Pure VPN has been a player in the space for some time, we are going to take a look back at what Pure VPN started as, and what it is today. We hope you enjoy this article by Value Pal Nation.
PureVPN review: general information
PureVPN is owned by the company called GZ system. It was founded in 2006 which makes PureVPN one of the most experienced and largest providers of VPN services in the world.
Since that year, the company made an immense progress from having only 2 servers to operating more than 2000 servers which are located in 140 countries of the world.
The headquarters of this company is located in Hong Kong which can be considered as a major flaw because of the presumable issues with its jurisdiction due to its dangerously close proximity to China, which is known for its draconian laws directed against free Internet.
Therefore, don’t get surprised if one day you will read on the news or in some PureVPN reviews that the company was forced to provide their user data to the authorities to comply with some silly data retention laws.
Nevertheless, if there is such a possibility, it is quite small, and in our PureVPN review we will try to figure out whether the advantages of VPN Pure outweigh its drawbacks.
PureVPN review: Security features and servers
Although PureVPN’s jurisdiction, which forces it to comply with data retention laws, may hypothetically cause certain problems to its users, this provider has many interesting security features in their arsenal that can balance out the data integrity issue.
A military-grade AES 256-bit encryption algorithm forms the centerpiece of PureVPN’s data security environment.
This algorithm is capable of protecting the system from such maleficent actions as brute force attacks and other attempts to steal or compromise the users’ sensitive data. This encryption method is adopted by almost all VPN providers as well as by many government agencies in many countries of the world.
It works in the following way: it turns the comprehensible data, for instance, the user’s correspondence or financial data into a set of unrelated symbols and digits that can be deciphered only by a quantum computer which is as real and implementable as the commercial space travel.
Apart from this rather standard protection, PureVPN also implements the following set of protective measures:
The state-of-the-art antivirus and antimalware protective mechanism embedded right in the VPN client that can effectively detect and eliminate all serious viruses as WannaCry, Zbot/Zeus or CryptoLocker which can not only hamper your browsing experience but even shut down the entire operational system.
Other PureVPN reviews confirm the efficiency of this antivirus protection. Besides, not many other VPN providers have such a feature which gives PureVPN a great advantage over the competition.
PureVPN’s advanced IDS (Intrusion Detection System) and IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) feature provides yet another layer of protection of users’ online activities.
What these systems basically do is that they scan all data packages that go in and out of a server, looking for some anomalies or corrupt patterns.
Once the malicious activity or program is detected, the system creates a log and then either warns the administrator or eliminates the danger on its own accord.
Another security feature offered by PureVPN consists in the filtering of all URLs that can pose even the slightest threat to the integrity of servers or user’s software.
In essence, it is an innovative technical solution that carries out a rigorous scanning of all incoming data for the availability of ads, malware or viruses. Moreover, it can block access to certain websites and online platforms (category-based filtering) which provides means for establishing parent control over child’s online activity or improving the efficiency at the workplace through blocking access to designated social media or streaming platforms.
All of these, and certain other features form the multi-faceted security system that is referred to as Ozone. This system was implemented in all PureVPN servers to form the independent global network of the so-called Ozone-ready servers.
As we have already mentioned in this PureVPN review, the PureVPN server list features more than 2 thousand running servers in over 180 locations around the world. According to their official website, the user obtains the access to all servers without exceptions, regardless of which service plan he or she purchases.
This leads us to the next point of our PureVPN review, which is the provider’s pricing policies.
PureVPN pricing and service plans
PureVPN offers its customers three basic service plans and one lifetime offer at a very decent discount.
- The 1-month plan costs $10.95. This plan doesn’t include any discounts.
- The 1-year plan comes at a price of $5.41 per month. This plan includes the 51% discount. The customer will be billed $64.95 on the annual basis.
- The 2-year plan is positioned as the most lucrative deal that include an impressive 68% discount.
- PureVPN also offers what they call a PureVPN Lifetime offer which is really a 5-year deal worth $119.
One of the main conclusion that we can already make in our PureVPN review is that their pricing plans are quite average for this industry, and they can be even called beneficial, given the almost unprecedented level of anonymity or browsing security.
The customer can use any of the following payment options to purchase one of PureVPN plans:
- Credit cards: Visa, Mastercard, American Express;
- PayPal;
- Alipay;
- Coinpayments. Please note that if you purchase a service plan using this particular payment methods, you will not be subject to refunds under PureVPN’s money-back guarantee policy.
- PaymentWall;
- BlueSnap;
- Amazon or other gift cards.
Additional payments
Despite the fact that PureVPN offers an unlimited access to their Ozone servers to all users, regardless of the purchased service plan, they will charge you for the following add-ons:
- The port forwarding will cost you $0.99 per month;
- If case you want to have a dedicated IP address, you would have to pay additional 1.99/month;
- The enterprise-grade security and privacy come at a price of $2.99 per month;
- Finally, the Peer-to-Peer protection has the price of $1.99 per month.
Therefore, if you want to purchase the entire package of PureVPN services, you would have to pay an additional \$8 per package which ultimately makes Pure VPN one of the most expensive services on the market.
PureVPN download and upload speed
It would be logical to continue this PureVPN review with the detailed analysis of Pure VPN download and upload speed.
After running a few speed tests, we’ve come to a conclusion that the speed indexes of download PureVPN performance are disappointingly low, to say the least.
The tests were carried out on European, American, and Asian servers, and results were the following:
- The EU servers displayed the PureVPN download speed of 36 Mbps and the upload speed of 28 Mbps with the ping of 45ms.
- The US servers showed even worse results: the maximum PureVPN download speed was 30 Mbps, the upload speed didn’t exceed 29 Mbps with the ping of 135ms.
- The results of download/upload speed on Asian servers were downright miserable: the overall PureVPN download speed amounted to only 7 Mbps while the upload speed was slower than the slowest turtle: it never exceeded 4 Mbps.
So, the company’s claim that they provide the “fastest speed across the globe” is not even remotely close to being true.
There are numerous VPN providers, which we have already described in our reviews, that really ensure the top speed of their servers. Therefore, if you need VPN for the purposes of streaming or downloading/uploading content then PureVPN is definitely not for you.
Obviously, PureVPN torrenting capacities are also sub-par, unless you like to wait for hours for a movie to download via PureVPN. Therefore, we can make a competent conclusion that PureVPN and torrent are definitely not the best buddies – same goes to PureVPN and Netflix.
PureVPN Netflix unblocking capacities
PureVPN offers a decent list of servers that can be used to bypass the restrictions imposed by Netflix on user from outside the United States. The unblocking procedure itself is quite simple:
- You have to download PureVPN and activate it by purchasing the appropriate service plan;
- Enter the Pure VPN login information and then choose the appropriate US server. According to our tests, and the information derived from other Pure VPN review, the best servers for the purposes of watching shows on Netflix are located in Chicago. Nevertheless, it is recommended to try different servers to see which one performs better.
- After picking the server, you have to enter the existing Netflix account and choose the show you would like to watch.
However, given the already mentioned in this PureVPN review disappointingly slow PureVPN download/upload speed, you shouldn’t really count on having a satisfactory viewing experience.
And you can certainly forget about watching the shows in HD quality. This rather saddening fact is confirmed not only by our research but also by other PureVPN review.
What about PureVPN logs keeping policy?
We are paying close attention to this issue in every one of our reviews, and this PureVPN review won’t be an exception.
Other Pure VPN review contained the information that this company is basically lying about its “no log keeping policy”, so we have checked out whether it is true.
It turned out that there was a major controversy associated with the provision of sensitive data to the third parties. Around a year ago, some news outlets claimed that the FBI arrested a cyberstalker from Massachusetts who was staking his former female roommate and the members of her family.
The authorities were capable to carry out this operation largely thanks to PureVPN which cooperated with the official investigation by revealing the user logs (which they never keep, right). Moreover, they contradict themselves in their own Terms and Conditions sheet.
The company claims that they don’t monitor user activity and don’t keep any logs, and a few sentences later, they state that the connection timestamps and bandwidth are recorded for the purposes of service improvement.
Surely, it is possible to tolerate such log keeping policies to some extent, but not if the company boasts about having a “zero log” approach. That is downright hypocritical and makes it very hard to trust this company with your online anonymity.
The final agenda of our PureVPN: the customer service
A good customer support service is the essence of any online business.
Unfortunately, many VPN providers tend to ignore that fact and pay little to no attention to this particular aspect of their operations.
We read in other PureVPN articles that their customer service remains much to be desired, but we had to check whether or not it is true. For that purpose, we have submitted a ticket to the support team which contained the inquiry about their well-advertised Ozone-ready servers. To our great surprise, the first question that the support agent, whom we contacted via live chat, asked was whether we have a registered PureVPN account.
After confirming the user ID, he provided some general information and then disappeared when we asked for clarifications.
The next agent also gave vague and imprecise answers which led us to conclusion, which were confirmed in other Pure VPN reviews, that this service often resorts to using automated services, despite the fact that they claim to employ only human support agents.
Pure VPN: final thoughts
We have already revised numerous VPN services, but it can be said with all certainly that writing the Pure VPN was one of the most disappointing experiences of all.
This company has the reputation of the oldest and one of the most popular VPN providers but their drawbacks are so enormous that it seems that PureVPN is run by the bunch of amateurs.
Let’s finalize this review with the list of pros and cons.
Pros
- A wide range of servers;
- Good adaptation to all major platforms and operational systems: PureVPN apk and iOS integration is great.
- Wide implementation of various encryption protocols.
Cons
- Very low Pure VPN torrenting speed;
- Insincerity about their logging policy;
- Bad customer support;
- Really expensive for such a poor level of services.
