BoxPN Review 2024: Is It Legit or Scam VPN Service?

BoxPN was one the first companies that introduced VPN and web hosting services. The company started in 1998 and grew to provide full VPN service. Like every VPN service, BoxPN offers to help you browse the Internet without leaving any footprint behind and to encrypt your online data and protect it from monitoring entities.

With up to two decades of experience, one would expect BoxPN to have put their art together and easily give their users excellent VPN protection. Do they? This review will shine the spotlight on this VPN veteran to help you answer that question.

Is BoxPN safe and Legit?

BoxPN is safe and legit; you have nothing to worry about. There has never been a complaint about BoxPN not being safe. Your information and private data are highly secured with BoxPN.

BoxPN Packages And Price

Packages

BoxPN is one of the VPN services in the market that do not dilute their offering. They offer one all-inclusive service plan separated into three packages using billing periods. BoxPN has consistent features across all the packages on offer, with the only difference being how long you can access the service.

The three packages of BoxPN are a monthly subscription, a three months subscription, and a twelve months subscription.

BoxPN Pricing

The one-month package will cost you €9.99; the three months package has a 33% discount and will cost you €19.98 (instead of €29.97), representing a monthly fee of €6.66; while the twelve months package is discounted by 70%, will cost you only €35.88 (instead of €119.88) representing a monthly fee of €2.99.

Every VPN service in the market discounts their long-term deals in such a way that the longer the deal you opt for, the more money you save, but you will be hard-pressed to see a service that will give as much as a 70% discount on their one-year deal. While the cost of BoxPN’s monthly package ranks among the highest-priced VPNs, the “crazy” discount on their best-value deal makes them one of the cheapest services in the market.

BoxPN Payment Methods:

If alternative payment options are a concern of yours, then you should really look at BoxPN. The service supports a range of payment methods, including regular methods and increasingly popular anonymous methods.

You can pay with virtually all cards (Visa, Master card, Discover card, American Express) and other online platforms such as PayPal and Perfect Money. For privacy-conscious users who would not want to submit names, card info, and other personal information that these payment options require, there is good news. BoxPN also allows you to pay using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Refund

When you spend money on a product or service, its use should bring you satisfaction. Most VPN services ensure that you do not part with your money for a VPN service that leaves you anything but satisfied. They do this by offering money-back guarantees.

BoxPN have followed suit by offering a 7-days guarantee on all their packages. With this guarantee, if you had reasonable expectations of the service which BoxPN.com was not able to fulfil, you can request a refund of your money. The seven days window means that the refund request must be made within seven days of making payment for the BoxPN service. BoxPN promises to make a full refund (no questions asked) for such a request.

It might also interest you to know that despite having a 7-day refund window, BoxPN still gives you the opportunity to request a refund after seven days of usage; but in such cases, you must fully state your reasons, and a full or partial refund will be made at their own discretion after taking into consideration all reasons of your wish.

However, you should know that one of two areas where BoxPN has received gruesome customer reviews is refunding payments. Quite a number of reviews have customers being unable to get back their money despite being eligible for a refund (that is, despite requesting within seven days of payment).

It is safe to say that BoxPN is not keen on making refunds. They offer a money-back guarantee of only seven days, while there are a lot of VPN services that offer 30 days.

Auto-Renewals

Many VPN services do auto-renewals, that is, automatically renewing your subscription when it expires and charging you accordingly. Some would argue for the practice because of the convenience it gives; personally, I detest the practice because it can catch unsuspecting users and hook them to a service that they’ll rather be freed from.

One remarkable thing about BoxPN is that they allow the user set payment conditions in choosing between subscription auto-renewal or manual renewal. When placing the subscription order, right where you select a payment method, there is a check box to “Automatically renew at the end of the subscription period”. Though it is checked by default, you can easily uncheck it if you do not want to be charged for subscription auto-renewals. Once your order is processed, you can only change this setting by contacting the BoxPN support team.

I mentioned earlier that BoxPN had received some gruesome users review in two areas; the second is “cancelling auto-renewals”. Quite a number of reviews have customers being charged over and over again when they want out of the service and have even contacted the support team to cancel auto-renewal and their account.

It would seem that BoxPN is not keen on cancelling auto-renewal because of the option given to you to make the setting when placing your order.

Free Trial

BoxPN gives you a chance to try out the service free of charge and also free of refund hassles by offering a free trial. The trial, which is only for three days, allows you to access the full features of the BoxPN service – there are no data, speed restrictions, or server location restrictions.

However, some users will feel that the trial period (3 days) is too short and will not allow them to get a good feel of the service; and they can easily point to other VPN services that offer longer trial periods.

BoxPN Features

Supported devices

BoxPN does not support a wide range of platforms, but the major ones are covered – Windows (8, 7, VISTA, and XP), Mac OS X, iOS, and Android. If a wide range of supported devices is your chief concern, BoxPN’s compatible devices might be a deal breaker because they support only a limited number of devices. You cannot use BoxPN on Linux or with routers. However, there are services that are compatible with virtually all operating systems, including Smart TVs and Gaming consoles.

Simultaneous connections

BoxPN allows three simultaneous connections on one account. This means that you can secure your phone, laptop and another device without having to pay for another license. This will make BoxPN appealing to users with multiple devices.

However, BoxPN’s offer still falls short of the industry’s average for simultaneous connections (which is five); and there are even VPN services that allow you to connect as many devices as you wish (unlimited simultaneous connection).

Unlimited server switches and Bandwidth

With BoxPN, you can enhance your anonymity by switching between servers as often as you like. BoxPN does not limit you to switching between “x” number of servers in “y” time. They also do not restrict your bandwidth, which makes them excellent for streaming.

Unlocking Geo-Restrictions

BoxPN advertises that with them, you can unblock social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in all countries where they are censored and that you can also stream Netflix, Hulu, BBC and other services.

BoxPN actually performed as an excellent geo-unblocker. You can use the service to access a lot of geo-restricted content. I was particularly impressed that BoxPN gave access to Netflix and BBC iPlayer. I tend to equate a VPN’s Netflix unblocking ability to its streaming capability. This is because Netflix has effectively blocked VPN services from accessing their content. With BoxPN, you get to stream and watch movies from Netflix and other streaming giants.

Torrenting

Torrenting is increasingly becoming dangerous because insidious peers can use the activity to steal personal data from your devices and because you can unwittingly download copyrighted materials; therefore, it is important to use VPN services to torrent securely and anonymously.

BoxPN names “Torrent & P2P Network” as one of its features. That is the first indication that they support P2P activities and torrenting. Many of the VPN services that support torrenting clearly indicate which servers in their network can be used for the activity. BoxPN does not mark any servers for torrenting, which would mean that they permit BitTorrent on all their servers. With BoxPN, you can torrent anonymously and securely.

BoxPN Server Network

BoxPN actually operates 110 servers in 54 locations in 34 countries across the world. The network covers almost all the regions of the world – Asia and Oceania (8 servers), Europe and Antarctica (65 servers), and North America and South America (37 servers).

The only region not represented in Africa. It is impressive that BoxPN operates servers in countries with very restrictive governments, such as Russia and China; most VPN services do not go near these places, while some that did set up servers in those places had been forced to park up.

BoxPN’s widely spread server network will ensure that you get around a lot of geo-restrictions. However, their server count is relatively low. On a side note, BoxPN operates more servers than they say. They keep saying in various places on their site that they operate 80 servers, but the app reveals 110 servers you can connect to.

The 110+ servers of BoxPN are a minute fraction of the thousands of servers in the network of some highly rated VPN services in the industry. A larger server count leads to improve performance; with few servers, you are more likely to have many people connecting to and sharing the resources of the few servers. If a user is particular about a robust server network comprising of numerous servers in numerous locations, BoxPN’s relatively few servers might be a deal breaker.

Security And Privacy Features

VPN Protocol and Encryption

BoxPN supports the following VPN protocols – OpenVPN, L2TP, PPTP, and SSTP. OpenVPN is the darling of most users because it combines optimum speed and optimum security; being open source, it has been picked for vulnerabilities, but none has been found to date.

The highly secure OpenVPN is the obvious choice to ensure secured connections. It is the protocol that BoxPN recommends for use. However, it is good that BoxPN offers other protocols that could come in handy in certain circumstances. For example, the L2TP is recommended for use when the OpenVPN is not supported by your operating system and security is still your priority; while the insecure PPTP could be called on for gaming because of its relatively faster speed.

In terms of encryption, BoxPN uses industry-standard AES 256-bit encryption levels, with 2048 bits tunnel encryption. BoxPN provides some numbers for you to know how secure the encryption level is: “Theoretically, it takes around 1 Million years for supercomputer to decrypt our data“.

Except you will be alive and still using BoxPN in a million years’ time, you should have no worries about the security of your online data.

Logging

BoxPN advertises as “VPN in a box”. Box tends to suggest storage, but BoxPN states explicitly that they’re the very opposite of storage. In their words: “We NEVER keep online activity logs or store private information about individual user activities on our network“.

On their landing page, they have “NO LOGS” as one of their features; and in FAQ articles, they state again and again that they do not ever monitor, record or store logs for any of their user’s activity.

These are very good no-logging speaks, but what will the fine print of their privacy policy reveal? Their privacy policy is very clear. They collect some personal data but only “the minimum information required” to serve you.

They collect email addresses and usernames, but this is necessary: to identify users in the network, to send subscription info, for payment confirmations, for customer correspondence, and for promotional offers. However, they add that the email address or username cannot be tied to users’ online activity.

They mention that they collect some form of payment data but only to enable them to credit you with your subscription; they add that they do not collect the personal information you submitted as part of the billing operation because that info is strictly for the payment processing intermediaries. They also mention storing all your submissions when you contact them through the support channels.

So far, the policy has been good. They do not request or store users’ names, physical addresses, phone numbers or any other personal identifying information. Lastly, they state that they are under a duty to disclose users’ data in order to comply with any legal obligation. However, with no personal identifying information stored, this should hardly raise concerns.

On the whole, BoxPN’s no logs claim seems solid. The two things I didn’t like are: (i) They use cookies on their site. They say it’s only for advertising purposes (specifically to target ads to you on other sites). However, cookies are not the crunchy biscuits I love munching on; they’re those titbits that are used to track a person’s online activity and even to define a person’s location.

I’ll rather a privacy-focused company not use cookies (especially not to serve adverts). (ii) they use Google Analytics to collect aggregate data, which they say is to improve their site. Though the metadata is anonymized (aggregate data), and cannot actually identify particular users, I’ll rather they not use third-party software (especially not Google) for such aggregate data collection.

Jurisdiction:

Though where a VPN is located is not technically a feature of the VPN, I normally include jurisdiction in the “security and privacy features” section because where a VPN service is located directly affects the privacy provisions of the service. In certain locations with anti-privacy laws, a VPN service can be forced to keep users’ data and hand over the logs to third parties.

BoxPN is located in Seychelles, and this is what the company has to say about their location and how it affects users’ privacy: “Since BoxPN is based in Seychelles, we do not fall under mandatory data retention laws required by Western companies“.

With BoxPN, you can surf with peace of mind knowing that the service does not have to comply with laws that could compromise your privacy.

Kill Switch

One of BoxPN’s strongest points is its security and privacy provision. As we’ve seen, this includes a very secure protocol, strong encryption, no logs etc. But all of this will be defeated when the VPN service loses connection. When the VPN is connected, you’ll be protected because your data is encrypted and your location is masked.

But when the VPN suddenly loses connection, your data (which is then unencrypted) and your real location will be exposed. A kill switch prevents this by shutting off the internet connection when a VPN connection drops.

BoxPN does not have a kill switch feature. This is really unfortunate because it means that the fine security and privacy points of BoxPN will hold only until the next VPN connection drop.

Speed

VPNs generally reduce network speed. For the encryption and the data rerouting that ensures your security and anonymity, respectively, a reduction in speed is the price you have to pay. In terms of performance, some services will drop connection speeds to frustrating levels (these are the slow ones), some will drop speed to tolerable levels (these are the average ones), and some others will register an indecipherable drop in speed (these are the speedsters).

BoxPN neither fall among the slow ones nor the speedsters.  On average, BoxPN dropped speed by more than 55% of the baseline. This speed was still good enough to stream high-quality content without interruption. However, there are a lot of services that offer better speeds.

Customer Support

BoxPN offers regular self-help resources – FAQS and guides. They recommend that if you have questions, you should first try out these resources before reaching out to customer support; because, very often, questions that users ask the support staff have been adequately answered by these resources.

The FAQs are neatly arranged into general questions and technical questions. You will find that the questions are not as extensive as those of some services, and the articles themselves are very short (some are actually one-liners). Still, you will also find that almost every answer is on point and does justice to the question it addressed. However,  the guides did not spare the details.

They are also neatly arranged to aid navigation; first by VPN protocol, then by operating system/ OS version (to set up the app for OpenVPN on your Windows 7 PC; your route is: Guides > OpenVPN Guides > Windows 7. Each manual set-up guide is detailed and simple, as each step is accompanied by a screenshot to help you visualize the explanation.

BoxPN also have a strong social media presence; they have active FaceBook and Twitter accounts through which you can reach them. You can contact BoxPN directly for assistance by sending them a message using the online ticket form. To their credit, BoxPN’s support team furnishes fast responses to inquiries (usually under two hours).

Also, BoxPN has now added a live chat feature to their customer support armoury. Although, when I tried using the live chat, I got the message: “Our agents are unavailable right now. Please leave us a message, and we’ll reply as soon as possible“. If the live chat is 24/ 7, I don’t understand why no one was online; and if it isn’t 24/ 7, I would like BoxPN to explicitly state what hours the live chat works.

Remember the brutal users’ review I mentioned earlier, they were primarily billing issues, but they unearthed failings on the part of the customer support team. In these cases, support was either unresponsive or ineffective in quickly solving basic billing issues like cancelling auto-renewals. This checkered record of BoxPN’s support service will definitely weigh on the minds of many potential users.

Summary

BoxPN has some strong points. For security and privacy: there are secure protocols and strong encryption levels, no log keeping, and a privacy-friendly location. Then there is P2P support on all servers, a widely distributed server network, and good geo unblocking and streaming capability. Granted, you will see many VPN services that match all these “positives”, but you will be hard-pressed to see services that give those “positives” at the low prices of BoxPN. That means that the strongest point of BoxPN is its very affordable prices.

However, BoxPN registered some negatives: A small number of servers; very few advanced features; average speed; limited supported devices; support service is not 24/ 7 (not even the live chat), and has a checkered record; and the worst of the negatives is that there is no kill switch.