Our Review
Pure VPN is one of the most recommended vpn services and longest established VPN’s offering a secure virtual private network to those who wish to protect themselves from hackers or those who are spying on your movements online. This is especially a powerful tool and worth the investment if you are one who accessing the net using Wi-Fi connections while out with friends or having a coffee during your lunch break. It is also ideal for keeping employers in the dark while at work who want acccess to a private vpn network and prevent network monitoring seeing what you may be doing.
Pure VPN has a great deal of features that makes for a strong contender as a top 10 best vpn in the world. This includes a diverse range of VPN server located worldwide that often ranks as the fastest vpn service Speed tests showed it ranks among the faster and has for several years, and for people wishing to use this type of service, that is a strong selling point. Additional selling points include 200 servers with BitTorrect, the ability to share P2P files, Split tunneling and more.
Pure VPN supports a wide range of protocols such as L2TP, SSTP, IKEv2, OpenVPN, and PPTP. Each used 256-bit encryption with the exception of PPTP as it offers 128 bit. The fastest of those is OpenVPN, and it is more reliable overall. One aspect that is not favourable is the fact it fails to prevent ads from appearing, nor is Tor vpn network access available. While these are nice features, the failure in not offering them does not damage the value that Pure VPN provides.
It is rather ironic that Pure VPN is located in Hong Kong, especially considering the regulations that the Chinese Government imposes against its people. However, being hong kong vpn is strategic as it does not currently have laws that relate to retention of data, and as such, Pure VPN is not required to do so, and I suspect would move should they make changes that require it.
- PROS
- Outstanding speed test results
- Diverse geographical servers
- Superb interface
- Allows P2P and BitTorrent
- CONS
- Fails to have an option for quick
- starting of software
- Fails to block ads
- Not overly compatible with Netflix
Pure VPN Features
There a great many features that make Pure VPN a top vpn premium contender, and it starts with the sheer number of countries, locations and servers they have in place to serve their customers. At last count, that number totaled 140 plus countries, over 180 worldwide locations and more than 750 servers.
While that alone is impressive, its software is compatible with virtually all platforms including Mac, Windows, Linus and Android, and lays claim to be compatible with over twenty devices such as SmartTV, Amazon Fire, laptops, desktops, most smart devices and consoles as well as Roku.
Also, they allow, as do most VPN’s, up to five devices to simultaneously be logged in, whether it is through traditional methods such as laptops or desktops, or mobile devices. Pure VPN provides a higher level of freedom to its users as it includes all services in one package, and does not require additional costs for certain services. It also allows for unlimited switching between servers, and this is a real advantage when it comes to anonymity, and the same applies to unlimited vpn data.
Split Tunneling is another fantastic feature, and this allows users to maintain certain activities that tend to use more data the ability to have the best of both worlds per say as it allows users to determine what data is sent via the VPN and what is sent via their ISP provider.
As Pure VPN operates its own server network, it claims to have 99.99% uptime, and that is handled by a team of professional experts that are highly trained. To add to that, the company employs a dedicated support team, on duty 24/7 and available through various content methods including live chat
What we liked about Pure VPN is that upon opening it gives you multiple selections on how you wish to browse the web, with this including internet freedom, file sharing, stream, remote/dedi IP, and security/privacy. Based on which you select the software will provide an experience that can be customized to your preferences. There is also a Global Map button that allows the bypassing of software recommendations and lets you to simply select a server and proceed.
Pricing
Pure VPN is one of the more affordable VPN’s and is ideal for those who wish to keep things cost effective or are somewhat new to this type of software. As with most other VPN’s, there is three pricing models offered, a monthly, six-month and a one-year membership.
The best deal is by far the two-year plan, as it costs a mere $5.90 a month ($70.80 a year), with full payment required when registering. While newcomers may prefer its monthly license initially, if pleased with the performance, it would be advantageous to switch to the two-year plan, as the monthly plan is $10.95 a month. The final plan available is a six-month plan and is priced at $8.95, so it does not take much to see that going with the two-year plan makes the most sense. All plans purchased come with a 7-day money back guarantee.
As for payment methods, the options are rather vast, more than many will offer. Credit cards accepted include American Express Visa and Mastercard. As for e-wallets, Paypal, Webmoney, Neosurf, iDeal, dotpay, Giropay, and many others including Bitcoin are offered. One rather cool addition and one not commonly seen is the ability to use gift cards from various retailers (perfect for those gift cards received at Christmas you have no use for), and those include Walmart, Sears, JCPenny, Lowes, Toys”R” Us and others.
How to install
Installing Pure VPN is simply. Once you have created an account, and your payment has been processed, you will receive an email for the Pure VPN app, which will be different than the one you use to log into the main site. The procedure then is fast and easy with a direct link to downloading the software.
This is the same for any point of access, whether it is a laptop, desktop or mobile device. This is ideal as it affords a higher degree of security and anonymity.Once downloaded, you can then begin navigating throughout, using tutorials, or get assistance through their live chat features to effectively set up the VPN client to suit you best.
- Supported Platforms>
- Android
- IOS
- Linux
- MAC
- Windows
Speed and Overall Performance
This is always an area that generates interest, especially when it comes to vpn’s, and it is nice to know that Pure VPN meets its goal well and overall, vpn speed and performance is excellent. It was found that overall Pure VPN was an average of six percent faster than most others, and decimated its competition by nearly 350% when it comes to downloading, and that says it all. Uploads were not as fast, but still well within acceptable levels, even if slightly slower than some others.
When testing of international servers, it was found that performed just as well with their latency increasing by over 200 percent, and its download/upload speeds were vastly improved as well. This is a critical area, and when compared to competitors, it was felt that Pure VPN hit all the marks when relating to speed leaving no concerns at all.
Country IPS offered
Pure VPN has a wide range of servers and locations worldwide and offers one of the largest choices in that regards. As mentioned, they have servers in over 140 countries with more than 180 locations and 750 plus servers. This is spread out well with representation being both excellent and diverse.
As one would expect, most major continents are a hotspot for vpn servers and located in major cities, and even not so major ones. 210 servers are located throughout North America such as Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, F Tampa, Atlanta, Chicago, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Houston, Ashburn, Seattle, Montreal, Quebec, and Vancouver. In addition, server locations within the Caribbean islands include Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Guatemala, Grenada, Mexico, Jamaica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Dominica, St Lucia, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos Island, Montserrat. And Bermuda.
While South and Central America have 34 servers, it clearly is not equal to other continents due to a lack of infrastructure. Costa Rica Belize, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Suriname and Paraguay are the main locations.
The United Kingdom offers 62 servers with the balance of Europe offering a total of 349. Those are located in Austria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belgium, Cyprus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Denmark, France, Finland, Hungary and Germany,. Italy Iceland, Lithuania, Latvia, Montenegro, Malta, Norway, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Russia, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Spain, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey and Switzerland make up the balance.
Asia, always another heavy server area for VPN servers offers 120. These are equally divided in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Dubai, China, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, and Japan. South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Oman, Philippines, Pakistan, Qatar, Kyrgyzstan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Thailand, Vietnam and Uzbekistan, also have multiple servers located within their countries.
As for other areas, Africa has 36 and are located in Ethiopia, Egypt, Ghana, Mauritius, Mauritania, Madagascar, Kenya, Senegal, Niger, Nigeria, Tunisia, Tanzania, Seychelles, South Africa, and Cape Verde. Finally, 34 are located in Oceania, with those being located throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Summary
While you will find in your research that most VPN’s will say the have fast service or are the fastest, few are actually being truthful. One that does make that claim is Pure VPN, and our performance tests showed that statement to be accurate. While speed should not be the only determining factor in choosing a VPN, it is nice to know it meets the grade, if not exceeds it. When you combine the multiple features of its software, its low cost, and solid infrastructure, Pure VPN is a top contender and should be seriously considered.
VPN Plans
- PureVPN Sign Up
- Price: $10/month
- Yearly Price: $5.83/month
- Bandwidth: unlimited