TorGuard VPN review: Flexible plans and solid security features

Price When Reviewed

$9.99

Best Prices Today: TorGuard

TorGuard VPN in short:

• P2P allowed: Yes
• Unlimited system connections: No, 8 or 12 simultaneous system connections
• Business location: Florida
• Number of servers: 3,000+
• Number of nation areas: 50+
• Cost: $9.99 per 30 days, or $59.99 for a yr

TorGuard prides itself on being the go-to for all issues cybersecurity. It presents an in depth community of companies for each particular person in addition to enterprise use. Its VPN nonetheless doesn’t embody a ton of additional options outdoors of safety, as an alternative choosing a no-nonsense strategy to protecting you secure. It’s a straight-up VPN reference to a good server unfold, customizable protocol choices, and a quite simple user-interface.

Further studying: See our roundup of the best VPNs to study competing merchandise.

What are TorGuard VPN’s options and companies?

TorGuard has up to date its person interface since our final overview. When you open the app now it shows a easy display screen with a big “Connect” button within the center and the chosen server on the backside.

Choosing a brand new location is only a matter of clicking the chosen server on the backside of the homescreen. An inventory of all obtainable servers will populate, routinely sorted alphabetically. You can change the kind methodology or filter by sure standards utilizing the drop-down menus on the high. One of those filter choices is for “Stealth Servers,” that are a handful of servers optimized to seem as common HTTP site visitors. Some community admins or ISPs detect and block site visitors from common VPN servers, however TorGuard’s Stealth Servers use additional obfuscation to get round these strategies of strict censorship. It’s a pleasant contact, and surprisingly not quite common amongst VPN suppliers — Surfshark VPN is the one different service that I can bear in mind with an identical function.

With over 3,000 servers throughout greater than 50 nations, TorGuard has loads of servers to select from. Users are allowed as much as eight simultaneous system connections whereas utilizing TorGuard—or as much as 12 in case you’re keen to pay a bit further every month to improve to the Pro model.

Sam Singleton

When you click on on the gear icon on the principle display screen it would open up a Settings menu. The choices listed here are fairly easy. You have some primary UI customization choices, together with a kill change. TorGuard additionally presents an AppKill function that lets you designate particular apps to close down ought to your VPN connection drop, fairly than simply closing all the things.

Further choices embody some customization of the obtainable VPN protocols and OpenVPN proxy. If you opted to pay for the usage of a devoted IP handle, you may add that below the choices menu right here as properly.

Missing from TorGuard’s Windows utility nonetheless, are the choices for split-tunneling and multi-hop connections. As of proper now, TorGuard solely presents break up tunneling in its Android app. In this point in time, the dearth of split-tunneling is especially egregious as virtually each different main VPN service gives this function. This is one thing that TorGuard is engaged on, however it appears to be taking its time with to make sure there are not any DNS leaks earlier than launch — a standard difficulty encountered by VPNs when first rolling-out split-tunneling options.

As you will have seen up up to now, TorGuard VPN presents a ton of additional options and add-ons in case you’re keen to pay for them. In truth, this is without doubt one of the service’s strongest and but most irritating factors. Not solely are you able to go for a “Pro” model of the VPN, which supplies you extra system connections and a devoted IP, however there are additionally a large number of add-ons you may select from as properly. These embody community upgrades, country- or streaming-specific devoted IPs, and one-time charges for routers and Wi-Fi adapters. 

I respect that TorGuard permits for personalization choices, however most of them are extraordinarily area of interest and the typical person will seemingly discover all of it a bit overwhelming. Plus, most of them simply really feel like TorGuard is unnecessarily making an attempt to upsell you, very like your native cable firm does.

How is TorGuard VPN’s efficiency?

During my testing I rated connection speeds throughout TorGuard’s servers in six totally different nations world wide after which in contrast them to my baseline web velocity. TorGuard’s speeds fell solidly within the mid-range amongst all VPNs. It maintained 34 p.c of base obtain speeds and a fairly paltry 21 p.c of base add speeds. It isn’t something to write down residence about, however it was sufficient for me to observe Youtube movies and browse the web with no hitch.

As for streaming content material although, TorGuard failed fairly laborious. I wasn’t capable of entry any main streaming service whereas linked to its servers. Despite its claims, TorGuard appears incapable of circumventing geo-blocked content material. If you’re lifeless set on utilizing TorGuard, nonetheless, you will have higher luck getting round blocks by buying a devoted IP, however you’d seemingly be higher served by selecting a better streaming VPN as an alternative.

While it won’t be an amazing choice for streaming, TorGuard does do properly with torrenting. P2P site visitors is allowed on all of its servers and you’ll torrent both by way of the TorGuard app itself or by way of a SOCKS5 proxy.

How is TorGuard VPN’s safety and privateness?

Sam Singleton

TorGuard presents glorious safety choices together with each AES-128 and AES-256 encryption. It additionally helps a number of protocols together with OpenVPN, OpenConnect, and WireGuard. The Pro model provides assist for IKEv2 and L2TP/IPsec protocols, as properly. 

Included with these protocols is the power to tweak and configure your ports. This is particularly helpful to get round sure firewalls corresponding to these in nations with web restrictions. In truth, I’d say that TorGuard is without doubt one of the higher VPNs for individuals who go to or stay in these areas.

Additionally, energy customers will like the choice to alter the TLS model below the OpenVPN protocol choices. TLS is actually a algorithm that allow safe communication between a person and a web site’s servers. The choice routinely defaults to TLS 1.3, which is the newest and safe model, however you’ve got the choice to alter it in case you so want.

Regarding privateness, TorGuard has fortunately expanded upon its one-sentence privateness coverage since our final overview. The present privacy policy now states the information it collects together with fee info, analytic knowledge for optimizing its service, and get in touch with knowledge for buyer assist companies. It additionally lists the ways in which this collected knowledge is utilized in relative element. 

It states that “TorGuard does not collect or log any data from its Virtual Private Network (VPN) or Proxy services.” However, TorGuard has not undergone any unbiased safety audits, so that you’ll simply need to take its no-logs coverage at face worth. As I’ve talked about previously, an unbiased audit is essential in establishing belief between a VPN and its customers. So I want to see TorGuard concentrate on finishing an audit like this sooner or later.

The undeniable fact that TorGuard has not made it a precedence to be extra clear with the way it handles person knowledge is disappointing. VPNs deal with loads of delicate person info and might’t merely get away with an unsupported assertion nowadays.

TorGuard is predicated in Florida, which is a handy location for U.S. customers, however does have the disadvantage of being in a member nation of the Five Eyes data-sharing alliance. This signifies that person knowledge could also be topic to intelligence assortment inside these nations. So if that may be a concern, it might be finest to search for a VPN primarily based overseas outdoors of Five Eyes jurisdiction.

Is TorGuard VPN value it?

TorGuard is usually a versatile and highly effective VPN with its wealthy safety function set. It gives world server unfold and okay obtain speeds. And it has some of the versatile pricing and subscription plans I’ve ever seen from a VPN supplier. 

It in the end falters within the supply of a few of these components although. Despite the plethora of add-ons, simply signing up for the service can really feel a bit overwhelming. And whereas the concentrate on security measures is good, it appears to come back on the expense of different helpful options corresponding to split-tunneling. 

Overall, TorGuard is just not going to amaze you, however the value is correct, it’s easy to make use of, and the security measures could be top-notch for the correct of person.

Editor’s word: Because on-line companies are sometimes iterative, gaining new options and efficiency enhancements over time, this overview is topic to alter in an effort to precisely mirror the present state of the service. Any modifications to textual content or our last overview verdict might be famous on the high of this text.