Hans Desjarlais
Editor's Note: What immediately follows is a rundown of the latest changes and additions since this review was last updated.
Windscribe is an interesting VPN which piles on the features, yet remains easy to use, with some very low prices for its commercial products, and one of the most generous free plans around.
The network is a decent size, with locations in 110 cities spread over 60 countries.
An array of apps means you're covered on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and Linux. Chrome, Firefox and Opera extensions give you even more ways to connect, and the website has guides to help you set up the service on routers, Kodi, Amazon FireTV, Nvidia Shield, and via any OpenVPN-compatible software or device.
IKEv2 and OpenVPN support with strong AES-256 encryption keeps all your tunnel traffic safe from snoopers, while stealth technologies try to obfuscate your VPN usage, perhaps allowing you to get online even in countries which actively block VPN traffic.
ROBERT is a DNS-based tool for blocking ads, malware, trackers and various internet content types (gambling, 'fake news and clickbait', and so on). This goes way beyond the basic DNS blacklist you'll get with other providers, and gives you more power and configurability than many desktop applications deliver.
The browser extensions are another highlight, with some unusual and appealing bonus features.
They don't just get you connected via one server, for instance. You can opt to route your traffic from one location, through the Windscribe network to another, then exit to your destination, making it much more difficult for others to track your real location.
The extensions can employ many other tricks to hide your identity online, including changing your browser time zone to match the Windscribe location, monitoring and deleting cookies set during a VPN session, and randomly rotating your browser user agent to reduce the chance of fingerprinting.
Options include a static IP address. Adding a residential IP address costs $8 a month, for example, but should greatly improve your chances of accessing any blocked sites. (Once you have a static IP, you can also enable port forwarding in the Windscribe web console).
Support is available via chat and ticket, if you need it, and Windscribe even has its own subreddit. That's valuable as it allows potential customers to see what real Windscribe users are talking about, the questions they have and the issues they're facing – a level of transparency you rarely see with other VPNs.
New features introduced since our last review of this service include major updates for the mobile apps. A shiny new iOS app supports network whitelisting, has IKEv2 and OpenVPN support, and includes Siri shortcuts. The Android app also supports IKEv2 and OpenVPN, and offers split tunneling to define which apps use the tunnel, and which don't.
Brand new more comprehensive browser extensions support city-level location selection, block malware and phishing sites, and add a host of privacy boosting extras, including WebRTC blocking, location API spoofing and website notification blocking.
Advanced extras include new spoofing and blocking abilities for ROBERT and ephemeral port forwarding on all servers for Pro users, for example allowing you to securely access your home computer across the internet while connected to Windscribe.
Plans and pricing
Windscribe's free plan offers a generous 10GB of data transfer a month if you register with your email address, 2GB if you don't. You're limited to just 10 servers – US, Europe and Hong Kong – but that's still better than you'll get with many services ('sorry, you can only connect to Brunei, is that a problem?').
Upgrading to a commercial plan gets you unlimited data, access to all 110 locations, and the ability to generate custom OpenVPN, IKEv2 and SOCKS5 configurations.
There are no annoying limits on simultaneous connections, either. You can set up and use the service wherever you like, as long as the devices are yours (the small print forbids sharing your account with others).
Prices are low. Monthly billing is only $9, for instance – many top VPNs charge $12-$13. Pay for a year upfront and the price plummets to an equivalent $4.08. That's well below most VPN providers' annual plans (ExpressVPN asks $8.32, HideMyAss $6.99, CyberGhost $5.99), but there are cheaper deals around. Private Internet Access and Ivacy's annual plans are priced at $3.33, for instance, and if you're willing to sign up for two or more years, CyberGhost, VPN Unlimited, Surfshark and others have plans costing under $3 a month.
That's not the end of the story, though. Windscribe's 'Build a Plan' scheme might allow you to save money by choosing just the locations you need, for $1 each. Each location adds 10GB to your free bandwidth allowance, and your plan must have a minimum of two locations.
For example, if you register with your email address, you'll get 10GB data allowance a month. Build a plan with the US and UK locations, and you'll get 30GB of data for $2 a month. You can upgrade to unlimited data for another $1, or a total of just $3 a month, billed monthly. That's great for an extended trial of the service, or if you only need the VPN while you're away on a trip.
Another option, ScribeForce, enables signing up a group of users (a business, a family) with the same account. There's a five user minimum, but you'll pay just $3 each, billed monthly, for access to the full and unrestricted service.
Whatever your preference, Windscribe gives you a wider than usual choice of payment options, which include card, PayPal, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies via CoinPayments.net, and gift cards and assorted other options via Paymentwall.
Windscribe isn't quite the cheapest commercial VPN provider, then, but it's better value than many, very fairly priced for the features you get, and its flexibility is a major plus. If you don't require a full service all the time, the free plan may be enough for casual use, and you could, say, buy three months of unlimited bandwidth a year for a total of $9, with no lengthy contract required. Many VPNs charge more than that for a single month.
Privacy and logging
Windscribe's privacy features start with its industrial-strength AES-256 encryption, with SHA512 authentication, a 4096-bit RSA key and support for perfect forward secrecy (keys aren't re-used, so even if a snooper gets hold of a private key, it will only allow them to view data within one session).
The apps use multiple techniques to reduce the chance of data leaks, limiting IPv6 traffic, redirecting DNS requests through the tunnel to be handled by the VPN server, and optionally using a firewall to block all internet access if the connection drops.
We checked Windscribe's performance on a Windows 10 system using the websites IPLeak, DNSLeakTest and DoILeak, and found no DNS or other leaks.
We enabled the Windows client's kill switch (which Windows calls a firewall) and forcibly closed the VPN connection, to see how it would behave. The results were almost perfect: our internet access was immediately blocked, the client interface updated to show there was a problem, it then immediately began reconnecting, and displayed a Windows desktop notification once we were online again. We'd like to have seen a desktop notification to tell us when the connection had dropped, but otherwise the client and kill switch worked exactly as it should, protecting our privacy at all times.
Windscribe's logging policy is covered in a clearly written privacy policy which explains what the company does and doesn't collect.
Long-term logging is limited to the total bandwidth you've used in a month (essential to manage usage on the free plan), and a timestamp of your last activity on the service to allow identifying inactive accounts.
The system does briefly collect some connection details – username, VPN server connected to, time of connection, bandwidth used during the session, number of devices connected – but these are held in the VPN server's RAM only, and are lost when the session closes.
Other than that, there is no logging of connections, IPs, timestamps or browsing history. Or as the privacy policy puts it, 'we do not store any logs on who used what IP address, so we cannot tie user activity to any single user.'
As there is no data on your activities, Windscribe points out that there's nothing to share. This is backed up by a Transparency Report which covers the numbers of DMCA and Law Enforcement data requests over the year, and in both cases states that: 'Exactly zero requests were complied with due to lack of relevant data.'
We would like to see Windscribe go further. Competitors such as TunnelBear and VyprVPN have had their systems publicly audited to check for logging or other privacy issues, and that gives far more reassurance to potential customers than comforting words on a website. We hope that Windscribe (and other VPN providers for that matter) will soon do the same.
In the meantime, it's worth remembering that Windscribe will give you 2GB of data per month, for free, without requiring an email address or any other personal data. The data limit will be an issue for streaming users and heavy downloaders, but if you're just looking to protect email and basic browsing, this automatically gets you more anonymity than you'll have with almost everyone else.
Performance
To test VPN performance, we first use an automated tool to log into a sample group of servers – UK, Europe, US, rest of the world – and check the connection time, look for latency issues, and use geolocation to verify that each server is in the advertised country.
We were able to connect to all Windscribe servers first time, without a single connection error. OpenVPN connection times were typically 7-14 seconds, twice as long as some of the best providers, although average for the industry. That said, if you use the app's default IKEv2 protocol this isn't an issue, as connection times plummet to an average 3-5 seconds.
Once we were connected, our other initial checks went well. There were no latency problems, and all servers appeared to be in their promised locations.
Our download speed tests began by connecting to our nearest servers from UK and US locations, using the Windscribe client, then measuring download performance using the benchmarking sites TestMy and SpeedTest.
UK results were good, with downloads reaching an average 63-65Mbps on our 75Mbps connection.
US performance was far more variable. Peak speeds were reasonable at 100-140Mbps on a 475Mbps connection, but other tests gave us median results of around 30-80Mbps. This really isn't bad – it's fast enough for most tasks, and unless you're measuring it you might never notice anything amiss – but it doesn't match the best of the competition. (We took 20x US speed measurements for Private Internet Access, and these ranged from 215-460Mbps.)
These tests may not be a totally fair representation of Windscribe speeds, as they were using OpenVPN, and the company recommends using IVEv2 for performance. That's not a complete explanation, though – other VPNs use OpenVPN and get far better and more consistent speeds than Windscribe.
Still, even with OpenVPN, Windscribe will probably be fast enough for most people. We also have to (once again) applaud the company's transparency. While other providers don't even have trials any more, Windscribe gives you up to 10GB a month for free, with access to plenty of locations and full-speed servers. If performance is your top priority, that gives you plenty of time to try out the service before you buy.
Netflix
Connecting to a VPN server in another country may, in theory, allow you to access content you wouldn't be able to see (viewing US-only YouTube clips, for instance).
Unfortunately, it's not always that simple, as many content providers now attempt to detect and block visitors they think are using a VPN.
To test a VPN's unblocking abilities, we log in to various US and UK locations and attempt to view US YouTube, US Netflix and BBC iPlayer streams.
YouTube is usually the easiest to access, as it appears to do very few, if any, VPN checks. Sure enough, Windscribe allowed us to view US-only content without any issues, even with its free plan.
BBC iPlayer has more in-depth connection checking, and although most VPNs can bypass this, Windscribe isn't one of them. We tried all three UK servers and iPlayer was blocked, each time. A support document acknowledges this issue and says the company is working on a solution, but has no 'estimate on when it will work.'
Netflix is normally the most difficult site to unblock, which is why most VPN providers take care not to mention it specifically. They know that even if they can deliver Netflix access today, it could be blocked tomorrow.
Windscribe is far more confident, so much so that its paid plans include a virtual location called Windflix US, which allows customers to access Netflix without having to manually try different servers until they find one which works. We tried this and it worked just fine, enabling us to freely stream whatever content we liked.
That's not all. Unlike many competitors, Windscribe also has virtual servers to access Netflix in the UK, Japan and Canada, and they also worked perfectly for us.
Torrents
VPN providers generally don't boast about their torrent support, and it can be a challenge to figure out what you're allowed to do. (TunnelBear was so quiet about its P2P policy that we had to email tech support to ask.)
Windscribe is much more open and transparent. Just point your browser at the company's Status page and you'll see its full list of locations, which of them support P2P (most) and which of them don't (India, Russia and South Africa, at the time of writing).
Your options are just as clear in the Windscribe apps. Locations where torrents aren't allowed are marked with the same crossed-out 'P2P', but select anything else and you can download whatever and whenever you like.
Factor in Windscribe's free plan and various anonymous payment options (cryptocurrencies, gift cards) and the company makes a better torrenting choice than most, although this will depend on its performance in your area.
Client setup
Tapping the Get Started button on the Windscribe site took us to the Download page. The website detected and highlighted the best choice for our laptop – the Windows client and Chrome extension – but there were also links to downloads for Mac, Android and iOS, extensions for Firefox and iOS, and guides to cover setup on routers, Linux, Kodi, Amazon FireTV and more.
There's an unusual extra touch in direct links to old versions of the Windows and Mac apps. You may not care about that as a new user, but being able to rewind to a previous version could be very helpful if you find the latest build doesn't work on one of your computers, or an app update turns out to be buggy.
We grabbed and installed the Windows client, and were surprised to see three quirky checkboxes in the Setup program: 'Slow down the connection', 'Disconnect randomly', and 'Show random errors all the time.'
But it was okay, of course, as a caption explained: 'Just kidding. These checkboxes actually don't do anything.' Humor isn't normally an ingredient you expect in a VPN installation, but we have to applaud Windscribe for being different and showing a little personality.
Once setup was complete, we were prompted to create an account. Entering just a username and password gets you 2GB of data a month, for free; hand over your email, too, and you get 10GB.
Manually setting up other devices can be more difficult, particularly if they're using OpenVPN. You're asked to manually define some low-level connection details, including type (TCP or UDP?) and port. You must repeat this for every server you'd like to download, and you can only do this at all if you have a paid plan (it's not available to free users.)
This is a more awkward approach than you'll see with some of the competition, where often you're able to download perhaps hundreds of server setup files in an archive, then unzip and use them all immediately.
This kind of configuration generator does give you great flexibility, though. For example, you could have some locations use OpenVPN UDP for speed, and others use TCP for reliability. And, unusually, Windscribe has similar web tools to generate IVEv2 and SOCKS5 configurations, giving you the ability to fine-tune all your manual VPN connections.
Windows client
Windscribe's Windows client looks very basic, at least initially: a small grey window with a location list, an On/Off button, a little status information (current IP, data allowance left for free users) and not much else. Begin exploring, though, and it's hard not to be impressed.
Tapping the default location displays the full list, for instance. This opens with a list of countries, but you can also expand any of these to view its available servers, complete with fun names (London's servers are Tea and Crumpets, the Los Angeles servers are called Dog, Dre and Pac).
Each server has a latency indicator to help you find the fastest option. You can also mark countries as Favorites, displaying them at the top of the list for zero-scroll reconnections later.
Users on the free plan can only access a few of the servers and countries (US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Romania, Hong Kong). Everything else is marked with a star to indicate it's for paying customers only, and those locations aren't selectable.
Changing servers is very straightforward. The client doesn't force you to manually close the current connection before you can browse to something else, unlike some of the competition. If you want to change to a London server, for instance, just find and click it in the list and you'll be reconnected within seconds.
The client does a good job of keeping users up to date, both displaying a Windows desktop notification when you're connecting, and changing the interface from its original grey to a more cheerful blue (a simple way to ensure you can see whether you're protected at a glance.)
One standout feature is that Windscribe's desktop clients can now import custom OpenVPN configuration files from other providers, and then display those servers alongside its own. That could allow you to use Windscribe's client as a front-end for multiple free VPN providers, for instance, making it easier and more convenient to switch service if your data allowance runs out.
A comprehensive Preferences dialog gives you an array of connection options. You can choose your preferred protocol (IKEv2, OpenVPN TCP/UDP, Stealth or WSTunnel to try and bypass VPN blocking), use a special API Resolution system to remove the need for DNS (useful for bypassing some types of VPN blocking), and set up a proxy (HTTP or SOCKS).
The client also supports setting up your system as a secure wireless hotspot (if your network adapter supports this) or a proxy gateway. Other devices on your network which support Wi-Fi or proxies can then connect to you and take advantage of Windscribe, without requiring any special VPN setup or software of their own.
There are unexpected but welcome extras everywhere you look. You can sort the location list by continent and country, alphabetically or by latency, for instance. A local View Log option gives a detailed view of recent program actions, great news for anyone trying to troubleshoot an awkward issue. And experts can choose their preferred TAP driver and OpenVPN version, or add custom OpenVPN parameters, giving a lot of extra control over how connections work.
We had one unexpected issue when using Windscribe to connect to a location crashed another program on our test system. This turned out to be because Windscribe forcibly closes all TCP connections when it connects, with the aim that any connections managed by other apps will update to use the new VPN IP. It's an interesting idea, but risky, and really shouldn't be the default setting. Fortunately, the client warns you if it notices a problem, and you can also turn the feature off in the Settings dialog.
There's a little room for improvement in other areas, too. We would also like a way for the client to automatically connect whenever we access an insecure or untrusted network, for instance. We believe this might be on the way, though, and even now, Windscribe's Windows client is a nicely balanced mix of power and ease of use.
Mobile apps
The latest Windscribe Android app looks great, is easy to use, and has several small improvements on the Windows clients.
The interface has a similar look and feel, with a country and city list and an On/Off button. Tap a location, then tap On to get connected; choose another location to switch, and tap Off when you're done.
Unlike the desktop clients, you can mark any city-level location as a Favorite. The desktop allows marking the US as a Favorite, but not cities – on the app you can mark Favorite cities, but not countries. Go figure.
There are separate lists for Favorites and Streaming locations, making them easier to locate and use.
A compact Preferences screen enables choosing between OpenVPN UDP, TCP or Stealth, and selecting your preferred port, plus it now includes support for IKEv2. On the latter point, if you're wondering why you should care, try it – we've found IKEv2 can connect in half the time.
Integration with Android's Always-On feature helps you set up a system-wide kill switch, and there are other low-level technical tweaks for geeks to explore (define a packet size, allow or block network traffic).
A Network Whitelisting tool enables automatically connecting to Windscribe whenever untrusted networks are accessed, while ignoring others. So, for instance, you could have the service automatically connect to protect you in the library or coffee shop, while staying offline when you're at home or work.
The big addition this time is Split Tunneling, a handy feature which allows you to choose which apps will use the VPN, and which will connect via your regular connection.
The new iOS app has also seen a major revamp since last time. Its interface is similar to the Android app, it has gained some of the basic features it was missing last time (there's now a Favorites system, at last), added some advanced tools from the desktop builds (the ability to work with custom OpenVPN configs), and now works with Siri, as well as shortcuts and widgets. It's all very impressive, and the App Store rating of 4.7 (at the time of writing) suggests other users are very happy with the app, too.
Browser extensions
Windscribe's Chrome, Opera and Firefox extensions provide a quick and easy way to connect to the VPN from your browser. This has its limitations – they're simple proxies and only protect your browser traffic – but if you only need the VPN for basic browsing tasks, they're your most convenient and straightforward option.
The Chrome extension has a similar look and feel to the regular apps. A compact interface connects to the best location with a click, you're able to choose countries or individual cities from a list, and set your most commonly used cities as Favorites.
Bonus options include the ability to connect when Chrome launches, and a whitelisting feature to define domains which won't be accessed via the VPN. (If you'd like to use a site which is only available in your own country, for instance, add it to the whitelist, and it won't be blocked when the VPN is on.)
The real value here is the bunch of security extras, including options to block ads and trackers, remove social media buttons, keep you away from malicious or phishing sites, randomly rotate your user agent, delete cookies set by a website when a tab is closed, spoof your GPS location, and set your browser time to match the virtual location.
This isn't going to match the ad blocking power and configurability of uBlock Origin or the other big names, but it's way more than you'll get with other VPN extensions, and even many standalone Chrome privacy extensions. And again, the excellent 4.7 rating on the Chrome store suggests most users agree.
Support
If you have any technical troubles, Windscribe's support site is a good place to begin looking for answers.
Resources start with an array of setup guides for a very long list of platforms and devices (desktops, mobiles, routers, NAS, smart TVs, torrent clients and more).
These tutorials don't have the same range and depth that you'll see from the best VPN providers, but there are interesting touches. NordVPN has setup guides for Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10, for instance, using its app, OpenVPN or IKEv2.
Windscribe's Windows setup section only covers its app, Windows 10 and IKEv2, but in an unusual touch, it shows how you can install the client using PowerShell (it's easier than you think). The Android guides also give you more choice than usual, with advice on how to get connected via IKEv2 using the Strongswan app, or via OpenVPN with OpenVPN for Android.
Once you've got the service up and running, a knowledgebase has articles to help you with common problems (slow speeds, random disconnects, and more). These are easy to read and cover the very basics, but don't begin to match the more advanced content in some of the setup guides, and some of the advice is questionable.
The slow speeds article includes a suggestion to 'exit [antivirus or firewall] software entirely', for instance. Apparently their inspection of network traffic may slow down or even interrupt the connection. We suspect that's unlikely to happen, but even if it's 100% correct, turning off your antivirus entirely while you're accessing the internet really isn't a smart idea.
If all else fails, you can contact support directly. There's no direct live chat (though apparently a simple support chatbot will sometimes escalate queries to a human support agent) and you can't just send an email, but the website does have a form you can fill in to raise a ticket.
Exactly how long it'll take to get a reply isn't clear, and a Windscribe blog post explains why: 'As we’re a relatively small company (13 employees), we’re unable to provide support 24/7, and since we provide support to all users, including millions of free accounts, things can be a bit overwhelming.'
But on the plus side, Windscribe points out that it does all support in-house, rather than using 'outsourced minimal wage workers on the other side of the planet who are reading off a script.'
You might have to wait a little longer for a reply, then, but with genuine in-house expertise involved, it's much more likely to be worth the wait.
Final verdict
Windscribe is a likeable VPN and represents good value, with a host of useful privacy protecting extras, and one of the most generous free VPN plans around. We have some reservations – speeds, the lack of 24/7 support – but these won't affect everyone, and so we'd recommend you install the free version in order to see how it works for you.
Posted by Hans Desjarlais
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