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Perfect Privacy VPN Review
A VPN with a big focus on security
In This Article
Verdict
Perfect Privacy isn’t as fast as other VPNs, but it’s packed with security features and has been shown to genuinely keep no connection logs, making it one of the most secure options.
Pros
Cons
Availability
Key Features
Introduction
Perfect Privacy is a VPN that has a clear focus on security, with low speeds making it a poor option for the likes of video streaming.
Perfect Privacy’s proven stability and proven no-logging record ensure that it’s an excellent choice for VPN users with specific, privacy-oriented applications in mind.
If you’re looking for speed, however, then you should go elsewhere.
Pricing and subscriptions
Perfect Privacy is one of the most expensive VPN services around, priced at $12.99/£10.58 per month, $119.99/£97.72 per year, $214.95/£175.06 per two years.
Even its most economical two-year subscription works out at $8.95/£7.29 per month, which is more than many rivals’ monthly subscriptions.
Privacy and Protection
The Swiss company behind Perfect Privacy is one of very few virtual private network providers that’s been shown to have a genuine commitment to its no-logging policy. When Dutch police seized two of its servers in 2016, no logs were found.
Like many of its rivals, Perfect Privacy publishes awarrant canaryto notify users of any court orders or warrants. The service is subject to Swiss law, which does honour international warrants, but recently found that VPN services and other over-the-top service providers shouldn’t be subject to enhanced logging requirements.
Features and Usability
Perfect Privacy provides a wide range of apps and connection instructions for every device you need to protect, even though the interfaces aren’t always glossy as some rivals, and iOS users might have to do a bit more manual configuration than they’re used to.
The desktop apps present a simple list of its endpoint server locations across 26 countries, with a button next to each entry that allows you to connect and disconnect from each one. Each server’s maximum bandwidth is listed alongside and, once you’ve connected to Perfect Privacy’s network, you can see how much of that is currently being consumed.
Whether or not you’re currently connected, you can ping all the servers for their response times, and these two bits of information offer a fair predictor of the performance you can expect from each endpoint location.
The service has very flexiblekill switchsettings to help ensure that you don’t accidentally send any traffic along unencrypted routes if the VPN connection goes down. By default, the kill switch is only active when you connect the VPN, but you can also set it to be active either whenever Perfect Privacy’s client is open, or permanently, which is a major advantage for people for whom privacy is of critical importance.
Other advanced settings allow you to use “cascading” Multi-Hop connections involving multiple VPN endpoints, a Stealth VPN mode to attempt to conceal the fact that you’re using a VPN at all – useful in countries where their use is restricted by law.
There’s NeuroRouting, which is designed to optimise performance by dynamically calculating the fastest route to get data to and from your desired online location, plus protection against malware, trackers and other online irritants.
You’ll also find more typical advanced options that allow you to select connection and encryption protocols.
Performance
Perfect Privacy has consistently produced some of the slowest download speeds of any service in my benchmark tests over several years, and this latest round was no exception. However, you’ll get a perfectly good browsing experience if you’re connecting to Europe, and performance when connecting to a US endpoint has improved to the point of being able to stream 1080p video without any major fuss.
I caught Perfect Privacy on a bad day, in which even UK speeds barely exceeded 31 Mbps. It’s done better in other tests, but has never come anywhere close to the average.
If you have a fast internet connection, you’ll notice a severe drop in download speeds. If you’re not trying to shift gigabytes of data quickly, performance via the UK is still good enough for most purposes, but Perfect Privacy isn’t primarily designed for entertainment-oriented uses. Don’t expect to be able to stream TV undetected while you’re connected.
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Should you buy it?
You want a VPN for the sole purpose of security:
Perfect Privacy has a proven no-logging policy and has lots of security features on offer, making it one of the standout VPN options if privacy and security are your chief concern.
You want a cheap VPN:
Perfect Privacy is one of the most expensive VPN options currently available and lacks a free tier, so this isn’t the best option if you’re on a tight budget.
Final Thoughts
Perfect Privacy is one of a handful of VPN providers that has been shown to genuinely keep no connection logs and provides a wealth of security features. However, it isn’t consistently fast across its European endpoints and its US connections are even slower. It’s also not cut out for streaming media.
As its name indicates, this service focuses specifically on privacy. If you’re looking for a cheaper, faster, more flexible general-purpose VPN, check outProtonVPN’s free and Plus tiers,NordVPN,SurfsharkandVyprVPN.
How we test
We run tests from a London-based connection that typically sees speeds between 500Mbps and 700Mbps, which means that we’re able to get a good idea of what each VPN’s maximum speeds currently are.
We test multiple endpoints from each provider in three locations: the UK, the Netherlands and the U.S.
Tested speeds with three endpoints: UK, USA and the Netherlands.
Researched security and no-logging claims
Tested all available features
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FAQs
No, you need to pay for a monthly or yearly subscription to use Perfect Privacy.
Yes, it has a great range of security features and has a proven no-logging policy, although speeds aren’t very good compared to rivals.
K.G. Orphanides is a writer and developer whose areas of expertise include internet security, VPNs, Linux for the desktop, small-scale game development, software preservation and computer audio techno…
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Why trust our journalism?
Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
