TunnelBear VPN review: It’s just right for beginners

Best Prices Today: TunnelBear

TunnelBear in short:

• P2P allowed: Yes
• Unlimited machine connections: Yes
• Business location: Canada
• Number of servers: 5000+
• Number of nation areas: 47+
• Cost: $9.99 monthly or $59.88 for a yearly subscription

TunnelBear is a well-liked VPN service owned by McAfee safety firm and based mostly in Toronto, Canada. It’s been round for some time now and has at all times stood out resulting from its distinctive and kitschy bear-themed interface. The service has tried laborious in recent times so as to add extra options corresponding to limitless machine connections so as to stay related in an more and more aggressive VPN market. Certainly there are ursine puns aplenty to be loved right here, however is the VPN service simply best for you? I took it for a stroll within the woods to seek out out.

Further studying: See our roundup of the best VPNs to find out about competing merchandise.

What are TunnelBear’s options and providers?

When you first open TunnelBear you may’t assist however discover how a lot work the designers have put in to it. The predominant interface is a world map geographically dotted with the obtainable servers. As you scroll throughout the map, even the timber change based mostly on the continent or area you’re viewing (palm timber within the Middle East, Umbrella Thorns in Africa). Your precise location is signified on the map with a sheep, however when you hook up with the VPN it turns right into a bear.

Each server location has an empty tunnel icon on it. To join, simply choose the server icon you need. In addition to deciding on the server from a map, there may be additionally a drop-down checklist on the prime with the entire servers as properly. Somehow within the TunnelBear universe sheeps turning into bears and bears digging by way of tunnels is sensible, however the logic is misplaced on us. Still, it’s a enjoyable and distinctive design aspect.

Sam Singleton

On the entire, TunnelBear is a straightforward service with out a number of frills, however it does present some attention-grabbing key options price testing. Under Settings > Security, TunnelBear has its personal model of a kill change characteristic known as “VigilantBear.” It works slightly in a different way than a standard kill change in that as an alternative of disconnecting your web within the occasion of a VPN disconnection, it simply blocks all incoming and outgoing visitors till the connection is re-established. 

Additionally, TunnelBear affords a characteristic known as “GhostBear” that makes your encrypted knowledge much less detectable. It does this by masking your VPN visitors and disguising it as HTTPS visitors, which is usually much less prone to be blocked by censors. This can work properly should you discover that your connection is being blocked by streaming providers corresponding to Netflix. By turning on the GhostBear characteristic, there’s a larger chance that your connection will be capable of entry these restrictive websites. Be warned, although, turning on GhostBear will possible decelerate your connection even additional.

Another characteristic to notice is “SplitBear” or TunnelBear’s model of split-tunneling, which lets you management which apps or web sites can have entry to the VPN connection. Unfortunately, TunnelBear lacks many superior options that opponents supply corresponding to multi-hop and devoted servers particular to sure actions—streaming, torrenting, and many others. In truth, prior to now, TunnelBear blocked entry to P2P downloads however has since begun permitting them. Still, it’s not one thing that it overtly encourages with its service and for that motive different VPN suppliers corresponding to ProtonVPN and Mullvad VPN are higher fitted to torrenting.

TunnelBear affords desktop applications and cellular apps for a lot of techniques corresponding to Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS, amongst others. There are additionally proxy browser extensions for Chrome and Opera. And only in the near past TunnelBear has switched to permit for limitless simultaneous machine connections with its premium plans.

TunnelBear does supply a free service that comes with the total desktop app however a 500MB-per-month knowledge restrict. It’s an effective way to check out the service to see should you prefer it, however the low knowledge restrict isn’t prone to be sufficient to make use of it repeatedly—you received’t even be capable of stream an HD (1080p) video for greater than 10 or so minutes.

How is TunnelBear’s efficiency?

Tunnelbear

During my testing I rated speeds throughout TunnelBear’s servers in 5 totally different nations all all over the world after which in contrast them to our baseline web pace. TunnelBear server speeds, truthfully, weren’t nice. Across all areas examined, the speeds averaged a mere 33 p.c of the bottom obtain pace and a fairly poor 20 p.c of the bottom add pace. Not solely do these numbers not impress, however it fell manner wanting the providers in our top five fastest VPNs.

Still, on-line speeds can differ wildly in pure Mbps assessments from daily and even hour to hour. It’s finest to take any and all pace assessments with a grain of salt. Your expertise with TunnelBear could differ from these within the assessments for this evaluation.

In regards to streaming, I did discover that TunnelBear wasn’t capable of constantly unblock websites corresponding to Netflix and Amazon Prime. It was profitable more often than not however the odd server appeared to have hassle or was actively being blocked.

When I turned on the GhostBear characteristic it appeared to resolve most of those unblocking points. Unfortunately, with GhostBear turned on, I observed that my connection speeds plummeted and I wasn’t capable of stream HQ video as a result of it was too sluggish. So GhostBear appears to work, however it wasn’t actually a viable resolution.

Therefore, I personally wouldn’t suggest TunnelBear as a dependable VPN for streaming. That doesn’t imply it could actually’t be used to stream, however I imagine there are higher choices obtainable corresponding to NordVPN, which works flawlessly with Netflix, or CyberGhost VPN, which has a ton of areas to select from and optimized servers for streaming. (See our roundup of the best VPNs for streaming Netflix to be taught extra.)

How is TunnelBear’s safety and privateness?

Sam Singleton

TunnelBear comes together with your industry-standard AES-256 encryption, which is the strongest presently obtainable and it means you may relaxation assured your connection might be safe. The Windows app additionally helps WireGuard, IKEv2, and OpenVPN protocols. I choose OpenVPN at any time when potential because it’s one of the safe and versatile protocols obtainable resulting from its open-source nature. But, should you’re not sure, you may simply choose the Auto possibility in TunnelBear’s settings and the app will select what it believes is one of the best protocol to your connection.

Also, so as to verify that my precise IP deal with is obfuscated accurately, I used a DNS leak test. It confirmed that there have been no points with unintended leaks of my IP deal with when related to TunnelBear’s servers. 

According to its privacy policy, TunnelBear doesn’t acquire any DNS queries, IP addresses of customers, timestamps, or different private identifiable data. However, it does acquire what it deems “operational data” corresponding to person assist and troubleshooting queries, complete knowledge used monthly, and a few gross sales knowledge. It says that none of this data may establish customers and are “not related to the time and activity of VPN usage.” 

Additionally, upon sign-up, TunnelBear requires customers to enter of their e mail deal with and cost data. Payment choices embrace bank cards, PayPal, and Bitcoin.

Honestly, I used to be impressed with TunnelBear’s complete and forthright privateness coverage. Not all VPN corporations present the identical detailed or thorough details about what knowledge it particularly collects. Also, TunnelBear continues to conduct common third-party audits by Remedy53, a reliable and dependable Big Four auditing agency. It has efficiently handed each audit for the final 5 years. That’s spectacular and a giant promoting level for privacy-conscious customers.

TunnelBear itself is positioned in Toronto, Canada, which implies that all private data is dealt with in accordance with Canadian legislation. Canada doesn’t presently have any necessary knowledge retention legal guidelines both.

Is TunnelBear price it?

TunnelBear is a VPN that sticks to the fundamentals. It’s an pleasing service chock-full of bear puns which can be enjoyable and lighthearted. It’s additionally extraordinarily simple to make use of—it doesn’t overwhelm with too many options or nation choices. And whereas this is likely to be ultimate for the common person, energy customers who wish to tweak and optimize their VPN connections will really feel that the service doesn’t supply sufficient.

The speeds are satisfactory, however not nice—you may say they lumber a bit. Also, I did encounter some unlucky points with servers being unable to unblock streaming platforms—notably Netflix. Overall, this approachable and cheerful service is an effective possibility for customers who’re simply getting began with VPNs or won’t be essentially the most tech-savvy. Otherwise, there are different providers corresponding to these in our best VPNs that is likely to be higher for extra superior customers.

Editor’s word: Because on-line providers are sometimes iterative, gaining new options and efficiency enhancements over time, this evaluation is topic to alter so as to precisely mirror the present state of the service. Any adjustments to textual content or our ultimate evaluation verdict might be famous on the prime of this text.