FrootVPN Review
FrootVPN review tells you if FrootVPN safe. And also if FrootVPN legit, secure or scam. FrootVPN complaints and feedback from users are also reviewed. So, if you are searching for the best and unbiased FrootVPN reviews, you have landed in the right place!
I’ve seen that ‘froot’ can be used to describe something that’s awesome. Those at FrootVPN have no doubt that their service is awesome. They say: “Get the fastest, cheapest, and most secure vpn now“.
Is the FrootVPN really that awesome – the fastest, cheapest and most secure VPN? This review will provide the information to help you answer that question.
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a secure tunnel created over a public network. It encrypt traffic and routes it through the secure connection, protecting it from all third parties.
FrootVPN is such a VPN tunnelling service which enables you to use a secure and anonymous connection to the internet. As a VPN service, FrootVPN will give you online security by encrypting your online data, and also give you online privacy by replacing your real IP address with one of many virtual IP addresses in their network. This keeps you safe from cyber criminals who want to steal/ intercept the sensitive information you transmit over the internet; it also hide your online activities from government and other monitoring agencies who want to control what you do online.
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The FrootVPN service came into the VPN scene in 2014, but was a free service at the time. A combination of its free status and some good promotion by Pirate Bay gave the service a huge customer base. However, with time, they transitioned to the paid VPN service it is today.
FrootVPN is offered by Frootynet AB, a company registered in Stockholm, Sweden. This means the service is 100% legal. Using the FrootVPN service is legal everywhere except in places where VPN is explicitly banned (such as Iraq). However, any illegal thing done under a VPN cover remains illegal and the user if identified will face the law; so using any VPN to do anything illegal is strongly forbidden.
FrootVPN has a very simple pricing strategy made so by offering one service plan. The price you pay for the service depends on how long you want to have access to the service.
They have three billing options – single month, three months, and one year. The single month package cost $4.99; the three months package cost $11.97, which breaks down to $3.99 every month; and the one year package cost $35.88, which breaks down to $2.99 every month.
The longer your subscription, the more your savings; the 3 months package has a 20% cost saving, while the one year deal has a 40% cost saving.
If you’ve gone VPN shopping before, you’ll immediately notice that FrootVPN is very cheap (if not the cheapest service in the market). For example, the price of their three months package is what many other services will charge you for a single month subscription. Also, their best value deal of $2.99 is very pocket friendly, and involves only a one-year commitment; other services that manage to get close to that price will want to hook you for three or more years.
You’ll need a service that supports payment methods that are readily available to you, and convenient to use. The payment methods that FrootVPN supports tick both boxes – availability and convenience.
They accept payments using the major credit/ debit cards (Visa card, Master card, American Express, and Discover card), as well as PayPal and bitcoin. Bitcoin is the world’s leading crypto currency, and it affords users anonymous payments. The other methods will require the submission of personal information (such as credit card detail and more) as part of the billing operation; and this information will be held by third party payment processing companies. Users with low privacy risk tolerance might deem the billing operation threatening to privacy. Therefore, it is very good to see that FrootVPN supports anonymous bitcoin payments.
FrootVPN offers 30 days money back guarantee which allows users to request a refund of their payment if they are not satisfied with the service. The 30 days window means that the refund request must not be submitted later than 30 days of making payment.
This is also one of the best offers in the industry. It gives you a full month to use the service and still get a refund. I actually was on the look out for hidden clauses that limits the offer (such as data transfer limit that if exceeded will make one ineligible for a refund); but I found none.
Many VPN services offer free trials that allow users to fully test run the service before committing resources to a subscription.
Unfortunately, FrootVPN does not offer a free trial. This means that the only way to try out the service free of charge is to use the money back guarantee. That is, you pay, use the service for the 30 days, and request a refund.
This can actually give 30 days free use of the service, but many users will still prefer an actual free trial. For starters, using the money back guarantee means that you’ll first be charged; and for the money to get back to you when you request it, you must have used a payment method that can be traced back to you. Users who’ll rather pay anonymously so that there’s no trail back to them cannot use a money back guarantee to test a service. An actual free trial where the user is not charged at all would serve them well.
That said, the lack of a free trial is definitely a deal breaker to some users, and count against the FrootVPN service.
FrootVPN operates about 30 servers from 18 countries. In terms of geographical distribution, the server network covers almost all the regions of the world. Specifically, the countries covered are: Canada, France, United Kingdom, United States, Sweden, Australia, Netherlands, Poland, German, Russia, Switzerland, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Isle of Man, Brazil, Israel, and Japan.
You’ll see that the list include North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania; the only continent not represented is Africa. It’s impressive also that FrootVPN operates servers in regions most often neglected by VPN services (Middle East: Israel), and regions with restrictive regimes that have caused some services to close shop (such as Russia). The wide spread of their network, ensures that nomatter where you are, you’ll find a FrootVPN server closeby for optimal performance.
Though, the FrootVPN server network has a good spread, it is small compared to what the biggest names in the industry provide. Some of these top players operate hundreds and thousands of servers in 50+ countries.
With VPN server networks, the bigger the network, the better for anonymity and performance. A big network enhances anonymity by giving you more virtual locations with which to mask your real location; and it gives better performance by having users connecting to different servers instead of crowding few servers.
That said, the server network of FrootVPN will adequately serve your location spoofing needs and make you anonymous online. However, you’ll likely see many users crowding particular servers. It’s no wonder that many users reviews name server connection issues.
You want a service that supports a wide range of devices, so that any device you use will easily fall within the supported devices.
FrootVPN ticks the box of device compatibility. The VPN works on all devices with Windows and Unix/Linux systems, Mac OS, iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android. You can also get it to work on your home router. The support for routers means the service can be used to secure less traditional devices like smart TVs. You get the VPN on a router, and connect the TV to the router to secure it.
The only drawback is that FrootVPN has its own dedicated VPN app for only Windows. This means you’ll have to set it up manually on all the other supported devices. Though they provide detailed guides for this; as we’ll see in this review, not having custom apps takes some shine off.
Yes, the service supports many devices; but how many devices can be connected at the same time to be protected by one VPN account? This question is important because users typically have more than one device that may be in use at the same time; and they’ll want a service that allows them secure all the devices without having to buy multiple VPN accounts.
Some services will not allow you multiple connections, some others will give you three simultaneous connections; FrootVPN allows you five. This is a very generous offer that is on par with the industry average. Only very few services can offer more. If you have a small family or business, and seek to secure the multiple devices of the unit with one VPN account, FrootVPN will be an ideal choice.
Signing up for the FrootVPN service is smooth. You simply pick a package, submit a valid email address, and select your payment method. You’ll get welcome emails, including a link to verify your email.
Surprisingly, the Windows app is not mentioned anywhere by the service. This is very simple to install and use. But for other devices, you’ll have to download the OpenVPN client to your device, and also get the FrootVPN config files from users members area. There are detailed steps provided for the manual configuration; but it can easily become daunting to new and less techie users.
But once the whole process is over, using the VPN is as easy as it gets. The FrootVPN interface shows a quick connect button that lets you select a country and the service picks an optimal server for you. Alternatively, you can scroll down the server list and select a particular server. It also allows you to add any servers to a favourite list, for easy connections at later times.
You can also use the VPN connection drop down menu to select a VPN protocol. Upon connection, the interface shows, your virtual location and, below it, your virtual IP.
There are no advanced settings options to excite power users; not even buttons to toggle on/ off a kill switch or leak protection, you’ll see only basic options to set the behaviour at start up, and change language.
FrootVPN scores high for usability, but the absence of conventional settings options might be a turn off. Also, the manual configurations needed to get the VPN working on devices for which there are no dedicated apps will not appeal to a lot of users.
How we love VPN that supports torrenting! Torrenting is one of the best ways to get files on the internet. It involves connecting to different unknown persons, you need to use a VPN when downloading torrents to keep you protected from any unscrupulous person who might want to use the file sharing activity to get at personal information stored in your devices.
Some people use the VPN cover to infringe on copyrights when torrenting; as a result many services no longer support torrenting. The few that still do are highly regarded. FrootVPN is one of those few. The service fully supports P2P activity and torrenting, allowing the activity in all their servers. The service also offers unlimited bandwidth, so you’ll not need to worry about data transfer limits when downloading.
If you want a service with which to safely and anonymously download torrent, you should give FrootVPN a try.
4.5. Streaming
One of the things that a VPN service should give is content accessibility; and in that regard, FrootVPN makes the promise to help you “Unblock Content”.
Streaming services and sites make their contents geo specific; that is, they make some contents available for viewing in a region and make it unavailable to other regions. If you happen to be where the content is unavailable but will want to view it, you’ll need a VPN to give you a virtual IP that places you in the region where the desired content is available for viewing. FrootVPN server network covers choice locations, and will easily place you in those locations. With that, you would be able to get access to many geo restricted sites, TV shows and channels.
However, the biggest streaming services have gotten wiser, and cannot be beaten by simple VPN location masking. That is why some VPN services cannot unblock streaming services like Netflix and BBC iPlayer. Unfortunately, FrootVPN also failed to unblock these two streaming giants. This is no peculiar failing of the FrootVPN service; many VPN services have fallen to the sword of Netflix in particular.
That said, while FrootVPN will give you some restricted channels, because of the inability to give Netflix and BBC iPlayer, I do not consider the service a good choice for streaming.
FrootVPN supports three protocols for establishing connections – OpenVPN, L2TP, and PPTP.
The OpenVPN is the golden goose of VPN connections. It is very secure and highly configurable; being open source, it has.been picked for vulnerabilities, but none has been found. It is the recommended protocol for establishing secure connections. The L2TP relies on an encryption protocol that usually passes within the tunnel to provide a high privacy. It is usually considered a secure alternative of the OpenVPN. The PPTP is an old school protocol which is widely considered weak. This is because it uses an MSCHAP auth and the MPPE encryption that has a 128 bit. It has been shown that the 128 bit key can easily be broken. However, the PPTP affords great speed, and can be used for speedy connections when privacy is not a priority.
What’s also impressive about FrootVPN security provision is that the secure OpenVPN protocol is available for all locations; unlike many services that restrict it to some locations.
In terms of encryption, FrootVPN uses 2048-bit encryption. In addition, they provide strong encryption with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) key which provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication; and they support TLS1.1 and upwards using PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy).
The encryption standard is super secure, and will literally take millions of years to be decrypted. While using the FrootVPN service, you can rest easy knowing that your information will never get intercepted
The FrootVPN service promises a 99.99% uptime, which means that the service will be down for 0.01% of times. If the service abruptly disconnects, your real IP and traffic is exposed to all watching eyes. A kill switch is what prevents this. It cuts off internet connection when the service disconnects, ensuring that you do not continue online and risk exposing your data.
The FrootVPN features a kill switch. You can be assured that in those 0.01% of times that the service will abruptly go off, your privacy will not be compromised.
The FrootVPN app does not feature any button for toggling on leak protection. Therefore, I was keen to see if the service will leak my data and expose my location.
Security leaks (DNS/ IP leak or WebRTC leaks) cause sensitive information to leave the VPN tunnel and go to the default connection (your ISP), effectively exposing your real location and online activity.
Thankfully, FrootVPN plugged all leaks in our tests. No DNS/ IP leaks or WebRTC leaks were detected.
FrootVPN announces on their landing page “Keep no logs”; below it they explain: “We do care about your internet privacy and therefore we do not log anything at all“.
We’ve seen that with almost every VPN service. They understand that log keeping threatens users’ privacy, and that users seek services that do not keep logs; so they all claim not to keep logs. The only problem is that some of these services singing no-logs are found to actually log a truckload. Their privacy policy usually reveal this. What does the privacypolicy of FrootVPN reveal about their no log claim?
Froot VPN privacy policy is one of the shortest I’ve seen (just 368 words). It is also written in human-speak, and very clear.
It details all the information that is collected, which is your email address, username and password. No problem here! You can easily use an anonymous/ disposable email address when signing up, and your privacy remains intact.
When you make payment with cards, they’ll store data from the payment provider such as payment method you used, amount, currency, and date of payment. They never store credit card or personal information.
About your use of the VPN service, FrootVPN says: “We never monitor or log your internet activity“. In another place they say: “We save no traffic data and store no logs. This means that we NEVER log your IP address, times and similar details“.
Your internet activity that they do not log will include the websites you visit, the contents viewed, the files downloaded/ uploaded etc. “Times and similar details” that they do not log will include data about connections such as originating IP, FrootVPN IPs used, times of connection and disconnction, bandwidth usage etc. Many services that claim to be no-log services keep connection times; therefore it is impressive that FrootVPN does not even log this data.
As mentioned in the introduction, FrootVPN is provided by a company registered in Sweden. This means that Swedish laws applies.
On the plus side, Sweden is not as terrible as the U.S. when it comes to privacy, because they do not have the alarming anti-privacy laws that you’ll find in the U.S. and in some European countries. However, Sweden is a member of the expanded Fourteen – Eyes surveillance alliance. This is a network of fourteen countries working together to gather and share intelligence; essentially, it is a spy network. The arrangement means that any information captured in Sweden will be shared across the world among all member nations of the alliance.
A VPN will definitely drop your network speed. The encryption and rerouting that gives you security and anonymity take their toll on speed. However, you wouldn’t want the speed dropped to intolerable levels to frustrate your browsing experience. Thus, when choosing VPNs; you should go for the very fast services, that is those that have indecipherable drop of speed.
Remember that FrootVPN claims to be the fastest. We tested by connecting to four servers (2 distant servers and 2 nearby servers), noting download and upload speed, average the result, and compare it to speed test recorded without the VPN. The tests showed that on the average, the service drops download speed and upload speed by 61% and 55% respectively.
If they’re the fastest VPN and yet drop download speed by over 60%, what will we call VPN services that drop speed by less than 10%? FrootVPN does not come close to being the fastest VPN service; at best, FrootVPN offers only average speed. However, their speed will enable you download and stream media without any disruption.
It’s only a matter of time before you need assistance; therefore it’s worth considering if the VPN service has several channels for getting assistance, and if the supported channels are effective.
FrootVPN VPN supports two broad support options – a knowledge base for self help, and direct contact services for getting help from a support agent.
The knowledgebase consist of installation guides and FAQs. The guides will walk you through manually setting up the VPN on the supported devices. The guides are pretty extensive, covering not just the popular operating systems but also routers, Synology NAT, chromebook and more. The FAQ is not as extensive, and it answers only very few questions. If you have any question about the FrootVPN service, there is a good chance you’ll not find it in any FAQ article, and you’ll have to contact a support agent.
About contacting an agent, FrootVPN supports the usual channels for initiating direct contact which includes an online ticket form and live chat. You can send them a mail using the form; and you’ll have to wait to up to 24 hours to get feedback. While a 24 hours waiting time is not the best, its not the worst we’ve seen with VPN services – some can keep you waiting for up to 48 hours. The good thing is that responses are usually satisfactory, and where the question asked has been treated by any resource of FrootVPN, links to such pages are included.
However, if you’ll rather have instant responses, you can make use of the live chat. The only problem (maybe two) is that the live chat works only during FrootVPN’s business hours (the other problem is that sometimes there’s no agent online, and such times you’ll still have to do some waiting).
The FrootVPN started free; but now as a paid service, it is easily the cheapest VPN service in the market.
However, their cheap price does not come at the expense of security. They support secure protocols, and use strong 2048-bit encryption. In addition the service comes with a kill switch, and plugs all security leaks. You can also pay anonymously for optimal privacy.
The only drawback on the privacy front will be that FrootVPN is located in Sweden which falls within a surveillance alliance. However, the concerns that the jurisdiction raise is tempered by the no-log policy that FrootVPN maintains.
Other positives of the FrootVPN service includes: compatibility with a lot of devices, allowing up to five simultaneous connections, and being P2P/ torrenting friendly.
On the flip side, the FrootVPN service does not offer a free trial, they are not a good choice for streaming because they couldn’t give Netflix, they provide only average speed, and their server network is small.
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