#Vpn shield desktop review how to#
#Vpn shield desktop review windows 10#
#Vpn shield desktop review for android#
#Vpn shield desktop review android#
#Vpn shield desktop review trial#

We use several different speed tests to determine the performance of each VPN we review (Image credit: Ookla) Performance But hey, it's still vastly better than VPN Shield's Windows offering, and for that, we have to be grateful. This is still relatively limited, presented in the most basic way, and not even close to the quality of most top VPN apps.

Still, we don't mind it has OpenVPN, and that's a major improvement on PPTP.Ī handful of settings enables connecting the VPN automatically when you access insecure, secured and/ or mobile networks, and reconnecting automatically if the VPN drops. Cisco? It could be this means some variation of Cisco's OpenConnect, but the app doesn't say, and there's no information on the support site. You do at least get a choice of protocol, though: OpenVPN or Cisco.

#Vpn shield desktop review windows 10#

The interface looks and feels very similar to the Windows 10 app choose one of the 11 locations from the list, tap a switch to connect, tap again to disconnect.

#Vpn shield desktop review android#

There's better news with the Android app the last release was 'only' 10 months old at review time, positively fresh.

#Vpn shield desktop review for android#

VPN Shield has mobile apps for Android and iOS (Image credit: Defendemus) The regular Windows 7/8 desktop app has an even worse interface, forcing you to select countries by right clicking the system tray icon. VPN Shield hasn't even been maintaining the app, let alone improving it. Maybe VPN Shield will fix some of this, one day? Don't put your money on it the Microsoft Store page dates this release at 22nd January 2017. When we forcibly closed our connection, the app continued to show its status as 'Connected.' If the app windows were minimized while you worked on something else, you'd have no clear way of knowing the VPN had died and your traffic was no longer protected. That's important, because it won't tell you if the VPN connection drops, either. The app doesn't use notifications to tell you when it connects and disconnects. The sidebar has spaces to display your new location and IP, and a 'progress' indicator suggested the app is trying to do this, but it never worked, our location details were never displayed.

#Vpn shield desktop review how to#

And the Settings dialog is particularly sparse, with only an 'Autostart VPN on insecure wifi networks' checkbox and a panel explaining how to manually set up a connection on other PCs.Ĭonnection times were slow at up to 10 seconds we'd expect more like 2-4 for PPTP. The app only supports the outdated and insecure PPTP protocol.

The location picker is a plain text list of countries, with no ping time, server load figures, Favorites system, 'Recent Connections' list or anything else. This is the user interface of VPN Shield's Windows 10 app (Image credit: Defendemus) There's no simple connect screen, no colorful list of flags, no world map, no clever graphical touches at all, just a sidebar, some status information and a few text panels of options. Windows apps generally try to be a little more visually polished than their old-style cousins, but VPN Shield's offering is probably worse.

#Vpn shield desktop review trial#

Installation was hassle-free, we quickly created an account from the app, and a countdown showed our 24-hour trial had begun. VPN Shield is one of very few providers to offer a native Windows 10 app, so we were keen to try it out. VPN Shield doesn't 'matter of ordinary practice' monitor users, but it's hinting that it could it doesn't 'maintain direct logs of customers' Internet activities', but maybe there are some indirect ones. However, Defendemus reserves the right to investigate matters it considers to be violations of these Terms.' This caught our eye, too: 'Defendemus does not as a matter of ordinary practice actively monitor user sessions for inappropriate behavior, nor does it maintain direct logs of customers' Internet activities. There's more vagueness in this clause: 'The VPN Shield Service may send diagnostic data to a third-party analytics provider for the purpose of identifying connection errors and possible bugs in the application.' What 'diagnostic data', what might that include? VPN Shield doesn't want to say. 'Technical details of the connection' is a very broad term, and could easily include incoming and outgoing IP addresses. The policy goes on to list a lot of session logging, though: 'connection times to the VPN Shield Service, device type, choice of server location, technical details of the connection (connection result, protocol, ports, etc.), the total amount of data transferred per day, and the purchase history.' VPN Shield's privacy policy (opens in new tab) gives you the good news first, explaining how the company 'is committed to your privacy and it does not collect or log traffic data or browsing activity from users connected to the VPN Shield Service.' VPN Shield claims to not collect data on its users' browsing activity online but there is a lot of session logging though (Image credit: Defendemus) Privacy