Romanian origin but now owned by Israelis
Some VPNs trade usability for technical superiority, while others give emphasis to ease of use. CyberGhost perfectly fits in the middle.
CyberGhost (CB) VPN was founded in 2011 and bases in Romania. In recent years, the company was acquired by Israeli company Kape Technologies previously known as Crossrider. Kape Technologies is the same company that owns ZenMate VPN and Private Internet Access.
Yet CB has maintained its original policies. Currently, it boasts over 36 million global subscribers, 70 IT professionals based in Germany and Romania, and an impressive 6000 VPN servers in 90 countries.
Let’s take a closer look.
CyberGhost VPN synopsis
| VPN rank: | 5#/52 |
| Parent company: | Kape Technologies (Crossrider) |
| Jurisdiction: | Romania |
| Locations: | 90+ countries/6000+ servers |
| Overall test result: | SAFE |
| Torrenting: | PASSED (P2P torrent allowed) |
| Netflix: | PASSED (Unblocks Netflix 2/3) |
| Encryption/protocols: | AES-256/IPsec/L2TP/PPTP/OpenVPN UDP & TCP |
| Support: | E-mail response ~14h/Live Chat (24/7) |
| Cost: | $12.99/mo |
| Official site: | www.cyberghost.com |
☑ Great features
- 256-Bit encryption security
From the IKEv2 encryption method to Linux distribution on your Raspberry PI, connect through the VPN and you will have a secure connection. With 256-AES Bit military encryption, CyberGhost VPN serves you well. Furthermore, CyberGhost offers DNS leak protection and an automatic kill switch to ensure a foolproof system.
That’s all great.. but is it enough?
- Strict no-logs policy
Logs are pieces of breadcrumbs that are stored by programs to aid debugging but also used for tracking.
Although keeping logs is a common thing, it is a feature that developers can either choose to implement or not. CyberGhost VPN clearly states in its privacy policy that their servers keep no logs that interfere with your IP address or your data content.
CyberGhost VPN seems to not track your activity over the Internet. Although your data is captured when making a payment subscription, CyberGhost says that third parties do not have access to your names or your IP address.
The data captured is also subjective and the logs are not stored once payment has been verified.
- No DNS leaks and no backdoors detected
Leakage-proof tunneling is a must for any VPN.
Just to double-check their claims we did our own test and the results were truly great. There’s not much more to say, they have done a good job.
Virustotal setup file was clean as well.
- Protects up to 7 devices
Single subscription CyberGhost protects up to 7 devices at the same time. It comes with software that is available on all popular devices and platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android.
It also supports protocols like OpenVPN, IPSec, L2TP, and PPTP on Mac OS X, iOS, Windows, Linux, Android.
- Kill switch
A VPN kill switch is designed to prevent your connection from accidental exposure after unsuspected disconnection from the VPN. An automatic CyberGhost VPN kill switch is a feature that automatically shuts off your internet connection whenever your VPN gets disconnected. Having a kill switch makes CB VPN consistent with their philosophy of protecting your data and online activity.
Okay.. anything special about CB?
- Unique pre-protection features
CyberGhost skyrockets your privacy features by providing AdBlocker as well as website and virus protection. The software removes ads from web pages, apps, and blocks malicious content and harmful websites. It also forces HTTPS protocols for websites when supported.
BONUS FEATURE: Data compression, which saves your mobile data usage costs. Worth mentioning as a unique feature, CyberGhost VPN removes page content that contains trackers. These premium features are not standard for VPNs.
- NoSpy servers
If you are not happy with the security cover that is currently offered, you can opt for NoSpy feature.
By building the NoSpy data center in Romania, CyberGhost ensures that your data is kept away from the jurisdiction of the 5 eyes and the 14 eyes since local legislation doesn’t enforce data gathering. The 256-bit AES encryption servers are also kept away from third parties.
☑ User experience & speed
Their multi-platform apps are user-friendly and easy to understand. Their user interface is super easy to use when running the software for the first time. We really like it when hovering over the tile with a mouse provides an explanation for what each tile does…
Thanks for the hints CyberGhost!
The other user-friendly aspect of their UI is the one-click connection. When you connect to your browser, CyberGhost automatically logs in keeping you are protected at all times.
The visual interface sets it apart from other VPNs, making it easy to understand.
CyberGhost 7 also offers an option to manually configure custom settings. Adblocking is effective as well although it affects the speed of the VPN.
- Speed tests
While connected to the United States server, ping went up by 823.53%. Download time decreased (-9.28%), upload (-10.89%).
UK server ping went up by 417.65%. Download time decreased (-25.20%), upload (-11.80%)
Japan, Tokyo ping went up by 1682.35%. Download time decreased (-72.78%), upload (-79.85%)
Agh… Everything is decreasing. It must be a really bad VPN, right?
Not so fast..
Even though the speed gets slower. It’s totally normal for a VPN. It’s pretty much the average you can find.
☑ Netflix and torrenting both work
CyberGhost works well with Netflix despite Netflix’s policy of blocking VPNs.
As far as torrenting, everything seems to be fine as well. Downloading Chaplin’s movie was going as expected. (It’s copyright-free)
☑ Pricing
CyberGhost VPN offers a variety of pricing plans for the same features.
The pricing plan is the following:
- $12.99 per month with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
- The 6-month plan offers considerable saving at $7.99 per month which translates to $95.88 per year.
- You can get a price decrease of 78.8% with an 18-month plan that bills $2.75 per month for a yearly total of $33. This plan also comes with a money-back guarantee of 45 days. It’s worth mentioning that it’s one of the longest among all providers.
For an additional $5 per month, you can get a dedicated IP. This is tied into your existing subscription and you will be billed the corresponding amount and for mobile, CyberGhost offers a 7-days free trial period.
The company accepts all the major credit cards such as Visa and MasterCard, Online payment platforms such as PayPal, and for the highest possible privacy.
CyberGhost also accepts Bitcoin.
☑ Customer support
The CyberGhost website features a useful “Help” page with detailed guides for Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Android, Linux, Amazon Fire OS, and Kodi Media Centers, Game Consoles, and other devices that they support and protect. The Help page equally provides a useful guide on Native protocol usage, and how to stream YouTube Red, Netflix, etc
The Live Chat is quite responsive and you can expect a reply within a minute.
It’s always good to have a reliable 24/7 support team, which assures you that you will get help whatever time you need it. Another alternative is “Submitting a Request” on the “Help” Page.
In the footer section, you can create a ticket and get an e-mail response to more detailed questions. The response takes longer (We got a reply within 812 min) but will give you a better and in-depth answer than live chat.
Pros and cons of CyberGhost VPN
The VPN offers great features and plenty of settings to further configure your software. However, it does have some disadvantages to it. To sum up this CyberGhost review, have a look at the following:
| Pros | Cons |
| ☑ Max 7 simultaneous connections | ☒ No double-hop available |
| ☑ More than 6000 servers in 90+ countries | ☒ Although the user interface is easy to use and good, every time one logs in your data is tunneled through a default server and not the last server you were on. This is only a minor drawback as you can select the location you want |
| ☑ The ping speed is quite good, although after consistent use it does slow down considerably. CyberGhost does try to address internet speeds by compressing your files. This is great especially for mobile users as it saves on data costs. | |
| ☑ The 45-day money-back guarantee is just great. There are not many services that able the user to try out a service for such a long time. | |
| ☑ It doesn’t belong to 14 eyes jurisdiction. |
Conclusion
Without a doubt, CyberGhost is a great VPN provider. The VPN does connect with streaming services and can easily stream HD videos from Netflix, they serve above-average security features not found in many VPNs, the interface is intuitive and user-friendly and countless other unique features to make your browsing experience super comfortable.
You really don’t have to be technically advanced to operate it.
Although the price for a single month subscription is higher than the industry norm, the service offers a lot of value for the money. We can recommend CyberGhost VPN primarily because of its no-logging policy, great features, and speeds. It is also worth trying it out due to the risk-free money-back guarantee option.
Let us know about your experience with Cyberghost VPN
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