FastestVPN marked its way in the industry in 2016. The VPN claims to have the jam-packed features required by a reliable and efficient VPN. However, users have shared mixed reviews about it on Reddit. Also, the VPN has been suspected of using a company address of the UK jurisdiction and having its headquarters in Pakistan. But to see how true this speculation is, it’s important to dig more out from the VPN by reviewing it in detail.
Before kicking off the review, let’s first have a quick overview of the FastestVPN provider:
Security and Privacy:
Encryption
- AES-256 bit encryption
Jurisdiction
- Cayman Island
Log Policy
- Follows a no-log policy and stores the only email address
Security Features
- Kill switch
- Split tunneling
- Ad blocker
- Free NAT Firewall
- Malware blocker
Streaming and Torrenting
List of Compatible Streaming Platforms
- Amazon Prime Video
- BBC iPlayer
- Disney Plus
- Dazn
- Hulu
- ESPN Sports
- YouTube
- Netflix
- Sling
- Vudu
- Fubo TV and other free streaming sites
List of Torrenting Features
- Split tunneling
- Torrent IP leak protection
User-friendliness
No. of Servers
- 500+ servers in more than 35 countries
Pricing
- $10/m on a monthly plan
- $0.7/m on a three years + 3 months plan
- $0.66/m on a five years+ 3 months plan
Customer Support
- 24/7 Live chat support
- Email Support
- Website resources
Compatible Devices
- Android
- iOS
- macOS
- Windows
- AndroidTV
- Amazon Firestick TV
- Roku
- Kodi
- Apple TV
- Smart TV
- Linux
To know more about the FastestVPN claims and how it performs, let’s explore more about the VPN through this detailed FastestVPN review.
Security and Privacy
VPNs are the ultimate tools for making your activities private and enhancing digital security. However, many VPN providers claim to provide a top-notch level of online protection, but in reality, they fail to live up to their claims. Thus, it’s essential not to neglect a VPN’s security and privacy aspects and must look into its encryption, protocols, jurisdiction, and logging policy.
What Encryption does the fastest VPN use
The FastestVPN is committed to providing a secure environment where you can surf the internet without fearing being spied on or caught. For this purpose, the VPN offers strong, uncrackable encryption and ensures maximum online security.
The VPN utilizes the industry’s highest AES-256-bit encryption to ensure no one intercepts your incoming and outgoing data traffic. The AES-256 bit is the most secure encryption standard, and it might take years for hackers or other prying eyes to decrypt the data. Hence, rest assured that your data security is guaranteed.
Where is the FastestVPN located?
Fastest Technologies Ltd is the parent company of FastestVPN, located in the Cayman Islands region. As this place doesn’t fall under the jurisdiction of the five eyes, nine eyes, and fourteen eyes alliance, you don’t have to worry about your data being shared with the intelligence agencies without prior knowledge.
Moreover, the region doesn’t follow mandatory data retention laws or laws violating individual digital privacy rights. In other words, the VPN does not record or share your data with the authorities; therefore, you can use the VPN without any doubts.
Does the fastest VPN keep logs?
The FastestVPN aims to protect your digital privacy and guarantees an anonymous and private browsing experience. The VPN provider, in its privacy policy, has made it clear that it doesn’t log any browsing data, including:
- DNS queries
- Content downloaded or streamed
- Credit card info
- IP address
- Traffic destination
- Website visited
The only information the VPN provider collects about the user is their email address; its privacy policy has also mentioned why they do so. The company records the email address for account registration and billing purposes. Once you deactivate your account, your email address gets deleted permanently.
This shows that FastestVPN is committed to protecting your digital privacy and ensuring a secure digital environment. However, FastestVPN must undergo a third-party independent log audit of its log policy, apps, and security infrastructure to prove all these claims. It has become mandatory for the VPN provider to undergo the audit process and win users’ trust.
Which tunneling protocol does the fastest VPN support
The FastestVPN supports the popular encryption protocols to protect your data from snooping eyes. The VPN utilizes the following protocols:
- OpenVPN
- IKEv2/IPSec
- L2TP
- PPTP
The most reliable VPNs among all are OpenVPN and IKEv2/IPSec. The OpenVPN protocol offers a balance between security and privacy, and by switching the ports, you can decide which ones you want the most. The IKEv2 protocol is also a fast protocol designed for mobile devices and provides a fast and stable connection. Besides this, you can use the L2TP protocol for bypassing firewalls and censorship with FastestVPN. But, the PPTP protocol is outdated and contains vulnerabilities; hence, it’s better not to use it.
However, it’s disappointing that FastestVPN doesn’t support the latest and advanced WireGuard protocol. Every other VPN provider in the industry is deploying the WireGuard protocol designed for super-fast connection speeds and enhanced security.
How good is the fastest VPN at bypassing censorship?
The FastestVPN isn’t ideal for bypassing censorship and freely browsing the web. The VPN has no anti-censorship or obfuscation technology features that prove helpful in circumventing censorship.
The website claims you can use the FastestVPN in China and other highly restrictive states like Russia, Turkey, and UAE. You can find the FastestVPN servers in Hong Kong, Russia, Turkey, and the UAE. But the connections aren’t reliable, and the VPN lacks advanced features, so it’s not guaranteed that you will enjoy a seamless browsing experience.
If you’re looking for a recommendation to bypass censorship in China, you should consider using the best top-rated VPN providers.
Past track record of the VPN provider
FastestVPN has been relatively new in the market since 2016 and has a clear past track record. The VPN hasn’t been involved in any hacking or data leaks that risk users’ privacy. However, there are great speculations about the country where FastestVPN operates.
Many people think that the VPN is a scam. As a Pakistani businessman owns it, they suspect the VPN uses the British address, but its jurisdiction is Pakistan, not Cayman Island. Moreover, another thing that might put you in doubt is the VPN’s LinkedIn page.
LinkedIn shows that FastestVPN also had an office in Los Angeles, California. As we all know, Los Angeles is a state in the USA that is a prominent member of the five eyes alliance and follows strict data logging laws and practices.
The VPN’s “About us” page didn’t include any such information, and thus, this keeps users in utter curiosity and doubt.
Extra privacy and security features
One vital trait of the best VPN is it’s full of advanced security and privacy-boosting features. These features are necessary to boost security and privacy levels, improve user experience, and increase the VPN’s worth.
The FastestVPN includes pretty basic and limited features you can find in any other service provider. Here’s the list of the features that you can see in the FastestVPN provider:
Kill switch
The FastestVPN doesn’t compromise your online identity, so it uses a kill switch feature to protect it. A kill switch is a handy feature that lets users protect their IP address and online identity when their VPN connection drops accidentally. Using a kill switch now becomes essential whenever you’re browsing the web. Also, you can use it while accessing blocked streaming content or downloading torrents.
The VPN offers the internet kill switch feature in its Windows, iOS, and MacOS apps. This feature is enabled by default in the iOS and MacOS apps, but you have to allow it by navigating into the settings menu in the Windows app.
Split tunneling
Another impressive feature that FastestVPN offers is the split tunneling feature. With the split tunneling feature, you can select specific apps and activities you want to route via the VPN while letting others route through the regular internet connection. Yet another helpful feature allows users to decide which data they want to secure via VPN encryption. You save some bandwidth and enjoy improved speeds during streaming and downloading. Unfortunately, you can’t find the split tunneling feature in any other app except the Android app.
Ad-Blocker
No one wants to see a pop-up, banner, and video ad while browsing or downloading content from the internet. They interrupt your experience, reduce the page loading speed, and inject trackers and malware into your device, but with FastestVPN, you don’t have to worry about these intrusive ads. The VPN offers an ad-blocker feature to help users avoid annoying and irrelevant ads frequently appearing on their screens. This feature improves their overall user experience, takes less bandwidth, and ensures fast browsing and page loading speed.
NAT firewall
Another security-enhancing feature that FastestVPN offers is the NAT Firewall which adds an extra layer of protection against online threats and stops malicious content from entering your network. It prevents hackers from reaching your device and guarantees no data is compromised. In other words, it acts as the first defense against malicious actors.
Anti-Malware blocker
While browsing the web, you often come across bogus and suspicious-looking sites, links, or adverts, and upon clicking on them, your device becomes infected with malware. To improve your overall browsing experience, FastestVPN also offers an anti-malware blocker feature.
You can use the malware blocker feature to prevent your device from malware invasion and maintain device security. This feature is enabled by default in all the FastestVPN apps and adds a layer of protection and security while you browse the internet.
The FastestVPN doesn’t include any new features that other VPNs might have. The VPN lacks several valuable features, such as double VPN, dedicated IP address, port forwarding, and obfuscation technology, making it less than other top-rated VPN providers.
Streaming and torrenting
Streaming geo-blocked content and downloading torrents without taking any protection can result in great trouble. Besides your ISP throttling your speed, you can get a warning letter from copyright trolls, or the streaming platforms might also block your IP address. Moreover, you can experience other privacy issues within the P2P swarm, increasing the risk of downloading a bogus file containing infected malware.
The best possible solution to eliminate these problems and enjoy a seamless streaming and downloading experience is to download a trustworthy VPN provider.
Compatible streaming platforms
The FastestVPN allows users to access geo-blocked streaming content with unlimited bandwidth and the fastest browsing speed. According to the website, you can use the FastestVPN to access a wide range of popular streaming platforms, including:
- Netflix
- BBC iPlayer
- Amazon Prime
- Hulu
- Disney Plus
- YouTube
Although the VPN won’t allow you to access Netflix libraries in bulk, you can still unblock a few Netflix libraries, including Japan, the US, and the UK. Besides this, you can also use the VPN provider on ESPN Sports and watch your favorite sporting events and matches. You can watch and download movies, TV shows, and other entertainment content from free streaming websites like Fubo TV, Vudu, and others.
The VPN provider offers dedicated streaming servers in six different locations. You can find the fastest streaming servers in Canada, Italy, India, Japan, the UK, and the USA. Connecting to these servers lets you watch the blocked foreign content on your favorite streaming channel.
However, since the VPN server network isn’t very vast, this increases server load, and users often complain about it. This also results in a poor connection and video quality full of buffering. Moreover, users on Reddit have even criticized that the VPN servers are sometimes down, and they cannot connect with the servers of their choice.
Is the fastest VPN good for torrenting?
FastestVPN is a good option for downloading torrents from BitTorrent or other torrent clients. The VPN provider allows torrenting across all servers and provides unlimited bandwidth, guaranteeing that the users don’t face speed issues. Moreover, FastestVPN also belongs to a secure jurisdiction and avoids keeping any data logs that might expose you, so your torrent-related activities remain private to yourself.
However, some of the FastestVPN servers are not recommended for downloading torrents. These servers include:
- Australia
- Canada
- Hong Kong
- India
- Singapore
- South Korea
- The United States
Besides this, the VPN has torrent-specific features, including a kill switch and split tunneling feature, further ensuring a secure torrent downloading experience. You can also use the ad-blocker feature to block intrusive ads running in the background or pop-ups interrupting your downloading experience.
Despite all the claims, users don’t prefer using the FastestVPN for torrenting, and there are various reasons for this. You can enjoy downloading torrents at a decent speed using public trackers, but you can sometimes face disconnection. Users have shared their personal experiences on Reddit, where some said that on the OpenVPN protocol, you couldn’t download torrents, while others said that the ISP might detect you using the VPN for torrenting.
How Fast is the Fastest VPN
Unfortunately, as the name suggests, FastestVPN is not as fast as you might assume or like the fastest VPN in the market. The VPN has a small server network of 500+ servers in over 50 locations. Such a small server network increases the server load and results in poor connection speed.
Furthermore, the FastestVPN lacks any speed-boosting feature, but you can still get maximum speeds by connecting to the OpenVPN protocol.
After testing, it’s found that the FastestVPN gives off pretty decent speeds while browsing and torrenting. However, the speeds and connections are quite unstable when you use the VPN for streaming blocked content. So, if you’re looking for a fast connection speed and use the FastestVPN for blazing-fast speeds, it’s better to look for other reliable options.
User-Friendliness
FastestVPN, like other VPN providers, has dedicated apps for various devices and operating systems making it a user-friendly VPN. The apps are well designed with an intuitive interface, but users have mixed opinions about the performance of the apps as most of them find the app buggy and not working optimally.
What is the number of servers The FastestVPN has?
The FastestVPN doesn’t comprise an extensive server network like many popular VPN providers, and thus this causes issues while establishing a connection. The website claims that the VPN has over 500 servers in 35+ countries. You can find servers in:
- Australia
- Canada
- France
- Germany
- Turkey
- UAE
- UK
- US
After talking with the customer support representative, it was revealed that all the FastestVPN servers are compatible with torrenting except for a few countries that follow strict copyright laws. At the same time, you can find the fastest dedicated servers in six regions.
However, the users are not satisfied with the FastestVPN server network and have bashed the VPN for its minimal server network that fails to provide stable or no connections. Users have taken this matter on Reddit and expressed great disappointment that Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, and Canadian servers go downtime. Even after spending a couple of days, they could not connect.
How good is FastestVPN customer support?
FastestVPN, like other top-tier VPN providers, offers great customer support service, and there’s no doubt about this. The VPN lets the users connect with the support team via the 24/7 live chat option and email support. The dedicated support team is available 24 hours a, and you can initiate the live chat anytime. The response is fast, and the chat agents do their best to resolve your query.
A query regarding knowing about Netflix and P2P servers was sent to the agent, and they replied within a minute and seemed knowledgeable enough to answer it correctly. You can even receive a chat transcript to your email address, but you might have to wait an hour for this. This shows that an email might not be a good option if you want a quick response, as it takes a minimum of an hour or more to get a reply.
Moreover, the FastestVPN website resource is also pretty knowledgeable and impressive. You can find a separate FAQ page that answers your general queries. Also, a blog section includes VPN setup guides, deals and updates, and blogs related to privacy and security.
Overall, FastestVPN is doing a good job of helping out worried users. But they can excel in this area by improving their email support service.
Which devices are compatible with FastestVPN?
The FastestVPN is a VPN for everyone, meaning it matches the needs of everyone. If you’re a student, traveler, or want to use a VPN for entertainment and data protection from anywhere, you can download the FastestVPN app and enjoy a VPN connection on all devices. It is among the few trusted VPN providers that offer more than 20 device compatibility. The VPN provider can work on devices and platforms, including:
- Android
- iOS
- MacOS
- Linux
- Windows
- Amazon Firestick TV
- Android TV
- Kodi
- Roku
- Apple TV
- Smart TV
All the VPNs offer unlimited bandwidth, fast speeds, and a secure browsing experience. Besides this, you can also download and install the VPN app on routers, gaming consoles, and Xbox. However, there are mixed reviews about the performance of VPN apps on different devices and platforms.
Users on Reddit have criticized the VPN apps, especially for Android and Windows, for having bugs and not working at times. They have not updated their apps, and users face significant issues finding the optimal servers as the VPN connects to a server that offers poor speed.
Conclusion
FastestVPN is a safe VPN, especially for the beginner. It’s great value for money, offers good customer support, uses standard encryption and tunneling protocols, and follows a no-log policy. However, the speed offered by FastestVPN is not fast but pretty mediocre and average compared to other fast VPN providers.
Moreover, the VPN offers no obfuscation technology and therefore can’t help getting around censorship. Also, the servers are pretty unreliable as they fail to connect you with a server of your choice.
FastestVPN needs to improve its apps and introduce basic security and privacy-boosting features across all apps. Still, it won’t disappoint you if you’re a beginner, as you don’t need many features and configurable options.
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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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