VikingVPN Review

There are a lot of VPN services available on the internet today. We see so many bad or lackluster examples that it can be a pleasant surprise to come across a VPN that gets a lot of things right.

Today, we’re bringing you our VikingVPN review where we’ll go over all the details you will need to understand what makes this VPN tick, and whether or not it’s right for you.

Overview

The first thing you’ll like about our VikingVPN review is that the service employs a high standard of encryption with a solid protocol that will effectively protect your traffic against leaks and other dangers.

The program itself doesn’t cause significant slowdowns while connected, which is a huge plus that opens up a lot of options for this VikingVPN review.

One area where the client kind of hits a wall is the pricing. The plans available for this service are on the expensive side, but that’s hardly anything to worry about given the excellent security and other features associated with this VPN.

The client itself also has app support for most standard operating systems, including Windows, Android, Mac, iOS, and Ubuntu. While it would be nice to see the platform expand into some more specialized areas, this is definitely a competent level of device coverage.

For the versatility points in our VikingVPN review, we noticed that the program was quite effective in performing a number of tasks, such as unblocking Netflix content and torrenting effectively.

Another cool thing we found while researching is the fact that the client seems to be an effective solution for private browsing in China. We’ll talk more about this later on in our VikingVPN review, but it’s a good thing to just keep in mind for now.

The company, unfortunately, doesn’t seem very gung-ho about training up a specialized customer service team. This means that they do the customer service themselves. This is good for effectiveness, but bad for responsiveness. We’ll talk more about this down below.

To top all of this off, the client happens to be straightforward and easy to use. So, without further ado, we’ll go ahead and continue with our VikingVPN review by going over some of the safety and security factors we should consider when looking at this VPN.

Is VikingVPN safe to use?

There are a lot of things that make a VPN desirable or unsuitable for privacy protection. The first thing we need to worry about for our VikingVPN review is the encryption standard.

VikingVPN is serious about security: they use AES-256 CBC encryption with 4096 RSA handshake. The service operates on the OpenVPN protocol, which is industry standard and more than capable of providing the security you’ll need.

When we tested for leaks, the client was very solid, not leaking any IP, WebRTC DNS, or IPV6 info. Overall, we found during the course of our VikingVPN review that the encryption and security features are quite solid.

Moving on to the legal jurisdiction, the company is based in the US, with servers in the US and UK. These aren’t the best places for a VPN headquarters or server presence, as there are some strict laws there about data collection and privacy. The most important thing to keep in mind is that these two countries are part of the 5 Eyes initiative. This means that the governments and law enforcement agencies in these countries may share data and intelligence collected on their citizens.

Of course, this is only really a problem if you intend to break international law. Still, it’s important to keep in mind if you’re going to be doing something while browsing that lands you in hot water.

The next thing we should concern ourselves with is the privacy policy. While researching for our VikingVPN review, we made note of their policy which states that they do collect some information.

The main info they collect is billing information and email addresses necessary for keeping the billing and service running properly. The policy stresses that things like billing info are kept strictly confidential and handled by a third-party payment contractor.

The company’s website also collects some data in the form of Google Analytics information. This is necessary for the company to understand the type of traffic that’s coming and going from their site, and there’s a plugin that lets you opt-out of the analytics collection.

The last thing the company states in their privacy policy is that in case of a malicious attack, they may need to temporarily enable logging in order to address and protect against the problem.

Over all, much like their encryption, VikingVPN’s privacy policy is fairly solid, with not too much to worry about in terms of privacy and information sharing.

Speed and performance

Since the service has no free trial or money-back guarantee, we weren’t able to perform our own speed tests on the service. That being said, the company is very confident about its connectivity features, and there are plenty of customer reviews online giving stellar comments about the performance of this VPN.

Although they only have a server presence in the US and UK, customers in several locations confess of minimal slowdowns, and speeds effective for streaming high quality content or torrenting large files.

Of course, speed is a very subjective statistic when it comes to VPN services, and there isn’t really a good way to check for yourself without purchasing a subscription.

How to download and install VikingVPN

VikingVPN is a very straightforward service. Navigating to their website will land you on a colorful little page with some straightforward links and basic info on their VPN service.

Clicking on the “Sign up now” button will bring you to a page with their payment plans, where you can sign up for premium services. Once you’ve got your account signed up and you’re ready to get started, you can click on the “connecting” dropdown menu and select the operating system you wish to use with VikingVPN.

For Windows, the installation is very straightforward, requiring only the installation of the client itself. MacOS becomes a little bit more complex, requiring some manual installation and the usage of a third-party client. Mobile installations are largely the same, requiring a sort of process in order to get the service up and running.

There are plenty of guides on the web site to help with every step of connecting to VikingVPN.
Once you run the program, you will be met with a simple server list ready to get you connected and browsing securely.

The other clients have slightly more complex interfaces, but nothing too complex for our VikingVPN review.

Apps and extensions

The client offers support for Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, and Ubuntu. It’s nice to see support for some less popular operating systems such as Ubuntu, but this is still a fairly standard set of devices to cover. It would be nice to see the platform expand into some lesser-known systems, or for them to develop specialized clients to streamline the process on non-Windows machines.

Versatility

This is the part of our VikingVPN review where we’ll go over a few features that make a VPN versatile. These are things like whether the client is useful for unblocking Netflix, torrenting, or accessing the internet securely from China.

The first thing we noticed over the course of our VikingVPN review is that the client is effective for unblocking Netflix. Although there is a limited number of server locations available, we were able to get unblocked US content with no problem.

For torrenting, it’s important to note that the company does not prohibit torrenting in their terms of service, and although there are some concerns about the legal jurisdiction that the company and their servers fall under, the high security standard and decent performance profile makes this client quite effective for peer-to-peer file sharing.

The last thing we need to look at for this section of our VikingVPN review is how the client functions from inside China. While the lack of server locations and such may give you the impression that the client is not useful for use inside China, there are actually a number of users online who say they are able to browse effectively while using the client.

The website, as well, is unblocked in China, which is another good sign for our VikingVPN review.

Support

As we mentioned earlier, the company doesn’t actually train and maintain a specialized team of customer service experts. While it’s nice that the customer support team consists of mainly developers who really understand how the service works, this means that their response times and support avenues are a little lacking.

They provide direct customer support through email, and they have a passive support blog available on their website as well.

Pricing

As you can see, the pricing plans are very straightforward. Three different plans for three different commitment periods. The longest plan gives you the largest discount, but the cost remains quite high at all price points.

It makes sense that you’re paying for the extra security and versatile functionality, but these prices are still very high, even compared to the competitors who can above VikingVPN’s level of security and functionality.

The company handles payment through credit card, Bitcoin and Dash. It’s nice to see private options like Bitcoin in their payment method options, but this section could still use some expansion.

The bottom line

VikingVPN is a very solid option if you’re concerned with effectively using high encryption standards to protect your traffic while not adversely impacting your speed. They have a good amount of features designed to make your VPN experience as comfortable as possible.

While we found them to be on the pricey side, with some definite areas for improvement, the overall experience was very solid, and we would highly recommend this VPN to anybody willing to fork over the cash.