StrongVPN
Review

While using StrongVPN, different internet services will result in slower upload and download speeds for your connection, no matter where you are or which servers you choose. However, other VPNs perform differently regarding connection speed, and StrongVPN is a high performer in this category. It is one of the best performing VPNs, only reducing download speeds by 15.6% and upload speeds by 25.1%.

High speeds are great news for gamers, torrent-seekers, and people accessing streaming services, as they will not have to persevere through lagging gameplay, endless buffering, and slow download speeds. A great tool you can use to test the speeds you get with or without a VPN is the Ookla Speedtest Tool, which you can check for yourself. Even though StrongVPN is a strong service in this regard, you should keep in mind that speeds will often be affected by how, where, when, and on which devices you use it.

For many people, the essential feature of VPNs is their ability to grant users access to streaming services that they would otherwise be restricted from accessing due to their geographic location. Despite their geolocational restrictions, sites such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, SlingTV, and many more can be accessed using StrongVPN.

To access the stream of your choice from wherever you are, you can simply follow the steps illustrated below:

• Launch StrongVPN,
• Choose the server location or country of the stream you want to view,
• Establish a connection to the server,
• Launch the service (e.g., Hulu), and it should work as if you were in the specified country.

Any VPN service worth its salt will have servers spread out worldwide. Even if a large majority of them are concentrated within Northern America and Europe, they must offer servers in diverse locations to provide service to people who wish to evade major VPN hubs for political, geographic, or other reasons. With over 500 servers spread out across 30 countries, StrongVPN scores significantly below the VPN industry average of 53 countries.

They try and make up for this shortfall by having their servers located in diverse locations. They even have servers based in South America and Africa, two regions very often overlooked by private internet access providers. While you won’t find its servers in countries with restricted internet policies such as Vietnam, Russia, Hong Kong, and mainland China, it’s to be remembered that bypassing internet restrictions requires servers located outside the country in question. However, remember to take special care when doing so, as there are real-world consequences to actions taken online in some countries.

Virtual locations are common among VPNs. These servers are configured to look as though they are situated somewhere else. This is a good practice for companies trying to place servers in potentially dangerous regions. StrongVPN houses all its servers exactly where they say they are.

The company uses several virtual servers, although they are reluctant to disclose just how many are compared to their physical server. Virtual servers can be hosted more than once on a single physical server. StrongVPN implements full disk encryption on all its physical servers as a good security feature. However, RAM-only or diskless servers are more secure because they do not write any data onto a disk.

Like any good VPN, StrongVPN will not store any data that goes through its servers. It does not collect connection timestamps or IP addresses and will not log its users’ activity. Aside from its no-log policy, they do not sell any information regarding its clients to outside parties, only relying on user subscription fees for its revenue. This is as it should be, and they go to great lengths to reiterate this throughout their official privacy policy document.

WireGuard VPN protocol is the default protocol you will find once you start up StrongVPN. However, this isn’t the only option available, as you can browse through their protocol menu and select your preferred protocol. These include IPSec and IKEv2 protocols. WireGurad is at the cutting edge of VPN protocols and is trusted by many VPNs.

While they store temporary cookies on their site, they will guide you on how to disable them, which can be a bit of an unnecessary hassle. They show all the third-party services they use to run their operation, which is a good measure of their transparency. The company generates diagnostic logs to enrich user experiences, which will contain timestamps and IP addresses. Still, you will have the final choice regarding whether they are submitted to the company or not. This is a reasonable compromise, but most people using VPNs would prefer not to go through these extra hoops.

StrongVPN is legally registered in New York, where it has its headquarters. Therefore, it operates under the jurisdiction of the United States. The company’s owner, Strong Technology LLC, is a part of the Vipre Security Group. However, the United States has a history of invasive policies concerning user data held within its borders, so many companies choose to have their headquarters in countries with more robust data privacy and security protections, such as Panama and the Netherlands.

Unfortunately, the company has no transparency reports and no warrant canaries. Transparency reports will log all the information requests the company gets from government agencies and reveal how the company responded to each of them. Warrant canaries are subtle ways a company can signal its users that it is being compelled to divulge information to law enforcement authorities but cannot legally announce the fact. As you can imagine, these are significant flaws in their data privacy policy. In a country such as the United States, where law enforcement agencies will not hesitate to come after you for online misdemeanors, this is a significant failing for StrongVPN. You should always be able to trust your VPN provider to protect your data and identity.

StrongVPN seems to offer a somewhat limited private internet access service to its consumers, although it does this well. While on its servers, you can rest assured that your DNS requests and IP addresses are not leaking.

In the event of a dropped connection, which happens from time to time, StrongVPN will automatically end your session to maintain your protection. A kill switch keeps your computer entirely offline until a secure connection is re-established, which the VPN will automatically do. Therefore, your data is always protected.

This robust protocol is designed to perfectly seal-off any potential DNS request leaks. It is the most recent iteration of the Internet Network Layer Protocol and was designed to address the new security issues of a rapidly expanding and complex global internet environment.

Torrenting is a priority for people who want to access the latest movies, games, music, and programs when other methods are untenable for one reason or another. Many VPNs are Peer-to-Peer (P2P) friendly but come with the risk of DNS leakage, which can be a risky proposition in some countries. However, StrongVPN will work fine with most torrenting platforms.

StrongVPN has some strengths that make it attractive, but it suffers from several disappointing failings. These include:

• A lack of privacy tools such as split tunneling, the Tor Anonymization Network, and multi-hop, which are common among VPNs in the same price category as StrongVPN
• Poor transparency, as they have not had a third-party audit to assess their effectiveness and do not issue transparency reports to show that they are not divulging information to the authorities.
• A need to overhaul its interface, as an outdated, clumsy interface makes it unintuitive to users
• An expensive subscription cost relative to the value it offers.

The standard StrongVPN package will cost you $10.99 each month, even higher than other premium services that average $10.55 every month. They charge this even though they do not offer many of the features and privacy tools that you will find on other VPNs. Still, they offer you a discount if you choose their long-term subscription option, which will cost you $79.99 each year. Most premium services will charge you $69.10 on average.

You should be careful here because StrongVPN will give you an introductory discount and charge you $43.99, then charge you the full $79.99 after the first year, although they are clear about this as you sign up.

When considering long-term subscription packages for VPNs, whether they are StrongVPN or others, you might want to think about trying a one-month option and seeing whether it works for you beforehand. You can purchase your subscription using credit cards, PayPal, and AliPay. Unfortunately, they do not have a cryptocurrency payment option. While StrongVPN offers a money-back guarantee after 30 days as long as your account is in good standing, you might not want to go through the extra inconvenience.

StrongVPN is a sturdy VPN service provider that will fulfill the requirement of most clients. Its strongest feature is the capability to have up to 12 separate devices linked to it simultaneously. This is twice the average number of devices you can connect to other VPNs of its class. Aside from this, it offers high speeds, which allow for most torrenting, gaming, and streaming requirements you might have.

On the downside, they have very minimal privacy tools and add-ons, an outdated user interface that lacks the intuitiveness of other VPNs in its class, and an overall cost that is well beyond the value it provides. Nevertheless, if your priority when choosing a VPN is the number of devices you can connect to and perform all the essential functions of a VPN, you should give StrongVPN a try. If not, you might better spend your own money on other services.