VPN Comparative Test
VPN Comparative Test A test commissioned by AnchorFree and performed by AV-TEST GmbH Date of the report: June 15th, 2018 Executive Summary In April 2018, AV-TEST performed a test of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) solutions. VPNs have been reviewed in its different fields of potential uses such as providing privacy, anonymity or virtual different geographical location. The presented evaluation assesses AnchorFree’s Hotspot Shield Elite, Avast SecureLine, Avira Phantom VPN Pro, Cisco VPN, ExpressVPN, F-Secure FREEDOME VPN, KeepSolid‘s VPN Unlimited, London Trust Media’s Private Internet Access, NordVPN, Pulse VPN, Symantec’s Norton WiFi Privacy and Tunnel Bear. We evaluated VPN on the following four criteria. Usability: evaluating the ease of use, taking into account novice users. We evaluate how much effort it takes not just to install the application but also to change settings and how much of that effort is omitted by scheduled default settings. The range of clicks required until a product is setup varies, it may take 11 clicks for VPN Unlimited or only two clicks as with F-Secure FREEDOME VPN. The top scores in this tested category are shared between Avast SecureLine VPN, F-Secure FREEDOME VPN and Hotspot Shield Elite. Privacy and Security: testing how well the Internet Protocol Address (IP) and by extension the identity of the user is protected and hidden from outside parties like internet service providers (ISP) and webservers. This protects the anonymity of the user when accessing content online. Some products like Hotspot Shield Elite have all security and extras included by default others like Pulse Connect Secure or Avast SecureLine VPN don’t include certain features which may be considered important to keep privacy intact.
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