Strong VPN separates itself from the pack by way of simplicity. Depending on what you desire out of VPN, that may be good or bad. If you want a feature-rich VPN, Strong VPN isn’t the obvious choice. But as our Strong VPN review will show, sometimes simplicity can serve as its own benefit.

Strong VPN Review: The Basics

First and foremost, Strong VPN is a growing network. At the end of 2019, Strong VPN leveraged around 49 locations and 25 countries. Today in 2020, the company boast more than 59 cities, 950 servers, and right at 35 countries. That’s a dramatic improvement. 

There are multiple ways to connect via Strong VPN.

• L2TP
• OpenVPN
• SSTP
• IKEv2
• WireGuard

WireGuard is their most recent add and one of the few added features to a service that keeps things a bit simple. 

Security and Privacy

One of the main reasons you’re looking to acquire a VPN service is for data protection. Being that’s the case, let’s use this portion of our Strong VPN review to dive right in.

Strong VPN doesn’t store or track your web behavior or data while you are connected to their VPN. 

Strong VPN stores your email address and payment information, but that’s at the account level.

The company’s privacy policy states that your information will never be sold to any third parties.

Strong VPN utilizes cookies, you can disable them, but we aren’t sure how deeply that may or may not alter the VPN experience.

It’s unclear if Strong VPN keeps record of your connections. This could make some of you uneasy. Here’s the main kicker – Strong VPN is based in the United States. From a legal perspective, this may be why their privacy and security setup feels dry. It is no advantage to have a base in the United States, given the country’s reigning legal precedents over privacy. In other words, they can only offer so much privacy without harming their own legal obligations. That’s just something to consider. 

It’s impossible to verify if Strong VPN is truthful in its privacy claims. On one hand, it’s U.S. base likely encourages it to be forthcoming. On the other hand, there is no transparency. The fact is, if you are located in the United States, the company is subject to any domestic subpoenas or court orders. 

Getting Started

Once you purchase Strong VPN, you’ll be sent an easy download link. You’ll choose your device and download. You can use a PC or Mac or Android, whatever is good. The manual is clear and easy to read and explains per device. You should have few issues with Strong VPN setup if any.

Whether you want to set up Kodi or Kindle, or a number of other apps, the Strong VPN manual will get you off to a solid start.

To begin, you select a city/server to log in through. There is a downside here. Strong VPN doesn’t list speed times, so it’s unclear if your option is the best based on server loads. 

You can save your locations to a favorites menu so it’s easy to re-select past locations. You can search for specific locations to fit your needs. Otherwise, Strong VPN locations are set up in alphabetical order. 

The location app finder is basic. For example, if you’re already connected to a location, you can’t just double-click a new location to prompt a fresh connection. You’ll need to disconnect from your current location first. The global map is decent, but if you want to see things up close, that’s not going to happen.

In your Strong VPN settings, select OpenVPN, WireGuard, IKEv2, L2TP or SSTP.

You can set up to avoid VPN blocking by way of their scramble setting. 

Strong VPN Kill Switch

One very nice feature of Strong VPN is it’s Kill Switch. If you’re in a coffee shop and your connection terminates, you’ll immediately get a desktop or push notification alerting you. You’ll immediately be able to stop the connection without your IP becoming exposed.

Strong VPN Costs

Strong VPN is priced competitively. However, their plans can be a bit confusing. Let me break it down.

If you don’t do the annual plan, you’ll pay closer to $10 monthly.

This probably feels a little pricey. And rightfully so. But for some reason, Strong VPN does a poor job of explaining it’s pricing plans. Both the annual and monthly plan comes with 250GB of SugarSync secure cloud storage. If you were to purchase this straight up from SugarSync, you’d pay $10 a month.

So whether you pay $10 a month, or $5.83 per month, you get a bonus $10 value in storage. For someone unfamiliar with SugarSync, that price benefit may not feel obvious. 

Now, if you are someone that doesn’t need any cloud storage, the SugarSync portion of the plan adds no value. In this case, you need only focus on the core Strong VPN plan. 

Risk-Free

You’ll get no free trial opportunity, however, you can try it for a month and if you don’t prefer Strong VPN, they’ll refund you.

Strong VPN Netflix Unblocking, Other Streaming

Netflix unblocking is truly the apex of streaming challenges. If a VPN gets that right, their in pretty good standing with us. For the most part, Strong VPN does a good job with Netflix blocking, though some complain that they can’t access France, Canada, or the UK. You can definitely hit the US or even Japan and a number of other countries. All in all, you’ll get what you need with Strong VPN’s Netflix unblocking. 

Disney+ and Amazon Prime unblocking work well. 

Speed

Overall, expect Strong VPN to shave off an inconsequential 5% of your Internet speed. If you’re running 100 Mbps, expect to hit around 95 Mpbs, give or take. 

At times, Strong VPN can show signs of inconsistency with speeds. But overall, you shouldn’t lose too much in performance. 

If you turn on WireGuard, you might get a bit of boost, but I wouldn’t expect a massive spike. 

Customer Service

Strong VPN has live chat and a ticket system. The problem-solving prompts don’t tend to help much if your problem is a bit more complex than ordinary. Overall, you’ll get timely answers to your issues. 

Conclusion

Our Strong VPN review puts on display an affordable VPN service that utilizes a good amount of connection sources. The pricing is decent, and even good if you are in need of cloud storage. You don’t lose a ton of performance. The interface isn’t the best, but it gets the job done. They have good customer service.

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