Is Liquid VPN Scam or legit and safe? Liquid VPN review tells you whether Liquid VPN is legit and safe. And also if  Liquid VPN scam, real or fake. Liquid VPN complaints, rating, customers reviews and feedback also reviewed. So, if you are looking for the best and unbiased Liquid VPN reviews, you have come to the right place.

Liquid VPN

The word liquid might not suggest security, but that is what Liquid VPN is all about. They advertise as a fast, safe and secure VPN service with which you can protect your privacy.

This review will look at this claim; is the VPN service fast, safe, and secure? First, let’s look out why you need a VPN as well as a background check of Liquid VPN.

What is VPN and Liquid VPN?

Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) has a front row seat to everything you do online. They see every webpage you visit, content you download, mail you send/ receive… everything. That’s bad, right? It gets worse. Your ISP is not the only one in the room; some seats are filled by government, monitoring agencies, hackers, cyber fraudsters, identity thieves etc. It’s really a no-brainer that you wouldn’t want the data you transmit online to be seen by some or all of these seat fillers.

A typical VPN service creates a secure encrypted link between your device and the Internet, ensuring that every data that is sent back and forth in the link is secure and shielded from all third parties. Liquid VPN, like every VPN, does just that to give you online protection. The question, and what this review is about, is whether the Liquid VPN service is any better than the others at that (giving you online protection).

The Liquid VPN service was launched in 2013 by one very experienced Network Engineer (Dave Cox). It is a 100% legitimate VPN service provider based out of Michigan, and subject to the rules of law in the U.S. Also, Liquid VPN is one of very few VPN services that invest in innovation.

It is legal to use Liquid VPN everywhere except in those countries that have explicitly outlawed VPN use such as Iraq, Belarus and others. Their stand is that VPN hides people’s activities, and they don’t want anything capable of hiding the fact that someone is committing a crime, or covering one up. However, even when covering your tracks with their service, Liquid VPN has explicit terms of service that forbid users from doing illegal things.

Server Location

Liquid VPN operates 40+ servers in 20 cities in 11 countries. This is definitely a small server network, especially since the big shots in the industry operate hundreds and thousands of servers in 50+ countries.

A big server network is what you’ll want for optimal anonymity and better performance; and it’s also best for unblocking purposes. A large server count provides optimal anonymity by giving you many virtual locations with which to spoof your real location; and you get better performance from not having to meet overcrowded servers. So you see that Liquid VPN’s small network might come up short.

Another problem with the server network is that, you might have to be connecting through long distances. The countries in the Liquid VPN server network are: the US, Canada, Germany, Sweden, the UK, Switzerland, Singapore, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, and the Czech Republic. North America and Europe gets a fair representation; Asia gets attention with Singapore; but the whole of South America, Africa, Oceania and the Middle East are neglected.

As you’ve discerned, this is not by any stretch a global network; which means that if you are in certain locations in the world, you will not get a Liquid VPN server nearby (note that nearby servers perform better than distant servers).

However, Liquid VPN boasts of over 2000 addresses which should adequately serve your location spoofing needs. Also, Liquid VPN makes known that, though their network may be small, the servers are hosted in choice cities and countries; suggesting that you’ll find the service excellent for unblocking the most sought after restricted contents. Also, Liquid VPN allows unlimited server switches; this is good for anonymity as it means you can jump from one server to the other as many times as you like.

Features

Device Compatibility

Liquid VPN has custom VPN apps for Windows, Mac and Android. It was quite disappointing to find that there’s no custom app for iOS.

However, this does not mean that you cannot use the VPN on your iPhones and iPads; you’ll just have to grab a third party app and do some manual configurations. That also goes for Linux and routers. The service can also be used to secure smart TVs and game consoles; but you’ll need the workaround of connecting the devices to a router already configured with the Liquid VPN.

Simultaneous Connections

I have a phone and a laptop; and most times, these devices are in use at the same time. Many users would easily add more devices such as a Pad and a home/ office desktop. Therefore, users seek VPN services that allow them secure their multiple devices with one VPN account.

Some services do not allow simultaneous connections, and you’ll spend more buying multiple VPN accounts to secure your multiple devices.

Thankfully, Liquid VPN allows two to four simultaneous connections; with the cheapest plan giving you two. Many users will scoff at the offer of two connections, and the system of having to pay more to get more device connections; especially because the industry average for simultaneous connections is five.

Usability

Using the Liquid VPN apps is pretty easy; downloading and installing the app is a breeze. But for iOS platforms that have no custom app, you’ll first download a third party client, then you generate the configuration files necessary to run the VPN. Though, they provide detailed instructions to guides users through it, the process can easily put off less-techie users.

On top of that, the interface that greets you is not the glossy slick types that most services provide today. However, its easy to use. You can easily change location and protocol. I liked that the server location showed ping times, which would help users identify the best performing server based on speed. On the whole, usability of the app is above average.

Torrenting

Liquid VPN call their service “the internet’s most trusted VPN” for a lot of activities among which is torrenting.

Torrenting is connecting to peers to download large files in bits. It is one of the fastest and most effective ways to get files in the internet; but it could be dangerous because you’ll leaving your system open to total strangers, and the files you’re downloading could be covered by some grey copyright laws you know nothing of. Therefore, you’ll expect all VPN services to support torrenting to enable users download torrents safely and anonymously. However, many services do not support the activity because they do not want to get involved with copyright trolls.

Liquid VPN supports torrenting and this gives them an edge over the many services that do not. Impressively, torrenting is allowed on all Liquid VPN servers. Some of the services that do support torrenting limit the activity to only few servers in their network. The result is that, most often than not, the P2P friendly servers are found overcrowded, as too many users would be connecting to a few P2P servers.

More so, Liquid VPN offers unlimited bandwidth, so when downloading, you don’t have to worry about how much bandwidth you’re consuming. That said, Liquid VPN comes out as a good service for safely downloading your torrents.

Streaming

Liquid VPN implores you to “try the internet’s most trusted VPN for kodi …and streaming”.

If you travel from home to another country, you’ll need a VPN to give you a virtual IP that places you at home, so that you can watch your favourite channels and shows. We’ve seen that the service will not get you contents from Africa, South America and some other regions; but that they’ll give you choice contents that most users chase. Streaming giants have a lot of titles in countries that Liquid VPN unblocks.

Many users measure streaming capability of a VPN service by the ability of the service to unblock some streaming giants like Netflix and BBC iPlayer. This is because the services, Netflix in particular, have clamped down on VPN services and only a few VPN service can still give users access to their vast titles.

That said, I was keen to see how Liquid will fare with Netflix. Liquid VPN says that all their U.S. servers unblock Netflix; which was surprising because in most of the services that still unblocks Netflix, you’ll have to do the trial and error game to get a server that works.

Interestingly, Liquid VPN did open Netflix with all the servers that we checked; which will make the service a damn good VPN for streaming.

IP Topology

Liquid VPN3 offers three (3) IP topologies, which are shared, public and modulating IP addresses.

The shared IP is the industry standard for anonymity. When you connect to a VPN server, you are given an IP that would be given to some 100 other people. This is great for anonymity  because it mixes you with the crowd. However, shared IPs could present some problems; search engines could see the same IP  coming at then as spam and will frequently force users to solve captcha.

Another IP topology used is the dynamic IP system, which directly assigns one random public IP address to you from the location you connect to. No one in the network has the IP, so you do not need to worry about being blocked by applications on account of what others connected to the same server cluster as you are doing.

The third system is modulating IP, which is an innovative technology of Liquid VPN. The modulated IP services works as an advanced IP switcher. Where the conventional IP switcher can be set to change your IP address in set periods; the IP modulation of Liquid VPN changes your public IP address each time your browser requests HTML, uses Javascript, or requests information from a database. Changing the public IP for every request of a file in a webpage, means that to load certain web pages on certain websites, there could easily be more than ten IP address change. More so, each IP address used by the system is a shared IP which is also used by numerous other users.

The bottom line is it is easily the most anonymous VPN connection on earth, as it is impossible for anyone to track a single user’s session through all of the public IP hops. Liquid VPN also suggest that the IP modulation can improve network speed, saying that since the public IPs are changing with every few packets, websites and services are fooled into thinking that the traffic is coming from multiple sources, and it’ll be less likely that Admins and ISPs will restrict bandwidth, and block files and services.

Among Liquid VPN “the internet’s most trusted VPN for…” claim is online privacy.  The service is really looking like it with the level of anonymity that their innovative IP modulation provides.

 

Security and Privacy Features

This section will examine all the security provisions of Liquid VPN to help you decide conclusively if the service is safe.

VPN Protocol and Encryption

Liquid VPN offers the following VPN protocols – OpenVPN, SSTP, PPTP, OpenConnect and L2TP/ IPsec.

The OpenVPN is the darling of the VPN world; because it is highly configurable and secure. Being open source, it has been picked for vulnerabilities, but none has been found.

The SSTP is also very secure, as it is based on SSL (Secure Socket Layer) tunnelling; and it will allow users punch through very tough firewalls. L2TP/ IPSec is regarded as a secure alternative for OpenVPN; in any case, Liquid VPN recommends that it be used mobile devices. The PPTP; well, its old-school and insecure, and shouldn’t be used if privacy is a priority. However, when speedy connections is more important, the PPTP can be called upon.

In terms of encryption: data channel ciphers are AES-256-GCM, AES-256-CBC, AES-128-GCM, and AES-128-CBC; handshake encryption is RSA 4096 bit key with 2048 bit HMAC firewall protection, SHA512 data channel authentication digest and TLS-ECDHE-RSA-WITH-AES-256-GCM-SHA384 control channel (OpenVPN 2.4). To put all of that in one word – unhackable. This is military grade stuff; and any hacker trying to crack it is simply wasting his/ her time.

With this encryption standard, you can be rest assured that the sensitive information you transmit over the Liquid VPN’s network is securely beyond the reach of hackers.

Kill Switch

If you’re human, then you must have had that occasional downtime  (due to fatigue, stress etc); and at those times, you sure won’t work optimally. VPN services are far from human, but they are also have the occasional downtimes.

VPN keep you safe by encrypting your traffic and masking your location, but this is only when it is up and running. When it suddenly disconnects, which is inevitable, your traffic (now unencrypted) as well as your real location will be in the open. Your ISP and hackers will have a field day. Therefore, it’s a no-brainer that every VPN should feature a tool that keeps one intact, when the service suddenly goes down. The kill switch is such a tool employer for that purpose.

Liquid VPN has a kill switch and calls it Liquid lock. This tool will cut off internet connection the moment the VPN suddenly looses connection; this ensures that you are never online transmitting data without VPN protection. This would check another box in the security provisions of Liquid VPN, but…

The big ‘but’ is that the Liquid lock is only featured in the Windows app. Thus, if you’re browsing with any other device, your privacy is only until the next VPN connection drop.

Leaks Protection

Another important consideration is whether a VPN service prevents security leaks which can reveal a user’s activities and real location. It’s like pouring water into a basket; all the effort made at filling the basket is undermined by the water leaking away.

A VPN service would have put in a lot to encrypt packets and mask IPs, but all the effort will be undermine by leaks such as DNS leaks, IPv6 leaks and WebRTC leaks. For example, a DNS leak would cause DNS request to leak out of the VPN tunnel to the default DNS servers, which opens your activities and location to your ISP and any other watching eye.

Therefore, any serious security focused VPN service should plug security leaks; and Liquid VPN certainly does. In our tests, no DNS, IP,  and WebRTC leaks were detected.

Logging Policy

You will be as anonymous as the moon if whatever you do as well as when you do it is carefully monitored and logged. You get the gist? Logs are bad for privacy. Users know this and will always steer towards services that do not keep logs. As a result, almost all services will come out saying that they do not keep logs.

Liquid VPN joins the chorus. They state on their landing page: “LiquidVPN does not track you. We have a strict privacy policy in our terms of service“. The privacy policy is worth examining, and more so because many services that claim not to keep logs have privacy policies that suggest otherwise.

The logging policy starts with: “The websites you visit and the type of data you’re sending/ receiving is your business. We do not monitor this kind of traffic“. The first sentence is what you would want to you as a VPN user; but the second should cause you to stop and think of “the kind of data” that is monitored.

Liquid VPN says in one place that their logging policy is very simple, and in another place they say it is strict. I would disagree that the policy is strict, but for being simple, I totally agree.

Users’ activity (sites visited and content consumed) are not logged; that part is clear. When it comes to session logs; some contradictory statements can be seen.

On one hand, they say that because of concern for your privacy, “session data is never stored or recorded”. This is despite that to enforce the data cap in their refund policy, the total bandwidth used for new accounts is tracked for the first seven days. Also, the last public IP you are assigned anytime you use the public IP topology is always stored, with the company even advising that the shared IPs or Modulating IPs be used if you need privacy. They also track the total number of active user logins per account and the number of active sessions allowed per account. So, that “session data is never stored or recorded” is not entirely true.

In their abuse policy, Liquid VPN says that “if someone on our service is negatively impacting the performance of our network or our ability to deliver a premium service”, they would re-enable logging of the user’s “login/ logout, timestamps, remote IP, username and local IP”. Some users would feel that the definition of the abusing user is too generic, and can be used to keep logs on whoever the company wants to track.

On a happy note, the service keeps a canary warrant where they state that they have not received any warrant to disclose any user’s data, or gag order that would prevent them from saying if a warrant was received, and that there has been no seizure of any of their servers.

Jurisdiction

Liquid VPN is a full blooded American. On one hand, it tells us they are legit; but on the other hand, it tells us that they are subject to American laws, even the anti privacy laws that mandate data retention, and others that permit ISPs to sell users’ data to third parties.

The US is also home to FBI and NSA – intelligence agencies that have no qualms about invading your privacy. These agencies have been known to use very little information (seemingly harmless timestamps) to identify a VPN user. Liquid VPN track a little more data; which could be gold in the hands of these agencies.

Lastly, the US is a founding member of the Five Eyes surveillance alliance. The network has expanded to include fourteen nations; and member nations primarily work together to gather and share intelligence on specific targets. What this means is that any user data captured in the US will be shared across the world among the intelligence agencies of all fourteen member nations of the alliance. I don’t need to say it; an American jurisdiction is not good for privacy.

 

Speed

Liquid VPN boasts of its speed. Using a VPN will always bring down your network speed because of the encryption. However, users seek services that strike the right balance, by providing the adequate security and yet drop speed only marginally.

Liquid VPN says theirs is a blazing fast network, which would mean that the drop in speed is, at best, indecipherable.

We tested by checking speed without VPN connect, and comparing that to average speed with the VPN connected. On the average, the service dropped download speed and upload speed by 35% and 47% respectively. These are fine speed performance, considering that services that drop speed by 50% are still considered fast. The download speed is exceptional fine, which should draw users to the network because most users prioritizes download speed over upload speed.

That said, though Liquid VPN like to say they’ll the fastest service, our test disagrees; but they offer very good speeds that some services can only dream of.

 

Customer Support

You want a service that will be there for you when you need assistance, therefore it’s important to examine the channels that a VPN provides for getting help, as well as the effectiveness of the channels.

Liquid VPN says they have a “24×7 fanatical technical support”. I was to keen to find how fanatical the support service is. The first emotion was one of disappointment when I saw that one can contact the service directly using only email. You can either send them a mail via an online support ticket, or straight from your email account. Some other services will give you other options such as live chat or telephone support service.

I went on to test the effectiveness of the support service. I fired some question. In just over 30 minutes, I got answers that sufficiently answered my question.

Truth be told, I was surprised by how fast the response came. Since email is the only direct contact support channel, I had expected that my submission will be put in a long queue, and that I’ll have a long waiting to do before getting a response. When I saw the fast response, my dirt digging mind also expected a copy-and-paste generic reply or a direction to some links; but they did not compromise quality of response for speed.

I saw somewhere on their site that “LiquidVPN has a small but highly trained technical support staff that is always willing to go the extra mile when the need arises“. That was proven true on every count; both the quality of response and the timeliness were superb. At the end of the day, you wouldn’t mind that there is no live chat; but it is still one feature I’ll love to see. A live chat will will take this already great customer service to new realms of greatness.

If you’re one to solve problems or find answers yourself; they provide a self-help knowledge base that holds an FAQ section, as well as getting started tutorials.

Packages and Pricing

Service Plans

Liquid VPN does not have a simple pricing system because they have different service plans differentiated by number of simultaneous connections, and the number of IPs that can be used.

As at the time of writing, they offer two service plans – SideKick plan and Road Warrior plan. SideKick plan allows you to protect two devices at the same time, and gives you access to 564 IPs in 11 countries. While the Road Warrior allows four simultaneous connections and gives access to 2168 IPs from 11 countries.

Pricing

Both plans have similar billing options – either monthly or annually. Sidekick will set you back by $7.00 if billed monthly and $57.00 if billed annually. The annual package breaks down to $4.75 per month representing a 32.14% cost saving.

Road Warrior will set you back by $10.00 if billed monthly, and $69.00 if billed annually. The annual package breaks down to $5.75 per month to represent a 17.86% cost saving.

Liquid does not stand inexpensively priced. It’s cheapest plan (sidekick) cost more than a handful of services in the market, despite giving only two simultaneous connections. There is no doubt that the Road Warrior is expensive; services with monthly plans costing $10.00 and above are considered expensive. Also, the annual plan is not heavily discounted, as a result it stands at $5.75 per month which is almost twice the best value deals of some very fine VPN services.

Payment Methods

You can pay for the service using PayPal and the popular credit/ debit cards (Visa card, master cards, American Express, and Discover card). If you’ll rather pay anonymously and avoid submitting personal information as part of a billing process, Liquid VPN accepts bitcoin payments, and cash payment (you can stuff bills in an envelop and mail it to them).

Free trial

Services do give free trials so that you can try them out being committing to a paid subscription. Unfortunately, Liquid VPN does not offer any free trial.

Refund Policy

Thankfully, Liquid VPN offers a 7 days money back guarantee which allows you to request a refund of your payment if you are not satisfied with the service.

Since this is the only way to test the service free of charge, I had expected a more generous period. Many services give a money back guarantee of as many as 30 days, and that’s in addition to some free trial period. It is even more disappointing that Liquid VPN even conditions their already “short” refund window by a data cap. Even if you cancel and submit the refund request within seven days of activation, the request will only be granted if you have not used more than 5 GB of data. Many users (add me) will prefer a no questions asked refund policy.

Summary

Liquid VPN is a 100% legitimate VPN service provider. They have only five years’ experience in the industry, but have put together a great VPN service that delivers on several counts.

On the security front, they provide secure VPN protocols and use military grade encryption; they feature a kill switch, and plug all security leaks.

As one of few services that invest in innovation, they have developed IP modulation that makes you extremely anonymous. Their privacy failing will be that they keep some session logs, and that they are located in the US.

If you add that they fully support torrenting, are excellent for streaming, give good speed, and have a very responsive customer service; then you might really want to try out the service. That’s if you’re willing to forget that they are relatively expensive.

I liked

• Innovative IP modulation
• Excellent customer service
• Good speed
• P2P on all servers
• Gives Netflix and BBC iPlayer

I didn’t like:

• Small server network
• Relatively expensive, no free trial, and heavily limited refund policy
• No iOS app, Liquid lock (aka kill switch) only available in Windows app
• Some log keeping
• No live chat

Do you have an experience with Liquid VPN? Good or bad, kindly use the comment section below to give us your brief Liquid VPN review.