We’re pleased to see this as it’s more secure than SHA-256, which many other VPNs use.įurthermore, the VPN operates Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS), which ensures encryption keys aren’t reused between sessions. Windscribe securely encrypts network traffic.īoth the free and premium version of the software uses a secure SHA512 authentication key for the handshake. It obfuscated all incoming and outgoing network packets. Using Wireshark, a packet-sniffing tool, we verified that Windscribe securely encrypts web traffic. This encryption method is virtually unbreakable and can be trusted to protect sensitive web data. The VPN software encrypts network traffic using AES-256. Previously, the app defaulted to IKEv2, a closed-source protocol that we only recommend using if security is not a priority. Thankfully, the app now automatically uses WireGuard, which is a trustworthy open-sourced protocol. Uses Secure Tunneling Protocols & Encryptionīoth the free and paid versions of Windscribe use industry-standard VPN protocols and encryption methods. In our TunnelBear review, you can read how it used audits to identify vulnerabilities and fix them before they could be used to jeopardize the privacy and security of its customers. We’d like to see Windscribe commission third-party security audits to prevent this from happening again. It is very unlikely that all of these conditions were met. However, despite the claims of many other VPN review websites, there is no evidence that Windscribe user traffic was monitored.įor traffic monitoring to be possible, a user had to be connected to Ukraine through a manual configuration file while using OpenVPN and a legacy DNS resolver. These servers were unencrypted as Windscribe incorrectly didn’t consider Ukraine a “high sensitivity region.” In June 2021, two of Windscribe’s servers were seized by the Ukrainian government. We hope Windscribe can continue to optimize its app to deliver faster speeds.Īlthough we still rate Windscribe as a highly-secure VPN, we’ve recently downgraded its Security & Features rating due to a security breach. Previously, using OpenVPN, we recorded a 4x slower download speed on the Australia and Japan servers. That said, these speeds have improved a lot recently thanks to Windscribe’s addition of the WireGuard protocol. To put this in context, you can see how much slower Windscribe’s international speeds are compared to other top VPNs in the table below. We recorded a download speed loss of 27% connecting to the US and 55% connecting to Australia. We didn’t experience any connection drops while connected to Windscribe servers, either.īut, as you can see, Windscribe’s international speeds are much slower than its short-distance ones. ![]() Speeds were very consistent from one test to the next. This is a drop of only 6%, which is very fast and among the best results of any VPN we’ve tested. We saw download speeds decrease from 100Mbps to 94Mbps connecting to a same-city server. You can see how Windscribe’s logging policy compares to other VPNs in the table below: In addition, its diskless server network means data can’t be extracted from a server. ![]() We’d still like to see a third-party audit as well, though, as an extra safeguard.įor additional privacy, Windscribe allows you to sign up using cryptocurrency if you don’t want to provide a name or address. In every case, Windscribe hasn’t shared any user data as it doesn’t have access to it. Windscribe maintains a page documenting the 100+ law enforcement data requests it’s received since 2018. This has been verified many times by real-world events. The important thing is that none of the information can be used to personally identify you from your online activity. This isn’t ideal as other true no-log VPN services, like Private Internet Access, function without retaining anything. You can read Windscribe’s full privacy policy on its website.Īs you can see, Windscribe does log some data, which it claims are needed for maintenance purposes. Here’s a short video reviewing the best and worst parts of Windscribe’s VPN software: There are now better alternatives available. Windscribe Free has recently stopped working with US Netflix. Windscribe’s long-distance download speeds are sometimes 50% slower than the competition.
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