- Time for the Mullvad VPN review.
It's one of the people's favorite, after all.
From the account creation that requires no personal data
to high standards of security,
it is a paragon of a VPN quality.
But Mullvad is not only about good security.
In this Mullvad review,
I will get to the bottom of the upsides
and the downsides it has.
(soft, upbeat music)
To start with, is Mullvad good for security?
I've heard that Mullvad
is considered to be one of the safest VPNs,
and in my experience, it's not just simple rumors.
The Mullvad VPN account creation process
has to be the most unique of all I have encountered so far.
You don't need to provide an email address.
Instead, you are getting a personalized account number
that you use to log in.
The payment can also be completely private,
not just with cryptocurrencies, but with cash,
or specialized Mullvad vouchers
you can buy in certain shops.
A lot of effort was put into making Mullvad private.
That's for sure.
One downside is that it's in Sweden jurisdiction.
This country's part of the 14-Eyes Intelligence Alliance,
after all.
However, with no-logs policy in place
and a Mullvad privacy audit,
I believe it can deal with this minor issue.
Even the baseline security is reliable.
There's a choice between the AES-256
and CHACHA20 encryptions, with both being viable options.
Plus the kill switch is enabled by default
to avoid IP and DNS leaks.
While Mullvad doesn't have that many additional features,
it can offer shadowsocks protocol
against internet restrictions
and split tunneling for flexibility.
Plus, there are options to block ads,
malware and even gambling and adult content.
WireGuard servers also has an option to enable multihop.
A good array of features overall.
But that alone is not enough to judge Mullvad.
So I'm continuing with this review of Mullvad VPN.
Next in line is performance.
Once again, there are a lot of things here
that Mullvad does a bit unconventionally.
For instance, its servers are separated
by the tunneling protocol they use.
About 340 servers use open VPN.
Over 380 have Mullvad WireGuard support,
and about 30 servers work on the bridge protocol.
With a total of 899 servers in 39 countries,
Mullvad falls off in comparison to most top providers.
On the other hand, Mullvad takes pride in the fact
that it owns a portion of their server grid.
And I only have to agree.
This is price worthy investment
that takes away a lot of outside influence
on their infrastructure.
Performance wise,
I'd say that Mullvad's speed test showed me
a stable connection and a decent speed level.
The worst I have seen in it, about 40% loss.
But with my baseline of 300Mbps,
that's honestly not that bad.
I would've loved to take this speed for a spin
on my favorite streaming websites,
but alas, I can't.
Yeah, it's a sad moment for this Mullvad VPN review 2022.
Mullvad doesn't work with streaming content.
Neither Mullvad Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer,
nor any other combos worked for me
no matter how many servers I have tried.
If you really want a streaming VPN,
I can't recommend Mullvad.
You'd have to pick a VPN like Surfshark.
It can access 29 different Netflix libraries
and a lot more content in general.
Plus, it has been much faster for me than Mullvad.
But it's too early to get all pessimistic.
With a great negative comes a great positive.
This Mullvad review reaches torrenting,
and Mullvad is awesome at it.
I've not experienced any P2P restrictions with Mullvad,
and that's only the beginning.
Security aside, there's Mullvad port forwarding
and SOCKS5 proxy to increase your torrenting performance.
Not enough?
How about split tunneling for versatility, and wait for it!
This feature is on Linux as well.
If you didn't know,
that has to be the only VPN I've tested
that has this feature on Linux.
So yes, great for P2P as I've been saying.
Continuing with upsides,
Mullvad doesn't have a platform it won't support.
I've seen apps for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux.
So yeah, no need to wonder does Mullvad has iOS app?
It does, but without the split tunneling feature.
That said, as of now, there are no browser extensions
that offer VPN.
But there's one on Firefox
that serves as a privacy companion.
This extension includes AdBlocker, Cookie AutoDelete,
and a couple more interesting things.
Overall though, Mullvad has been easy to use.
I've never stopped to think how to use Mullvad,
a very straightforward app.
The Mullvad VPN download and installation process
is also easy.
The whole account number thing
simplifies the registration and login process.
I find it to be a unique approach with a huge upside,
but this is not the only unique approach Mullvad takes.
Time for this Mullvad VPN review to talk about pricing
and how Mullvad breaks all conventions with it.
Mullvad sports a consistent price tag.
About $5 per month regardless of how long a subscription
you are going for.
While many VPNs offer discounts for long term subscriptions,
Mullvad only offers a 10% discount
if you are paying with crypto, and that's about it.
To be fair, I find it a bit disappointing
that Mullvad doesn't offer a free trial
that most VPN providers offer these days,
especially seeing how Mullvad is a bit pricey.
But a 30-day money back guarantee kind of fills this spot.
Oh, you also get five simultaneous connections per account,
a number consistent with some of the top providers,
so that's okay.
So, is Mullvad good enough to use it?
The verdict for this Mullvad VPN review for 2022 is yes.
Yes, it's worth using.
I can see why it's a go-to choice
for security oriented users,
and the added flexibility of device support
and torrenting
helps Mullvad to be amongst the best VPN providers.
I still believe that there are better options
for streaming though,
and the pricing doesn't seem very fair to me,
considering you lose on that streaming aspect.
So if you are a big streaming enthusiast,
I will leave my list of best VPNs in the description.
You'll also be able to get
a reliable streaming VPN with a discount
by following that link.
Thanks for watching this Mullvad review.
VPN providers can be very different,
and I enjoyed taking a look at this unconventional option.
Don't forget to let me know what you think about Mullvad VPN
in the comments below.
I'll try to answer all of your questions,
and I'll see you soon in another video.
(upbeat music)