The use of VPNs is becoming ever so popular among average consumers leading to the emergence of new VPN service providers that focus mainly on consumer needs. Even VPN providers that were exclusively targeting businesses in the past, have now diversified their offers and plans to accommodate the needs of this new customer base made up mainly of discerning consumers who want their privacy respected, who want to have access to geo-restricted content, or who are trying to circumvent internet censorship.
This review will focus on TotalVPN, a new provider that has been gaining a lot of ground ever since its emergence in 2014.
Overview of TotalVPN
TotalVPN is a European company based in the United Kingdom. It was launched in 2014, so it’s a fairly new service, but even though they haven’t been in the VPN business for long, they do fare well in terms of usability, services and pricing. They have good global coverage with server locations in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. TotalVPN is available on all major operating systems, and like most good VPN providers, it comes with a 99,999% uptime guarantee.
TotalVPN Price and Features
Next in this review, we will present the available TotalVPN plans and their pricing, as well as the most important features of this service.
TotalVPN Plans
TotalVPN is all about simplicity, an aspect reflected even in the way they have constructed their plans. Users have the option of choosing between two plans: Free and Total Premium. The Free plan is limited to 3 locations (Amsterdam, Singapore, and Iceland), comes with limited bandwidth and limited data transfer, and 1 device connection, however, it includes all protocols including PPTP, OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec and IkeV2.
The Total Premium plan initially costs users €4.99, which is a promotional price for the limited initial term. When the Total Premium plan renews after the initial term, it will cost €9.97/month for 2-year terms, €11.97/month for 1-year terms, and €14.98/month for monthly terms. The Total Premium plan is a no-caps, limitless plan with unrestricted bandwidth and data. Subscribers to this plan have 30+ server locations to choose from, 3 device connections and premium proxy. Like the free plan, this plan includes all protocols too.
Features
As mentioned before, TotalVPN has server location in all major geographical regions. It also does a good job lining up all the features that users need from a good VPN service provider: privacy in the sense of completely hiding your location, IP address and personal information, thereby avoiding tracking, offering secure encryption for your data so you are safe from government snooping or hacker malice, and a zero monitoring policy, which means that TotalVPN does not keep logs of your browsing history. We will discuss the type of logs they do keep a bit later in the next segment about privacy and security.
TotalVPN has an unrivalled support being available on several operating systems and devices including Windows, Android, Mac OS, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Apple TV, Xbox, Amazon Fire, etc. They are currently in the process of creating an app for Chromebook. Both their website and apps have a clean and simple interface offering automatic configuration and single-click connection.
They also guarantee a 99,999% uptime, meaning that their severs will be up and running at all times barring isolated technical difficulties. Moreover, they use the poshest and latest encryption algorithms to make sure your browsing data is untouchable.
Privacy and security
As mentioned above, TotalVPN applies a zero monitoring policy by not keeping logs of your browsing history. They do keep logs, however, of information typical for any service like login cookies, account data and e-mail address, the date when you login to their service, your IP address and your username, but your internet traffic is a hands-off area even for them. TotalVPN has a legal disclaimer in their privacy policy according to which they will cooperate and comply with law enforcement officials and disclose user information upon a valid request by government officials. This provision, while understandable, may not sit well with some users.
Security-wise, TotalVPN implements stringent security measures to protect your user information and browsing data. In terms of security protocols, the connections available (PPTP, OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec and IkeV2 ) will cover the needs of individuals and enterprises alike.
Performance
Performance and speed is an important aspect for VPN users, and TotalVPN delivers good results in this area. All tested servers have produced good speeds, with download speeds varying between 4.64Mbps and 5.10Mbps, while upload speeds ranging from 0.69 to 0.93Mbps. These numbers are comparable with other services we’ve tested, although there is room for improvement. Some overhead was added to the internet connection, but this is not unheard of with VPNs, in fact it’s something that happens with any and all VPN services.
Customer Support
The customer support page contains your usual setup and installation guides, FAQ, troubleshooting guides, billing related information, etc. Should you not find answers to your problems, you can open a support ticket, or in case of pressing matters you can take advantage of the live chat feature. No phone support is available, which perhaps is not even missed by most users, especially those who prefer the immediacy of live chat support.
Pros and Cons
TotalVPN certainly keeps things simple in all aspects of their services from the design all the way to the pricing plans. Whether this aspect is to their advantage or not, it really depends on the particular taste of the users.
Based on all of the above considerations, the pros and cons of TotalVPN can be summed up like this:
Pros:
- Free subscription plan;
- All security protocols included in all subscription plans;
- Easy configuration, single-click connection;
- Compatibility with a wide range of devices and operating systems;
- Excellent apps and website;
- Good support;
- Geographical diversity of servers.
Cons:
- Prices increase after the initial promotional period;
- Privacy policy may not be to everyone’s taste;
- No diversity in subscription plans;
- No VPN kill-switch or IP leak protection.
Bottom Line
TotalVPN is a viable solution for those wanting to secure their internet connection anywhere and on any device. Although it’s not packed with more advanced features like an IP leak protection or a VPN kill-switch to protect users even in case of VPN dropouts, it’s still a pretty good VPN service for most users.
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