About NordVPN
NordVPN is an industry leader in VPNs, being highly reputable and reliable. It offers an impressive arsenal of privacy tools and security standards and has the best subscription plans in the industry. It launched in 2012 and has been coming with notable updates with every passing year. Their SmartPlay technology, which allowed access to geo-restricted content, was launched in 2015, while their mobile apps for iOS and Android arrived in 2016. NordVPN offers a trial period for users who want to test the product before they use it. NordVPN is so confident in its services that it goes further to provide a 30-day money-back guarantee if users are unhappy with its services.
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Where Is NordVPN Based
NordVPN is incorporated and based in Panama. It falls within the jurisdiction of Panama, where they are not subject to any surveillance or data retention laws. The company can only be subpoenaed to a Panamanian court and will not respond to subpoenas from any other court. Panama is very secure as neither it carries out surveillance nor shares any surveillance data with other countries as part of agreements.
NordVPN Features
NordVPN offers impressive features for both new and experienced VPN users with the added benefit of discounts on subscriptions.
Kill switch: NordVPN features a kill switch feature to shut down the internet connection if the VPN connection fails. This feature protects location, IP, and online activities from being exposed to internet service providers. Users can either opt for a system-wide kill switch or app kill switch to select which apps to kill on VPN connection failure, and the kill switch will do the rest of the job.
SmartPlay: NordVPN offers a unique feature to stream media from unrestricted regions and bypass streaming media blocks. When users try to access blocked streaming platforms in their area, the SmartPlay feature kicks in to unblock streaming media platforms.
CyberSec: NordVPN uses CyberSec to block malicious websites. CyberSec cross-checks the pages visited by the user in real-time against its database of blocklisted web pages with a bad reputation for spyware, malware, trackers, and phishing. CyberSec notifies the user with a message on visiting such pages and blocks the page unless this feature is turned off.
Servers by NordVPN
NordVPN is a giant in the VPN industry and has more than 5200 servers across 60 countries, which means users can use it at constant high speeds. The closer users are to the servers, the faster their internet speeds are. Users in Europe, the Americas, and Asia will experience the highest speed as these regions have higher coverage of servers. Furthermore, these servers are not rented as renting might give partial control to other parties. However, NordVPN’s servers are owned, maintained, and managed by NordVPN only to maintain the highest privacy standards. Users can select any particular server to connect to them and find the fastest among their clean list of servers.
NordVPN Encryption
When users create an account and install the client, they can easily connect to any NordVPN server. NordVPN servers encrypt the connection with the gold standard AES-256-CBC cipher to ensure that any snoopers cannot read users’ traffic. After establishing the connection, users’ credentials to connect to the server are encrypted with the SHA-512 hash function. These credentials are authenticated by cross-checking them against the ones created during the account creation. On successful authentication, users can access the server. While most VPN providers are still using SHA-256, NordVPN leverages the SHA-512 for more robust security.
Speed Supported by NordVPN
Even though VPNs reduce internet speed and affect its performance, NordVPN’s connections are stable for most internet activities such as streaming, torrenting, and browsing. The NordLynx protocol boosts the speed by miles. The speed also depends on the location and proximity of the server with respect to the user. If the user is close to the server, they will not be able to differentiate between regular internet speeds and the speed while using NordVPN.
NordVPN Pricing
NordVPN has standard pricing. They have a monthly fee of $11.95 and an annual fee of $119. However, NordVPN comes up with introductory offers now and then. For example, they are currently offering a 2-year subscription plan for an overall $79. This fee will revert to the annual $119 fee upon completion of two years.
NordVPN Security Features
NordVPN operates in Panama, a country that has relaxed surveillance and data retention laws. These laws allow NordVPN to offer the best privacy and security that a VPN provider can. It has a strict no-log policy so that users can be assured that their data is private and will not fall into the wrong hands.
Mobile/Desktop Apps Available on NordVPN
NordVPN is user-friendly in terms of offering native apps for major OS platforms. NordVPN’s easy-to-use apps are available for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and other listed platforms. This VPN provider offers a multi-device subscription if users have devices of multiple operating systems.
Conclusion
NordVPN has proven to be a versatile VPN service provider due to its global availability and top-notch software. Its operations in Panama ensure users’ activities cannot be seen by any government. It offers excellent security features such as AES-256 encryption, no-logs policy, IPSec, and IKEv2. With impeccable speed due to its proprietary servers around the globe, NordVPN is one of the fastest VPN providers. NordVPN is user-friendly with applications for multiple operating systems and automatically unblocks streaming services.