WideVPN Review 2024: Before You Buy, Is It Worth It?

Slow And Unreliable Connection Speeds

There was a noticeable drop in the speed of my internet connection on both nearby and distant servers. When I watched my favorite shows, I experienced significant buffering due to the slow internet speeds. Because there are no native clients, setting this VPN up and using it can be complex and time-consuming for a novice, however, the website outlines instructions for installation.

Speed Test Results

I had an average connection speed of 6.55Mbps when connected to WideVPN servers, which was 92% slower than my base internet speed. These results are significantly below average and do not meet expectations.

As a baseline, I ran a speed test without being connected to the VPN and recorded a benchmark download speed of 82.87Mbps. After that, I tested WideVPN’s servers located in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia to determine the average VPN speed.

While download speeds decreased marginally across locations, the ping response time increased across locations. The fastest I could get was 12.69Mbps on a Canada server, while the slowest was 2.50Mbps on a UK server.

Similarly, download and upload speeds were noticeably slower on a US local server. Long-distance connections reduced my internet speed even more. There was an overall lack of consistency in the speeds and they were well below average.

ExpressVPN has the fastest average download speed across all locations tested. The results remain constant across ExpressVPN’s server network, which is spread across 105 different countries.

Server Network — Limited Server Coverage

WideVPN has a limited number of servers, but the few ones it has are strategically located in some of the world’s most popular areas. This means that despite the few servers, there will usually be one near you to give you access to the content you want.

The company running WideVPN is called Amplusnet SRL and is located in Romania. I discovered that it has 40 servers spread over 32 countries, which can cause server overload when the network gets busy. I noticed a considerable fluctuation in the network strength across different servers and had some trouble connecting to a lot of them, especially US, UK, Spain, and France servers.

CyberGhost provides you with access to more than 11,800 servers across 100 countries, allowing you to connect to the most appropriate VPN server location depending on your particular interests.

Security — Bare-Bones Security Features

WideVPN claims to be equipped with a strong security infrastructure that makes sure your data is protected. It claims to offer enterprise-grade security but does not provide any information regarding the type of encryption it uses to secure data. I tried to find out the type of encryption used from the support team, but there was no response.

The website advertises enterprise-grade security, so it is likely that it uses AES-128 or AES-256 bit encryption. Furthermore, the service supports PPTP, L2TP/IPsec, SSTP, IKEV2, OpenVPN, and the highly recommended WireGuard protocol.

Among its shortcomings is the lack of a kill switch feature, which may have an adverse impact on your browsing experience. The lack of a kill switch means you won’t be disconnected from the internet if your VPN stops working, which puts you at risk of exposing your IP address.

To find out if WideVPN’s DNS leak protection is effective, I ran a few leak tests. My tests with servers in the US, UK, Australia, and Germany did not reveal any leaks. My DNS requests not only went through WideVPN’s server but my personal IP was masked at the same time.

My tests also did not reveal WebRTC leaks, but I can’t verify whether WideVPN has WebRTC leak protection since that information is lacking on its site and applications.

Privacy — Keeps Zero Traffic Logs

WideVPN was very clear about its no-logging policy, and its terms were generally positive with the exception of storing account information and web cookies. The company did not give the reader pages upon pages of obscure jargon; instead, it incorporated everything it had to say in a few paragraphs.

According to the privacy policy, it does not save IP addresses, DNS requests, traffic, user bandwidth, or data transfers. It further adds that no user activity is logged or monitored. In other words, your activities while connected to the VPN are completely anonymous and not logged or monitored by the company.

Its no-logs policy is not as strict as those of other VPNs I have tried since it does store some anonymized data (such as payment data, Google analytics data, and login data). Fortunately, the information is handled anonymously and cannot be connected to your personal information. The information is only used to improve the VPN and analyze its performance.

WideVPN’s headquarters is in Romania, which is great for privacy as it is not a member of any information-sharing alliances. All in all, WideVPN does a decent job of concealing your real location and does not lie about the information it collects.

Torrenting — I Don’t Advice Torrenting with WideVPN

Despite WideVPN’s support for torrenting, the lack of security features like split tunneling and kill switch makes it unsafe and inefficient. Additionally, its throttled speeds render it unusable for torrenting large files.

ExpressVPN’s underlying stealth technology gives you complete freedom to download torrents without worrying about cyber-spying or slowdowns. Keep in mind that my team and I don’t condone illegal torrenting so be sure to consider your local laws and never download copyrighted files without permission.

Editors' Note: ExpressVPN and this site are in the same ownership group.

Does WideVPN Work in China? Yes, but Not Recommended!

Although WideVPN claims to work in China, the company does not emphasize this important benefit in its marketing.

The support team didn’t provide a detailed answer to my email about this, so I cannot categorically say that it works. According to the representative, I must use one of the Wireguard servers to access content and services in China. However, there’s little to no evidence to back up the claim that WideVPN will work in censored regions. The provider doesn’t have any obfuscation tools to get around the Chinese government’s censorship.

VPNs with well-designed and dedicated obfuscation technology are the only ones that have any hope of working in censored regions. ExpressVPN is a reliable option that works in censored countries like China. Please keep in mind that the protection of a VPN doesn’t give you a license to commit illegal acts, so please exercise a basic level of caution when using a VPN in China.

Largely, WideVPN has virtually non-existent customer support, leaving you to find solutions to issues and inquiries on your own. You can reach support through Telegram, WhatsApp, or a ticket system. With the ticketing system, you can’t submit a request without entering the captcha value, which sadly never displays. This meant that I had no means of contacting support for urgent technical and connection problems.

Although simple to use, the ticket system doesn’t adequately account for the urgency of the request. I got a confirmation email of the ticket being received soon after I successfully created it, but I didn’t get an actual response to my query even after waiting several days.

I further attempted to contact the support team via its Whatsapp account and, despite getting a response within 6 hours, the answers were perfunctory and far from explanatory. Most of my queries were ignored, and it seemed like they were only interested enough to give me the bare minimum of an answer.

Basic technical support is available through its Setup Guides and Frequently Asked Questions in the Help Center section of the website. Admittedly, its help center is simple to use and offers detailed answers, but there’s nothing like receiving live support from a real person. Other top VPNs have undoubtedly provided me with far superior customer service.