PureVPN

PureVPN is a paid VPN service which claims to provide online privacy and security to its users. The product is equipped with different tunneling protocols to offer end-to-end encryption to the users. In October 2017, a document related to US District Court of Massachusetts shows that contrary to PureVPN claim, it does log the users IP Address and provided it to the FBI.

Video PureVPN

History

Founded in 2007 by GZ-systems in Hong Kong, PureVPN was among the very few premium VPN services available at the time. PureVPN was rated among the top Android VPN by PC Mag, due to their easy to use app. Starting off with only 2 servers, PureVPN gradually expanded its network of servers to 16 locations in 2008. Later in 2008, PureVPN introduced add-ons, including NAT Firewall and Internet Kill Switch. As of now, the service claims to operate a network of more than 750 servers in around 141 countries.

Maps PureVPN

Features

PureVPN supports multiple protocols in its software such as PPTP, L2TP/IPSec and OpenVPN, additional features include DNS leak protection, IPv6 leak protection, Internet kill switch, access via UDP/TCP, multiple VPN gateways, unlimited bandwidth and split tunneling. PureVPN has recently launched their advanced features and claims to provide 360 security solution for their users by adding anti-virus/anti-malware, IDS/IPS protection, APP/URL/content filtering. Based on the features product is rated averagely on Trust Pilot with a good word of mouth for the features and user interface and bad word of mouth for slower speed issues.

Servers

PureVPN has servers in 140 countries with over 750 servers, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Privacy policy

PureVPN claims to not keeping any activity logs or other sensitive detail of any users. While the account creation process requires name, email address and phone number which they state are taken for following reasons:

• Name (required for account creation)
• Email address (needed to create an account and other offer announcements)
• Phone number (for limited users from certain regions only)

However there is proof that PureVPN keeps some logs as of there is a case of a cyber-stalker been tracked down by the FBI with the help of PureVPN's logs.

Uses

Online gamers have also used PureVPN to reduce ping issues while connecting to international gaming servers and preventing virus attacks by rival gamers. Many internet users have also showed interest using PureVPN to easily access content which was not available in their geo location, thus making it available by connecting to the required region via PureVPN software. In 2016 Netflix banned PureVPN users from accessing their content via VPN from different region by stating "We protect the content and abide by licensing deals & Some providers, in fact, blatantly advertise that their service is for watching Netflix's U.S. version". Another US based online streaming service Hulu did the similar thing in past, they tried to cut off access for users living outside the US by blocking VPNs and proxies back in 2014. PureVPN's DNS leak issue could be the problem for users but huge choice of servers and lengthy feature list does the repair work well. PureVPN also allows limited servers in few of the regions for Torrenting purposes as stated by TorrentFreak.

Other competitors

VPN industry has evolved massively in the past couple of years, and many VPN services has provided great value to internet users. Some of top VPN providers are Hide My Ass, NordVPN, IvacyVPN, IPvanish and many more. All VPN services compete each other with pricing, vpn protocols and features. Considering the software technology and users rating Life Hacker also rate Purevpn to be the choice for private IP addresses and get bypass geo restriction. PureVPN has an edge with other VPN services as it is the only reputable VPN name based in Hong Kong unlike other belonging to Europe and North America.

Controversy

In 2013 PureVPN faced a controversy regarding a fake email which was sent to all the active users, that stated "Dear customer, it is to inform you that due to an incident we had to close your account permanently. We are no longer able to run an anonymization service due to legal issues we are facing". The email was later reported to be spam and PureVPN responded to it saying " It has confirmed that it was a zero-day exploit related to a vulnerability at WHMCS. The compromised data were email addresses and names for a subset of registered users, and "no billing information like Credit Card or other sensitive personal information was compromised." In the year 2016 CNET listed PureVPN as one of the better VPN service to look out for, by adding its name with BufferedVPN and Hotspot Shield.

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