EarthVPN is headquartered in Northern Cyprus. That, along with their excellent logging policy, makes them ideal for people who are very concerned about maintaining the highest levels of privacy. Combine those benefits with one of the lowest price points out there and EarthVPN is a very competitive product. While many discount providers fall apart once their client and network are tested, this one did not.
Pricing and Plans
EarthVPN offers a basic package that can be augmented with extra features. The basic package should work fine for most people. All accounts offer unlimited bandwidth and transfers. There are currently thirty-two nations in their network.
- Monthly: $3.99
- Annually: $39.99
For an extra $1.99 per month each, you can add the following features:
- Mobile VPN
- SSH Tunnel
- Port Forwarding
- 256-bit Encryption
A dedicated IP can be added for an additional fee. Contact the provider to get more information.
You can pay for the service using a number of different methods. Credit cards, PayPal and Bitcoin are all accepted by this provider.
Free Trial / Money Back Guarantee
You can get your money back within seven days of signing up if the service doesn’t work for you. There is no free trial with EarthVPN.
Privacy & Anonymity
EarthVPN is excellent where privacy is concerned. The company says that they don’t keep logs and their jurisdiction isn’t subject to mandatory data retention laws. They also use a verification system for payments that anonymizes the transaction as much as possible using a key system. They accept Bitcoin, of course, and that’s always beneficial where privacy is concerned.
Torrent Policy
Torrents are allowed on this service and EarthVPN has servers that are specifically set up to provide safe, private torrenting.
Customer Support
Customer support is available around the clock from this provider. An email address is provided to contact them.
Product Testing
For such a cheap service, EarthVPN did quite well in testing. The speed test can be found below, but their client is worth mentioning.
The EarthVPN client is not as sophisticated as the clients a lot of other providers offer, but it does the job. There are clients for Windows and Mac at present. Users on other operating systems can configure their connections manually or use an open-source client.
The Windows client didn’t need to install; it comes as an EXE in a ZIP file. It opens up quickly and offers you the ability to change your protocol, ports and location. It has an auto reconnect, troubleshooting and kill connection option, the last of which is not selective.
Once you connect, the client announces the connection and your IP address in the taskbar.
Windows, Mac OSX, Android, IPhone, etc.
Windows and Mac users can both download clients for EarthVPN. The service is compatible with any device or OS that can manually configure an OpenVPN, L2TP or PPTP connection, including routers and mobile devices.
Speed Test
We tested this service on a 50Mbps/5Mbps connection. Our speed measured 27.75Mbps with the VPN connected to a server in Las Vegas, NV. While this did mark an almost 20Mbps reduction in speed from our baseline, it was still a fast connection. We had no trouble connecting to other servers using OpenVPN, L2TP or PPTP.
IPCheck and DNSLeak
Our IP and DNS server addresses were changed successfully.
Feature Summary
- PPTP, L2TP, OpenVPN, SSTP, SSH/Socks Proxy
- Windows and Mac clients
- Router and mobile compatible
- Bitcoin accepted
We Liked
- Low price
- Excellent privacy options
- Large network
Areas for Improvement
The client could be a bit more sophisticated, but it definitely does the job as is.
Conclusion
EarthVPN is a low-priced service that manages to compete with many of its higher-priced rivals. Adding features to the monthly subscription will drive the price up to levels that are comparable to other VPN services, but the basic subscription comes with everything you’ll likely need and it’s hard to beat $3.99 per month. Overall, for those who want a discount provider and who don’t mind a simple—but good—client, this service is worth considering.
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