You should know NordVPN of its popular ambassador program, taking social media by storm as influencers sign up to make money advertising the virtual private network. But despite its popularity, it is not on the list of the top nine providers we published in June. After extensive testing, I concluded that it was a bit overrated for the price, as it lacked features considered standard in lower-cost options.
Geo-blocking, streaming, and gaming are the three main VPN use cases. So to test NordVPN and its competitors, I used them to watch Canadian Netflix from my home in the US, play an online game from a UK-based server, and stream a news channel on YouTube via a Hong Kong based VPN.
Signing up for NordVPN was easy, as it offered options like opting for automatic updates to keep the service running on the latest version. Depending on the tier you choose, you can also get access to NordPass, the company’s password manager, or NordLocker, a file encryption software. The “full” package costs $5.79 per month.
The best VPNs stay out of your way and you’ll barely notice they’re running. That was pretty much the case with NordVPN. It passed our basic privacy tests, such as successfully masking the IP address and DNS and WebRTC leak tests. It was also easy to access geo-blocked content, stream on YouTube, and play games using NordVPN, with little to no buffering. We perform a ping test, which measures Internet latency. It took 75 milliseconds with NordVPN enabled, which is not much slower than 62 ms without it.
NordVPN supports up to six devices at once, meaning I was able to run all the tests simultaneously and still didn’t experience any slowdowns. It’s great to share with a family or with people who like to play games, watch TV, and scroll on their phone at the same time. Those connectivity options come with a caveat: the devices must run on different VPN protocols if they are connected to the same server. NordVPN has over 5,000 servers in 60 countries and offers a variety of device support, from gaming systems to Raspberry Pi devices and streaming services.
Still, NordVPN’s security record is far from ideal. NordVPN is based in Panama, a country with limited data sharing laws. It uses industry-standard 256-bit AES encryption and a modification to the WireGuard protocol to prevent temporary collection of IP addresses. He does it third party security audits and has a vulnerability disclosure program, two indicators that they take privacy basics seriously. But it is not open source and when it comes to data privacy, it falls short due to its patterns of collecting and storing unnecessary user information. Notably, NordVPN also failed to disclose a 2018 data breach in a timely manner. It wasn’t until a security researcher publicly discussed it, more than a year after the incidentthat NordVPN recognized it.
NordVPN’s history of loaded terms and misleading advertising didn’t sit well with me either. The Advertising Standards Authority based in the United Kingdom ruled that a 2019 NordVPN ad was misleading, exaggerating the risk of data theft. It makes sweeping claims about what’s possible with your VPN that are impossible to prove.
For a much-talked-about option, the experience using NordVPN was just… good. It did not stand out, unlike ProtonVPN, which offered a more complete set of products along with the VPN and greater security measures. That’s why Nord wasn’t one of the top options I would recommend.
