Bitdefender is a trustworthy brand that offers cybersecurity solutions for homes and businesses, including small, mid-sized, and enterprises. It enjoys an excellent reputation for providing the best antivirus products. However, its premium VPN service is always questioned over its security and privacy, as many users accuse it of DNS leaks.
Suppose you’re looking for a VPN that provides standard security and privacy, moderate browsing speeds, and average streaming abilities at an affordable price. In that case, you can try out the Bitdefender VPN. The following tables give a better overview of the VPN provider.
Security and Privacy:
Encryption
- AES-256 bit encryption
- SHA-256 hash key
Jurisdiction
- Romania
Log Policy
- Follows a no-log policy but keeps limited information
Security Features
- Ad and tracker blocker
- Split tunneling
- kill switch
Streaming and Torrenting
List of Compatible Streaming Platforms
- Youtube
List of Torrenting Features
- Split tunneling
- Torrent IP leak protection
User-friendliness
No. of Servers
- 4000+ servers spread in 49 countries
Pricing
- $6.45/m on a monthly plan
- $35.88/ year on a 1-year plan
Customer Support
- Live chat support
- Website resources
Compatible Devices
- Android
- iOS
- macOS
- Windows
But, with the reputation that Bitdefender VPN holds, it’s challenging to trust it to handle our privacy. Let’s look deeper into the detailed Bitdefender VPN review and decide if it’s worth using in 2024 to maintain digital privacy and security.
Security and Privacy
Security and privacy are the two most fundamental aspects when choosing a VPN. Anyone who neglects these elements risks exposing their data to vulnerabilities. To judge a VPN’s security and privacy parameters, examining the encryption and protocols and whether it belongs to any country in the global surveillance alliance is crucial.
Ensure the VPN provider doesn’t log any of your data while using its service and follows a no-log policy. Also, a third-party audit report supporting the logging policy adds another star to its reputation.
What type of encryption does Bitdefender VPN use
Like the top-rated VPN providers, Bitdefender VPN is a secure VPN provider. It relies on the industry’s standard encryption to protect the users’ data.
The VPN provider utilizes in-class and uncrackable AES-256-bit encryption to safeguard data traffic from all prying eyes. The AES is among the most robust encryption ciphers and is almost impossible to crack. Moreover, Bitdefender VPN also uses the SHA-256 hash function for data authentication.
Regarding encryption, Bitdefender VPN is doing a good job and competes with other reputable VPN providers.
Where is Bitdefender VPN located?
Bitdefender is an award-winning antivirus company that has been operating since 2001 and has now introduced its VPN service. Bitdefender LLC is the parent company of Bitdefender and has its headquarters in Romania.
Unlike the US and UK, Romania doesn’t fall in the five eyes, nine eyes, and 14 eyes alliance jurisdiction. In other words, the company isn’t liable for collecting and sharing users’ data with international intelligence agencies. But Romania is a member of the European Union, so the EU data retention laws might be applicable.
However, the good news is that Romania has declared the EU data retention laws unconstitutional. Hence, the country is safe to operate and use a VPN.
Does Bitdefender VPN keep logs?
Bitdefender premium VPN service promises users a chance to browse the web privately. It claims to neither snoop on your IP address nor tracks down the websites you visit.
The VPN provider also claims not to log your IP address, browsing, or connection logs. Also, it doesn’t share sensitive information with the ISP and third parties, ensuring your privacy is 100% safe.
However, the things mentioned about the VPN’s logging practice in the privacy policy of Bitdefender’s home and business solution contradict it.
The above screenshot clarifies that Bitdefender VPN is not truly a no-log VPN and even uses Aura company from the US jurisdiction (and has been involved in injecting tracking codes) for data processing. Besides this, Bitdefender VPN hasn’t undergone any infrastructure or security audit process. This won’t satisfy the provider’s claims of not logging in and sharing their IP address and other sensitive information, and the users might continue to suspect them.
Which Encryption Protocols Does Bitdefender VPN Support
Bitdefender VPN is pretty selective in the choice of its protocols. The VPN doesn’t use any popular or a variety of encryption protocols. It only uses the proprietary Catapult Hydra protocol that AnchorFree develops.
Catapult Hydra is a reliable and robust protocol that Hotspot Shield VPN also uses. It provides consistently fast connection speeds and also prevents speed throttling issues.
Moreover, it’s based on RSA certificates that utilize 2048-bit keys and ECDHE for exchanging ephemeral key sets for authentication; it ensures a top-notch level of online protection.
However, despite all the advantages of the Catapult Hydra protocol, it still can’t compete with the performance of WireGuard and OpenVPN protocols.
Bypassing censorship
Unfortunately, Bitdefender VPN is not too good at bypassing censorship. The VPN provider lacks anti-censorship features and obfuscation technology that disguise the VPN traffic as regular web traffic and enables you to circumvent censorship and access the blocked websites, apps, and services. Hence, if you use Bitdefender VPN to browse the web freely, you might want to change your mind and try another VPN.
Past history of the VPN provider
Bitdefender started its services in 2001. In the beginning, it offers security suite solutions for enhancing device security. But, the company soon realized they should have had a VPN service that allows users to protect their internet privacy. The VPN provider has a clear track record. Even after digging into news and events on Reddit and other social networking sites, no information was found that can prove that the VPN provider is violating users’ privacy.
However, the Bitdefender company itself comes under the radar as some events in the recent past prove that it’s compromising users’ privacy and security. For instance, in 2021, the Bitdefender company was accused of releasing and announcing a decryptor of the victims affected by the DarkSide hacking group.
Another noticeable incident was the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack in May 2021. The security researchers at that time criticized Bitdefender for using a bug for publicity instead in a way that might help out the victims.
The Bitdefender company faced serious backlash on these occasions, and some might not consider it a suitable option to continue using.
Extra privacy and security features
A feature-packed VPN provider offers a wide variety of features. These features boost security and digital privacy and make efforts to improve the user experience.
Bitdefender VPN is not the VPN provider that offers several extra privacy and security features. The VPN provider offers a few selected features, and here’s an insight into it.
Kill Switch
Bitdefender VPN offers a kill switch feature to protect users from accidental connection leaks and save them from IP leaks. A kill switch is an advanced feature that ensures your device avoids leaking sensitive information when the VPN connection drops. This feature is crucial in increasing anonymity in your online presence by automatically disconnecting you from the internet and reconnecting when the connection fails.
The VPN’s kill switch is not enabled by default, meaning you must do it manually. It is a handy feature when downloading torrents, streaming geo-blocked content, or when one wants to increase online security during browsing. To turn on the kill switch feature, go to Settings>toggle on the kill switch feature.
Split tunneling
Another impressive feature that Bitdefender VPN offers is the split tunneling feature. This feature enables the user to control their data and activities. Activating this feature enhance speed and ensures a safe and fast torrent downloading experience.
Besides this, it also allows the employees to work remotely and secure their sensitive data through an encrypted connection via the split tunneling feature. Also, if you’re traveling and want to access your home content or any foreign content, you can turn on this feature and access your content by excluding certain apps.
The VPN claims to offer the split tunneling feature on all supported devices, but users on Reddit often complain about its absence from the iOS app. To turn on the split tunneling feature, head to settings and then turn on the split tunneling option. After turning on the feature, you must include the apps you want to protect with a VPN.
Ad blocker and tracker blocker
Bitdefender VPN recently launched the ad and tracker blocker feature available for all users, even when using the free or trial version. The adblocker feature ensures a better browsing experience by blocking pop-ups, banners, videos, and other types of ads. Also, the VPN saves bandwidth and improves the page loading speed. The VPN also minimizes the risk of adware and malware infecting your device and compromising device security by blocking intrusive ads.
Furthermore, Bitdefender also offers a built-in tracker blocker feature. It allows you to eliminate third-party trackers and websites that spy on your online activities and collect data, including browsing habits, location, and web queries.
Besides these, Bitdefender VPN doesn’t have many features, including the basic ones. Unlike many other VPN providers, Bitdefender VPN doesn’t protect from IP and DNS leaks. People even took this matter on Twitter and criticized it for risking users’ privacy. This gives users another reason for not choosing Bitdefender VPN.
Streaming and Torrenting
Streaming and torrenting are high-bandwidth-consuming activities. If your ISP learns about your behavior, they can start throttling your connection speed. Besides this, both activities contain privacy and security risks. Thus, you must use a reliable and compatible VPN.
Compatible streaming platform
Bitdefender VPN is, again, not an excellent choice for streaming blocked streaming content on various platforms. It lacks dedicated streaming servers and advanced features, making accessing geographically restricted content easy.
The VPN provider might help you unblock and watch YouTube content. But when it comes to Netflix, BBC iPlayer, or other platforms. Several users on Reddit have also criticized Bitdefender VPN for not being an ideal choice for watching Netflix.
Is Bitdefender VPN a good choice For Torrenting?
You can consider using Bitdefender VPN to download torrents, but it isn’t the best choice. The VPN provider offers average speeds, limited torrent-specific features, and lacks dedicated servers for torrenting, making it a poor choice compared to other VPN providers.
Bitdefender VPN has an extensive server network that doesn’t put enough server load and thus offers fast downloading speeds. Though it still provides a kill switch and split tunneling feature, they aren’t reliable because complaints about their compatibility with other devices have been made.
Moreover, the VPN lacks the SOCKS5 proxy and has been accused of leaking DNS and IP addresses. Users have also discussed it on Reddit and shared their experience with Bitdefender VPN. The majority rejected using it for torrenting and even said the company would forward copyright notices, so you should use the best VPN.
How fast Is Bitdefender VPN
Bitdefender VPN offers reliable and consistently fast speeds. The VPN claims to have more than 4000+ servers in 49 countries. Since the VPN covers almost half of the globe, you can expect fast and stable connection speeds. But this is not the reality because the VPN hasn’t revealed all the server locations except for three countries.
If you’re using the accessible version of Bitdefender VPN, you will be allocated 200Mbs daily, but in the premium version, you have unlimited bandwidth and fast speed.
The VPN browsing and downloading speeds are good enough, but you can expect mediocre speeds if you choose servers outside Canada, the UK, and the US. This is what most users say on various online forums regarding streaming.
Unfortunately, the VPN doesn’t have any speed-boosting feature, but you can still improve the speeds with the Catapult Hydra protocol. However, its speeds are not as fast as those of WireGuard or OpenVPN protocols.
User-Friendliness
Bitdefender VPN apps offer apps for Windows, Android, and Apple devices. These apps are easy to use and download. The apps’ interfaces are user-friendly and won’t cause any user trouble.
The number of servers Bitdefender VPN offers
The website says Bitdefender VPN comprises an extensive server network of 4000+ servers in 49 countries. The VPN has improved its server network, but there is no information about the exact server location. The only information one can get about the Bitdefender server network is from the FAQs section.
You can find Bitdefender VPN servers at multiple locations in Canada, the UK, and the US. Apart from this, there is no information about the servers and how they perform.
How good is Bitdefender VPN customer support
Bitdefender VPN allows users to connect with the customer support team via email and 24/7 live chat. If you initiate the live chat feature, you will talk to real people, not chatbots. This is a perfect strategy that Bitdefender VPN adopts because people are well-trained and possess enough knowledge to solve even technical problems. If you encounter any issues while using the Bitdefender VPN, you can contact their support team and resolve them. Also, the response time is quick, and you also receive the summary of your chat in your email.
You can send an email if you feel like the agents at the live chat can’t offer you the solution. Bitdefender VPN even lets users forward their queries via telephone support.
Besides this, Bitdefender VPN has a support page containing FAQs, videos, and blogs/articles to keep users updated and answer their general queries.
Which devices is Bitdefender VPN compatible with
Bitdefender VPN offers dedicated Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps. You can download the apps from the official app store or Bitdefender’s website.
Users gave mixed reviews on the app store, with some having a good experience while others had a pathetic experience with the Bitdefender VPN Android app. The Android app received a 4.4 rating on the Google App Store and was downloaded 500+ times.
In contrast, the Apple App Store rated the Bitdefender app 4.8 stars. The same goes for the MacOS app. A couple of users on Reddit criticized how many issues they face while using the app on the MacOS platform. Also, the macOS app is buggy and has been accused of DNS leaks.
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Conclusion
Bitdefender is a reliable tool for maintaining the security of your device, but to give you more internet freedom, Bitdefender also launches its premium Bitdefender VPN provider. The VPN uses standard encryption and provides a top-notch level of online security. However, users have mixed opinions about the service provider, and most don’t find it suitable.
The exact server locations are not revealed, which sometimes causes slower connection speeds. It lacks advanced features like obfuscation technology, a double VPN, and a dedicated IP address. Also, the VPN won’t allow you to stream on Netflix or other popular platforms. All these reasons are enough of why people dislike antivirus VPNs. If you’re still finding the best top-rated VPN providers, click here.
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About the Author
Rebecca James is an IT consultant with forward thinking approach toward developing IT infrastructures of SMEs. She writes to engage with individuals and raise awareness of digital security, privacy, and better IT infrastructure.
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