NordVPN Test Report

The following is my test report for NordVPN, which is done independently. Tested on Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS and others. If you have any questions, you can contact me and I will answer your questions.

---

When it comes to virtual private networks, or VPNs, NordVPN has proved itself to be our top service for securing your online activities. The company now has more than 5,100 servers across the globe, making it the largest service we’ve yet tested. It also takes a strong stance on privacy for its customers and includes tools rarely seen in the competition. NordVPN wraps all that up in a snazzy client that’s consistent across every platform on which it’s offered, and it includes ad blocking for good measure. For its superlative user experience, numerous features, and robust service, it’s a rare 5-star 10Beasts Editors’ Choice winner.

What Is a VPN?

When researchers cobbled together the ARPANET in 1969, they didn’t give much thought to security or privacy. While the internet has changed a lot in the intervening decades, it’s still true that the web does little to protect your identity and your data. That’s why you need a VPN.

When you switch on a VPN, it creates an encrypted tunnel between your computer and a server controlled by the VPN service. All your web traffic is routed through this tunnel, meaning that no one, not even someone on the same network as you, can sneak a peek at your data. It also prevents malicious network operators from intercepting your information or using DNS poisoning techniques to trick you into visiting phishing pages. A VPN even protects your web traffic from being monitored by your ISP, which is critically important now that ISPs can sell user data.

Because your web traffic appears to emanate from the VPN server and not your home computer, your true IP address is hidden from the outside world. That’s valuable, because an IP address can be used by spies and advertisers to track your movements across the web. IP addresses can also be used to approximate your location, which is another reason to keep it hidden.

VPNs have long been used by journalists and political activists to access websites blocked by repressive governments. You can also use them to bypass the blocks placed on streaming content that’s limited to certain geographic regions. For example, if you jump to a VPN server in Canada, you may find you’re able to watch MLB games for free. It’s worth noting that Netflix actively blocks VPN users, so a VPN that works with Netflixone day may be blocked the next.

There’s a good chance that you may have never laid hands on a VPN before. If that’s the case, don’t worry! We’ve got a whole feature on how to set up and use a VPN.

Pricing and Features

NordVPN supports Android, Chrome, Firefox, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows with handy apps. NordVPN’s mobile clients both allow you to purchase full subscriptions through their respective app stores. Alternatively, you can configure some routers to connect via NordVPN. Doing so supplies coverage for all the devices on your network, including smart home devices that can’t run a VPN on their own.

NordVPN offers four pricing tiers: $11.95 per month, $83.88 annually, $95.75 every two years, or $107.55 every three years. The company accepts credit cards, of course, but also PayPal, various anonymous cryptocurrencies, and other online payment methods. NordVPN has a 30-day money-back guarantee, too.

NordVPN also offers a three-day free trial for years, but it still hasn’t made it easy to access, and, considering the limitations, it’s almost not worth it. There are many capable and more generous free VPN servicesout there. ProtonVPN is our top pick for free VPNs, because it places no data limit on its users.

You can use up to six devices simultaneously on NordVPN, though there are some limitations concerning connecting devices to the same server. That’s still excellent, as most VPN services limit you to five simultaneous connections. If you need more than six devices, consider installing NordVPN on your router (as mentioned above). CyberGhost notably provides 10 device slots, and both Avira Phantom VPN and Windscribe VPN place no limit on the number of devices you can use. Most services let you add more device slots to your subscription for a fee.

As of this writing, the average price for a top-rated VPN service is about $10.68. NordVPN is notably above that average, but its host of extra features, excellent apps, and core service more than justify the price tag. That said, other VPN services have lower-cost and more flexible pricing plans. KeepSolid VPN Unlimited$8.99 at KeepSolid, for example, offers a lifetime subscription, in case you want to hedge your bets on encryption for the 22nd century. Private Internet Access, on the other hand, costs just $6.95 per month and shares an Editors’ Choice award with NordVPN.

One of the perks of using a VPN is that your actual IP address is hidden from the outside world. The problem is that some sites and services may blacklist that IP address. For that, you’ll need to purchase a static IP address, which NordVPN can also provide. For a $70.00 fee, you can secure a dedicated IP address on a NordVPN server in Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, or the United States. Static IP addresses are handy if you are concerned about VPN traffic being blocked, and NordVPN’s wide selection of US and Western European IP addresses means your new static IP will go unrecognized. Note, however, that you must email NordVPN and request a dedicated IP address. Other services, such as TorGuard VPN$9.99 at TorGuard and VPN Unlimited, offer static IP addresses as simple add-ons to an existing subscription.

VPN Protocols

There are several ways to establish a VPN connection, using different protocols. Our preference is for services that use OpenVPN, which is open source and therefore been thoroughly picked over for potential problems. It also has a reputation for excellent speed and quickly reestablishing a connection.

NordVPN supports OpenVPN and my second-best choice, IKEv2/IPSec. The older and less secure PPTP and L2TP protocols are also supported. Note that many iPhone apps don’t currently use OpenVPN, as Apple has more stringent requirements for apps that include this technology. NordVPN, however, does.

For its proxy extensions in Firefox and Chrome, the company uses TLS 1.2. Most consumers won’t have to worry about this distinction. If that sounds like you, just rest assured that NordVPN is using good technology by default.

The new hotness in the world of VPN protocols is WireGuard. This technology is still under development, but NordVPN has already built a proof-of-concept. It’s not yet public, and may not pan out in the long run.

Servers and Server Locations

NordVPN lets you select one from a list of 62 countries, encompassing some 5,130 servers, as of the last count. That puts it significantly above every other VPN service I’ve yet tested, including Private Internet Access, which offers 3,522 servers across 33 countries. The bulk of NordVPN’s servers are in the US and the UK, which is not unusual for VPN companies. However, NordVPN has a good mix of servers the world over, covering several locations across Asia, Central and South America, Central and Eastern Europe, and a handful in India and the Middle East. The company currently offers two locations in Africa—Egypt and South Africa—and I would like to see more added in the future. NordVPN offers servers in Hong Kong, Russia, and Turkey, all of which have repressive internet policies.

VPN services can spin up new servers on an as-needed basis, but I still regard these numbers as important. The more diverse the location of servers, the more options you have for spoofing your location. It’s also more likely that you can find a nearby server when traveling, which generally translates to better VPN performance. The number of servers is also important; the more servers there are, the fewer people there are connecting to the same server. As a result, each user gets a larger slice of the bandwidth pie.

NordVPN previously announced that its servers are accessible from within China. This means that anyone within the country could circumvent government censorship by connecting to a VPN server outside of China. That’s particularly notable, because China’s so-called Great Firewall greatly restricts the sites that can be accessed from within the country’s borders. Access is only available to Windows users, although other platforms will be added, the company says. We’ll see how that holds up against China’s efforts to restrict VPN use.

A NordVPN representative told me that all of its servers are dedicated, and none are virtual servers. That means that the servers are physically located where they claim to be, an important distinction because a virtual server can be configured to appear as if it were operating from a country other than where it is located. VPN companies have various ways of handling this. Golden Frog VyprVPN, for example, only stores customer data in Zurich, Switzerland, regardless of the VPN server location. AnchorFree Hotspot Shield Elite, on the other hand, is 20 percent virtual servers. Virtual servers aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s useful for understanding where your data is actually going.

NordVPN’s best feature, however, is the variety of specialized servers it offers. These include servers for BitTorrent traffic over VPN. Other VPN services have selection tools to help you solve specific problems, but NordVPN goes further with unique offerings such as double encryption, connection to the Tor anonymization network, and anti-DDoS servers.

Your Privacy With NordVPN

When you use a VPN, it has as much insight into your online activities as your ISP does. If it so desired, it could examine every bit of information passing through its system. It also can potentially identify you to another party—law enforcement, for example—making it possible to track you online. That’s why it’s important that before you buy a VPN subscription, you understand and are comfortable with the steps the company has made to safeguard your privacy.

A representative from NordVPN assured me that the company does not insert ads into your web traffic, nor does it profit from the sale of user data. As for data it gathers, the company representative told me that NordVPN only collects aggregated app-crash statistics and voluntary diagnostic data. The representative also affirmed that NordVPN does not collect any personally identifiable information. All of this information is available in the company’s privacy policy.

In November, 2018, NordVPN announced that it had passed a third-party audit of its no-log policy by one of the “big four audit firms.” It joins several VPN companies, including TunnelBear VPN, that are undertaking similar audits. Each of these audits is different, but the effort shows that the companies are serious about consumer privacy and security. Hopefully, more companies will follow suit.

NordVPN is based in and operates under the legal jurisdiction of Panama, where there are no laws requiring the company to retain data for a mandatory period. The company says it doesn’t collect log data, so it has no information it can actually hand over in response to a subpoena.

It is difficult, however, to fully endorse the privacy practices of any given VPN company. To do so would require deep access to the company’s code and hardware, as well as the technical expertise to interpret it all. That said, based on my discussions with NordVPN and reading the company’s privacy policy, it appears to be saying all the right things. As always, however, you as the consumer should ask yourself whether or not you are comfortable with trusting any given company with your personal information.

Hands On With NordVPN

For this review, I used a Lenovo ThinkPad T460s laptop running the latest version of Windows 10. Some VPN services prefer to just use the VPN client software built into the operating system instead of creating a stand-alone application. NordVPN offers both options. I performed all of my tests using the NordVPN Windows client.

Nearly every VPN company I have reviewed so far offers handy apps instead of requiring that you manually set up your VPN. NordVPN has always offered an excellent user experience with its apps, regardless of the platform you use. At testing, the Windows client shared a lot of design features with the NordVPN mobile apps, with a monochrome blue map as its focus. It’s a bit whimsical, with submarines and ships on the cartoon seas, but it’s an easy way to select the server you want.

A search bar at the top of the screen makes short work of finding a server if your geography skills are lacking, or you can view the servers as a list. This last option places the specialized servers at the top, and it provides useful analytics about the load on any given server.

Clicking the Quick Connect option at the top of the screen or the System Tray, connects you to the VPN server that NordVPN thinks is best (generally, the closest and therefore fastest). That’s a great option for people unfamiliar with VPN services, as is the Settings option that forces NordVPN to launch and connect on startup.

From the Settings section you can also change the DNS resolution service, although NordVPN uses its own secure option. The client includes options to automatically connect on startup, but it doesn’t have a split tunneling feature that lets you route some traffic outside the VPN’s encrypted tunnel. TunnelBear is one VPN service that does include this feature, though using it does reduce your protection.

In the NordVPN settings you can also select a TCP or UDP connection, and even opt to connect to what the company calls “obfuscated servers,” which it says helps circumvent government VPN blocking. The client also includes a Kill Switch that shuts off access to the internet for specific applications, should your computer become disconnected from the VPN.

NordVPN and Netflix

I am pleasantly surprised that Netflix did not block me from streaming content while I was connected to a US-based NordVPN server. That’s great, because Netflix blocks VPNs aggressively. I also found that I was able to stream content from Netflix while connected to NordVPN servers in Australia, Canada, Japan, and the UK. Of the VPNs I have tested so far, it’s the most compatible with Netflix, but that could change at any point as Netflix often manages to block services that previously worked well.

That said, other companies offer specialized servers just for streaming video services. Previous versions of NordVPN highlighted special streaming servers, and I wish they’d do that again.

Note that while Netflix does not explicitly prohibit the use of VPNs, section 4.3 of its terms of use does mention the use of technology to confirm your location. This document also doesn’t guarantee access to content outside of the country where you created your account. Using a VPN might not breach this agreement, but it’s clear that Netflix takes a dim view on the technology.

Beyond VPN

Many VPNs include additional features to help secure customers and lure in new ones. NordVPN has a small collection it calls CyberSec. With it, NordVPN can block ads and malware, and prevent DDoS activity at the network level.

I don’t test the efficacy of ad blocking with VPNs, but I did confirm that far fewer ads loaded on pages when NordVPN was active than when it wasn’t. I really like that VPNs are adding this particular feature, since many online ads contain trackers that can correlate your movement between websites. That said, TunnelBear provides ad and tracker blocking in a handy browser plug-in that offers far more flexibility in what get ads get blocked and on what sites. My preferred ad blocker for browsers is still the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Privacy Badger.

To block malware payloads, NordVPN uses blacklists of known malicious sites, as well as phishing sites that are designed to trick you into handing over your personal information. It’s a good start, but these sites are short-lived, and new ones pop up in seconds. Plus, blacklists can only do so much. Stand-alone antivirus applications include advanced heuristic models that can catch never-before-seen malware before it damages your computer.

None of this is to sell NordVPN short; more protection is always good, but don’t expect this to replace your antivirus. Also, I do not currently evaluate the anti-phishing capabilities of VPNs.

The last tool, DDoS protection, is a unique and interesting offering. During a DDoS attack, infected computers simultaneously access the same website over and over again. If there are enough machines involved, it can bring even the most robust website to a screeching halt. NordVPN says that even if your computer has been infected with malware for these kinds of nefarious purposes, the anti-DDoS feature prevents your computer from joining in the attack.

Speed and Performance

Using a VPN adds physical distance and other limiting factors to your otherwise-normal internet connection. The result is, usually, a slower experience with increased latency. When I test VPNs, I take a snapshot of that impact to compare how each performs. To measure this effect, I perform two rounds of tests using the Ookla speed test tool. 

First, I establish a baseline average result without the VPN in use. Then, I do the same thing with the VPN active, and compare the results to find a percent change. This first test uses a nearby VPN server, and I perform a second test looking at the performance between Ookla’s test server in Anchorage, Alaska, and a VPN server in Australia. This is an extreme example, using two points as far apart as I can manage. Keep in mind that networks are fickle things, and can change depending on where and when you connect, so your mileage may vary.

Note that all the speed test data below came from tests run on March 8, 2018.

See How We Test VPNs

My tests show that NordVPN increased latency by 15.4 percent domestically, and 281.2 percent internationally. TorGuard turned in the best domestic score, reducing latency by 6.7 percent; and TunnelBear had the best international test score, increasing latency by just 270.3 percent.

In the all-important download tests, NordVPN reduced speeds by 5.1 percent domestically and 73.2 percent internationally. TorGuard had the best speed in the domestic test, in which it reduced speeds by 3.7 percent. AnchorFree Hotspot Shield Elite had the smallest impact on the international test, reducing speeds by 39.9 percent.

Finally, NordVPN reduced upload speeds by 5.3 percent in the domestic test and 97.82 percent in the international test. IPVanish had the smallest impact on domestic upload speeds, reducing them by only 2.9 percent. Private Internet Access had the smallest impact in the international upload test, reducing speeds by 97.3 percent.

I don’t believe speed test results to be the most important metric for evaluating a VPN, but you won’t have to worry much about speed with NordVPN. That said, I currently regard TorGuard VPN as the fastest VPN, as it appears to have a slight edge with low latency and solid upload and download performance.

NordVPN for Android

The Android client for NordVPN is sleek, with a new interface that keeps the interactive map but introduces a flatter, stylish look.

NordVPN has taken great pains to provide a familiar experience across every device the company supports, but each client is tweaked to work best on each platform. On Android, for example, you can still access the company’s excellent specialized servers. We especially like that you can browse a complete list of available servers in a country, not just a broad category.

For its excellent collection of features and excellent interface NordVPN is an Editors’ Choice for Android VPN apps, too.

NordVPN for iPhone

NordVPN for iPhone continues NordVPN’s tradition of providing the same user experience across all the company’s supported platforms. Even on iPhone or iPad, all the features feel very familiar to users of other NordVPN products.

Unfortunately, the iOS version doesn’t have some of the handy options that you find in the Android edition, because of the quirks of iOS. Still, this well-designed app feels very much at home on Apple’s platform. NordVPN also brings its Kill Switch and Smart Reconnect feature, which is quite welcome.

Unsurprisingly, NordVPN gets an Editors’ Choice for VPN for the iPhone, too.

NordVPN for Mac

As with Android, there are a few flourishes that make the macOS client for NordVPN feel right at home on a Mac. The main view is the lovely and familiar monochromatic blue map, with its cartoon boats and submarines. But the hidden left tray moves in with a slickness typical of the best macOS apps. Clicking the magnifying glass in the upper right to search the available servers blurs out the main page. These are small tweaks, but most VPNs services don’t take the effort to really optimize their clients for particular platforms.

When I last tested the Mac app, my lone complaint was that NordVPN’s excellent specialized servers are too hard to find via the Mac client interface. You have to apply special filters to the full list, or notice the small links at the bottom of the search page. In my opinion, these should be front and center for the user to discover. I also wish you could select different VPN protocols, but, on the other hand, NordVPN already uses my preferred choice, OpenVPN.

Unfortunately, NordVPN performed poorly in my last batch of macOS VPN speed tests. That said, the features and overall experience of NordVPN outweigh the speed results, and NordVPN is one of our favorite VPN clients for Macs.

NordVPN for Chrome and Firefox

In addition to phones and computers, NordVPN provides a Chrome plug-in and, more recently, a Firefox add-on. Browser plug-ins for VPNs are becoming more common, and it’s a development I appreciate.

When active, they secure only the data that’s transmitted through your browser, leaving the rest untouched. This is a compromise in security, but it can be more efficient for some activities, such as gaming with a VPN. A company representative tells me that both extensions are encrypted using TLS 1.2.

The NordVPN browser VPN lacks the granularity of the full-fledged client on both Firefox and Android. You can’t connect to specific servers, for example, just locations. These plug-ins are, however, easy to use and lightweight, and they include all of the company’s CyberSec protection, which I discussed above. They also have ability to block WebRTC, which can leak information about your activities. That said, I prefer the plug-ins from TunnelBear, one of which serves as a VPN connection and the other as a fine-tuned ad blocker.

5-Star VPN

In my experience, the average person would rather risk having no protection than deal with frustrating security software. That’s why NordVPN succeeds: It makes using a security tool simple. It has everything we expect in a VPN and then some, with specialized servers for Tor-Over-VPN and double encryption being the service’s standout features. Continued server upgrades make it the most robust VPN service available, and ad blocking and network protection features raise NordVPN’s abilities still higher. NordVPN also has an excellent stance on user privacy, collecting very little data and operating out of the legal jurisdiction of Panama.

Taken together, these factors are more than enough to justify its comparatively high monthly cost. NordVPN is a smart choice, and it remains a 10Beasts Editors’ Choice, along with KeepSolid VPN Unlimited, Private Internet Access, and TunnelBear.

---

The table with ID 62 not exists.