective with their data, then probably yours will receive the same treatment.
The concept behind AnonymousVPN
As its name clearly indicates, this VPN’s business is to keep your business private by making your identity anonymous from the prying eyes of whoever might be interested in revealing it.
That’s a goal we can get behind. They even have a mascot called “DUDE,” and they claim that they’ll never disclose his real name. Kind of like how you’d prefer to be treated by VPN providers, right?
Their website is quite simplistic, as they have a straight-to-the-point approach. As soon as reaching their homepage you’ll be able to see the numerous claims on how your activity will never be logged while you’ll browse the Internet at a “blazing speed” using a VPN that even “Dude’s grandma can use it.” I guess we’ll just have to find out.
Terms of service analysis
AnonymousVPN’s terms of service documentation might be fairly short, but it’s still something many users might skip. Why? Just because it’s one of those things you hit “Next” or “I accept” the second you see it.
However, our plan is to read this document ourselves, extract its very essence and bring it back to you. We’ll try and make it easier for you to read and understand without chipping away anything worth knowing from there. That being said, let’s find out more about the terms of use.
- In order to be eligible to use the service, you must be at least 18 years old;
- You agree that all personal information you give the company is yours, accurate and true;
- The company offers three subscription plans: a 3-day trial, a 1-month subscription, and a 12-month plan;
- You can download and use AnonymousVPN on an unlimited number of devices;
- Keep in mind that each subscription allows you to use up to three simultaneous connections;
- AnonymousVPN will renew your subscription plans automatically at the end of their term;
- You can contact AnonymousVPN and ask them not to renew your subscription at any time in the 30 days before the subscription expires;
- You can cancel your subscription by contacting AnonymousVPN and requesting it clearly;
- AnonymousVPN can impose limits on, suspend or revoke any service, and even block any type of usage at its sole discretion if they believe (for a good reason) that you’ve violated the terms of the agreement, you rendered the company liable through your actions or you’ve disturbed other customers’ use of the service;
- In case the above-mentioned situation occurs, AnonymousVPN is not obligated to notify you, and you won’t get a refund;
- You’re not allowed to use AnonymousVPN in any unlawful manner;
- You’re not allowed to share your accounts with others;
- You are solely responsible for what goes on on your account, even if you’re not the one who’s using it;
- You’re not allowed to use AnonymousVPN to send spam or viruses, hack or crack, sabotage, phish, or engage in fraud;
- You’re responsible for any damages caused by your negligence, or vulnerability exposure, whether intentional or not;
- AnonymousVPN will try to make the service available at all times, minus when there’s maintenance work happening or when things happen that are not under the company’s control;
- AnonymousVPN is offered on an “as is” basis, and the company disclaims all warranties of any kind;
- The company says it doesn’t monitor your sessions for inappropriate use or keep logs of your Internet activities;
- The company reserves the right to monitor and investigate matters it considers at its own discretion to be violations or potential violations to the terms of use;
- AnonymousVPN is not liable for any damages or losses that may occur as a direct result of using the service;
- The terms of use might be changed from time to time and it’s your responsibility to check for modifications;
- If you keep using the service after modifications come into effect, it will be seen as your acceptance;
- The last time the terms of use were updated was in February 2016;
If you want a refund, you must contact AnonymousVPN via email and give them your username, as well as the reason you want to stop using their service;
You must do this request no later than 14 days after you’ve purchased the subscription;
There is a list of requirements you have to meet in order to be eligible for a refund. Here it is:
It is the first time you’ve ordered our services and there have not been previous purchases on your account.
If you have made less than one hundred connections to our service and your bandwidth usage is less than 500 MB.
If you haven’t violated AnonymousVPN’s Terms of Use in any way.
As stated above, if the refund request is made within 14 days since the purchase has been made.
14 Eyes Alliance allegiance
You’d think “what does this have to do with AnonymousVPN? Well, as stated above, some websites state that this VPN provider is based in Seychelles, which is not a member of the 14 Eyes Alliance.
However, the “Terms of Service” page on their website mentions that the address of the company is somewhere in Gibraltar, which is a British Overseas Territory located on Spain’s south coast. Although it’s not a direct member of the 14 Eyes Alliance, it is possible that various government agencies can exert high enough pressure for them to crack and share whatever the inquirers came for.
That being said, it’s a good thing no logs are kept since that data could’ve been easily put on a silver platter for whoever had the higher ground.
A quick look at the Privacy Policy
Instead of letting you do the hard work and get your hands all dirty with Privacy Policies, we’ll extract the essentials out of this one and give it back to you here. We know that it’s one of the things (Terms of Service, End User License Agreement, Licensing details, etc) that are never read by anyone, since users enjoy skipping them as fast as possible.
The first and foremost point of this Privacy Policy is the “logs” section. If you were not convinced by their “mini-claim” on the homepage, here you go, the full article:
“Anonymous VPN doesn’t collect any kind of VPN activity logs, browsing behavior or any activity related to your VPN connection – hence, we DO NOT store details of or monitor the data sent over our network or websites you log into while using our VPN Services. This also means that this information is not available for us to share with anyone if anyone wants to revoke our users’ right to privacy.”
What do they keep
Although AnonymousVPN doesn’t keep activity logs or browsing behavior and so on and so forth, they do keep a bunch of stuff, personal stuff, actually, that is often required to keep the service they provide in good shape or keep in touch with you. Let’s see just what’s on their list of stored data. Oh, I almost forgot, your acceptance of this data they collect to be logged is the fact that you sign up for an account.
Personal details
- Your email address;
You share your email address with AnonymousVPN voluntarily upon registration. It may be used to send you details about the company or their products, or payment info.
AnonymousVPN claims it doesn’t collect any payment data since its payment processor does.
How personal details are collected
- Filling in registration forms which require an email address;
Note that your data won’t be sold, traded or transferred to third parties unless it’s third-parties that AnonymousVPN collaborates with. But don’t worry, they’re subject to strict data processing terms and conditions.
How your personal details are used
- For setting up the account;
- For maintaining your account;
- For administrating your account;
- For detecting and preventing fraud;
- For providing customer support;
Non-personal details
Wait, this isn’t over, we’re past the personal data part, now it’s time to see what non-personal bits of data are they going to keep or access during your usage of their services.
One example of such data would be the servers’ performance indicators which they monitor so that they can recommend the most suitable server to connect to, which varies from one user to another. However, let’s see exactly what’s collected:
Collected from the website
You are informed that AnonymousVPN’s website might use various tools or third-party software such as Google Analytics in order to collect certain data that are not personal and does not directly enable AnonymousVPN to identify you, and a bunch of examples is given.
- Your browser user-agent;
- Your language;
- Your screen resolution;
- A portion of your IP address;
AnonymousVPN emphasizes that they’re not monitoring your browsing behavior at the end of the list containing these bits of info by making this following statement:
“Please pay attention, we do not monitor or log your browsing behavior.”
Collected while using the services
The AnonymousVPN services are transmitting data to secure servers. This data might include:
- Your choice of the server’s location (where you choose to connect to);
- The time when you connected to their servers;
- The amount of data that was transferred by you in one day (that includes incoming and outgoing, just so you know);
Although this type of data is not connected to your real identity directly, it can surely be used to narrow it up pretty good.
When you disconnect from the AnonymousVPN services, they will process the amount of traffic you have spent while you were connected to the VPN servers so that they can update the traffic usage counters. Again, they highlight that this data cannot be used to identify you whatsoever by including this claim at the end of the section:
“The above-mentioned data is anonymous and not connected to your real identity.”
How non-personal details are used
- To better understand the way the services are being used;
- To handle billing inquiries better;
- To detect, prevent and solve technical issues;
- To monitor the usage of the service;
- To improve, maintain and provide the service;
- To gather valuable information for improving the services and the customer experience;
The information they gather is kept on encrypted servers.
Data collected from customer support
- Your email address;
- The communication content and metadata associated with it;
Cookies
Of course, no website would ever be complete without cookies. The types of cookies AnonymousVPN collects and uses are listed below:
- Strictly necessary cookies – essential to navigate around a website and use its features;
- Performance cookies – used to determine how visitors interact with certain pages;
- Functionality cookies – used to remember visitors’ preferences and provide certain features to them;
- Third-party cookies – AnonymousVPN uses Google Analytics as a third-party service provider;
The best part is that you can disable cookies if you want. Most browsers come with that option and you’re free to use it. However, note that certain websites might not work as intended if you don’t enable cookies.
Personal data retention
AnonymousVPN isn’t exactly clear on how long do they keep your personal data. Their official stand on this matter is “as long as necessary,” which is extremely discouraging, considering that many users turn to VPNs specifically to get rid of aggressive, vague personal data collection.
More so, a few rows below, you can find this statement:
AnonymousVPN uses servers hosted all over the world. Kindly be informed that we may be transferring your personal info outside of your country for processing around the globe. By using the Service you consent the transfer of personal information across international borders, where data protection rules may be different from those of your country. In such cases, your personal data is processed in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Signing up for an account
Alright, so you know all the important stuff about this VPN service provider. Well, not all of it, but let’s just say that more than half of the ground has been covered with this information we just presented you.
Now it’s time to register for an account since you can’t really use AnonymousVPN without an account. All you have to do is:
- Go to AnonymousVPN;
- Either press the “Pricing” button or scroll all the way down until you see a bunch of subscription plans on display;
- Select the one you’re interested in by clicking the “Buy Now” button; (save 52.08% on AnonymousVPN now!)
- Click the “Checkout” button;
- Type your email address and password in the designated fields;
- Click the “Complete Order” button;
- Type your Credit Card details;
- Wait for the payment to be processed;
Once you’re done with that, the website will redirect you to your account page, where you’ll be able to see the status of your service for your account (hopefully “Active”).
Keep an eye out for emails
Immediately after purchasing the subscription plan you want, you’ll receive a couple of emails from the AnonymousVPN team, notifying you that your account has been created and that you can log into your account by using the provided credentials.
However, you’re also told that the credentials in their email aren’t the ones you can use to sign in to the app and after the completion of the full registration process, you’ll receive another email that will hold your VPN credentials. Pretty simple.
The second email (the one with the VPN credentials) also packs a bunch of links that you can use to download the VPN application on various devices (Windows, Mac OS X, Android).
Downloading the application to your device
Once you have registered for an account, you can now use the top-left “LOGIN” button on their website to access it. However, it’s not absolutely necessary to register for an account to download the app.
- Go to AnonymousVPN;
- Scroll all the way down;
- Locate the “Download our VPN client” text;
- Click any of the icons depending on your device;
This will let you download the app on your device of choice (Windows, macOS or Android). Obviously, only the first two will actually download something to your device, pressing the Android icon redirects you to the Play Store page of the app.
Checking for malware
Naturally, we wouldn’t let for anything bad to happen to you while following the steps described in this review. Therefore, for your own sake, please take our word on this and scan everything that comes in touch with your PC. Downloaded images, music, documents, installers, you name it, all of them could be compromised and you wouldn’t have a clue until it’s too late.
So head over to VirusTotal, upload AnonymousVPN’s installer executable there and wait for the results. We did, and, as you can see, our scanning revealed that there’s nothing wrong with the installer since no antivirus engine picked any trace of malware within the file.
However, things might change in the meantime, so we strongly advise you to perform this scan as often as necessary, whenever you download anything new on your PC.
Installing AnonymousVPN
As we’ve discussed in previous reviews, we only describe how to install this application on a Windows-enabled computer, since we believe that it’s the most commonly used device in a household. And the most commonly-owned one, as well. Besides, setting up a VPN on a mobile device such as a smartphone is nothing short of a 2-step operation. You just click a button in the device’s store application, type your credentials and you’re all set!
Not that the Windows procedure is far from there, you just have to run through a bunch of extra steps:
- Launch the installer;
- Accept the End User License Agreement (the one that I’ve said before nobody reads;
- Decide where to install the app;
- Decide if and where the installer should create shortcuts;
- Install the OpenVPN TAP adapter (if you haven’t got it already);
- Choose if you want to restart your PC now or later;
Throughout the installation, you’ll be guided by the integrated wizard, so it’s really not a big deal. The version we installed is 2.0.1.9.
Different credentials system
Alright, so we’re all set up, we’ve got the app installed on our computer, now it’s time to run it. If you left the checkboxes in the setup window untouched, chances are the application has already been launched after the installation was completed.
The main window encompasses a bunch of controls along a couple of fields where you need to input your credentials in order to access the application. You should keep in mind that if you’re unable to log in with the username/password combination you used to register the website account, try accessing the account area described above and click the green “Active” button on your screen.
This should redirect you to the “Manage Product” section of the website, where, if you scroll down, you can see the VPN username and reveal the VPN password by clicking the “Show Password” hyperlink next to it. Or you can use the credentials provided in the registration email you received, it’s the same thing.
Signing in and using the app
Now that everything’s set and done, I assume you were able to log into the app using your VPN account and password from the website. As mentioned above, the main window is pretty minimalistic and the username/password fields are always editable (they don’t become locked after you logged in, nor they disappear), so you should watch what you’re doing with that mouse cursor and keyboard.
If you provided the app with the correct combination of username and password, you can select the server you want to connect to and hit the large “Connect” button underneath the combo menu. The application is set to connect to the best server automatically, so if you want more control over the whole server location connection business, just open the dropdown menu and make a different selection.
A very important feature that you simply don’t bump into while using other VPN services is the IP changer. If you feel the IP address you’ve been assigned just doesn’t cut it for you, simply click the green “Change” button and you’ll be provided with a new one. Pretty cool, right?
The advanced view
In the same main window, you can notice there’s a button that looks like a bunch of bars with sliders over them. Clicking this button will extend the main window and let you access a whole other section that enables you to perform certain modifications to the program’s default state.
The “Settings” section is not much more complicated than the app’s main screen since it only lets you perform a few adjustments. While this might be disappointing for advanced users who prefer a broader range of controls to be available for them to tinker with. If somehow, you downloaded the app and installed it without having created an account beforehand, there’s a shortcut you can use in the advanced view of the app that’s called, suggestively, “Create an Account.” Click away!
Modifying the parameters
As stated before, there’s not really much you can change (only in terms of amount, because these changes truly are significant to the way you’re using AnonymousVPN). Settings include some general options such as enabling the app to be launched at system startup automatically, but also a bunch of more advanced ones.
It is possible that you can change the default VPN protocol to be used every time you connect to AnonymousVPN from IPsec (AES-256 cipher) to OpenVPN (AES-256 cipher), toggle the kill switch and allow the local network connections. These don’t require any complex operations to be enabled, just selected from a dropdown menu or ticked in their designated checkboxes. That’s it.
The kill switch
If you’re not familiar with the term, the kill switch is a security measure that automatically blocks all incoming and outgoing traffic whenever your connection to AnonymousVPN drops. Your device is designed to check for the next best Internet connection and connect to it automatically and usually, this phenomenon occurs without you even noticing.
For example, you’re downloading something via torrent and your VPN connection drops. Your device automatically reverts to your default connection and a while later you check on your VPN app and notice that your connection is not active and probably has been that way for a long while.
Although most torrent clients have implemented this feature, it isn’t the only situation where it can come in handy, so it’s better that AnonymousVPN has it to begin with.
The list of servers you can connect to
It’s quite important for a VPN service provider to enable their customers to connect to a broad range of servers, since some services are only available in certain countries, while others are banned entirely from other countries. See where I’m going with this?
Anyway, here’s the complete list of servers that you can connect to when using AnonymousVPN:
- USA – us.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Singapore – sg.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- United Kingdom – uk.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- France – fr.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Germany – de.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Hong-Kong – hk.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Switzerland – ch.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Russian Federation – ru.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Sweden – se.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Netherlands – nl.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Australia – au.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Spain – es.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Italy – it.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Ireland – ie.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- New Zealand – nz.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Romania – ro.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- South Africa – za.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Czech Republic – cz.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Bulgaria – bg.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Canada – ca.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Latvia – lv.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Lithuania – lt.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Luxembourg – lu.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Ukraine – ua.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
- Vietnam – vn.anonymousvpn.biz – P2P Enabled
As you can see, not only do they provide you with the location of the server, you’re also offered some extra details, such as the server’s address and whether it supports P2P file sharing or not. As a matter of fact, currently they all feature support for P2P, so we’re good there. It’s not an impressive collection of servers since only 25 locations are covered in the whole, wide world.
However, we respect the fact that the servers’ addresses have been added to the list. That way, if your country isn’t VPN-friendly, you can use the address to bypass this limitation and keep using their services without any significant efforts. This is a bit of information we believe every VPN service provider should include on their list of servers. Kudos for that!
Services it can unlock
If you’re an avid VPN hunter like we are, you probably know that, if a VPN service is capable to unlock certain services that are either banned altogether in some countries or not entirely unlocked in others, it’s usually displayed in giant, flashy letters as close as possible to their homepage, if not directly on it.
Unfortunately, services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer and such can’t be unlocked by AnonymousVPN. It seems that, so far, anonymity is their greatest strength. But we have more to discuss and tests that wait to be done, so let’s keep our heads cool and not jump to conclusions.
Torrenting with Anonymous VPN
Many users are interested in keeping themselves anonymous whenever torrenting, so, naturally, judging by its name, AnonymousVPN seems to be one of the best choices we’ve got, right? Well, let’s see.
We’ve already moved past the servers section and noticed that they’re all P2P-enabled, so I’m guessing that torrenting is not only supported, but also encouraged. Attempting to download and upload files through a torrent client went good, there were no spikes or connection drops. So, torrent away, people!
Our experience with the customer support
I’ll begin by informing you that, if you’re looking for a live chat system, you should probably start looking in another place, since AnonymousVPN doesn’t provide you with such a service.
If you want to reach their support team, you can simply do so by clicking the “Contact” button once you’re on their website, which will redirect you to a form page, where you have to fill in some data before you can submit the ticket/message. You have to type in a name, an email address (which you can check and see if they replied), a subject and a message.
I don’t see any screenshot upload button, so I guess it’s not an available function, so you’ll have to be very explicit if your issue is a highly-specific one. You also need to type in a captcha so they can prevent bots and other forms of automated submissions.
On the bright side, we received a response rather quickly and the support crew was, well, very supportive! We were offered more than we bargained for (the reply included some information we didn’t ask about), but that’s not a bad thing, is it? You can also follow or contact them on social media platforms if you’re the “real-time chat” kind of person.
Extensive help yourself section
Although the lack of a live chat system might be discouraging for some, other users prefer not having to interact with another human being, to begin with, and rather fix the issues by themselves. If you fall into this category, you’ll be glad to know that they have an extensive (and growing) section of helpful articles that can get you up and running in no time.
All you have to do is click the “FAQ” button at the top of their website and you’re there, the knowledge base, the holy grail of AnonymousVPN guides. Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean. You can access a FAQ that covers billing and VPN information but also browse through popular articles from this page. More so, if you have a specific question in mind, you can start typing it in the designated field and maybe an article addressing your issue will pop up.
Testing for holes in the system
Enough chit-chat, we’ve reached the part where we must unfold our operation kit and perform those pesky tests to decide whether or not this service can be safely used or if it will sink to the bottom lightning-fast.
To do so, we’re going to run it through all the tools that we’ve described in this article, which consists of a broad range of tests, all of which will give us the answer to our question: “it talks the talk, but can it walk the walk?”
Security results, fresh out of the oven
For our security tests, we’ve connected to a server in the USA and remained connected to it throughout all the three testing procedures. The reason we’re doing this is that we want to see if there is any location-related inconsistency in the results.
Data |
(Using IPX) |
Test 2 (Using ipleak) |
Test 3 (Using BrowserLeaks) |
---|---|---|---|
IP Address | Passed | Passed | Passed |
PTR | Passed | Passed | Passed |
Country | Passed | Passed | LEAKED |
City | Passed | Passed | LEAKED |
Lat/Long | Passed | Passed | Passed |
ASN | Passed | Passed | Passed |
ISP | Passed | Passed | LEAKED |
Domain Name | Passed | Passed | Passed |
IP type | Passed | Passed | Passed |
IPv6 Geolocation | Passed | Passed | Passed |
DNS | Passed | Passed | LEAKED |
WebRTC | Passed | Passed | Passed |
Flash IP | Passed | Passed | Passed |
Conclusion: Unfortunately, our last test has revealed that AnonymousVPN LEAKED our DNS, location, and ISP. Therefore, we conclude that AnonymousVPN can’t keep your security airtight.
Speed test results
We must remind you that the list of servers is not a large one and we had to do our best to have a wide spread of locations. But we managed and we’ve brought back to you the list of speed test results, which is as follows:
Location | Internet Speed | Latency | Upload Speed | Downloaded | Uploaded | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unloaded | Loaded | |||||
U.S.A. | 30 Mbps | 173 ms | 174 ms | 8.5 Mbps | 30 MB | 30 MB |
Germany | 15 Mbps | 32 ms | 41 ms | 7.6 Mbps | 20 MB | 40 MB |
Hong Kong | 45 Mbps | 231 ms | 232 ms | 27 Mbps | 70 MB | 90 MB |
South Africa | 150 Mbps | 199 ms | 202 ms | 35 Mbps | 210 MB | 150 MB |
Australia | 180 Mbps | 299 ms | 330 ms | 34 Mbps | 440 MB | 140 MB |
We are a bit surprised by the results.
We actually had to double-check by running the tests twice, since some of the countries that usually yield low results had sky-rocketed all of a sudden, while popular locations such as the USA and Germany were way below the acceptable threshold.
Kudos for the high speeds in usually low-speed locations, AnonymousVPN, but overall these tests were pretty much disappointing.
Trial but no dice
I wanted to discuss this with you from much earlier, but since the money talk never occurs until the end of the article, I just couldn’t. So here we go. Maybe you noticed the subtle “trial” touch on one of the plans there on the homepage.
Well, as you expected, it’s not exactly a trial, since you have to pay for it and trials usually involve getting to TRY the product before putting your money on the table. Not exactly a cool move, AnonymousVPN.
Subscription plans
AnonymousVPN comes with only three subscription plans that you can buy, and they’re available as follows:
- A 3-day trial – 2$;
- A 1-month plan – 12$;
- A 1-year plan – 69$.
As you can see, purchasing a yearly plan saves you a bunch of money. However, we can’t help but say that their services are quite pricey for what they have in store. More so, the trial isn’t a trial; it’s a 3-day plan. There. Also, you can’t pay with anything other than your Credit Card.
Conclusion
To sum it all up, AnonymousVPN is a VPN service provider that’s located somewhere in Gibraltar, which is British Offshore Territory and, while it’s not officially a member of the 14 Eyes Alliance, various government agencies can pressure it into giving up data.
Their zero-logging policy claims that there’s no data, to begin with since they only log a minimum of personal data and never monitor or store user-specific activities while connected to the VPN, so technically you’re safe.
However, there are a lot of claims in their policy that are vague, such as the one where they say they collect data and keep it “for as long as it’s needed,” and that they “might monitor” things at their own discretion, if they even have a reason to suspect you’re playing foul. That’s a big no-no from us.
Unfortunately not a wide range of devices is supported, as you can only download and use the app on a Windows PC, macOS computer or Android phone. Also, it appears that the website password isn’t the same as the VPN one, so you have to perform a manual check on your account page after you register.
It enables you to connect to servers from 25 locations, which is a quite narrow list, but at least it’s got an IP changer feature that enables you to change the IP you’ve been assigned by the VPN server in a jiffy. More so, the time it takes to connect to a server is very short, so that gives it an advantage.
Security-wise, we’ve been able to pick up that AnonymousVPN leaks your DNS, along with your ISP, country, and city.
Speed-wise, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that some locations yielded higher speed values than the usual, but the more popular locations yielded speed values that were nearly 10 times lower than our default connection.
Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and such can’t be unlocked, but at least you can torrent without a worry.
Their customer support system doesn’t feature live chat but has a comprehensive knowledge base that can help you solve your issues by yourself and their support crew members are very helpful and reply in a timely manner.
They claim to be offering a 3-day trial that you have to pay for and no, you can’t get your money back for it, so that makes it not-a-trial.
The other two plans they offer are a bit pricey for what they offer, but at least they offer a generous discount for the yearly subscription. Their refund policy has quite a few restrictions and it only applies for the monthly and yearly subscriptions.
Do we recommend AnonymousVPN? Absolutely not. It leaks, it “might” monitor you if they suspect you of something, your data “might” be transferred internationally, and their price isn’t exactly low, considering the huge holes they yet have to cover.
PROs:
+ IP change feature; (5)
+ Helpful customer support; (4)
+ Supports P2P and torrenting; (4)
CONs:
– Disappointing, possibly throttled speed values; (1)
– DNS leaks detected; (0)
– Confusing, vague, unclear logging policy; (1)
– Confusing 14 Eyes Alliance situation; (2)
– Supports only 3 device types; (1.5)
– Narrow network of servers; (1)
– Can’t unlock Netflix, Hulu, etc; (0)
– Doesn’t feature Live Chat; (2)
– Misleading trial plan; (0)
– Pricey subscription plans; (1)
We give AnonymousVPN a 1.73/5 rating.
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