Bitdefender Premium VPN overview

Worth When Reviewed

From $2.50 monthly

Greatest Costs Immediately: Bitdefender Premium VPN

Bitdefender is finest recognized for its antivirus, however branched out into VPNs by partnering with Hotspot Protect. Because it initially launched the service, as a part of its Whole 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 change, extra choices to routinely hook up with the VPN, break up tunnelling and assist for well-liked streaming providers, permitting you to look at them when you’re in a unique area.

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

The low month-to-month price for the one-year subscription appears to be like 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 are not any apps for good 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 methods. Home windows and Android, as common with VPNs, get essentially the most. Which means ‘correct’ break 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 rather more management. You’ll be able to select to attach everytime you launch a peer-to-peer app, and even set your personal checklist of apps and web sites.

In the primary, the apps will use Hotspot Protect’s proprietary encryption protocol, Hydra, however there may be 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 On iOS you possibly can select the outdated IPsec protocol, however on Home windows there’s no alternative in any respect.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’ll be able to simply faucet the “energy” button to hook up with the optimum server, or you possibly can select a rustic from the checklist.

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

There’s no solution to favorite areas, 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 areas”.

Jim Martin / Foundry

The apps hold 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 function is an advert blocker and anti-tracker. You’ll be able to allow these individually and also you’ll discover them in all apps.

Jim Martin / Foundry

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

Jim Martin / Foundry

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

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

Privateness

One of many greatest issues with any VPN service is the privateness coverage. This outlines precisely how a lot – if any – info it logs about you and your use of the service. Bitdefender says it collects solely sufficient info to offer the service equivalent to gadget IDs and hashed IP addresses.

Nowadays Hotspot Protect is owned by Pango (previously AnchorFree), which itself is owned by Aura. Precisely who does what together with your knowledge 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 knowledge retention and HotSpot Protect hasn’t had a current audit to verify that it doesn’t log your knowledge.

In the end, it signifies 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 just lately.

After all, you may not 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 common, 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 notably poor, with even the comparatively shut New York server slowing our connection from round 900Mbps to underneath 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 chances are high that you simply received’t get these if you must 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 advised us that it’s now in a position to unblock well-liked 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 enable us to signal into and watch exhibits on the Australian 9Now service.

However when you’re solely concerned with Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and different US-based providers, you ought to be okay, as Bitdefender unblocked these with no points.

Worth & availability

Upgrading to Premium VPN prices £2.50 / $2.50 monthly and also you solely should commit for a yr, which is half (or perhaps a third) of the time that plenty 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 yr or two.

Jim Martin / Foundry

There are not any nameless fee choices, solely the standard 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 the only option, even whether it is fairly priced. When you’re keen to pay extra up entrance and don’t thoughts a two-year subscription, there are a superb few alternate options (NordVPN, Surfshark and Non-public Web Entry) which supply higher total speeds, a much bigger collection of apps (which even have extra options equivalent to double-VPN), extra servers in additional locations, and higher unblocking of streaming providers.

Plus, fairly just a few 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 Whole Safety, you would possibly profit from the free VPN service when utilizing public Wi-Fi. It’s easy to make use of and no trouble.

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

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