VPN Velocity is a torrent-friendly Android VPN app with greater than 1,000,000 installs reported on Google Play.
The free service helps solely three international locations: Netherlands, UK and US. There are adverts – a lot of adverts – and particular person periods shall be disconnected after an hour except you bear in mind to faucet a Reset button.
VPN Velocity would not have any bandwidth restrict, although. It would not require registration both. The developer claims it unblocks Netflix and lots of different websites (extra on that later), and says the service will not log or share your information.
You’ll be able to improve to the business service to take away the adverts and cut-off dates, enhance efficiency and get entry to 21 areas around the globe. The total checklist of areas is as follows: Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Eire, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Netherlands, Romania, Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, in addition to the UK and US.
That is an attention-grabbing choice: it isn’t good when you want Asian areas, but it surely’s much better than most providers for Japanese Europe, and South Africa is one other comparatively uncommon plus.
The value is steep, sadly, at £11 ($13.75) a month or £5.52 ($6.90) a month over a yr. Even a premium VPN like IPVanish would solely price $6.49 (£5.20), and that may offer you extra areas, many extra options, and purchasers to run the service on all of your units.
Privateness
Understanding who owns and runs a VPN can assist you determine how reliable they is likely to be, however that is very tough right here. VPN Velocity’s Google Play web page says the app is obtainable by VPN Velocity Grasp, however there is not any data on who that is, no clear official web site for them or the service, and the contact for the developer is a straightforward Gmail handle and a avenue handle in Ukraine.
With no official privateness coverage at hand, all we’ve to have a look at is VPN Velocity’s Google Play web page, the place we’re informed:
“No Customers’ logs collected or saved. No Customers’ information offered out or shared!”
Sounds nice, in idea, though we have misplaced depend of the variety of VPNs which let you know that on the entrance web page, and one thing totally completely different within the small print.
How a lot this actually issues is open to query. You do not have to register or hand over any private particulars, so there’s not a lot that the service can share. We might nonetheless wish to have a transparent rationalization of what’s and is not occurring after we join and use the service, however when you’re solely utilizing the VPN for easy duties, like viewing region-blocked YouTube clips, the low-level particulars won’t matter.
We moved on to examine app permissions, and that is what VPN Velocity requires:
- In-app purchases
- Obtain information from web
- View community connections
- Full community entry
- Run at startup
- Management vibration
- Forestall machine from sleeping
There are some important permissions right here, however solely these essential to run the service, and we have seen different reliable VPN apps ask for way more.
Efficiency
After a simple set up course of, VPN Velocity opens with a easy and easy interface. Select a location, faucet the Join button and your connection is protected inside a number of seconds.
The problems with the free model are additionally rapidly apparent. There was an animated advert on the primary display screen. Full-screen adverts appeared sometimes, and a countdown timer reminded us that our session would finish in below an hour. (A Reset button units the timer again to at least one hour, in order that’s not fairly as annoying because it appears.)
Different adverts seem at completely different factors within the app, and this will get irritating. We clicked Disconnect, and an advert appeared within the centre of a “Do you wish to disconnect?” dialog. It could be straightforward to faucet the advert by chance, somewhat than the tiny ‘Cancel’ possibility on the backside of the display screen. We managed it anyway, however then one other full-screen advert appeared and we needed to shut that. Sometimes a full-screen advert would seem under different home windows and we would run into them later.
The app does have some welcome bonus options. A Settings dialog permits selecting between IPsec and OpenVPN protocols, an possibility you will not all the time see on cellular apps. And if you’d like some reassurance that the service actually is working, tapping a ‘What Is My IP’ hyperlink opens a web site to indicate your present IP handle and site.
VPN Velocity claims it lets you “browse the net as if you had been wherever on this planet.” That is a stretch, significantly with simply three areas out there within the free model, however we tried it anyway. Netflix acknowledged that we had been utilizing a VPN and refused to stream any content material, however we had been in a position to bypass safety on YouTube, Comedy Central and BBC iPlayer.
Our efficiency exams* recommend you might need streaming issues regardless, as obtain speeds on the free plan had been a sluggish zero.5-3Mbps throughout all areas. We tried Opera Free VPN on the identical machine instantly afterwards and averaged 9Mbps with none issues.
Signing up for the Premium plan’s free seven-day trial dropped the adverts and gave us entry to all 21 areas. Would this assist enhance speeds? Properly, to a level. The UK, US and Netherlands areas appeared extra constant however nonetheless delivered round 3Mbps at greatest. However when you’re ready to make use of one other server, it is attainable to get way more. Luxembourg gave the perfect outcomes from our UK testing level with obtain speeds of round 18Mbps, as a lot as our connection may handle, and even Singapore managed 6Mbps.
No matter plan you are utilizing, VPN Velocity does a good job of defending your id from snoopers. We pointed our machine at ipleak.internet, doileak.com and different privateness testing websites, and the service had accurately shielded our IP and DNS addresses always.
Closing verdict
VPN Velocity works at a fundamental degree, however the irritating adverts and sluggish speeds are an issue, and the business Premium plan is not well worth the value. You may be higher off with a free product like Opera VPN, or any of the big-name business VPNs.
*Our testing included evaluating common efficiency (looking, streaming video). We additionally used speedtest.internet to measure latency, add and obtain speeds, after which examined instantly once more with the VPN turned off, to examine for any distinction (over a number of rounds of testing). We then in contrast these outcomes to different VPN providers we have reviewed. After all, do notice that VPN efficiency is tough to measure as there are such a lot of variables.