PureVPN Review: Features and Benefits

Login VPN Screen
PureVPN offers many neat features for an affordable price. However, as of recently, its reputation has been tarnished due to certain privacy issues.

Hear ye, hear ye! All of you picky and impatient internet users who don’t use a VPN if it doesn’t support Netflix or owns its very own entourage of user-friendly services, will be presented with PureVPN—your super fast and multi-featured ally.

Overview

The birthplace of PureVPN is Hong Kong, while its 750 servers are located around the globe in more than 140 countries.

For over a decade, this VPN is constantly improving and innovating, which results in owning some pretty neat features, like the possibility of having five simultaneous connections, split tunneling, excellent Wi-Fi security, malware blocking, kill switch, Bitcoin payment method, Netflix support, etc.

However, since security is one of the main attributes of any VPN, it is very important to be aware of potential setbacks and flaws of the service provider you are planning to work with. When it comes to PureVPN, there is an increasing number of customer complaints considering its privacy policy and certain connectivity issues.

Read on to find out more about PureVPN and its features.

Privacy

The base camp of PureVPN in Hong Kong does not imply data retention laws which oblige VPN providers to keep track of traffic data. This fact, plus the zero logging policy, provided PureVPN customers with a sense of complete privacy while using it.

At least this was the case until recently when a cyber criminal was located and arrested with the help of logs that the FBI gained from PureVPN. The logs in question were timestamps, meaning PureVPN does hold information on when and for how long the user was connected to the specific service.

The FBI also stated that this VPN service recorded the IP address of the user, as well as the IP address of another VPN service through which the user gained access to PureVPN.

So, PureVPN revealed itself as a trusty police department agent—plus this event provoked doubts in its privacy policy statement of: “We do not keep any logs that can identify or help monitoring a user’s activity.” Perhaps it would be more accurate and fair to users to say “…almost any logs…”

Still, besides this issue, PureVPN has a lot more to offer when it comes to privacy features—Ipv6 leak protection, kill switch and 256-bit encryption. As a user of PureVPN, you have an encrypted tunnel which is completely and strongly sealed so that no third parties have any insights into what you are doing.

Speed and Performance

The words to describe the speed and performance of PureVPN are: fast and inconsistent. Depending on server’s location, the speed and performance vary significantly, but even the lowest speed results are above average compared to other VPNs.

The speed test performed on U.S. servers resulted in 43.10 Mb/s download speed and 58.06Mb/s upload speed. U.K. servers reached a download speed of 75.52Mb/s and an upload speed of 176.79 Mb/s. The download speed in Germany hovered around 48.97 Mb/s, while the upload speed reached 98.40 Mb/s.

As for areas like Australia, download and upload speeds were 74.27 Mb/s and 88.04 Mb/s, respectively.

Locations

PureVPN offers an admirable number of server locations worldwide—a total of 180, with 88,000 IP addresses, in over 140 countries. North America counts 210 PureVPN servers, and Central America has 8, while 26 servers are located in South America.

Europe is covered with 349 servers and Oceania with 34. The number of servers in Asia is120, and in Africa there are 36 servers.

The top five most popular PureVPN locations are the U.K., the U.S., Canada, the Bahamas, Cuba and Jamaica.

Ease of Use

Setting up an account on PureVPN is very simple. You are offered with three payment plans, so all you have to do is choose the one you are most comfortable with.

The one-month plan is the most expensive at $9.95 per month, while for the six-month plan you would have to pay $7.95 per month ($47.70 every six months). The most affordable option is a two-year plan costing only $2.45 per month ($59 every two years).

Note that PureVPN does not offer a free trial option, although you get a seven-day money-back guarantee. This should be enough to do some basic performance testing. There is, however, a kind of a free trial for business users only. Basically this plan includes a non-refundable $2.50 payment for using the service within three days.

After choosing the offer that suits you best…

Pure VPN payment method.

…select a payment option—PayPal, Allpay, PaymentWall (with over 150 payment methods), CoinPayments, Cashu, gift cards (like the one from Starbucks), Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies:

Pure VPN payment option.

….create your account by providing your name and email address, confirm your order and payment method…

PayPal account for Pure VPN.

…and enter the required billing information:

Billing information for Pure VPN.

After the payment, you will receive your future username and password on your email address, which you can later use to access the service.

When your account is activated, a Select Mode panel appears with five options: Stream, Internet Freedom, Security/Privacy, File-Sharing and Dedicated IP.

Stream, Internet Freedom, Security/Privacy, File-Sharing and Dedicated IP.

After choosing a mode (in this case it’s Internet Freedom), you’re asked to connect to a U.S. server by default. Or, you can pick another one from a dropdown menu.

Pin your favorite countries or cities.

Additionally, you have an option to visit the Cities tab and search more specifically. You can also pin your favorite countries or cities for facilitating future access.

Besides Select Mode option, by visiting the Dashboard tab, you will gain access to a number of options, some of which described in the following text:

Pure VPN preferences Select mode.

The App Settings option allows you to mark and thus enable certain services, like automatic redial if the connection drops, launching on system startup, activating ping servers on startup, etc. You can also change the protocol and language by optioning for Select Protocol and Select Language, respectively.

App Settings in Pure VPN.

In the Advanced Options section, you can handle:

  1. Security
  2. Internet Kill Switch, and
  3. Multi-Port

Advanced Options in Pure VPN. 1. A deeper insight in the Security tab, enables you to turn on the following services: 256-Bit Encryption, Switch to secure DNS, IPv6 Leak Protection, and a reminder that VPN is not connected.

 256-Bit Encryption, Switch to secure DNS, IPv6 Leak Protection, and a reminder that VPN is not connected.

2. By turning on the Internet Kill Switch tab, your entire internet traffic will be stopped if the connection is lost for any reason until it is fully restored.

Activate  Internet Kill Switch tab

3. Multi-Port option helps to avoid using any ports that are clogged for any reason. It will direct you to the ones with the best connection.

Activate Multi Port Option.

Below Advanced Options, you will find Split Tunneling:

Split Tunneling for internet traffic.

This handy and innovative feature (owned by only a handful of VPN providers) allows users to determine which internet traffic will go through the VPN, and which will directly access the internet. This way the users remain anonymous and at the same time receive top quality network speed and performance.

PureVPN is compatible with Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, while Linux, Blackberry and Router can be used to “manually” connect to PureVPN, which means you would have to manually configure your device according to the instructions offered by PureVPN.

Mobile App

As for Android, PureVPN offers an affordable plan—for the cost of $4.99, you can receive protection for five mobile devices.

The Android app version is similar to the Windows app, so there is a high level of usability. After you install the application, all you need do is login. You will then be presented with your assigned IP, as well as your server location. In the Settings tab, you are free to change the protocol, your IP, and location).

Change your protocol in PureVPN.

Like with the Windows app, you can choose one out of five modalities.

Choose between models in PureVPN.

Besides the aforementioned five modes, there is yet another option: the Purpose button.

Select purpose.

This option reveals more interesting settings for specialized activities—Entertainment Channels, BBC iPlayer, Netflix U.S., Watch Amazon Prime, etc.

Entertainment Channels, BBC iPlayer, Netflix U.S., Watch Amazon Prime

The PureVPN Android app is fundamentally a good service that’s reasonably priced, providing quality speed and select purpose options. The downside, however, according to the users, is the frequent occurrence of crashes.

Customer Support

Since PureVPN includes various features, it is not surprising that plentiful documentation is included in resolving certain issues. As a PureVPN user, you can find help regarding common beginner issues to specific problems by visiting the Support Center. You can find this option in the My Account section.

If the answer to your question can’t be found here, you can also visit live chat support, operating all day, every day, without exceptions.

Customer Support in PureVPN.

Value for Money

PureVPN has everything users would expect from a service which should secure your internet traffic without degrading its quality. Speed of performance is a crucial aspect when it comes to choosing a VPN, and PureVPN lives up to its high speed quality. Even if there are occasional drop-downs, its download and upload speeds are still impressive.

Note that you get this on a very reasonable price. Besides quality speed, PureVPN can also be proud on the number of servers across the globe, its various features,  five simultaneous connections, split tunneling option, kill switch option, 24/7 live chat, etc.

However, although PureVPN helped in a police investigation, this made the users wonder whether their identity is truly protected. This would mean that PureVPN failed to perform its primary function—to hide the user’s IP address.

Perhaps the PureVPN support staff should try and provide customers with more satisfying and comprehensive information surrounding its security issues, since there is a great number of complaints about their vague answers.

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