NordVPN Review

VPNs create a secure and encrypted tunnel between your PC and the servers the VPN providers have placed around the world. These tunnels even bypass your internet service provider meaning they can provide an extremely effective way of protecting your privacy online. If the company who provides your connection to the internet can’t see what you’re doing online, then you know you’re doing well.

There are many VPNs available and NordVPN is widely regarded as one of the best. With this in mind, we’ve decided to take a closer look at NordVPN so that we can let you know whether you should believe the hype.

Industry leading privacy features

There are many reasons you could want to keep what you do online private. From banking to shopping, our most intimate details are now online. This makes privacy and security one of the biggest reasons people turn to VPNs.

In this respect, NordVPN excels.  NordVPN is based in Panama and is extremely committed to protecting the privacy of its users. Data is protected by AES-256-GCM encryption and further protected by being routed through the Onion network. Another privacy boosting feature is the option to doubly protect your data by sending it through two VPNs at once. NordVPN also has a strict no logging feature, which means no user data or meta-data is collected by the company. This goes above and beyond the commitments of most competitors.

Powerful features and accessible customer service, if they don’t work

As well as security and privacy, many people use VPNs to access websites that are geo-restricted. This could be for many reasons. It could be something to with work or something as simple as wanting to keep up with their favorite shows while traveling abroad. Access to the streaming services like BBC iPlayer, NBC Sports Gold, and Netflix is another big reason people use VPNs.

Many VPNs come unstuck, however, when they push up against the cyber-might that is wielded by massive corporations like those listed above. They either don’t work at all or if they do, they don’t offer speeds fast enough for stable streaming. NordVPN doesn’t experience such problems. Regular download speeds across a random selection of NordVPN servers usually come in between 30-50 MBPS with some going even higher, more than enough to handle even HD and 4K streaming.

Of course, the service isn’t flawless and NordVPN doesn’t work every time.  For these situations, however, NordVPN offers a robust and reliable customer support service. There is plenty of support material online as well as guides for all manner of VPN related task, like putting a VPN on your router so you can protect every device on the network. Furthermore, if you can’t find the help you’re looking for, NordVPN has a very responsive live chat feature. In our tests we were speaking to an agent in less than a few minutes and had received specific instructions to our problems soon after.

Well worth it

NordVPN offers multiple pricing options with the cheapest coming in a around $3.50 a month. This, however, requires payment for a three-year subscription up front. If you pay monthly, you’ll be charged around $11 per month.

Although NordVPN has recently announced that it suffered a data breach, unless more major disclosures come out, it still appears to be well worth the money. The reliable features put the whole of the internet at your fingertips no matter where you are in the world.