Instead, Astrill takes the time to describe its procedures and what the firm really does.įor instance, Astrill says: “Our system keeps track of active sessions – connection time, IP address, device type and Astrill VPN application version during the duration of your VPN session. The ‘Strict no-logs policy’ section doesn’t just include a bland, generic ‘we don’t keep any logs’ statement, like many competitors. Clear headings make it easy to find the areas you need – cookie use, information collected, how it’s shared – and it’s impressively straightforward and jargon-free. VPN privacy policies are often poorly written and provide little useful information, but Astrill does a much better job. (Beware, though, there’s no refund or money-back guarantee after that.) And if you’re not confident Astrill is going to be worth the money – and let’s be realistic, who would be? – you’re able to try out the service for 7 days, no payment details required.
There’s another plus in Astrill’s lengthy list of payment options, including card, PayPal, Bitcoin, AliPay, WebMoney, Union Pay and Web Money. You can only use it with one device per account and speeds are limited, but it might be worth a try.
Putting that into perspective, pay Astrill $120 (or $240 with the VIP Addon) and it’ll cover you for a year pay Ivacy $80, you’re covered for five years, and there’s 2TB of encrypted cloud storage thrown in for free.Īstrill does have a bonus in a limited free Android plan.
That’s an extra $10 a month to get Astrill’s top speeds, regardless of the length of your subscription, so adding it to the annual plan bumps up the price to $20 a month. Astrill has an optional VIP Addon which delivers ‘optimized speed and reduced latency for clients in Asia and gamers’, ‘prioritized traffic on all servers’, and ‘multi-hop VPN’ (pass your traffic through two VPN servers). You’d expect the best possible service for that price, right? Think again. You can set up Astrill VPN on as many devices as you like, but the service only supports connecting five of them simultaneously, much like almost everybody else.Īstrill is far from cheap compared to rival VPNs (Image credit: Astrill) Astrill VPN pricingĪstrill is jaw-droppingly expensive at $20 a month, dropping to $15 a month on the six-month plan, or $10 if you take the annual option. The Astrill website also boasts that the service allows you to ‘connect unlimited devices’, but that didn’t mean quite what we thought. Multi-hop VPN directs your traffic through an extra VPN location, making it even more difficult for snoopers to track you, and VPN sharing allows other devices on your network to use your Astrill connection. Port forwarding support can speed up torrenting and allow secure access to your home network. Smart Mode helps Chinese users avoid VPN detection and access blocked sites.
Protocol support isn’t restricted to OpenVPN, for instance: there’s also WireGuard, and a connectionless OpenWeb to protect browser traffic, and the company’s own StealthVPN option to bypass VPN blocking.Īstrill has many more custom and low-level technical features. These are very configurable (more on that later), and are more powerful than you might expect. Astrill supports a diverse range of platforms (Image credit: Astrill)