If you're looking for a way to increase your online security and privacy, AdGuard VPN may be the solution you've been searching for. RUssian internet company AdGuard is a leading provider of online security and privacy products, and its best VPN offering is one of the most popular on the market.
The service offers two main products: AdGuard VPN and Adguard Premium. AdGuard VPN is a virtual private network that encrypts your traffic and hides your IP address from websites, ISPs, and other third parties. Adguard Premium is an ad blocker that blocks all types of ads on all devices. There’s no free trial and nothing like the best free VPN offers you’ll find elsewhere, so you must purchase a subscription before using it.
This VPN offers over 50 VPN servers across 42 countries, including the US, UK, Australia, India,and Germany. Frankly, that’s not many compared to other big-name competitors in the field.
Pricing & plans
AdGuard offers three different subscription plans: monthly, yearly, and bi-annual.
The monthly plan costs $11.99 a month or $71.40 a year (which works out to $3.99 per month). The bi-annual plan costs $119 every two years (which works out to only $2.99 per month). There may not be a free trial, however, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. So you can use this service and request a refund within 30 days if you are not satisfied with their service.
We thought AdGuard's pricing is very competitive when compared to other VPN providers on the market. For example, NordVPN charges $5.95 per month for their monthly plan, while IPVanish charges $10.00 per month. AdGuard's yearly plan is also cheaper than most other providers' monthly plans, making it a great value for those who are looking to commit to a longer-term subscription.
You can only pay via Paypal and credit cards. This could be a challenge for someone who wants other payment methods like cryptocurrency and Payoneer.
Privacy & encryption
As you’d expect from a VPN, Adguard offers both privacy and encryption, using encryption technology based on the OpenVPN protocol. There’s also AES-256-bit encryption with a 2048-bit key length. It also claims to offer a strict no-logs policy, ensuring that your data and online activities are never stored or monitored.
Adguard's split tunneling allows you to choose what data goes through the VPN tunnel and what doesn't. This is a great feature if you want to improve your privacy without sacrificing speed. It also offers a VPN kill switch, which will prevent your data from leaking if the connection drops.
Torrenting & P2P
AdGuard VPN does act as a VPN for torrenting and P2P because it has a strict no-logs policy. This means your activities will never be tracked or monitored. AdGuard also offers strong encryption to keep your data safe and secure.
Ad blocker
AdGuard also offers a DNS-based ad blocker that can prevents ads on all your devices, even if they don't have the company’s AdBlock installed. We found the ad blocker used a combination of blacklisting and heuristics to keep our experience ad-free.
VPN for China
If you’re looking to AdGuard as the best VPN for China, you’re out of luck. We tried connecting the VPN to mainland China, unfortunately, this service does not work in the country at the moment.
Support
AdGuard VPN can be used on an unlimited number of devices and platforms — all you need is to have an AdGuard account and download the AdGuard VPN app.
You’ll find decent support for a wide range of platforms, with desktop software for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and mobile VPN apps for Android, and iOS, as well as routers. We installed the Windows version of the app on our computer and it worked fine. Additionally, Adguard has browser extensions for Chrome, Opera, and Firefox.
AdGuard offers 24/7 support via email. The company also has a strong social media presence, with an active Twitter account. AdGuard's website features a comprehensive FAQ section, as well as detailed tutorials on how to use the service.
The only downside here is the company doesn’t live chat and phone support. This could be a challenge for someone who prefers using live chat or phone support. You may consider ExpressVPN and IPvanishVPN as both services offer live chat and phone customer support.
Speed & experience
We tested Adguard VPN on our Windows machine. The results were not as favorable as we had hoped. Our baseline speed without Adguard was about 65Mbps. With AdGuard enabled, Our speed slowed to a range of 10Mbps.
That’s quite a significant drop and made streaming video and gaming difficult. We also experienced several connection drops while using Adguard. Overall, We were quite disappointed with AdGuard’s performance.
Streaming
During our tests, we found AdGuard to be one of the best VPNs for Netflix (and one of the best streaming VPNs in general). It unblocks US Netflix, UK Netflix, Canada Netflix, France Netflix, and Japan Netflix. Adguard also unblocks Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, and more.
Elsewhere, it did a great job of unblocking Hulu, HBO Max, and BBC iPlayer. We were able to stream content on all three platforms without any issues.
Alternatives
While AdBlocker VPN does a great job of blocking ads, it's not the only option out there. If you're looking for an alternative, here are some other options we recommend trying:
ExpressVPN is known for its fast speeds and easy-to-use interface. There’s also a money-back guarantee, so you can try it risk-free.
NordVPN is another popular VPN service that offers strong encryption and 24/7 customer support.
Surfshark is a newer VPN service that's quickly gaining popularity. It offers affordable plans and features like unlimited simultaneous connections and a strict no-logs policy.
Verdict
AdGuard VPN is a great choice for those looking for a VPN with a lot of features. However, there are also some drawbacks to using AdGuard VPN. AdGuard does not offer live chat or phone support and there is no free trial. Additionally, AdGuard's speed and performance were disappointing. You may consider ExpressVPN or Surfshark if you want a VPN service provider that offers 24/7 live chat, a free trial, and better overall performance.
