PureVPN Review: The Default Underdog

PureVPN is a service that acts as an alternative to the giants in the market. This VPN certainly offers very attractive prices and correct performance, but it certainly lacks the little extra that makes it essential.

PureVPN Features

Who is PureVPN?

As always, it is important to know the history of a VPN to know if it can be fully trusted. PureVPN’s creation dates back to 2007 under the co-founding of a Pakistani businessman named Uzair Gadit. This is the first project for GZ Systems Limited, a company specialized in publishing cybersecurity software for individuals and professionals. Like many FinTech companies, it is based in the British Virgin Islands and therefore outside the jurisdiction of eyes 5, 9 and 14.

Interface and handling

As a preamble, we would like to share a little rant about PureVPN’s connection method and login management. The service is one of the last to offer different logins between the site and apps, which tends to be extremely frustrating when simply trying to log in. It is even more problematic to connect to one of the five devices that the VPN allows simultaneously.

Parenthesis closed, let’s focus on what the VPN offers in terms of interface. The PureVPN client is by far the cleanest of any we’ve tested so far. Once connected, we find ourselves before a very (too) white window. A main page invites us to click the big connect button and the VPN automatically chooses a recommended server. Once the connection has been made and the service is running, you have access to some information such as live connection data, as well as other data via the dropdown menu at the bottom: protocol used, IP type, etc

The left side menu gives access to the list of servers, support, account information, notifications and options. In itself, if the interface is effective, it’s nothing extraordinary when we compare what Pure VPN’s direct competitors can offer. For example, we note the complete absence of a list of servers dedicated to streaming, P2P downloading, or access to the Tor network. You have to pick arbitrarily from the list of servers with no guide other than the simple latency your latest one produces.

On the options side, we indicate the possibility or not of activating the kill switch and the presence of a menu dedicated to split tunneling, which allows you to isolate the use of the VPN in one or more applications. Again, that’s a bit sloppy. We would have liked to be able to use a multi jump to secure your connection to two remote servers simultaneously or simply to be able to define a specific DNS, an option that is common in most VPNs on the market.

We’re also a bit surprised by the default recommended VPN option. From a Parisian connection, PureVPN recommends a… American server. We get the idea (accessing VOD abroad is one of the main uses for a VPN), but not necessarily the most relevant when it comes to security or performance.

As for the mobile application, we continue in the same vein with a quick connect button that eludes the rest of the interface. The dropdown menu only gives access to the list of servers and parameters, the latter do not go beyond what the PC version can offer.

Finally, PureVPN does not contradict its name, a software experience” pure that it provides the essentials at the expense of the features one is entitled to expect from a modern VPN service.

PureVPN servers and performance

We talked about it above, PureVPN has chosen not (or no longer) to worry about dedicated servers and specifically recommended for each type of use. He prefers to highlight its impressive global fleet of 6,500 servers in 78 countries. It’s certainly a bit less than a certain CyberGhost, but it holds its own way above a NordVPN or a Surfshark, for example. Here are the results obtained after several tests carried out with a fiber, wired and Parisian connection.

The tests were performed with automatic protocol assignment.

From the outset, we note that the figures are far from being at the level of the best VPNs on the market. This doesn’t mean that most common uses, including video streaming, are impossible, but the difference is there. When Express VPN targets almost all non-VPN bandwidth on a Paris-based server, PureVPN settles for the bare minimum, whether downloading or uploading. In any case, it is enough to have access to the catalogs of American VoD services (Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, etc.) and we did not detect any problems during our tests.

In reality, this is due to a very simple fact: the default allocation of the connection protocol privileges performance over performance. PureVPN mainly uses the IKEV2 and Wireguard protocols. The latter is much more efficient, but it is not offered as standard, due to an incompatibility in certain servers with advanced features such as split tunneling where hepass throughGPS data. A curious choice, which makes sense, but at the expense of performance.

Once WireGuard was activated, we found much higher fees:

In essence, PureVPN is not to be counted on for raw performance, as the VPN is average for services on the market.

PureVPN Privacy Policy

Despite its claims and its favorable geographic location, PureVPN is far from a perfect student when it comes to protecting its users’ data. In 2017, the FBI arrested a man for online wrongdoing and part of the evidence used against him was PureVPN logs that included his work and home IP addresses. Ethics aside, this is clearly not good advertising for a VPN that is supposed to protect or not save its users’ private data.

Since then, PureVPN has gone out of its way to honestly claim that it is a VPN.”zero recordsand has carried out audits of its security systems as well as its privacy policy to demonstrate its good faith. The most recent, from KPMG, verifies that PureVPN can be considered a trusted VPN. The latter proudly displays it on a dedicated page of its site.

We do not keep any records of your browsing activities, connection logs, logs of IPs assigned to you, your source IPs, your connection time, your browsing history, the sites you visited, your outgoing traffic, content or data to which you accessed, or DNS Queries generated by you.

However, this does not stop PureVPN from collecting some usage data, such as the day you connected to a specific location, your ISP, connection duration, number of connections made from a server, and bandwidth usage. . Fortunately, nothing that identifies a person, even if the policy statement “zero recordsit’s a bit misleading.

PureVPN Customer Service

From the beginning, we appreciate that PureVPN has made an effort to include some of its customer support within the app itself. But with a simple FAQ that answers cliché questions, a contact form, and a chat button that links directly to the web platform, the customer service experience isn’t complete. As for the online chat, the interlocutor only speaks English, but it is quickly available. You’ll only have to wait a few minutes between each question to get an answer, but that’s not too annoying.

PureVPN Pricing

PureVPN is normally not a very expensive service, but this is especially true during promotional periods. It generally offers three offers between 1 month and 2 years with very correct prices that rarely exceed 2 euros per month for a two-year subscription.

PureVPN does not offer additional services like some other places, be it a password manager or an antivirus, for example.