Jurisdiction Hong Kong Price $2.91/mo on a 2-Year Plan Servers 2,000+ in 140+ Countries Logs No Logs Certified Encryption AES-256-CBC Unblocks Netflix Yes Torrenting Yes Works in China Yes Recommended Yes Website https://www.purevpn.com/ Compatibility Windows, Android, Apple, Chrome, Firefox

Based in Hong Kong, my PureVPN review uncovers that the service enjoyed a good reputation in the past, which was tainted by reports of them storing logging information and having a confusing privacy policy.

Over the years, the service has worked really hard to recover from this, joining the ranks of top VPN services to get their no-logs claims verified. Now, the provider is recognized as the best cheapest VPN, starting at $2.91/mo (on a 2-year plan), offering NAT Firewall, Split Tunneling, Ad/Tracker blocking, IPv6 Leak Protection, Kill Switch, DDoS Protection, and dedicated IPs for personal use.

PureVPN has apps for all major platforms/devices and 2,000+ servers in 140+ countries around the world. The best part of all: you get exceptional performance with average speeds of 91.51Mbps in download 88.59Mbps in upload.

I highly recommend it, if you are in search of an affordable VPN packed with a ton of useful features. It is also among the few providers in the marketplace to successfully unblock Netflix on all devices!

PureVPN Review: Rating Criteria

Jurisdiction: Where is PureVPN Based? Security: Is PureVPN Really Safe? Leaks: Does It Leak Your IP, DNS & WebRTC? Servers: Is It P2P Compatible, does it work in China? Streaming: Does it work with Netflix & other VoD services? Speed: How fast is PureVPN? Compatibility: Apps and supported devices Pricing: How much does PureVPN cost exactly? Trustworthiness: Trustpilot ratings, Reddit & Customer support

Jurisdiction: Where is PureVPN Based?

PureVPN has its headquarters in Hong Kong, so let’s start by talking about its hub. This former British colony is now an autonomous territory of China. However, does that make it a safe place?

Despite China’s notorious reputation regarding its draconian internet privacy laws, Hong Kong is more at par with major European countries than the mainland itself. At least, as far as internet freedom and data privacy laws are concerned.

Hong Kong is not bound by any data/information gathering or sharing agreement like the 5/9/14 Eyes, as we found out in detail after conducting a study on invasive jurisdictions

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Security: Is PureVPN Really Safe?

My PureVPN review of the providers’ location, security audit, warrant canary, and logging policy, reveal. the VPN is a safe choice for the privacy-conscious. Learn more about each aspect below:

Will PureVPN Log My Data?

After receiving a huge backlash for cooperating with the FBI, involving a female victim of cyberbullying and cyberstalking, PureVPN vowed to eliminate all logs. Surely, they helped catch a criminal and ease the mind of an innocent girl, but they did still hand over logs.

As such, it was their duty to take the backlash seriously, and they did. Now, the provider joins the ranks of VPN services to get their no-logs claims verified, as part of their commitment to delivering strong privacy and security to its customers around the world.

The audit was completed by the US-based security firm Altius IT and places all doubts of customer anonymity at rest, emerging as a trustworthy provider. In the updated Privacy policy, PureVPN claims:

“We DO NOT keep any record of your browsing activities, connection logs, records of the VPN IPs assigned to you, your original IPs, your connection time, the history of your browsing, the sites you visited, your outgoing traffic, the content or data you accessed”

This obviously sounds satisfying and I was pleased to know that the provider has revamped its entire privacy policy following the backlash. Is it all secure now though?

The Only Thing They Do Log

Based on my PureVPN review of their privacy policy, I came to know the VPN does store bandwidth logs; not to throttle your speeds though. Just to make sure all PureVPN users get the highest level of speeds and experience with the provider.

PureVPN Protocols

PureVPN offers support for protocols like SSTP, PPTP, and L2TP. However, most apps utilize the OpenVPN protocol to secure you online, as it allows the implementation of military-grade encryption.

PureVPN Encryption

The provider utilizes AES-256-CBC cipher with HMAC SHA1 hash authentication for the data channel and AES-256-CBC cipher with HMAC SHA384 hash authentication and RSA-2048 handshake encryption for the control channel.

Does PureVPN Offer Split Tunneling and Kill Switch?

The Hong-Kong based provider is among the few in the marketplace that supports advanced features like the Automatic Kill Switch, Port Forwarding, DDoS Protection, Split Tunneling, and IP leak protection.

All these specialty features combined boost the overall protection you receive for downloading torrents or streaming on VoDs. Of course, I would like seeing an addition of DoubleVPN and Onion over VPN too.

Native Apps for all Platforms Free from Malware

To test if the VPN is safe to download/install, my PureVPN review involved performing tests on all apps supported by the provider from VirusTotal.com. The results reveal that all apps are secure from viruses/malware.

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Testing PureVPN: Does It Leak Your IP, DNS & WebRTC?

For this PureVPN review, I even conducted a thorough leak test, involving the usage of over 6 different tools. PureVPN passed all tests, indicating it does not leak any information whatsoever.

WebRTC and HTTP Request Leaks:

DNS Leaks:

IPv4/IPv6 and Torrent IP Leaks:

Servers: Is It P2P Compatible, or Does It Work in China?

The VPN has a large global network of 2000+ servers in over 140+ countries worldwide, according to my PureVPN review.

The highest number of servers that PureVPN has is in the European region, followed by North America. Here is a breakdown of the server count region wise:

North America: 656 Servers

Europe: 769 Servers

Asia: 309 Servers

Central America: 12 Servers

South America: 81 Servers

Africa: 150 Servers

Oceania 93 Servers

Total Servers: 2070

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Is PureVPN Good for Torrenting?

Indeed, my PureVPN review uncovers it is a great choice for downloading torrents. The provider offers a huge list of p2p-specific servers and even makes available features like Split Tunneling and SOCKS5 proxy to speed up and protect you. Also, PureVPN works best in South Africa for torrenting.

It uses the OpenVPN (UDP) protocol for its p2p servers and encryption is available via AES-256 cipher, RSA-4096 key encryption, and SHA384 hash authentication.

While testing the USA server speeds for p2p/torrenting on uTorrent, PureVPN also managed to deliver an average of 91.51 Mbps and 88.59 Mbps upload.

Does PureVPN Work in China?

PureVPN fails to offer consistent performance in China to residents. Unlike other providers like ExpressVPN, and Surfshark, it does not offer a dedicated Chinese page for residents to download the product.

the VPN does work in bypassing “The Great Firewall”, and is the only provider to offer 12 Chinese servers, among which 6 are located in Shanghai and 6 in Beijing. As far as Chinese expats are concerned,, among which 6 are located in Shanghai and 6 in Beijing.

It still needs to invest in obfuscated servers either through Xor or the Stunnel protocol, which redirects the VPN traffic to port 443, making it look like regular HTTPs traffic, fooling sites/countries that impose VPN bans.

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PureVPN Uses both: Bare-Metal and Virtual Locations

Like many other providers these days, PureVPN does not offer physical servers in all of its locations. It also utilizes virtual locations mainly for availability in countries with tough internet laws.

The primary difference between the two is exactly what their names imply. Physical servers are actual servers which exist in a physical form somewhere, while the virtual servers are fictitious.

Testing on their az1-ovpn-udp.pointtoserver.com server revealed that it is actually located in Edinburgh, UK. Some other virtual locations used by PureVPN include: Aruba, Saudia Arabia, Bahrain, and Yemen.

Can I Use Netflix with PureVPN?

Indeed, my PureVPN review discovers it is the only in the marketplace to unblock VoDs directly through its browser add-on, despite the VPN ban. And this is not only limited to Netflix.

Just make sure to clear your browser cache before accessing the Netflix site, or as a simpler solution launch the “Incognito” on Google Chrome or “private mode” on Mozilla Firefox.

Below you can see how i used their Chrome extension to unblock the US version of Netflix and stream the hit film series, “Avengers: Infinity War”, without any hassle!

Further testing of PureVPN revealed the provider now unblocks Netflix in 3 more regions (in addition to the above); Canada, France, and Germany

If you opt for the 2-year plan, you will only have to pay $2.91/mo and will get access to the “popular websites” menu that allows users to unblock a huge list of streaming platforms directly from within the browser extension. These include:

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Speed: How Fast is PureVPN?

Compatible with device: Windows, Android, Apple, Chrome, Firefox,