VPNBook is a small, free VPN provider that doesn’t need you to even set up an account. Instead, it publishes the details needed to connect to its VPN for anyone to use with the correct software.
| Pros | Cons |
| Decent, but not the best available security | Log your IP address and connection time |
| Anonymous, no signup details required | Doesn’t provide first-party software |
| Makes money through donations, adverts on its website, and the paid service users. | Very small server pool |
| Paid service is quite expensive for what it is |
Security
VPNBook uses 128-bit AES to encrypt your device’s connection to the VPN server. 128-bit AES is considered secure, but it does not provide as much security as 256-bit AES would.
Tip: Encryption is a process of scrambling data with an encryption algorithm and key, in such a way that it can only be decrypted and read with the encryption key. Protecting your communications to and from the VPN server with encryption means you can be sure that no one else can read the message.
Two protocols are in use by VPNBook, PPTP and OpenVPN. PPTP is an old and weak VPN protocol that shouldn’t be used any more unless there are no other options. OpenVPN is the standard VPN protocol because it is highly flexible, strong, and extensively analysed.
Privacy
VPNBook claims it doesn’t log any browsing data in its privacy policy, however it does log your IP address and connection time, to “reduce abusive activities”. Connection logs are automatically deleted once a week.
If this data is legally requested by a law enforcement agency, and handed over, it could be enough to implicate you in any legally questionable activities you performed.
No IPv6, DNS, or WebRTC leaks were found with VPNBook.
Small Network Size
VPNBook only offers eight VPN servers, in five countries. The US, France, and Canada have two servers each, the others are in Poland and Germany.
Access
On its website, VPNBook claims that the US VPN server is able to unblock streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix. P2P services such as torrenting are allowed on the two servers available in Poland and Germany.
If VPNBook becomes aware that you are abusing the system, including torrenting copyrighted material, it reserves the right to ban your IP address.
Price and Platforms
VPNBook is primarily a free VPN provider, although it has a paid dedicated VPN service that costs $7.95 a month and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. The paid service gets you a dedicated VPN server, “500GB+” of monthly bandwidth, your selection of OpenVPN ports, and support for up to five simultaneous devices.
As the service is offered in the form of connection details for both PPTP and OpenVPN, the service will work on any device that supports one of those two protocols. Support can either be in the form of a native client or through a third-party client. This means any desktop or mobile platform should support VPNBook.
Extras
Apart from the features provided by the paid plan, VPNBook does not offer any extra features, such as a VPN kill switch or an ad-blocker.
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