Features
- Over 100 server locations around the world
- 3 to 10 simultaneous connections depending on the price plan
- Business user plans
- Website host plans
- Reseller program
- P2P permitted on Netherlands, Romania, and Russian servers
- OpenVPN
- No usage logs
- DNS leak protection
Speed and Performance
We had very mixed results with our tests of WorldVPN's performance. Using the bespoke client and the account we were provided for testing purposes we found on average around an 80% reduction in bandwidth while connected to the nearest servers in the UK on our first day of testing. Some of our US server tests came with a truly dismal 500Kbps downstream result while connected to the VPN as compared to 25Mbps on our unprotected connection. A few days later our tests were returning much better results with almost no speed loss on the London OpenVPN dedicated IP profile supplied for encryption testing purposes, and UK server speeds generally around the 26Mbps region. We never had great success with the US servers though, with our best result managing a paltry 6.6Mbps.
We had some issues with the reliability of the VPN: some connection attempts failed to protect our Internet traffic despite the client saying it was connected, and the occasional drop-out or freeze-up was not uncommon. We had no issues with DNS leaks, indicating that the client provides some protection against this. WorldVPN uses Google's DNS servers.
Pricing and Plans
WorldVPN offers four pricing plans, two of which are pitched at the average user and two of which are more aimed at businesses. Although this is not advertised on the main website discounts are available for longer subscription periods. This means that the cheapest per-month price is actually $3.50 for an annual subscription to the Budget service which is fairly cheap if you don't need more than the allowed 15GB of bandwidth. Buying an Unlimited subscription on a recurring monthly basis is somewhat more expensive, at $9.95.
A free trial is available although you might not notice this on the site until clicking through to investigate pricing options. There isn't much detail given on the free trial but according to support it's limited to just 60 minutes of connected time. As well as this, new users can request a refund for any reason within seven days of purchasing a subscription. Payment can be made via a variety of means including credit cards, PayPal, WebMoney and - pleasingly - BitCoin.
Privacy and Security
WorldVPN focuses on the OpenVPN protocol, with 256-bit AES data encryption secured with RSA-256 for handshaking and SHA-1 for hash authentication (SHA256 on the control channel). This is an improvement over the default BlowFish-128 cipher. PPTP and L2TP options are also available using 128-bit encryption. Obviously, given the bandwidth limitations of the Budget plan, users' bandwidth use is logged to their account, and this can be viewed on the account page. According to support nothing else is logged, and no IP addresses are kept.
Some red flags are raised by the general difficulty of obtaining information on the service. We also have concerns about the ease of tracking any customer assigned to one unique dedicated IP as per the "Dedicated" subscription plan.
Final thoughts
It's nice to see a VPN provider work on its flaws, and WorldVPN has made improvements to its service recently: it's fixed an issue with inconsistent encryption strengths and added a Privacy Policy and Terms of Use to its website. There is, however, further room for improvement: there's the issue of reliability - especially those worrying times we found the VPN wasn't protecting our connection at all - as well as confusion when trying to get information about the service. When it works, though, it works well, with no DNS leaks, high potential speeds and a large variety of servers and locations from which to choose. With three devices catered for even in the Budget plan and reasonably cheap prices bolstered by a (brief) free trial and money-back guarantee, it's up to you whether you want to give WorldVPN a try.