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Is PureVPN a good product? Pros and Cons to consider

Cristina Avatar By: Cristina | Last updated February 10, 2020

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PureVPN is among the largest and most popular VPNs on the market today. It was developed in 2007 by GZ Systems, a company based in China. PureVPN has managed to constantly increase its number of servers and it currently has more than 2,000 servers worldwide, located in over 140 countries around the Globe. It is a fast VPN and has a rich set of features.

However, PureVPN is still a controversial VPN provider. The first reason for that is the strongly publicized event from 2017, in which PureVPN played a negative role. Last fall, the company received a lot criticism because in spite of its claims, it in fact did use its customers’ IP data, mainly their IP addresses. An official document supports that claim by showing how PureVPN provided such information about its users to the FBI.

Privacy is one of the main factors users consider when choosing a VPN provider and such controversies can be deal breakers for a lot of potential customers.

In PureVPN’s defense though, the company did try to redeem itself and has come up with a more transparent privacy policy. PureVPN now claims that it does not keep any logs on its users’ activity, or data that could identify them, such as the VPN or the original IP address. Let’s just hope all that is true this time. On the other hand, they do keep account of your bandwidth amount, date of connection, name/address and payment method.

In conclusion, privacy-wise, PureVPN is not your safest bet. While it has improved compared to previous years, it is still a bit questionable and its past controversies will always weigh a lot for some people.

Privacy aside though, PureVPN is definitely a major player on the VPN market.

We’ll first give you below the main reasons why PureVPN is a good product. And after the strengths, we’ll stress the weaknesses, too.

PureVPN is extremely versatile. PureVPN is one of the most versatile VPNs out there, in terms of supported devices. As they even boast on their website, it ‘supports every internet-enabled device’. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Chrome, Firefox and it is also compatible with Kodi, Roku, routers, Amazon FireStick, Chrome cast, Play Station, Xbox and more.

It is also good to know that PureVPN allows up to 5 simultaneous connections, which is a good number.

A large number of servers worldwide. Like many other providers, PureVPN also started small but has continued to grow and grow when it comes to coverage. Today, PureVPN has more than 2,000 servers in more than 140 countries around the world. Although it is based in Hong Kong, PureVPN has the largest number of servers in Europe (more than 800 servers). Over 660 servers are in North America and more than 300 are located in Asia. There are also servers in Africa (150), Central America, South America, Australia and New Zeeland.

PureVPN supports all the common protocols and uses military-grade encryption. This VPN supports all the major protocols, such as OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec, IKEv2, SSTP and even PPTP.

Data is protected by military-grade 256-bit encryption, which is the industry standard. They also offer split tunneling, which is not such a common feature in a VPN service. Split tunneling lets you decide exactly what data you want tunneled through the VPN. In addition to all that, there are also some add-ons that offer you extra-security, such as DDoS protection, dedicated IPs. There is also a kill-switch feature, Ad blocking a NAT firewall and IPV6 leak protection.

PureVPN allows torrenting. PureVPN offers dedicated and optimized servers for P2P sharing and a P2P protection add-on.

It works with Netflix and other streaming services. Although unlocking geo-restricted content was an issue for PureVPN, they have managed to solve it. PureVPN now works with Netflix and they even show you on their website how to access US Netflix from anywhere in 3 easy steps. This VPN currently works with BBC iPlayer, Hulu and other streaming sites. The only problematic area continues to remain China.

All of the above represent good evidence when it comes to the quality of PureVPN. However, aside from the still controversial privacy policy, there are a few noteworthy cons, too.

Here they are:

  • Customer support is not as helpful as it seems. While PureVPN does offer 24/7 live chat support, more often than not, you’ll be assisted by poorly trained reps, if even human at all…There have been many reported cases in which people’s typed questions remained unanswered or unresolved
  • Occasional connection issues. While speed is overall good (not extraordinary though…) there are occasional connection issues such as slowdowns, when servers get too overcrowded

Conclusion

PureVPN has its ups and downs, just like any other VPN provider out there. Its pricing is reasonable, it has a rich set of features, it offers good security, it allows torrenting and works with Netflix and other major streaming services. You also benefit from a 31-day money back guarantee. It does have some connection issues and while it has a good overall performance, it is not ‘the world’s fastest VPN’ either, as PureVPN brags on its website. Their privacy policy, although improved, is still not appealing enough. It is up to you as a customer to weigh the pros and cons and decide whether PureVPN is a good enough product for your personal needs and expectations.


We have done a complete write up of NordVPN vs. PureVPN  so take a look if you are thinking about deciding between the two industry leaders in vpn services. Both are great products in their own ways, but the reality is that there can only be one winner of the two.

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