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VyprVPN is a VPN provider that has been around for a long time, so it has a proven track record. It provides many protocols, including one it developed itself, as well as its own Domain Name System (DNS).
A VPN is a service that encrypts network traffic between your device and a server you choose. When your traffic is decrypted, the websites and apps you use think your device is in the location of the VPN server. This hides your location from the services you use and hides your activity from your internet service provider (ISP). The best VPNs include privacy and security features such as split tunnelling and a kill switch.
Rating: ★★★½
VyprVPN is easy to set up and gives users access to a lot of custom options. It doesn’t have as many servers as other VPN providers, although it does own its servers. The price is higher than some other VPNs, but this may be worth it for the benefits it provides.
Our reviewers are dedicated to bringing you the most accurate and up-to-date information so you can make an informed decision when it comes to buying a VPN. We will only recommend a provider after hours of research and testing, extensive head-to-head feature comparisons, and after taking into account verified customer reviews and the opinions of industry experts.
Our VyprVPN review score was determined by the following categories:
We research and test a total of 25 elements within these categories, including:
All of our VPN articles are verified by our in-house team of fact-checkers, so you can be assured our content is as accurate and up to date as possible. To find out more, read our article on how we review VPNs.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Chameleon protocol may get around blocking in countries with restricted internet | Chameleon protocol is proprietary and has therefore not been audited |
| Variety of VPN protocols with clear explanations of their benefits | Not as many servers or countries as some other services |
| Kill switch and split tunnelling (branded as Connection Per App) | More expensive than some competitors |
| Owns its servers so isn’t reliant on a third party | Has not been audited since 2018 |
| Offers a DNS called VyprDNS | Some servers can be slow |
VyprVPN falls short in comparison to the top five providers on the market in terms of the size of its server network – just 73 in 62 countries compared with thousands of servers among NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN and CyberGhost. It’s also one of the more expensive providers on the market. However, like other highly rated providers, its no-logs policy has been independently audited, and it offers many of the same features as our picks for the best VPNs.
| VPN | Monthly price | Cheapest price | Free version | Number of servers | Maximum number of devices | Netflix | BBC iPlayer | Disney+ | Amazon | HBO Max | Audit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VyprVPN | £9 | £4.50/m for 1-year subscription | No | 73 | 10 | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Yes |
| ExpressVPN | £10.38 | £5.35/m for 1-year subscription | No | 3,000+ | 5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Yes |
| NordVPN | £10.39 | £2.79/m for a 2-year subscription | No | 5,400+ | 6 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Yes |
| Surfshark | £10.08 | £1.79/m for 2-year subscription | No | 3,200+ | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Yes |
| Cyber Ghost | £10.89 | £1.92/m for 2-year subscription | No | 9,773 | 7 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Yes |
Subscriptions purchased through VyprVPN’s website are eligible for a 30-day money-back guarantee if you aren’t completely satisfied. This is accessible by contacting support.
Unfortunately, subscriptions purchased through the Apple App Store or Google Play store aren’t eligible for the money back guarantee, but a three-day free trial is available on those platforms.
| Subscription term | Cost |
|---|---|
| Monthly | £9 / month |
| 12 months | £4.50 / month (£54 up front) |
PayPal is the only online payment service that is supported.
Credit and debit cards provided by Discover, Mastercard, American Express, Visa and UnionPay are also supported.
VyprVPN has a public wifi feature so you can only enable the VPN connection on networks your device doesn’t usually connect to. This is a useful privacy and security feature if you don’t want your internet activity to be visible on public networks. There’s the option of split tunnelling, which is referred to as Connection Per App, allowing you to choose which apps make use of the VPN. There’s a kill switch that will disable your connection if the VPN connection is lost.
One unusual feature of VyprVPN is the Chameleon protocol. This is a proprietary VPN protocol based on OpenVPN, which “scrambles packet metadata to ensure it’s not recognisable via deep packet inspection (DPI)”.
The protocol otherwise makes use of the same 256-bit encryption that OpenVPN uses.
This may not quite fit the definition of a unique VPN protocol. After all, many VPN services are now using OpenVPN Scramble, which uses the XOR encryption algorithm to scramble metadata. The OpenVPN developers have actually advised against the use of this patch, saying they “do not encourage people building their own versions of OpenVPN changing the wire-protocol like this without the patch being through a proper patch review and having evaluated possible security risks related to such a change”.
There are about 73 servers in the app. Australia has three servers and the US has eight, but all other countries have only one server. This leaves a total of about 62 countries.
In 2018, VyprVPN claimed to have received the world’s first public no-log audit. This will be discussed more later.
The company’s website does not appear to have an “About Us” page, but the copyright is listed as belonging to Certida LLC. Ownership of the VyprVPN product is confirmed on the Certida website and in VyprVPN’s FAQs. The terms of use on that website specify the company is registered in Austin, Texas. These are the same terms of use linked on the VyprVPN website, as they cover all Certida products.
Certida is the parent company of VyprVPN, which was originally founded by Golden Frog. It appears Certida is a relatively new company, with a certificate of formation dated on 27 July 2022. The original trading name of FreeNetCom LLC was changed on 22 September 2022.
Blog posts on Golden Frog’s website ended abruptly in November 2019, so it seems as though this is when restructuring of the company began. It’s worth noting that Golden Frog’s website still exists; it still claims to be the developer of VyprVPN and it makes a point of specifying that it is incorporated in Switzerland.
The Certida FAQ page shows awareness of concerns the company is based entirely in the US, responding to that criticism by saying “VPN companies like Certida know that no country or region in the world today can fully be trusted to maintain a user’s privacy by law alone”.
It specifies it is now “operating, supporting, and improving the VyprVPN app”, so Golden Frog does not appear to be involved anymore.
A kill switch allows you to ensure all traffic uses the VPN connection by disabling internet access when the VPN encounters a problem. This does not mean disabling the VPN connection manually will disable internet access; there has to be an issue with the VPN when it is enabled for the kill switch to function.
There’s a kill switch in VyprVPN’s desktop clients, but it does not appear to be available in the iOS app. The feature does appear to be available on Android.
Split tunnelling is a VPN feature that sends traffic from specific apps over a VPN connection while allowing other apps to use the regular internet connection. This can be useful when you want to set the location that certain apps appear in or when you only care about privacy when using specific apps.
The split tunnelling feature on VyprVPN’s macOS app is called Connection Per App and is available on the “Customise” tab. Limitations in iOS do not allow split tunnelling except in the context of mobile device management (MDM). This is when a school or employer controls what can be installed on the device and the VPN settings can therefore be remotely configured. The feature does seem to be available on Android.
VyprVPN’s default protocol is WireGuard, which the app says is the most advanced. The app says the most widely compatible protocol is IKEv2. The OpenVPN protocol is placed at the bottom of the list, because while VyprVPN calls it the industry standard, it describes the others as the most advanced and the most compatible.
The speed of the VPN was tested using an Ethernet connection to eliminate the variable of wifi interference or signal from the test. Speedtest by Ookla is one of the most commonly used tests, and it was used as the basis of these measurements.
| Download speed (Mbps) | Upload speed (Mbps) | Latency (ping) | Percentage of base download speed | Percentage of base upload speed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No VPN | 64.54 | 17.86 | 14ms | ||
| UK to UK | 57.1 | 17.55 | 19ms | 88% | 98% |
| UK to US | 14.53 | 17.64 | 85ms | 22% | 98% |
| UK to AUS | 41.86 | 16.83 | 295ms | 64% | 94% |
VyprVPN had a notable decrease in download speed when connecting to a US server during our tests. This may have been a temporary issue with its VPN servers, as it’s unusual for a server in Australia to be more than double the speed of a US server, in our researchers’ experience. Although download speeds are inconsistent, upload speeds were pretty fast on all servers we tested.
Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) was developed by Google as a way to make audio and video calls faster over the internet. The problem is that this tool can leak your real IP address even if you’re connected to a VPN. Luckily there is a WebRTC test by BrowserLeaks which will be used to determine if the leak occurs with VyprVPN or not.
On Chromium browsers, VyprVPN appeared to keep the public IP address secret while exposing the local IP address of the server our reviewer was connected to.
There’s a letter of attestation and no-log assessment by Leviathan. In this document, there’s a findings index that lists issues the audit found, where three high-severity and three medium-severity findings are listed. All of these are given a status of “fixed”, meaning VyprVPN’s developers took action to address these problems. It’s good the issues were fixed then, but there has been no subsequent audit to confirm that no new issues have arisen.
An audit where no problems were found would be much more reassuring. It would also be good to see VyprVPN undertake a fresh audit of its no-log policy, since the previous report is from 2018, before the service was taken over by Certida. Considering Certida’s headquarters are in the US, independent verification of its commitment to user privacy would help to reassure customers.
The app is only available directly from the company, meaning there have been no checks by Microsoft to ensure its compatibility, stability, security, or performance. There are no automatic updates either, so you have to hope the app you download remains stable for a long time.
The Windows app has all the same features as the macOS app with the addition of a VyprVPN TAP adapter. The TAP adapter is used to create a virtual network port for VPN traffic, simulating an Ethernet connection to your device. By default, the OpenVPN TAP adapter is used, and you are only advised to use the VyprVPN TAP adapter if there are conflicts between VyprVPN and other VPNs.
The app appears to be compatible with every version since Windows 7. That version of Windows has not received security updates since 2020, so it is not recommended as an operating system.
VyprVPN is available from its website in the form of a DMG file. There’s no option to get the app from the Mac App Store, which means Apple has not checked the VPN for Mac for security, stability, or performance. This also means there’s no setting to automatically update the app, and the app itself does not mention this capability.
The macOS app supports all versions since 10.6 Snow Leopard, which means it should work on all Macs released in the last 10 years.
The supported VPN for Android versions are not specified on the Google Play Store, as it merely says it “varies with device”. However, it’s likely the oldest version of Android supported is older than your device, especially if you bought it in the last five years.
The VPN for iPhone supports a minimum of iOS 13, which means the oldest supported devices are as follows:
As VyprVPN is compatible with the first version of iPadOS, the oldest devices that can download the app are as follows:
VyprVPN has setup guides for DD-WRT, AsusWRT, Tomato and OpenWRT routers.
VyprVPN has no phone support, and its contact page is a web form. To use live chat, it’s necessary to tap or click the “Support” button that hovers in the bottom corner of most pages of its website. The support site also has a “Need Assistance?” button that activates the same popup.
On the Google Play Store, the average user rating is 4.5 out of five stars. Some users have reported being disappointed with the service following recent updates to the app, citing issues such as unreliable connections and the removal of split tunnelling from the Android app.
“This app worked fairly well in the past. However, for the past few months it has been extremely unreliable. It is unable to stay connected most of the time. I resumed using another VPN that I had been using prior to this one.”
On the Apple App Store, the average user rating is 4.5 out of five stars, with users reporting similar issues to those on Android – unstable connections and problems solving issues with customer support.
“[It] works great on my MacBook Pro, but on my iPad I found it to be unreliable. It drops out of connection easily and doesn’t notify you. I’ve also run into a problem where the tiny VPN symbol showed in the top right corner of my screen, leading me to believe I was connected, but after jumping back into the app, it looked as though it wasn’t even connected. There’s also no kill switch feature on iOS devices, so if it does abandon its connection mid surf, you’re just left exposed. [This] definitely needs to be improved. I’ve used VyprVPN for nearly two years, and like I mentioned before, it works perfectly on my MacBook, but they need to sort out their app for mobile devices.”
The average user rating on Trustpilot is 3.4 out of five stars. Negative reviews cite connection problems on various devices, while satisfied customers praise the customer support team for helping them resolve issues.
“It was quite cheap initially and mostly worked in the last two years, even though on many public wifi [networks] it strictly didn’t work at all. Many far away servers have a slow connection, so mostly it’s only advisable to use servers of neighbouring countries for a stable connection. [Recently,] it didn’t work on my laptop because Avast [antivirus software] always blocked the installation file. The support [team] couldn’t help with the issue, [but] I figured it out myself.”
VyprVPN is easy to install and offers a lot of options in terms of protocols. The main problems are that there aren’t many servers and the speeds are not always great. There are, however, a lot of ways to get around location restrictions, including the Chameleon protocol, which is supposedly resistant to notoriously stringent blocks in countries like China.
Score: ★★★½
| Reputation and credibility | ★★★ |
| Privacy | ★★★½ |
| Performance and features | ★★★★ |
| Plans and pricing value | ★★½ |
| Customer experience | ★★★½ |
The data in this review is reported from a neutral stance and should be used for informational purposes only. We review VPN services from the perspective of:
Independent Advisor does not endorse the streaming of content from regions other than where the subscription is held, nor does it endorse the downloading or consumption of illegally pirated content.
