what's up guys it's adam here and welcome to my review of kaspersky secure connection vpn
now as a vpn from a leading cyber security company you'd expect kaspersky secure connection to have
high standards still its privacy policy has always concerned me because of its suspicious connections
with the russian fbs also the us government has banned the use of kaspersky software within its
regions which raises further concerns so after conducting my testing and research on them
i can say that kaspersky secure connection isn't a safe choice for privacy enthusiasts
it keeps more logs than most vpns and it's still associated with its russian accusations
however it provides a fast speeds and high quality security features giving you adequate
protection from online threats like hackers and i'll talk more on that later in this review
okay so right out of the gate if you're not overly worried about privacy then i can still recommend
kaspersky secure connection it's low price makes it a great deal and you can claim a full refund
within 30 days if you're not satisfied but if you're concerned about its privacy or
it doesn't work out for you then there are other options out there like expressvpn which has a true
real no logs policy that has none of the privacy issues and in case you'd like to learn more about
express i'll put additional information in the description below okay so like my other reviews i
started things off with a speed test in fact i was pleasantly surprised by how fast and consistent
kaspersky speeds were actually the speeds were fast on both its short and long distance servers
and i could do all of my usual online activities without interruption now to test its speeds i used
ookla speed test tool which tested the download speed upload speed and ping so then what about
local speeds well to get a baseline for my speed tests i tested my local non-vpn connection in the
uk and the results showed a download speed of 51 megabits per second an upload speed
of 20.8 megabits per second and a ping of five milliseconds next when i connected to a kaspersky
server in the uk my speed dropped significantly now it's very common for speeds to drop on a vpn
connection because the internet traffic has to travel further distance now it's very common
for speeds to drop on a vpn connection because the internet traffic has to travel a further distance
and it goes through more layers of encryption however it was still fast enough for hd and it
easily surpassed my expectations with kaspersky on my download speed dropped to 29.7 megabits
per second the upload speed was 9.68 megabits per second and a ping rose to 238 milliseconds
and while it might seem like a massive difference by the numbers that was hardly the case actually
i expected my speed to drop even further on its long-distance servers and even though i expected
it to fall it didn't drop to the extent that i did expect in fact its long distance speeds were very
similar to its local servers the servers i tested first were its u.s and australian servers probably
the two most common server locations for accessing international shows when connected to the
kaspersky us server my download speed dropped to 21.9 megabits per second with an upload speed of 7
megabits per second and a ping of 223 milliseconds then as for the australian server my connection
speed dropped to 22.5 megabits per second the upload speed was 5.65 megabits per second
and a ping of 327 milliseconds from there i tested a wide range of different servers in various parts
of the world and the speeds were similar and pretty quick compared to the local connections the
long distance connections took a little longer to download videos on youtube but i didn't experience
any lag during movies overall i was pretty amazed at kaspersky speeds and consistency which puts
it right up with the best vpns okay so as for kaspersky server network i would describe it as
small but secure yes with 500 servers in only 30 countries kaspersky server network is small for a
paid vpn their list includes major countries like the us uk france australia japan russia and turkey
unfortunately you can only choose the server location and not the exact server which i found
to be disappointing for a paid vpn however it does give you unlimited server switches
kaspersky also has thousands of ip addresses which include both dynamic and static ips a
dynamic ip address changes every time you use the vpn whereas a static one stays the same with
kaspersky you have the choice of using either so this is very handy now even though kaspersky uses
hotspot shields hydra vpn technology their server networks are entirely different however it leases
its infrastructure from hotspot shield which means that kaspersky rents its servers since hotspot is
a secure vpn that's had independent audits it's safe to say that kaspersky's rented servers are
reasonably safe then as for security despite a history of issues i would say that kaspersky's
secure connection is in decent shape however the parent company of kaspersky secure connection
kaspersky lab had its technologies infected by a type of malware called dooku 2.0 in 2015
and dooku 2.0 is well known for infecting hotel computers in australia and switzerland
now it had infected kaspersky labs technologies for several months without being detected
luckily kaspersky lab used the knowledge gained from this attack to improve their defensive
technologies so you could say that it's had a positive effect then in 2019 kaspersky passed an
audit that a big four company conducted the audit carefully examined the five fundamental
principles of security which include availability protection process integrity confidentiality and
privacy now to review these concepts the big4 company looked at kaspersky lab services systems
interactions process controls user control tools and service risks and the end result was that all
of kaspersky lab services were well protected against external threats however it is strange
that the order is only available to clients with a business account with kaspersky lab okay so what
about encryption and security protocols well kaspersky secure connection uses the openvpn
protocol on android and ios and hotspot shields catapult hydra protocol on windows and mac os
now unlike other top tier vpns you cannot change protocol settings with kaspersky meaning that the
two protocols listed are automatically selected by default for example expressvpn allows you to
change your settings and also uses openvpn so just to give you a little background on these features
openvpn is a standard vpn protocol that's commonly used and highly configurable with plenty of port
types and it's well known for balancing speed and security as well as being an open source protocol
this means its source code is hosted publicly on the internet which provides excellent transparency
now catapult hydra on the other hand is unique to hotspot shield it establishes secure connections
and strong encryption by using tls based security sure this level of protection is among the
strongest for the transfer of data however since catapult hydra's information level is limited
it hasn't quite proved its worthiness like openvpn but if you use an outdated
network or service you can choose to use other protocols like ikev2 sstp and l2tp stroke ip6
also kaspersky secure connection doesn't support wireguard on any of his apps
thankfully kaspersky uses aes 256-bit encryption which is the gold standard of encryption actually
it's commonly referred to as military-grade encryption and is used by top intelligent agencies
worldwide to protect sensitive information in fact the processing power required to break
this encryption is so big that it will take more than a few lifetimes for the world's strongest
supercomputers to crack so you can be assured that your data is protected to the highest degree
also your dns requests are protected from dns leaks with kaspersky a dns leak is a security
flaw that accidentally links your rp address to your isp which can then leak your online data
and activity to unauthorized third parties this type of leak usually happens because of a vpn
misconfiguration so to make sure that kaspersky protects against dns leaks i ran a few tests on
ipleaks.net and when i connected to kaspersky servers in the us uk france japan and russia my
dns results weren't leaked at all now another security feature worth mentioning is the kill
switch that prevents your online data from being intercepted if the connection unexpectedly drops
in the end the only security features it lacks are split tunneling and multi-hop servers also
known as double vpn not having this option means you can't divide your internet traffic between vpn
and non-vpn traffic and connect to two different servers for extra security then as for privacy
with kaspersky well it's not great fortunately kaspersky secure connection is located in russia
which is outside of the 14 eyes alliance however russia has its own controversies around internet
freedoms and privacy in fact it only allows vpns that have been approved by the russian government
however kaspersky appears to be making an effort to steer away from the russian controversy
most notably they've moved their core processes from russia to switzerland and they've started
a global transparency initiative this initiative aims to capture the attention of the broader cyber
security community to verify the trustworthiness of its products still many countries are concerned
about their practices and rightly so kaspersky lab owns kaspersky secure connection which is
a world-renowned cyber security company in russia apart from the vpn it provides anti-virus software
cloud storage solutions endpoint security and password management software among other cyber
security products and services to help rid itself of questionable allegations kaspersky
secure connection has solicited independent reviews and audits of its products and services
it has also moved a lot of its main infrastructure from russia to switzerland alleviating such
concerns another privacy policy to consider is logging practices yes kaspersky secure connection
admits to some logging practices while it's common for vpn providers to collect some user
data to improve their services kaspersky's extent is problematic because it states that
it will hand your data over to authorities if you violate their terms and conditions and if
that's not concerning enough it is not well known what even constitutes a violation of their terms
but personal data would have to be collected to identify individuals and report them
should the situation arise also kaspersky uses the same infrastructure as hotspot shield another vpn
provider based in california and even though hotspot shield claims to not record any logs
of online activity they make it clear that they collect the same data like your location session
durations and ip address combine all of this with kaspersky's questionable policies and you have
every reason to be worried and that is a shame considering that they're pretty generous with
their support for simultaneous device connections kaspersky allows up to five simultaneous device
connections under one subscription and when i tested this by connecting my windows laptop
android tablets smartphone and old macbook pro it worked kaspersky secure connection ran smoothly
on all of my devices while protecting them at the same time but the bad news is that there's
no way to increase the number from five now many vpns can be installed on home routers to enable
unlimited device connections at home but kaspersky can't be installed on these home routers also they
keep track of all connected devices which again raises some questions for security and privacy
so next as for device compatibility well major operating systems like windows mac os
android and ios are compatible with kaspersky secure connection but not
linux it has a native app for these systems and there's no need for manual configuration
what's odd is that it has separate user agreements for each device also devices that can't support
apps like gaming consoles and home routers aren't compatible with kaspersky and it doesn't have any
browser extensions for chrome and firefox which means you can't use it on a chromebook either now
on the upside i found that nothing is complicated or technical when using kaspersky's apps its
home interface on the desktop has an on and off switch at the top the vpn server location on the
left and your current version on the right then clicking on the server location lets you choose
the country you want while clicking on the current version takes you to your subscription settings
you can connect to the fastest server under locations which is the one that's closest to you
next the left hand side has a taskbar which provides a wide range of options this includes
a useful to know tab which lays out all of the features and benefits of the vpn
and an other devices tab which provides a qr code it's nice that once you scan the qr code
on another device it will take you straight to the kaspersky download page making it much easier to
download and install the app also the settings tab lets you enable and disable the kill switch the
smart protection and notifications you can also choose to open the app at the computer startup or
automatically connect to a server when opening the app or you can manage your profile and request
technical support should you wish okay is mobile apps are not so different from the desktop ones
the interface lets you turn the connection on or off and select the server location when you go to
settings you can see the kill switch notifications and account settings and change them the android
app has a user rating of 4.3 and the ios app has a rating of 4.7 showing their user-friendly
nature in short kaspersky secure connection has intuitive apps that are great for newer vpn users
but more advanced users may be disappointed due to the lack of technical settings okay so i've had
some mixed results when setting up and installing this vpn on my devices so downloading the app was
straightforward and quick but installing it on my laptop took much longer also i found it kind
of confusing getting the correct app from its website because it didn't distinguish between
the free and paid versions also its 30-day money-back guarantee was nowhere to be seen
until the checkout section it would have been helpful had this have been mentioned earlier
then once i downloaded the app it took me just about five minutes to complete the installation
now this may not sound terrible but other vpns take nowhere near as long so i was surprised
next once the app was installed i had to create a kaspersky account and then log in using my email
and password which was easy actually it was much easier to install the android app on my smartphone
mainly because i could scan the qr code on the desktop app and once i'd scanned the qr code it
took me to the google app store to download the android app which was easily downloadable after
downloading it i just had to open it and log in which took under one minute so what about the cost
okay kaspersky has three pricing plans including a free monthly and a yearly plan of course compared
to the paid plans the free plan is very basic and comes with the limitations including 200 megabytes
of data per day a reduced server count and no simultaneous device connections or you can buy it
as part of a bundled package with other kaspersky software like the antivirus or password manager so
the monthly plan costs around five dollars a month while the yearly plan cost about three dollars a
month so compared to hotspot shield which uses the same infrastructure kaspersky is much cheaper
however you can only make payments with a credit card or paypal not through other methods
like cryptocurrencies fortunately both paid plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee
so you can test everything before committing but the uk version only comes with a 14-day money-back
guarantee so to test this out i asked to cancel my subscription through its technical support channel
on day 12. i then got a reply after 16 hours and they agreed to refund my payment once it
was confirmed it took me five business days to receive my full refund which was a bit longer
than expected so even though that kaspersky does come out at a lower price that price isn't exactly
worthwhile considering the privacy issues lastly i want to look at their reliability and support
so there isn't a live chat option on the kaspersky website which means you can't get
an instant reply to your questions and you can't even email them which is even more frustrating
instead they direct you to their support documents for all of kaspersky labs products
because of this it took me a longer than expected to find the answer to my question on protocols
however you can enter a technical support ticket under your kaspersky lab account if you need to
speak to someone when i tried it i got a reply after 16 hours which wasn't bad the response i
got was very detailed friendly and polite which surprised me then in addition to these two support
channels it also has a community page where you can ask questions of other kaspersky users and
an faq page with answers to general questions also you can scan files and links to check for
malware threats and a decryption tool to help with ransomware protection so even though kaspersky's
response to my support ticket was detailed the lack of live chat and email was disappointing
overall the readily available information seemed cumbersome and i felt that there
were too many pieces to sort through a simple faq section with live chat and email options
would have been more sufficient okay so in summary i'd say that kaspersky secure connection still
raises several red flags when it comes to privacy its logging policy is vague it has been compliant
with russian legislation and it can't shake off its perceived connections with the russian fbs
however its speeds and security are right up there with top-tier vpns and its price is very
competitive aside from its privacy it isn't the greatest for international movies and shows either
it struggles to access a lot of the popular sites there are other vpns out there that are much
much better still if you want to use a vpn that offers great value for the price
kaspersky secure connection might be worth trying and by using its 30-day money-back guarantee you
can even test out all of the features before fully committing to an ongoing subscription okay
thank you so much for watching my video just a reminder if you are interested
in trying out expressvpn which is my recommended alternative to kaspersky be sure to check out the
special discount link that i'll put down in the description below if you have any questions leave
a comment in the comment section and don't forget to like this video if you found my review helpful
and subscribe to my channel if you want to stay up to date on the latest vpns