Bitdefender Premium VPN assessment

Worth When Reviewed

From $2.50 per 30 days

Greatest Costs As we speak: Bitdefender Premium VPN

Bitdefender is greatest 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 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 help for well-liked streaming providers, permitting you to observe them in case you’re in a special area.

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

The low month-to-month value 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 are not 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 gadgets.

Options range between working methods. Home windows and Android, as typical with VPNs, get probably the most. Meaning ‘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 decide which web sites bypass the encrypted connection.

Equally, though you get a fundamental ‘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 listing 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 On iOS you possibly can select the outdated IPsec protocol, however on Home windows there’s no alternative in any respect.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 would 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 listing.

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

Jim Martin / Foundry

There’s no strategy to favorite areas, however the last-used one will likely 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 linked areas”.

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: decide 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 just utilizing Hotspot Protect’s service and making it obtainable by its personal app.

Jim Martin / Foundry

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

It’s value noting, although, that Bitdefender doesn’t supply a reside chat service like quite a lot of different VPN providers. So in case you want some tech help, put together to attend for a solution through e mail in case you can’t discover a resolution within the on-line help articles.

Privateness

One of many greatest 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 supply the service equivalent to machine IDs and hashed IP addresses.

Lately Hotspot Protect 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 Protect hasn’t had a current audit to verify that it doesn’t log your information.

In the end, it implies that whereas Bitdefender Premium VPN is perhaps protected to make use of, it’s nonetheless a lot much less reassuring in comparison with utilizing a VPN that has been audited not too long ago.

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 typical, 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 doubtlessly sooner than your personal broadband connection, they’re significantly slower than the quickest providers supply. Add speeds had 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 velocity, however the chances are high that you just received’t get these if you have to decide 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 informed 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 linked to any of the the UK servers. Neither would it not enable us to signal into and watch exhibits on the Australian 9Now service.

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

Worth & availability

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

Likewise, it’s good to see a extra inexpensive one-month subscription: most VPNs cost much more in an effort 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 your best option, even whether it is moderately priced. If you happen to’re prepared to pay extra up entrance and don’t thoughts a two-year subscription, there are an excellent few options (NordVPN, Surfshark and Personal Web Entry) which supply higher total speeds, an even bigger choice of apps (which even have extra options equivalent to double-VPN), extra servers in additional locations, and higher unblocking of streaming providers.

Plus, fairly a couple of of these rivals (together with the three talked about) even have current impartial 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 large query is whether or not it’s value paying for the Premium model. Put merely, in case you simply need a VPN for on-line privateness and anonymity, it’s completely fantastic and fairly priced. However in case you’re extra demanding, need 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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