Speed
|
4.2 / 10 |
Servers
|
9.4 / 10 |
User Experience
|
8.4 / 10 |
Support
|
8.4 / 10 |
Pricing
|
7.8 / 10 |
VPNGates Review 2024: Before You Buy, Is It Worth It?
Reading time: 3 min
Updated on Nov 6, 2024
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Written By Eric Raue Cybersecurity & Tech Writer
VPNGates Overview
The first thing that grabbed our attention, when reviewing VPNGates, was its experience, as it’s been operating since 2007. A VPN that has lasted so long in the market is usually promising, yet sadly, we found VPNGates lacked several of the key features you’d expect from a quality VPN.
If you’re looking for a VPN with a more well rounded resume, we’d suggest looking at our review on ExpressVPN instead.
Starting with security, VPNGates secures its network of servers with a high-level encryption implemented through multiple security protocols. These protocols include OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP/IPSec, and IKEv2. Unfortunately, they still lack the essential security and privacy features of a kill switch and double VPN.
We noticed that this VPN was more focused on online freedom than security and privacy as it is able to operate out of challenging countries such as the Middle East while also bypassing online restrictions. This is fantastic, however, in our opinion in order to be considered a truly great VPN it should have mastered the security and privacy aspects as well.
Hopefully, VPNGates will someday use the same level of commitment it has for online freedom to help improve its weak points in privacy and security. Aside from that, we found VPNGates to be an amazing provider for its users.
Speed
- 4.2
/ 10
Why Most Speed Tests are Pointless & How We Correctly Test VPN Speeds
Speed determines how fast content uploads, so if you're torrenting or streaming, you want the speed to be somewhat identical to your regular internet speed. Since a VPN encrypts your data, it usually takes a bit longer to send your data back and forth, which can slow down your connection. However, if your ISP deliberately slows down your connection (also known as throttling) a VPN might increase your internet speed. Testing a VPN is somewhat pointless because new servers pop up and affect speed. Your speed can also differ according to your location, so your speed test might not match ours. Having said that, we tested the speed in numerous locations to provide you with the average.
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Servers
- 9.4
/ 10
VPNGates has 60 servers in 10 countries.
Server Locations
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User Experience
- 8.4
/ 10
Compared to other VPN providers that provide a user-friendly client software, VPNGates doesn’t have the best user experience.
To begin with, there is no client software available. Therefore, if you wish to establish a connection with a server, you will need to manually configure this connection on your system. However, before delving into the specifics, let’s delve deeper into the process of signing up.
When we accessed its limited website, we were glad to find that VPNGates offers a free trial. When we went forward with the registration and provided the information required, we never received the confirmation email with our account details.
This shows that VPNGates doesn’t have a very responsive customer support team. We don’t want to throw a judgment at the company that this trial is non-existent and we’ll just assume that the company had some “technical difficulties” preventing us from receiving the email. We decided to skip this step and move forward to give them another chance.
Well, there isn’t much that can be said except that at least we found manual configuration tutorials on the website and to be fair, these tutorials were pretty clear and easy to follow. We’re actually shocked we would have such a poor experience with such an experienced provider.
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Support
- 8.4
/ 10
How We Test Customer Support and Why Should You Care
We personally test the customer support team of every VPN we review. This means asking technical question through the live chat feature (where applicable) and measuring the response time for email questions. Whether you need to connect to a specific server, change your security protocol, or configure a VPN on your router, finding a VPN with quality customer support should be important to you.
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Pricing
- 7.8
/ 10
VPNGates offers the following plans
Editor's Note: We value our relationship with our readers, and we strive to earn your trust through transparency and integrity. We are in the same ownership group as some of the industry-leading products reviewed on this site: ExpressVPN, Cyberghost, Private Internet Access, and Intego. However, this does not affect our review process, as we adhere to a strict testing methodology.
| 2007 | |
| Yes | |
| 1 | |
| 5 days guaranteed |
