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Features
TigerVPN operates from the Slovakian capital, Bratislava. Slovakia is a great country for a VPN to operate from because the Slovak Constitutional Court previously ruled that the mass surveillance of citizens is unconstitutional. TigerVPN is a well-rounded VPN with the following premium features:
- 63 server locations in 43 countries
- 5 simultaneous connections – for yearly subscribers (two connections if you pay monthly)
- No usage logs
- Apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android
- OpenVPN, IPSec L2TP and PPTP encryption options
- Shimo VPN Manager software (free with the yearly plan only)
- Sticky Passwords subscription (free with the yearly plan only)
- Unlimited Data & Speed
- 500 Mb free trial
- Ticket-based support
Does TigerVPN unblock Netflix?
Unlike many VPNs, which make accessing the Netflix US catalog their priority, TigerVPN only provides access to three international Netflix catalogs – and the US is not one of them.
This is unfortunate, because the US catalog has more titles to stream. On the plus side, TigerVPN will work with the Spanish, Italian, and Brazilian Netflix catalogs, which may be of interest to some consumers.
Speed and Performance
We conducted all speed tests from a location in Central Europe, and tested servers five times in order to ascertain an average. Our average speed without a VPN registered at the 70 Mbps mark on the day of our tests. German, US East coast and UK servers were tested using an online testing tool (testmy.net).
The German server performed best, providing average download speeds of 32 Mbps. Both the UK and US servers averaged out at around 15 Mbps, with the UK slightly faster (probably due to its proximity).
All servers performed well enough for me to stream in HD. However, a drop of 40 to 50 Mbps is a pretty massive and people with a slower internet connection to start with, may find they are left unable to stream without buffering.
Upload speeds remained fairly stable and dropped by only a small amount compared to my base test. In addition, I discovered no IP leaks, DNS leaks, or WebRTC leaks when testing Tiger VPN, which is great news.
However, please remember I did not test for IPv6 leaks because I don't have an IPv6 connection at this time. This may mean that you need to disable IPv6 manually if you have this connection type at home, because IPv6 is known to cause issues for many VPNs.
Pricing and Plans
TigerVPN is comparable to most other premium VPNs when it comes to its subscription options. However, it is worth noting that customers who opt to pay annually are rewarded the most – because they receive access to Shimo VPN manager (worth $50 per year) and a free Sticky Passwords (password manager) account as part of the bundle. These features are not available with either the single month or 3-year plans.
Other than that, potential subscribers can choose between a single month, 12-month, or 36 month contract. The single month contract costs a whopping $11.99, this is pretty expensive when you take into consideration the fact that this plan only provides two simultaneous connections to the VPN.
Fortunately, the provider offers discounts to consumers willing to commit for a longer period of time. The yearly plan costs the equivalent of $6.67 per month, paid in a single installment of $79.99. This still feels a bit pricey when compared to competing services like Surfshark – which costs only $4.98 per month on the annual plan.
The one saving grace is that the yearly plan comes with the previously mentioned extras, and it can be used on up to 5 devices simultaneously. This may sway you, if you actually need a password manager. However, where the Shimo VPN client is concerned, we would really expect all users to get access to a premium custom VPN client at these costs, negating the need for Shimo altogether (you do with other VPNs).
The three-year plan reduces the cost substantially to just $2.75 per month. This is a much better price point, but it leaves you committed to this service for an inordinately long period of time, which generally leaves us stone cold because of our understanding of how much better competing services are.
On the plus side, a 7 day money-back guarantee is available. This will, at least permit you to test the VPN to see how it works, and you can always get your money back if you aren't happy. Payment options include credit and debit cards, PayPal, Payment wall, and Bitcoin.
Privacy and Security
OpenVPN is the default protocol. This offers the most security for users and is our preferred encryption protocol, which is great. TigerVPN also gives users the option of switching to L2TP, which is another secure protocol. However, we would generally recommend steering away from PPTP, which although available, is no longer considered secure for privacy purposes.
TigerVPN implements industry standard AES-256-CBC encryption with the OpenVPN protocol set as default. It also claims to implement it with RSA 4096 and SHA512 for the handshake and authentication. This is robust OpenVPN implementation.
Unfortunately, however, TigerVPN doesn't support Perfect Forward Secrecy, which we would expect all VPNs to support nowadays. This creates some questions surrounding the security of the protocol, which may bother the most security conscious.
Where the privacy policy is concerned, TigerVPN clearly states that no usage logs are stored. However, some connection details including time stamps and bandwidth are "temporarily stored". Considering Slovakia has no mandatory data retention laws this is frustrating, because the VPN could opt to retain nothing. On the whole, however, these kinds of logs will not be an issue for the vast majority of people.
For those wondering about torrenting, TigerVPN permits file-sharing and has servers optimized for it. This VPN allows P2P torrenting on most servers, although they do ask to refrain from this activity on their US servers, which again raises some concerns surrounding its logging practices.
All in all, TigerVPN uses pretty decent encryption, although it still falls short of the security levels you get with ExpressVPN, for example.
Final thoughts
TigerVPN is an average VPN that suffers from slow speeds, overpricing, and a lack of advanced features that the best VPN providers supply.
A three-year subscription makes the cost of the service fairer. But, we find that a hell of a long time to subscribe to a service that is lacking in nearly every area of its service. Many VPNs provide their service at a similar cost with a two-year subscription, which gives you the opportunity to shop around again sooner if you want to.
Admittedly, the encryption is fairly decent, and the VPN works well on all the popular platforms. It also has Okay customer care, if you don't mind the lack of 24/7 live chat support. Though, again we have to wonder why anybody would pay for this when they could get something that does everything (and has a kill switch and obfuscation) – for less money.
The one saving grace in terms of streaming is that TigerVPN did successfully unblock iPlayer outside the UK at the time of writing. However, the connection logs and the lack of torrenting in the US cause concerns, which, depending on your personal threat model, may be enough to make you want to shop elsewhere.
Finally, slow speeds are enough to sink the last nail in the coffin, and while there is nothing disastrous about this service, the fact is that it is very much lacking when compared to its competitors. All taken into account, we must conclude that it is better to look elsewhere.
Adz Lee