What to know about NordVPN (Review)

What to Like About NordVPN, in a Nutshell

Many things. Having used the VPN extensively before writing this review, we find NordVPN a serious and competitive choice for ALL levels of users. From its unblocking of 400+ streaming platforms – including Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video – to its top-notch privacy and security suites, NordVPN strikes the perfect balance between a VPN's must-haves and great-to-have. And the fact you can very much get all this for $3.71 per month makes it an absolute no-brainer.

Our Findings After Putting NordVPN Through The Litmus Test

When it comes to protection, NordVPN solutions are military-grade-like. NordVPN employs AES 256-bit encryption which is like the industry standard. What’s most important is that this encryption is a hard nut to crack. Typically, it will take the most seasoned hackers billion of years to find the key to this type of encryption if they resort to applying brute force alone. That is before we even consider the fact that the encryption key changes with each session. To hackers, we say good luck guessing those keys.

DNS and IP Address Leak Protection

Staying anonymous on the web is one of the first benefits every VPN promises its users. However, that is something easier said than done. When you use a VPN, it is expected that your traffic will be routed through an encrypted tunnel. Sometimes, pieces of your information get leaked to third parties such as hackers and your ISP. DNS leaks, WebRTC and IP address leaks are some of the most common layers by which these third parties could obtain your personal information or location.

Still, on NordVPN grade-A protection schemes, we found that using this VPN doesn’t give up any information regarding our DNS, WebRTC or IP address. NordVPN can achieve these upper levels of protection since it runs its DNS servers.

Despite the obvious benefits of using a VPN during one’s online activities, one major pain point for most users is the fact they may have to sacrifice some speed and performance for added protection and privacy. Thankfully, they need not worry about any of that if NordVPN is their choice. NordVPN promotes exceptionally fast speeds and performances that we sometimes find it hard to tell the difference from when we tested without a VPN connection. After testing so many different servers scattered across the world, we hardly notice any difference in our browsing, streaming or gaming experience, even when we connected to servers significantly far away from our location.

The recently launched NordLynx protocol, which is based on WireGuard, gives you the fastest speeds. Thankfully, NordVPN incorporates double NAT technology to beef up its security up to the level of other protocols such as OpenVPN and IKEv2/IPSec protocol.

NordVPN's Kill Switch

Have you ever wondered what might happen if your connection to the VPN server drops? In such a case, you could expose your IP address and give up your location without you even noticing it. For that reason, comes NordVPN system-wide kill Switch.

NordVPN's Kill Switch will enable you to securely use the web even if your connection to a VPN server drops. The Kill Switch can do this in two ways:

• Internet Kill Switch: this option will completely shut down your system-wide internet access when you are not connected to the VPN or if your connection to a server drops. This ensures that your data won’t leak without your knowledge.
• App Kill Switch: this option allows you to set up which app or apps get closed if your connection to a VPN server fails. For instance, you could shut down or kill the internet access to a browser such as Google Chrome but not other apps like Instagram or Twitter. This option is available both for Windows and Mac OS.

Although the kill Switch feature isn’t automatically turned on, it is quite easy to set up. All you have to do is click on a button and you are good to go.

NordVPN is Equipped With a Rugged Ad-blocker Frankly, nobody enjoys unsolicited and mostly obtrusive ads popping up everywhere on our displays. Apparently, the folks at NordVPN don’t enjoy them either so they made sure the app is battle-ready for these ads - comes NordVPN’s CyberSec feature.

The CyberSec feature helps to block ads, malware and trackers as you surf the web. You’ll notice this huge change in your browsing experience once you visit those ad-heavy websites like BuzzFeed or torrents with a NordVPN server.

NordVPN’s CyberSec can be stubborn in that it can completely shut off access to websites with malware. It is pertinent to state that most VPN applications do not usually offer ad-blocking features. So, a big thumbs up to NordVPN for trying to enforce some sanity on the web.

Let’s not pretend this ability to connect several devices is not a big thing because it is. And that’s pretty amazing. With one NordVPN account, we were able to use it across the following devices and platforms: An android phone, an iOS smartphone, a Windows desktop, a Linus laptop, and a Sony TV. Even when we powered all these devices simultaneously, there was no noticeable drop in the performance or speed of NordVPN.

If you want to connect even more devices on top of your NordVPN account, you simply install it on a router to ensure your entire network is protected by the VPN.

What's more?

You can install NordVPN on a wide variety of OS and platforms. Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Android and their devices are all supported.Also, the folks at NordVPN did a good job in keeping the interface and app features largely consistent across all the supported operating systems. Hence, there is virtually very little learning curve for every OS and any knowledge gained is easily transferrable from one platform to the other.

NordVPN is Easy to Install and Configure

Downloading, installing and configuring the app for your first use is as easy as ABC.

NordVPN doesn’t require any special setup before you can be able to use a protected and secure connection. However, the application is packed with an enormous amount of features, some of which you have to select manually before you can enjoy them. So, there’s always going to be a learning period if you are to maximize its full potential.

Last Bullet: The Verdict

As they claimed: ...NordVPN is the best VPN if you're looking for peace of mind when connected to public Wi-Fi.

What do you need, unmatchable speeds? Check. Military-grade protection? Check. Ironclad privacy policies? Check. Unlimited access to streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime? Check. What about cross-platform compatibility, bufferless streaming, and specialized torrenting servers? Check. Check. Check.

NordVPN promises a lot, delivered even more and yet, unbelievably cheap. Find that hard to believe? Then curb your curiosity with NordVPN 7-day free trial that is available for Android. We bet you’d see things as we do, too!