AdGuard VPN Review: Does The Basics 

Value When Reviewed

From $2.99 for a two-year plan

Greatest Costs In the present day: AdGuard VPN Premium

AdGuard VPN is a freemium product that, like all VPNs, masks your identification by providing you with a unique IP tackle and due to this fact making you seem like at a unique location, and thus masking your web exercise.

Servers will be inside your personal nation, or will be in one other a part of the globe, which means you could possibly entry content material that isn’t out there domestically. For instance, in the event you set Adguard VPN to a USA server, you’ll be capable to see the broader vary of Netflix content material availability there, or watch reside TV that has been “geoblocked” in your location. 

Regardless of what it’s possible you’ll think about, AdGuard VPN doesn’t block adverts. The ad-blocking service, which the corporate has efficiently supplied for a few years, stays separate and requires an extra subscription.

Whereas AdGuard has performed nothing improper right here, this could possibly be made slightly clearer on its web site, as some individuals could assume ad-blocking is included due to the title. Plus, AdGuard is kind of pleased to ship subscribers emails telling them what they haven’t bought, however can have for an extra charge. 

Options

As a freemium product, you possibly can obtain AdGuard VPN and use it with out paying. Nonetheless, the free model is proscribed. You may solely use the free model for as much as 3GB of information per 30 days – which is barely sufficient for an HD film, and it throttles your web velocity at 20Mbps.

That’s enough for many issues, however if you’re paying for a a lot larger velocity out of your supplier, it can irk to make use of a product that slows your web down. Basically, we’d at all times advise paying for a VPN, however you would possibly like to present the free model a attempt earlier than deciding whether or not to subscribe.

From right here, due to this fact, we’re wanting solely on the paid product.

AdGuard VPN is offered for Home windows, Mac, iOS and Android as a standalone app, providing whole-system safety. Alternatively there’s a browser extension out there for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Opera. This limits the safety to your net looking, however as with so many ‘VPN’ extensions, AdGuard makes use of deceptive wording to make you assume it’s a VPN when it’s, in reality, only a proxy service which doesn’t encrypt your connection like a VPN.

Chris Merriman / Foundry

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A paid AdGuard subscription covers you for as much as 5 simultaneous connections, however you possibly can set up the app / extension on as many gadgets as you want.

Android customers additionally get an additional function not out there to free customers: AdGuard’s DNS servers. These guarantee your personal ISP’s DNS isn’t used, which may reveal your exercise, and presumably your location. There’s even a selection of filtered and unfiltered, in case you’re establishing the app on a baby’s machine and wish to shield them from grownup and different inappropriate content material when looking out the net. There are different choices, too, reminiscent of utilizing Google’s DNS, CloudFlare and extra.

Oddly, this isn’t in AdGuard VPN’s different apps.

There’s additionally an app particularly for Android/Google TV, which opens the door to streaming content material from overseas in your TV, however it’s a disgrace there isn’t an equal for Amazon Firesticks.

AdGuard notes that it isn’t in a position to unblock content material from the NBC streaming service Peacock. NBC content material is notoriously troublesome to entry exterior the US, and makes many VPNs stumble, but when that’s a deal-breaker for you, it’s price realizing. It does, nonetheless, work with among the most important streamers – Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and HBO Max.

Chris Merriman / Foundry

On the draw back, for extra superior customers, the corporate has chosen to make use of a bespoke protocol, moderately than the extra extensively used OpenVPN or WireGuard. That implies that you gained’t be capable to configure your router with AdGuard to protect your total dwelling community, or unblock streaming on gadgets that don’t assist VPNs reminiscent of video games consoles and the Apple TV & Roku gadgets.

Chris Merriman / Foundry

One superior function is split-tunnelling. This lets you use each your common web connection and the VPN on the similar time. Utilizing a black- or white-list, you would, for instance, set it to solely use the VPN for Netflix, or set it to make use of it for all the pieces besides the BBC. It is a helpful function that provides to AdGuard VPN’s attraction and, though commonplace on the likes of ExpressVPN and NordVPN, it isn’t a given with each VPN supplier.

Privateness

When you’ve chosen from the 100+ servers in 44 international locations, AdGuard VPN has a kill change. Which means if it drops its connection, it can block web entry solely, moderately than out of the blue expose your actual connection. Whereas we had been testing, we didn’t expertise any drops. 

Chris Merriman / Foundry

From a privateness standpoint, AdGuard VPN has a no-logs coverage. That implies that if the corporate was requested to offer details about who makes use of their service and when, they couldn’t, including to the extent of safety and anonymity supplied. Sadly, this haven’t been independently checked, so on this one, now we have to take the corporate’s phrase for it that it actually doesn’t log something.

AdGuard’s jurisdiction is Cyprus, which means all information is protected below European GDPR guidelines, providing better safety than corporations basing themselves in, for instance, the USA.

AdGuard VPN doesn’t supply the choice to run a “double VPN”, which providers reminiscent of NordVPN do. That is the place your connection is routed to at least one server after which one other, so there’s even much less of an audit path and it prevents even essentially the most decided from monitoring you.

That’s not an enormous loss for most individuals, nonetheless, and such options can typically have a big effect on velocity. The excellent news is that AdGuard does permit Bittorrent visitors, so in the event you’re making an attempt to obtain, let’s assume, “delicate” recordsdata, you are able to do so anonymously. 

One factor that impressed us was that after we handed the account login to a colleague to run velocity exams, AdGuard’s system noticed the login try from a unique location and briefly locked the account. That is the primary time we’ve seen that occur and is a reassuring additional layer of safety.

Efficiency

AdGuard didn’t leak our IP or DNS throughout our testing: the primary vital hurdle to clear for any VPN.

When it comes to unblocking, we had no points watching content material from the providers it claims to unblock, besides Prime Video. And it wouldn’t permit us to observe HBO Max or BBC iPlayer both.

AdGuard’s velocity take a look at outcomes had been lower than stellar. Utilizing a Gigabit connection within the Bay Space of the US, with a base connection velocity of 773Mbps obtain and 945Mbps add, we discovered that utilizing AdGuard VPN considerably slows down your looking – listed here are the outcomes for 4 key servers:

• LA: 158 / 98
• NY: 78 / 57
• London: 96 / 55
• Tokyo: 8.5 / 9

Though you gained’t really feel a noticeable slow-down on many dwelling broadband connections under 100Mbps, in the event you’re fortunate to have Gigabit broadband, you will really feel the distinction. As we talked about, AdGuard VPN intentionally throttles the connection to its free prospects and these outcomes had been roughly as anticipated:

• New York: 21/10
• London: 21/22
• Turkey: 10/8

(We couldn’t take a look at on the Tokyo/LA servers as these aren’t out there to free customers.)

Assuming that AdGuard doesn’t intentionally throttle its paid prospects, we will solely conclude that its efficiency isn’t that nice. Now that quick broadband connections have gotten widespread, AdGuard must optimise its protocol or enhance its infrastructure as a result of, proper now, it will probably’t compete with the perfect VPNs.

We additionally discovered an issue with the Home windows app. When waking the take a look at laptop computer from sleep, Adguard VPN was unable to get well and required us to shut down this system and relaunch it. There’s an “Try and Get well” choice, however it didn’t reach a number of makes an attempt throughout our take a look at and this turned very irritating. 

Value & Availability

VPNs are inclined to run particular provides on a regular basis, significantly in the event you’re ready to pay for a yr or two upfront. At time of evaluation AdGuard VPN was promoting a deal for at $2.99 per 30 days (approx. £2.52) for a two-year subscription. That is paid upfront, so prices $71.76 (round £60.50). Paying by the month is way more costly, at $11.99 (£10). 

Examine this to our present favorite, NordVPN, and it’s a couple of greenback per 30 days cheaper. NordVPN’s two-year plan prices $4.15 per 30 days, which is $99.63 upfront.

Nonetheless, on condition that NordVPN provides a a lot wider vary of extras – together with an adblocker(!) – and a lot better speeds, it makes AdGuard VPN appear to be poor worth, although it’s price including that Nord actually hikes its costs at renewal after your subscription ends. AdGuard doesn’t. 

Verdict

In the end, AdGuard VPN is troublesome to advocate. It doesn’t excel in any explicit space, and it prices as a lot as, or greater than, different extra succesful providers that supply higher speeds, extra apps, don’t solely use proprietary protocols and bundle ad-blocking for no additional price.

When NordVPN, Surfshark and Cyberghost all embrace adblocking as commonplace, the truth that AdGuard doesn’t seems like a large personal aim, particularly when the mix of the 2 providers makes it costlier than these rivals.