NordVPN Review

NordVPN is probably the most popular VPN on the market with a huge customer base around the world.

NORDVPN AT A GLANCE

• Servers: 5100
• Countries: 62
• Simultaneous connections/devices: 6
• Kill switch: Yes
• Logging: Email address and billing information only
• Price: $11.95 per month, or $83.88 per year
• Best deal: $107.55 for three years
• Free VPN: No, but good refund policy
• Trial: 30-day refund guarantee
• Supported platforms: iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows, Linux, plus a lot more

NordVPN – Features and usability

In the past few months, NordVPN has added some new features and given its Windows client a bit of a polish. A compact version of the client with quick connection options is available as a pop-up from its notification-area icon, while its main display shows a map of endpoint locations, alongside a searchable list of available servers, categorised by features and geographic location.

It also provides shortcuts to endpoints with specific extra security features, including double VPN, DDoS protection, onion routing via the Tor network and support for peer-to-peer torrenting.

NordVPN’s advanced settings offer a wide range of features, including autoconnection, CyberSec ad and malware protection, invisibility to your local network and both internet and app-specific kill switches to block traffic if your VPN connection goes down. You can also set a custom DNS (domain name servers) provider and attempt to avoid VPN blocking in places where it’s restricted by using some of NordVPN’s obfuscated servers, available in the advanced settings options.

While NordVPN’s longest subscriptions work out very cheaply, its other tiers are more costly than many of its rivals. You’ll pay a hefty £9.34 per month, a middling £65.57 per year or £74.85 for two years, or a much better value £84.07 for three years, which works out at just £2.33 a month.

A free trial is no longer available, but there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee, and those in search of extra anonymity can pay in Bitcoin.

The service is owned by Tefincom, headquartered in Panama. The country has no data retention legislation in force and NordVPN itself has a no-logging policy. To back this up, PricewaterhouseCoopers carried out an independent audit of NordVPN, which is available for all subscribers to read.

NordVPN – Performance

Endpoints/VPN	UK	Netherlands	United States
NordVPN HTTP	192.18Mbps	145.45Mbps	48.82Mbps
NordVPN FTP	235.88Mbps	48.82Mbps	48.31Mbps

NordVPN’s transfer speed tests were among the fastest in a new high-speed throughput test, although its U.S. endpoints’ performance was a little disappointing. UK HTTP downloads came in at 22.91MB/s (192.18Mbps) and FTP at 28.12MB/s (235.88Mbps).

I got similarly quick transfer speeds from its Netherlands endpoints, which achieved 17.99MB/s (150.91Mbps) over HTTP and 17.34MB/s (145.45Mbps) via FTP. US speeds were actually a little below its previous record, at 5.82MB/s (48.82Mbps) over HTTP and 5.76MB/s (48.31Mbps) over FTP, but are certainly adequate for most purposes.

As usual, NordVPN excelled in the streaming tests – I was able to view region-locked content on Netflix U.S., BBC iPlayer and, somewhat unusually, All 4, as well as Crunchyroll and Shudder’s U.S. services. It has a huge number of servers in 62 different countries, which doubtless helps its IP addresses keep off streaming industry blacklists.