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PrivadoVPN is a provider that offers decent performance for cheap. It banks hard on being based in Switzerland and the country's famous reputation for privacy, as well as a solid free plan that offers up to 12 servers and 10GB of bandwidth per month. I tested PrivadoVPN to see if it was worth using.

Overall, I like PrivadoVPN, though it definitely has some kinks that need to be worked out. Compared to an earlier review I did of the service about a year ago, though, it showed much better performance. If you need a basic VPN and don't want to spend too much, PrivadoVPN may be interesting; however, I doubt it will crack our ranking of the best VPNs any time soon.

UPDATE: 5/25/23

Our original review was published on June 24, 2022. After testing PrivadoVPN again a year later, following the company introduced speed-related and other improvements, we upgraded our score from a 5 to a 6. The review has been updated to reflect our findings.

What Can PrivadoVPN Do?

One thing that's great about PrivadoVPN is the interface, which is extremely straightforward. Like many leading VPNs it's just one button to connect and one to pick your server, with a settings cog tucked away at the bottom left.

PrivadoVPN disconnected

There's little that can go wrong here, and I like how the app has been updated with some nice colors and moving animations when you turn the VPN on.

PrivadoVPN connected

One thing that's handy is that you can see that your kill switch is off at the bottom of the screen, a situation you may want to rectify immediately. I talk more about this in the security section, below.

As a mobile-style app---it looks exactly the same on your phone as it does on your laptop---it does feel a bit cramped at times, like when you're trying to select a server, say, but overall it works well enough. Still, if you'll check the settings you'll see that on the desktop the screen gets a lot bigger, probably to accommodate all your options.

PrivadoVPN settings menu

I wish you had a few more options here, to be honest. While I realize not everybody wants TorGuard-style options that let you tweak practically every little thing, I feel services like PrivadoVPN go a bit too much in the other direction, letting you choose only your VPN protocol and whether the service auto connects. A few more different settings would have been nice.

PrivadoVPN Other Features

This may, in part, be due to the fact that PrivadoVPN doesn't really offer all that much functionality. While I don't like how services such as NordVPN and Surfshark will implement basically anything that sounds even remotely interesting and then advertise it heavily, PrivadoVPN's bare-bones approach feels lacking.

There's no split tunneling, for example, nor extra security features: it's just click on a server and go. While I like simplicity, and I understand that as a cheap VPN, the company may not be able to add too many bells and whistles, in a market as competitive as this, you may want to do a little more to stand out.

Does PrivadoVPN Work with Netflix?

In my tests, PrivadoVPN got through to Netflix a handful of times, but no more than that. I tried servers the world over, from the UK to Ireland to Japan, but didn't do too well at any time. However, one of the servers that did work was in the United States, the holy grail for anybody trying to unblock different Netflix regions, so there's that.

Overall, though, I don't imagine PrivadoVPN will be entering our rankings for the best VPN for Netflix any time soon. There are just too many providers that can do it better for a similar or lower price.

Speed Tests

One aspect of its service PrivadoVPN has been working on are its speeds, which used to be bad, or at least couldn't be depended on: one moment, speeds were great, the next, they were terrible. In fact, I couldn't even add one of my beloved speed tables to the earlier version of this review. A year down the line, though, things are looking a lot better:

Location

Ping (ms)

Download (Mbps)

Upload (Mbps)

Cyprus (unprotected)

5

103

40

Israel

111

95

39

UK

72

98

39

New York City

210

78

37

Japan

294

64

33

These speeds are pretty decent, it has to be said. Though they won't be beating front runners like ExpressVPN or IVPN any time soon, considering what you pay for PrivadoVPN, it's pretty good.

There is, however, a small caveat: the fluctuations I experienced last year were likely due to server overload, which is one of the biggest factors why VPNs slow down your connection. I have a feeling the problem hasn't been completely solved as I experienced some fairly serious drops in performance at different times, which always coincided with peak hours in the destination I connected to.

For example, as usual, I first tried connecting from Cyprus during the morning, which falls more or less in the middle of the night for New York City. Readings then were quite good, but I saw a drop of about 20MBps when I tried again a few hours later, at roughly the time New Yorkers start their work day. The readings in Japan showed similar results.

Pricing

PrivadoVPN's pricing is pretty decent. Like most VPNs, it only has one plan (besides its free one) and lets customers pick how long they want to sign up for. The longer, the bigger the savings per month.

PrivadoVPN pricing

As with practically all VPNs, Mullvad being the notable exception, the monthly plan is badly overpriced and should be ignored. Paying per year is a lot more interesting: at $30 per year, it's a good cut below the usual market rate (something I talk a bit about in my article on cheap VPNs).

Even more interesting is the two-year plan, which will set you back about $48, which places it among the cheapest VPNs out there, giving even Private Internet Access a run for its money. That said, even though PIA is a few bucks more per year on longer-term plans, it does offer more and better usability.

Still, if you need a reliable VPN and want to pay as little as possible, PrivadoVPN may be a good option.

Is PrivadoVPN Really Free?

Yes, PrivadoVPN's free plan is the real deal, all you need to do is sign up, and you're good to go. It offers up to 10GB of bandwidth per month and gives you access to 12 servers around the world. These are located in North and South America as well as Europe, so they have a pretty decent spread.

PrivadoVPN list of free servers

That said, as free servers, they do experience heavier loads than most other PrivadoVPN servers, so expect slower times overall.

Security and Privacy

PrivadoVPN seems to be a safe, secure, and private VPN provider overall. In its promotional materials, it banks hard on the fact that it's based in Switzerland, a nation famous for keeping its secrets close---though the country has been more than happy to work with other countries to execute warrants in the past.

As a result, you really want to make sure that anything you do while using the service remains secret, and going over PrivadoVPN's privacy policy, I see nothing that raises any major concerns, though do note that it does not let you sign on anonymously, meaning there could be a connection between you and PrivadoVPN if anybody decides to dig deep.

When it comes to security, I again don't spot any red flags, though I did raise my eyebrows twice: the first time was when I saw that PrivadoVPN finds itself among the ranks of VPN services that don't have their kill switch on by default.

A kill switch "kills" your connection should your VPN fail for any reason and is thus a last line of defense between you and anybody potentially monitoring your connection. In my opinion, this is a vital feature and should never ever be off. Though I do like how you can see it's off right there on the main screen of the app, I would prefer if it was just on all the time.

My second issue is that PrivadoVPN automatically assigns you a VPN protocol. By itself, this is fine, most providers do this, but for some reason, the service has decided that IKEv2 should be included, a protocol that has been rumored to have some security issues. For my money, I would make the service default to OpenVPN or WireGuard, both of which are much better options.

PrivadoVPN's protocols

Should You Subscribe to PrivadoVPN?

I like PrivadoVPN, though I can't say I love it. It has plenty going for it, but it comes with some issues that place it behind its competitors. The upshot is that if you need a VPN that always performs at the top of its game, PrivadoVPN may not be the best choice. Then again, if you just want a VPN that's cheap and private, it bears looking into.

PrivadoVPN's main strength, though, is its excellent free plan. Though I don't like it quite as much as that of Windscribe---which offers slightly better performance on the free plan---I do like how it has 12 servers spread out over the globe, not just in Europe and the U.S. It'll take a lot more work to make PrivadoVPN stand out as a premium product, too.

privadovpn-screenshot-1
PrivadoVPN

Pros
  • Cheap
  • Great free plane
  • Nice interface
Cons
  • Some performance issues remain
  • Lacks features
  • Not great for Netflix