Gabe Turner: Hey, folks.
This is Gabe at Security Baron.
In the world we live in, ghosting is a thing.
Some people ghost.
Some people get ghosted on, but could it be positive in the world of VPNs?
Let's check it out today in our review of CyberGhost.
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Gabe: In today's review of CyberGhost, we're going to look at the pros and cons, features,
run some speed and leak tests, check out the subscription options, customer support, and
finally, the mobile application so you have all the information you need to make the right
decision.
If you'd like to see a list of our favorite VPNs, google "Security Baron Best VPNs."
If you have a question about today's review, leave us a comment and I'll get back to you.
Let's look at the pros and cons of CyberGhost VPN, beginning with the pros.
They're headquartered in Romania, which is not a part of any international surveillance
program which is great.
You can feel pretty secure with that.
They have some of the best customer support reviews out there.
Finally, they have one of the most affordable subscription plans with options as low as
$2.75 a month.
Now, on the con side, CyberGhost does keep a little bit more of your information that
I think is probably necessary, like your IP address, which they claim to anonymize.
Finally, they do not allow for any split tunneling.
If you want to be on a private network and a public network, you're going to be out of
luck.
You're going to have to pick one or the other with CyberGhost VPN.
Now that we've gone over the pros and cons for CyberGhost VPN, let's check out its feature
set, beginning with its data logging policy.
Most VPNs will keep your name, address, email, user name, payment information, but CyberGhost
VPN also takes into account how often you use the VPN, what country you're in when you
used it, even holds onto to your IP address though it states to anonymize that last bit
of information.
For me, that's entirely too much for your VPN company to be holding onto.
When it comes to a Kill Switch feature, they actually do have one.
They engage it in case the VPN goes out.
It's also known as a network lock feature.
If you're browsing the Internet, using an app, anything of that nature, it'll automatically
stop so that your information isn't exposed to the public network in the case of something
happening to our VPN.
The next feature we'll look at is split tunneling.
Split tunneling is something that you'll use to be on a public and private network at the
same time, but not something offered by CyberGhost VPN.
We like split tunneling because it does allow you to reduce your bandwidth usage while making
your Internet speed a little bit faster.
Unfortunately, CyberGhost does not provide that opportunity.
When you're looking at Netflix access, however, and the constant tug of war between Netflix
and VPN companies, CyberGhost is doing pretty well.
We were able to use Netflix with CyberGhost.
I will just note that when you're looking at using Netflix UK, you may have to pay more
for that IP address.
Hold on.
Quick break.
CyberGhost VPN is based in Romania, which is outside of the Five Eyes and Nine Eyes,
and most other international surveillance programs.
We're wondering as a consumer how important is that to you.
We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Let's get back to the video.
Now that we've gone over the pros and cons, and features of CyberGhost VPN, we're going
to put it to the test.
By that, I mean we're going to give it a speed test, a DNS leak test, and a Web RTC leak
test.
Just for the sake of transparency, I conducted all these tests with my control group of a
MacBook Air and ASUS VivoBook in a Brooklyn apartment on the Optimum network.
Let's begin with the speed test, beginning with download speed.
On my Mac, I only saw a download difference of less than three percent with the VPN as
opposed to without it.
My VivoBook didn't fare as well, with the 20 percent decrease in download speed.
Honestly, upload speed followed the same trend, with a difference of only 7 percent on my
Mac and 47 percent on my Windows computer.
Now the final thing that I went over was latency or ping.
If you're a gamer, you want to keep that latency to a minimum.
Again, there was an increase of 14 percent on the Mac but 77 percent on the VivoBook.
It appears from my experience that CyberGhost does better with Mac users in terms of speed
over PC users.
Let's conduct a DNS leak test.
DNS stands for Domain Name Server.
It's essentially when you type in google.com, there's actually a longer IP address underneath
that.
You don't want that to be divulged to everyone out there.
Now width.
CyberGhost VPN, it passed that leak test with flying colors.
Let's move on to the next one, which is the Web RTC leak test.
Web RTC stands for Web Real Time Communication.
It is, essentially, what is used whenever you connect two computers directly together
without going through an intermediate server.
That's something that happens on Chrome and Firefox when you're transferring large files,
doing a video chat, or live streaming.
You don't want that private IP address to go to the other party.
Fortunately, for us CyberGhost VPN did not allow that information to leak out.
Once again, it passed the Web RTC leak test with flying colors.
Let's check out the subscription options for CyberGhost VPN.
If you sign up for three years, it's going to be $2.75 a month.
If you sign up for two years, it's going to be $3.69 a month.
If you sign up for a year, it's going to be $5.99 a month or $12.99 monthly.
Now the great thing with CyberGhost VPN is you're going to get access to over 3,700 servers
in numerous countries.
You can connect up to seven devices simultaneously.
If you want a dedicated IP address, those cost you an extra $5.00 a month.
In terms of offerings, it's pretty impressive from CyberGhost VPN.
Let's check out customer support for CyberGhost VPN.
CyberGhost VPN has a few ways for you to get in touch with them.
You can go to their online help center, of course, and see if you can figure you the
problem yourself using the FAQs.
You can even create a ticket so they can answer your question over time.
What we like the most and this probably gets you what you need most immediately, it's going
to be their live chat feature.
Live chat, you can go in, ask someone a question, and they'll get right back to you.
When it comes to what people are saying about CyberGhost, it's pretty positive.
It has a 3.6 out of 5-star rating on Amazon and a full 5-star rating on Trustpilot.
Most of the reviews that specifically mention customer support are very positive.
What we like the most and we thought was representative of what CyberGhost is doing in the customer
support arena is that they responded to every single person.
If you had a question, you had an issue, and it was in your review, CyberGhost actually
responded to you which is topnotch support.
CyberGhost is really going above and beyond when it comes to customer support.
The last thing I want to address today is the CyberGhost application available on Windows,
Mac, Android, iOS, Linux, but we want to focus specifically on the mobile applications.
With Android, it gets s 4.3 out of 5-star rating in the Google Play Store, whereas with
Apple App Store, it does do as well, but it's not bad, with a 3.4 out of 5-star rating.
Let's just go ahead and check it out on my iPhone X.
Here we are checking out the CyberGhost VPN on my iPhone X.
If I click right there in the middle, it'll give me a Now York VPN.
I see that big old button right there, with the power on and off button.
Let's check out best location.
Here, you have a lot of servers available.
It's interesting how these different servers in all these different countries.
If you click in the middle where it says streaming, you can actually look at the United States,
optimize for Netflix, optimize for Hulu, optimize for Crunchyroll, optimize for YouTube in Germany.
It's pretty cool.
You have a ton of different options.
Optimize for HBO GO Romania.
For someone like me who actually used to watch a lot of Globo, you've got optimize for Globo
Brazil.
Actually, let's pick one of these.
Let's go to optimize for Hulu in the United States.
Click on that button in the middle, connecting, and boom!
Here I am, based in Dallas.
It's pretty straightforward.
If I click this, I can disconnect.
If I want to go to another location, go to Costa Rica, boom!
Now I'm connected to Costa Rica.
San Jose, very straightforward.
Basically, that's all there is to the CyberGhost app.
You can reset to best location here at the bottom, which would get you to the fastest
server based in your location.
You've got that big button in the middle that you can tap on your iPhone or your Android.
You can look at the various servers.
I love being in different countries, at different times.
If you want to be in Japan, if you want to be in Iceland, if you want to be in Denmark
or Chile, it's just straightforward intuitive app.
It connects almost instantly, and it's pretty simple to use.
That's our look at the CyberGhost VPN app.
We've come a long way with the CyberGhost VPN.
I've yet to ghost on you.
You wanted to know, hey, "Is this the right VPN for me?"
Well, if you're someone who really wants to use Netflix, have an affordable option for
a VPN and have excellent customer support, then you might want to look at CyberGhost,
especially if you're a Mac user.
I say that because some of the cons are that it isn't the fastest or, at least, it wasn't
the fastest for me on my Windows computer.
Additionally, I do think they keep a little bit more information on you than necessary,
Of course, that might be mitigated to some extent by the fact that they're outside of
all international surveillance programs, but just something to keep in mind.
Finally, it definitely doesn't allow for you to do any split tunneling.
That can also be a concern for those of you who want to be on the public and private network
at the same time.
Overall, yes, I'm happy with CyberGhost.
I think they provide a lot of functionality and flexibility in the VPN marketplace.
That concludes our review of CyberGhost VPN.
If you appreciate today's video, give us a like and hit that subscribe button.
As always, this is Gabe at Security Baron.
Be secure.
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