PureVPN (www.purevpn.com) was established in 2006, and is based out of Hong Kong. It hosts more than 450+ VPN servers in 100+ countries, which is better than most of most other VPN providers on the market.
PureVPN offers a three-day money back guarantee on their plans. This is an ideal opportunity to test out the product and review their service before deciding to sign up with the company.
Signing Up, Installation & Network Configuration
Initially, PureVPN was available only with manual LAN configuration and settings. Today, PureVPN now offer dedicated clients for Windows and Mac. PureVPN users can use the client software with almost all the features embedded into the application. At the moment, there still isn’t any client app for Linux. Until then, manual configuration is the only option for Linux OS users.
For mobile users, PureVPN offer dedicated apps for iOS and Android. These apps are available for download off the shelf, and all users get to enjoy VPN on their mobile devices. PureVPN is also compatible on Windows phone and Blackberry but through manual configuration.
Upon subscribing to PureVPN, an email will be sent to you containing your login information, including username, password and other LAN configuration settings in case you want to set up your VPN connection manually.
Users that are not technically inclined can use the PureVPN application to anonymously access the web. Expert users on the other hand can refer to the comprehensive knowledge base containing extensive and informative tutorials on how to set up the VPN service.
PureVPN services typical Internet users and corporate clients or large businesses. Since we’re now talking about big networks, PureVPN needs to offer high levels of security and encryption. The supported protocols on offer include PPTP, L2TP/IPSec, SSTP, OpenVPN & IKEv2 and the system makes use of 256-bit SSL or AES Daya encryption. This is quite secure and safe for large organizations, therefore, it will do wonders as far as security and online anonymity is concerned for regular Internet users.
Pricing, Subscription Fee And Discounts
Previously, PureVPN offered three different plans – Standard, Unlimited Plan and Pure Gold. There were just a few differences between these plans, mainly with regards to bandwidth and a few other features such as port forwarding and DDWRT support. Only the Unlimited plan came with unlimited bandwidth, while the other plans had a capped bandwidth of 30 GB. They even had a Corporate VPN Plan priced at $275.
Today, PureVPN is offering a single VPN plan designed to suit anyone, both for personal or corporate use. PureVPN users can opt to pay on a per month basis or on a multi-month deal. The subscription fee starts at $9.95. Pay six months in advance ($44.95) and get 37 percent discount. Pay the whole year ($49.95) and enjoy a 65 percent discount. All plans can be used for five multiple logins.
PureVPN is also offering additional features like NAT-Firewall and Internet Kill Switch (designed to stop all your activities as soon as the Internet gets disconnected).
There are multiple payment options available to the customer. Interested subscribers can choose to make payments through credit or debit card or other payment options such as PayPal, MoneyBookers, AlertPay, 2CheckOut and Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is one of the latest additions to the payment systems, and will help PureVPN enforce privacy for users who wish to stay anonymous while making the payment. It should be mentioned that PureVPN was one of the first VPN service providers that started offering Bitcoin as a valid payment option.
If you aren’t at ease with the online payment processors mentioned above, you can choose from other methods as illustrated below.
Browsing Speed & Bandwidth
PureVPN servers offer better browsing and download speeds than most of the VPN service providers. We were able to achieve around 60-80 percent of the available speed on a consistent basis. This is something that entices customers to keep their subscription with Pure VPN for a long period of time.
Reliability is also an excellent aspect, as most of the PureVPN servers are designed to handle particular bandwidth specifications. Paid customers can enjoy reliability and speed without having to deal with clogged up servers and server downtime. PureVPN takes pride in its servers, which are dedicated and highly optimized for online streaming that offers HDX streaming up to 20Mbps.
PureVPN Server Count & Locations
PureVPN hosts VPN servers in over 100 different countries, and have over 450+ different servers for their customers to connect from. There are about 80,000 IP Addresses that users can hide behind. What’s better than the thousands of IP addresses being offered is the fact that each user is assigned a new and unique IP address.
The comprehensive list of the 100+ countries described in the PureVPN website include United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Bulgaria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Poland, Argentina, Belgium, Denmark, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, Vietnam and Iceland.
PureVPN Customer Service
Another plus point for PureVPN is its customer service. There are multiple channels available for contacting customer support. First of all, there is a live chat feature, which is available 24x7x365. This is indeed required for around the clock access for customers from different parts of the world. This live chat feature is accessible to customers as well as other website users willing to receive information with regards to PureVPN.
You can also initiate support tickets, send emails, make calls, or even take part in the forum to get detailed answers to your questions. If you do find any hurdles while setting up, configuring or using your VPN router, you can take a look at their online tutorials, which are pretty much informative and thorough.
PureVPN Troubles & Errors
PureVPN is reliable so there shouldn’t be any server related errors or troubles. The trial account is only available for $2.50, which is a bit strange, and we can’t seem to understand why one would be requested to pay $2.50 for a trial account.
And there are known issues with the manual setup of the VPN connection. These are usually common errors associated with DNS and firewall, and you will need to contact the customer support, or browse through the tutorials to get the errors fixed. Most problems are faced by Linux users, since there isn’t a dedicated client available for the platform yet.
PureVPN Review Verdict
PureVPN is certainly an authentic VPN service provider that offers great speed, reliability and a host of features for VPN users. As we see it, PureVPN is certainly a worthy contender for the top spot in the VPN industry.
Together with an excellent customer service system, they do offer unmatched VPN services to customers to access blocked information and surf the web anonymously. We would advise you to try out the $2.50 three-day trial period before opting for the full subscription.
The service offered by PureVPN is significantly better than the industry standards, making it a good choice of VPN for anonymous web browsing or for viewing blocked website or content.