hey guys so today i'll be taking a look at bravado vpn which is a new and promising
looking vpn service now right up front it doesn't provide as many advanced features as some of the
other vpns out there but it still shows to have great performance and it is an excellent value
now as always i'll be going over what they really excel at as well as some of their drawbacks just
to give you guys a full picture so to start pravattovpn controls significant portions
of their own network backbone along with more than 200 quite fast servers that generate some
of the fastest speeds of any vpn i've tested their network covers 60 cities in 47 countries and this
combination of network and server infrastructure makes bravado vpn a compelling choice so i'll
start off by talking about the features there are a lot of ways that provado vpn's features
stand out from the crowd to start they let users log in with up to 10 devices from a single account
which is twice as many as expressvpn and nearly twice as many as nord so you can protect your
desktop your laptop your phone your tablet your tv and then still have five slots left for
friends and family now installing provado on your router will protect every device on your network
while only using one device slot so bravado vpn gives users unlimited speed and data transfer
their server speeds are universally excellent and i was impressed with how fast some of my downloads
were then when i connected to the included sox5 proxy which i'll explain in more detail later
my download speeds really took off transfer speeds through the sox5 were indistinguishable from
downloading with a bear connection all of bravado vpn servers support p2p unlike say
nord where not every server supports file sharing and you have to try multiple different servers
to find a decent p2p connection that's also close to where you are and i should probably mention
that bravado vpn has one of the best free accounts i've seen you actually get 10 gigabytes of data
every 30 days on a single device and this is from 12 servers on their regular network so you're not
stuck using substandard free servers so when you compare provado's free offering to say a company
like winscribe who makes you sign up to their promotional emails to get that much monthly data
bravado vpn is the clear winner now another reason i like bravadovpn and wanted to review it for you
guys is that all their servers are actual physical machines located in tier 1 data centers one of the
things a lot of people don't know in the vpn world is the use of virtual servers which are advertised
as being in one place but really they're in another and so this is all marketing fluff and
spin basically using virtual servers to inflate server counts may make a service look better
but in actuality it degrades the user experience so expressvpn and surfshark both use virtual
servers and i'm not saying they're bad services overall but virtual services can
be a bad practice and here's why first physical servers are more powerful than virtual servers so
in pervadovpn's case their actual physical servers have multiple cpus meaning they can process data
at ridiculous speeds virtual servers are really just one server split into multiple servers so
each virtual server is sharing resources with the other virtual servers inside the physical box
so any virtual server can't transfer data as fast or as accurately as one physical server
and then to manage multiple virtual servers on a single piece of hardware you need a hypervisor
like vmware which lets different operating systems run on the same hardware this extra layer of
software causes latency which slows server speeds and your data transfer now latency which is also
called ping time this is the delay between your device sending a request for data and getting
the data being returned so the higher your latency the slower your connection and virtual vpn servers
can have up to five times higher ping times than physical servers and then besides slower speeds
virtual servers are less secure than physical ones because they can be targeted in ways physical
servers can't like through the software that runs the virtual machines and if a hacker gets access
to one virtual server they can access all the virtual servers running on that machine putting
you at higher risk for receiving malware or being spied on and so according to tests run by restore
privacy in 2019 five of the eight vpns they tested used virtual servers and in the case of providers
like hma and vipervpn more than half of their servers were probably virtual so provatovpn owns
and operates most of its own infrastructure from the physical servers to the actual fiber lines
carrying the encrypted data so their network is very reliable it's secure it's private and it's
fast they currently have more than 200 servers in 47 different countries and 60 different cities
with at least one server in every global region that's a smaller server footprint than some other
providers but because they use physical servers the trade-off in speed and security is worth it
now bravado vpn works on windows android macos and ios through dedicated apps
there are no apps yet for linux or tv streaming devices like firestick or roku but i've been told
by the company that they are working on those as well as a dedicated app optimized for ipad and so
they're estimated right now that the fire stick and ipad apps will launch this summer so it's
great to see their prioritizing app development to serve as many users as possible and then in
the meantime for platforms that don't yet have a dedicated app there are detailed instructions on
their website about manually installing provado vpn on other platforms so next i'll take a look
at bravado vpn's security which has some pretty cool things that they do so first they're based
in switzerland which has some of the best consumer privacy laws in the world for example the swiss
government doesn't require vpns to keep logs of user data like the european union does so if an
authority for example an official from another government requests information on a vpn user
the swiss are legally required to inform the user that the request was made and let them know
the outcome compare that now to a company like private internet access as an example which is
based in the us where warrants and national security letters demanding company data
usually come with a gag order and that keeps the company from disclosing that the request
even happened so switzerland is outside of u.s and eu jurisdiction and it isn't part of surveillance
sharing agreements like the 14 eyes alliance now these are actually secret agreements some of which
go back to just after world war ii and this was between countries to share intelligence with one
another the text of the agreements themselves are mostly classified so you can't even see what kind
of information they're obligated to share with one another however switzerland isn't part of any
of these agreements so they don't have to pass on any data to any other government unlike if
the vpn was say based in canada and the uk and if they asked for any user data also by building and
owning its own servers provado vpn can defend its users when governments request data that violates
its users privacy for example if germany wants your vpn logs for whatever reason germany won't
go to your vpn for them they'll ask the hosting company that rents their servers to your vpn and
then these hosting companies who aren't invested in your privacy at all they'll usually turn over
the data so provatovpn has more control over data requests because they own their own infrastructure
bravado vpn also keeps no logs of user activity at all other server hard drives are ram based so they
simply can't store data long term they only keep information necessary for people to log into their
servers but that login data is not connected with user activity and then pravattovpn also uses their
own dns servers to reduce the risk of dns leaks which is a pleasant surprise for a small company
so a dns leak happens when you're surfing the web and your computer connects to an unencrypted
dns server to locate the web page you want and this makes you vulnerable to spies and hackers
it's also good to see that bravado uses 256-bit aes encryption which creates an encrypted tunnel
for your data and this defends your connection from ip leaks and protects it end to end from
spies and packet sniffers now right now provado vpn offers two different vpn protocols ikev2
and openvpn and then openvpn can be in either tcp or udp now users can choose the one that best
suits their needs or you can allow provado vpn to choose the best protocol for you automatically
this is a great choice for newbies or beginner vpn users who aren't sure what the best protocol to
use might be i also really like that they include a kill switch feature right on the front page of
their app with an easy toggle so a kill switch protects your data so that if you lose connection
to the vpn your internet will shut down until you re-establish that connection it's really the
best way to make sure you're not accidentally sending unencrypted data and putting yourself
at risk now while provado vpn doesn't advertise tor servers or compatibility i tried to access
the tor network while connected to bravado vpn and sure enough i was able to connect and access
onion pages in fact the speeds were about what i would expect from just being connected to tor
without using a vpn so that's a huge plus for them now there are a couple of security
features that provado vpn doesn't currently offer such as a dedicated ip or custom dns service but
overall they definitely seem to be going the extra mile to protect their users privacy and security
and then when it comes to using streaming platforms this can often be a challenge
for vpns but i found that bravado vpn's premium plan was able to handle most of the platforms i
tried and this included netflix amazon prime hulu disney plus and bbc iplayer and then since it was
mentioned on their website i also tried hot star which is limited to india and that came up without
an issue as well both openvpn and ikev2 were able to provide high quality streaming with very little
loading and buffering time and then peer-to-peer file transfers went really easily with bravado vpn
all of their servers are configured for p2p so you don't have to find a specific server and since p2p
often takes up a lot of bandwidth what some providers will do is they will segregate p2p
traffic to dedicated servers so other users don't see slow downs and what this usually means is the
p2p servers are really slow so by contrast what provado vpn has done is they built a fast ip
network backbone to handle the bandwidth needs of torrenters without slowing down the other
customers so basically what this means to you is you can choose the server that's going to give you
the best speeds no matter where you're located instead of having to connect to a specific p2p
server and what's cool is p2p is allowed not only on the paid accounts but also on the free accounts
and this is unique in the vpn space proton vpn for example doesn't currently allow its free users
to torrent because of the bandwidth requirements and then as far as speed goes one of bravado vpn's
unique features is access to a sox5 proxy with paid accounts basically a sox5 proxy is like a
vpn in that you send all of your data through a different server to make your connection anonymous
unlike a vpn though it doesn't encrypt that data which makes it a lot faster for large files
of course successful torrent transfers require everybody you're sharing with to have access to
your ip address but with a sox5 proxy they only get to see the ip of the proxy server which of
course doesn't contain any of your identifying information so you remain anonymous also you can
specifically set your torrent client to use the sox5 proxy servers while the rest of your internet
usage goes through the vpn specific servers so your p2p client can use the faster proxy server
but the rest of your data will keep the benefit of 256-bit encryption and this was a really cool move
on bravado vpn's part because users who primarily want the anonymity of a vpn without worrying too
much about hiding their actual data can get faster downloads through sox5 now regarding bravado vpn's
support they did a nice job they were friendly knowledgeable and actually read my support ticket
instead of just sending a canned response that was kind of related to my question the downside is
they currently only have email support they don't have live chat support but in most cases i did
get an answer within an hour of sending my request so ultimately while i would prefer that they have
live chat support i was at least glad to see that they're answering questions in a timely manner
and then when it comes to pricing provado vpn currently has two paid plans and a free plan
regarding the paid plan there are currently two options the first allows users to pay month to
month for 7.99 per month and the second option is to purchase a 12 month account which drops the
price to 4.99 per month billed annually both plans have the exact same features so if you can afford
it it is worth buying early to save the extra 38 off the premium plan includes giving users
unlimited data you get access to all of their servers you get a socks 5 proxy and the ability
to connect up to 10 devices with the same account and then bravado vpn also offers a free plan that
gives users an ad free 10 gigabytes every month and access to 12 servers on any supported device
they don't require any information to sign up for other than a verified email address so what's
cool is even when your 10 gigs run out you still have access to one server but with reduced speeds
so that you can still keep your online activity private until the next month's data refresh so now
i want to talk about some reasons private ovpn might not be the ideal choice for everyone so
to start out this will especially be the case if you need specialized functions a lot of advanced
features that other vpns are adopting like split tunneling for instance are simply missing these
aren't requirements to having a good vpn and honestly a lot of people don't necessarily
need these features or actually use them so i don't think it's going to be a deal breaker
in a lot of situations so if you're someone who's newer to vpns and you're not even sure what split
tunneling is or if you use it i don't think it will probably be a deal breaker in your situation
also being a newer vpn they don't seem to have as many protocols compared to some of the more
established and popular vpns for example they don't currently have their own wireguard protocol
listed that being said again most people are fine with ikev2 and openvpn those are both excellent
and well-established trusted protocols to use also pravattovpn's fast servers make up for the
extra speed wireguard usually produces and again i didn't experience any significant slowdowns with
the protocols that they offered so ultimately would i recommend provadovpn absolutely provato
is one of the easiest vpn services i've used their apps have a simple interface making them perfect
for vpn newbies and they have fast and reliable servers as well the sox5 proxy feature and ability
to use any of their servers when file sharing makes them ideal for those who torent on a regular
basis also having the ability to connect up to 10 devices simultaneously makes them a great value
for those needing more connections than the five or six that is commonly offered with other vpns
and finally when you factor in that they build and own their own servers they're located in
switzerland and that it's impossible for them to store any data long term you end up with some
compelling reasons to choose bravado vpn even over the more established and popular vpns out there
now if you decide to give them a try they do offer a 30 day money back guarantee
so you can always get a refund if you're not happy i'll put a link down in the description
and as always i'll include any of the best deals or discounts i can get for you guys so
feel free to take advantage of those if you like but otherwise thanks so much for watching
hopefully you found this review helpful if so please leave a thumbs up as i always appreciate
that and if you have any questions about bravado vpn or any other vpn questions please don't
hesitate to share those below as i love getting to answer as many of those as i can otherwise thanks
so much for your time again i appreciate you guys watching and i'll see you in the next video