Anonymous VPN is a VPN provider that belongs to Gate 100. They are based in the Seychelles. “Dude”, the bearded man who serves as Anonymous’ mascot, claims to keep all user data safe and make sure that no one, including himself, sees the traffic.
The VPN is able to connect to secure proxies connected to various servers, kill switches, protocol switching options and IPv6 protection. They also claim to offer unlimited bandwidth and connection speeds with a strict no-logging policy. In this review, we have done rigorous testing and will see if none of these claims are a lie.
Features
As an official website for a VPN service, the Anonymous VPN website comes across as very simple. Although the site looks a bit cartoonish at first glance, it has few menus that catch the eye, and all the important ones like Pricing, Networking, FAQs and Contact are located at the top of the main page for easy access. At the bottom of the page are links to other pages, such as privacy policy, refund policy, etc.
Subscribing to the service is quite simple. You need to select your preferred subscription package, sign up by entering your email address and the required password, and then make your payment. The Anonymous VPN client is available for Android, Mac and Windows and works well on all of these platform.
Privacy and Encryption
There aren’t many details about the tools it uses to ensure anonymity, other than an FAQ article explaining the differences between PPTP, L2TP and OpenVPN protocols. Presumably, AnonymousVPN uses these protocols as well as 128-bit (PPTP) and 256-bit (L2TP and OpenVPN) encryption.
According to the privacy policy, AnonymousVPN “does not collect VPN activity logs, browsing behavior, or activity related to your VPN connection – therefore, we do not store or monitor any data sent over our network or websites you log into while using our VPN service. This also means that we can’t share this information with anyone who wants to rob our users of their privacy.”
The only data we collect is “a user’s choice of server location, the number of times a user uses our VPN service, and the amount of data a user transmits in a day.”
Speed Test
It should be remembered that the list of VPN servers is not very long, and we did our best to have a wide variety of sites. But we did it anyway, and below you can find a list of speed test results, as follows:
| Location | Internet Speed | Latency Speed | Upload Speed | Download Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
USA |
30 Mbps |
174ms |
8.5 Mbps |
30Mb |
|
Germany |
15 Mbps |
41ms |
7.6 Mbps |
20Mb |
|
Hong Kong |
45 Mbps |
232ms |
27 Mbps |
70Mb |
|
South Africa |
150 Mbps |
202ms |
35 Mbps |
210Mb |
|
Australia |
180 Mbps |
330ms |
34 Mbps |
440 Mb |
In fact, we had to run the test twice, as some countries that usually deliver low results suddenly achieved top scores, while popular websites like the US and Germany were far below the acceptable threshold.
To its credit, AnonymousVPN does achieve high speeds on generally low sites, but overall these tests were rather disappointing.
Pricing Methods
These are 3 pricing options
- $1 USD for a 3-day trial
- 1 month for $12
- 1 year for $69 ($5.75/month)
A great feature of this VPN is the 3-day trial, which costs $1
You can provide a free trial, but it’s still good for users to get familiar with the program before spending a lot of money on an annual subscription.
Payment Options
Here you can find a list of payment options offered by Anonymous VPN
- Mastercard
- Visa
- American Express
- Diners & Discover credit card
There is no bitcoin or PayPal option.
Streaming Services
While I was in the UK, I connected to Anonymous VPN’s US server to try streaming the geo-restricted US service. I logged into my Netflix account and was able to unlock content from various Netflix regions, including the US library. Not many VPNs can access US Netflix from abroad, so we were happy (when testing) that this worked.
I was also able to access the ABC and NBC sites while connected to the US servers. abc did not allow playback, but NBC worked without issue. We also tried to access the UK BBC iPlayer, but unfortunately without success. We were, however, able to play the videos on the Channel 4 and ITV websites.
User Experience
Anonymous VPN is easy to set up for Windows, Mac, and Android users with a sleek, intuitive app. Manual configuration is also an option for the above and iOS/Linux devices.
Because anonymous VPNs can only be contacted via email. From a VPN in this price range, everyone will expect live chat and quick responses. All in all, this up-and-coming provider still has a lot of room for improvement when it comes to live support.
Customer Support
Anonymous VPN offers helpful customer support on its website. But who are we kidding? No one likes them. That’s why they offer email and social media options if you want to talk to a real live person. (Sorry, no live chat). They responded quickly to my email inquiry and backed it up with a wealth of information.
However, there are two minor criticisms
- The email was stuffed with a bunch of other things I hadn’t really asked about. So I had to go back and look at my original email to remember what we had talked about.
- The email was also sent from an Outlook.com email address. A bit of a close call, I know. But it seems odd that a reputable company wouldn’t provide a branded email address for their support team. Seems pretty “small time” to me.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Strict non-documentation policy
- Easy to use interface
- P2P sharing
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Off switch
Cons
- No live chat
- No encrypted data
- No corporate data
- Significant speed reduction
Conclusion
The bottom line is that Anonymous VPN is not perfect, but it is a good option for the average VPN user. If you are looking for something that is easy to use and gives you access to geographically blocked content, then you should give this VPN a try. Ultimately, our Anonymous VPN review concludes that while VPNs offer users privacy, they are far from making them completely anonymous.
