Black VPN Review

BlackVPN is a VPN service founded in 2009, with the ‘ambition to be one of the most private and secure VPNs available.’

The company is based in Hong Kong. However, this was not until 2012, when the founders decided to shift its base from the USA, the reason being to avoid secret court orders to install backdoors so as to facilitate monitoring. Hong Kong was an excellent choice due to its lenient laws and a strong sentiment for freedom of speech and anti-big brother oppression.

Pricing & Plans

BlackVPN has five subscription packages from which you can choose. These include;

• Global
• TV
• Privacy Packages
• US TV Service &
• UK TV Service

The Global Package

Just as you would easily guess, the Global service is their premium plan, and it covers everything that BlackVPN has to offer, as you can see from the image above.

Its costs are €9.50 for a monthly subscription, €27 for quarterly and €99 for an annual subscription.

The TV Package

The TV package on the other hand doesn’t offer P2P. It therefore features a reduced cost of €7.50 for the monthly plan, €20 for the quarterly plan, and €75 for a yearly subscription.

The Privacy Package

This Package does not have the USA and UK TV. It is, however, cheaper than the other packages. It is available for €5 monthly, €13 quarterly, and €49 yearly.

The other two packages (UK & US TV Service) usually cost the same as the Privacy package. They only offer TV services for both UK and US, alongside unblocking Netflix USA and Hulu.

As you have noticed, these are some pretty elaborate and flexible packages that give you the freedom to choose a package that fully suits your needs.

What we can point out here is that they do not offer a free trial so you cannot be able to try out their service without paying a penny. This is only except for their Android app, which features a 3 day trial period.

However, they make up for that by offering a 14 day money back guarantee, which not only applies to new subscribers, but also for renewal purchases.

The best thing is that the reason as to why you may need to cancel your subscription does not matter. All you need to do is contact them within the stipulated time and request for cancellation and refund. This goes a long way into showing the trust they have in the service they provide.

This applies as long as your account is not suspended or terminated due to a violation of their terms of service. In that case, you will not be eligible for a refund.

You can make your BlackVPN payments through PayPal, BitPay, credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, Union Pay and more), bank transfers (Sofort, iDeal and more), as well as Gift Cards and e-Wallets.

BlackVPN Features

Compatibility

The compatibility of a VPN across various devices is a key factor when it comes to VPNs. BlackVPN does a great job at this by supporting all major OS platforms, to give you complete peace of mind.

Supported devices include

• Windows
• Mac OS X
• Linux
• Android
• iOS
• Windows Phones

BlackVPN also supports DD-WRT and pFsence routers.

However, it is important to note that BlackVPN doesn’t offer apps for most of these devices (except Android) and therefore you will have to configure the service with any protocol manually.

Servers & Locations

BlackVPN doesn’t clearly state the number of servers they offer, but instead they provide a list of countries in where they own servers.

These are:

• USA
• UK (London)
• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• Czech Republic
• Estonia
• France
• Germany
• Japan
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Romania
• Russia
• Spain
• Switzerland and
• Ukraine

Their total number of servers amounts to about 19, just as the locations. This is quite a small number in comparison to other VPNs that provide 500+ servers in 40+ countries.

The servers are however geographically scattered, and therefore you can bypass all restrictions and deal with censorships easily.

Netflix and Hulu are available on a couple of servers such as

• TV UK
• TV USA East and
• TV US West.

Privacy & Security

Privacy

When it comes to privacy and logging issues, most VPNs are a bit vague in what they offer. However, BlackVPN  clearly states what they offer. Here is what they offer regarding privacy

• They never log your real IP address
• They never log your session activities
• They, however, keep your email address and payment records
• They also log the time stamps of your connection.

According to them, the latter is to help them deal with hacking/ spam and to comply with copyright violations on their UK/USA/SG/CA locations. They keep the data for only 7 days on their privacy locations and 30 days in all other regions.

BlackVPN has some simple strict rules on service:

• No spamming
• No hacking
• No harming others &
• No torrenting on servers outside their privacy locations.

The chances are that you have read the last rule twice. Yes, BlackVPN allows P2P, but not on all servers. You can torrent all you want but do not torrent on servers based in the US, the UK or Singapore.

If you do not follow these simple rules, you might have your account banned. You don’t want that, right?

Security

In terms of security, BlackVPN is also quite a reliable service. They guarantee excellent security by offering a full range of protocols, which include the OpenVPN, PPTP and L2TP/ IPSec for your data encryption.

These provided protocols are meant to offer you different features. You will get high speeds with PPTP, high security with L2TP and a mix of speed and security with OpenVPN.

PPTP is also widely known for unblocking streaming & torrent websites while L2TP is a master of confidential data transfer and to accessing business databases.

OpenVPN, on the other hand is the most recommended protocol that you should mostly use. It is a general purpose tunneling technology that offers seamless connectivity and performance over mobile devices.

Additionally, they also provide up to 256 bit encryption to ensure data security. This ensures that all location data and personal information is coded, such that the ISP, cyber criminals and hackers won’t make anything of it.

This means that with BlackVPN, all data transmitted from your device will be secure, and that you can sit down and relax!

Simultaneous Connections

Though there are no restrictions on the devices that you can use BlackVPN with, there is a limit as to how many connections you can get at the same time.

You can also sign in on as many devices you want, but can only connect up to 3 at a time. This is a bit smaller number compared to other competitors that offer up to 5 devices.

We would surely be glad to see the Global package providing up to 5 simultaneous connections.

Unlimited Bandwidth

BlackVPN never throttles your network. They offer you an unlimited bandwidth so you can torrent, download, stream, video call and game all you want. This freedom is present across all packages, so with BlackVPN you can say goodbye to fear of being throttled.

Unlimited Server Switches

With BlackVPN, you can switch between servers all you want. This way you will have the freedom to try out different servers and see the one that perfectly fits your location.

Anti-Malware Feature

Not only does BlackVPN protect you against third party individuals, but also against malicious programs. The developers included an anti-malware feature in their system to help protect you from becoming a victim of viruses and Trojans. This safeguards you from all malicious apps that may enter into your system without your consent and cause you trouble.

DDoS Protection

Online gamers are usually vulnerable to DDoS attacks, and these attacks cause a delay between the internet connections. BlackVPN protects you from such attacks by keeping your data traffic filtering.

Using BlackVPN

To use BlackVPN, you fist need to sign up. You can easily do so from their website. At the home page, click ‘Buy Now’.

You will then be able to choose a package of your liking. Your choice should primarily depend on your needs.

Choose a payment plan and method.

You can then enter your email to create an account.

From there, you will be redirected to make payments through your preferred method.

The BlackVPN Client

For the Windows client, you can choose between OpenVPN and Viscosity. It all depends on what you feel like at the moment, but Viscosity seems to provide more details about your usage.

BlackVPN provides a very comprehensive guide on how to use any service on any device. You can easily follow it and install your VPN without breaking a sweat.

However, you may notice some inconsistencies during usage of BlackVPN. E.g. some servers may not connect at certain times.

The Android App

BlackVPN now has an Android app, and it actually has a 3 day free trial period. This is a great way to test the service.

It even has a speed test feature that you can use to test different servers. This way you can be able to see the fastest server at the moment, from your location.

However, we tried to test it, and the app didn’t work. It simply said “No connection to the server. Try later”.

We hope that it was just a technical fault, and that the app will be up and running soon.

Speedtest

In terms of speed, BlackVPN is a reliable service. Once connected, your speeds remain quite high, unlike some VPNs that really down your speeds.

You will be able to torrent, stream and download comfortably. The OpenVPN client however poses some greater efficiency in terms of speeds than the Viscosity one.

Customer Support

BlackVPN offers some excellent customer support through three ways;

• The Live Chat
• The Ticket Support System
• FAQs

We didn’t find their live chat as reliable since it’s not 24 hr. They don’t have a set time as to when they are usually available, but you can still catch them online. It’s better than most VPNs that don’t have the feature all together.

BlackVPN however makes up for that with the Ticket system and FAQ.

The ticket support is very efficient and quick to reply. They will walk you through any issues you are having and help you solve your issues.

Their FAQ is also very impressive. It is well updated and contains some essential troubleshooting guises as well as answers to general questions.

Since they don’t have a dedicated software, they also provide a very comprehensive video guide on how to install their VPN on any platform. They make it simple enough such that any novice user can have the system up and running without any hustle.

Pros & Cons

 Pros

• Zero logging policy
• 14 day Money-back policy
• Superb customer support
• Unlimited Bandwidth
• Unlimited server switches
• Supports BitCoin

Cons

• No free trial (except for Android)
• No proprietary client for all platforms
• No Kill Switch System
• Performance can be inconsistent

Conclusion

BlackVPN is a service that really stands out because of its quality services and determination to make users identity secure, private and anonymous as they utilize the internet. With this VPN, you can torrent, stream, download and surf the internet without worries of being exposed.

Though there are a few faults here and there, the overall service is impressive and worth a try!