PrivateVPN Thoughts

PrivateVPN

Does PrivateVPN keep any logs? The FAQ is emphatic: “No, we NEVER produce logs of any data traffic. The only things we store are your email address.”

That doesn’t rule out logging session traffic, of course: connection times, bandwidth, maybe IPs. As PrivateVPN imposes a six-device limit it presumably maintains a list of user sessions, but we could find nothing about that on the site. That’s a pity, but it’s not unusual, and as PrivateVPN is based in privacy-conscious Sweden we suspect any details will be relatively safe.

The rest of the privacy-related small-print is much like most other VPNs. PrivateVPN only holds your email address, it uses cookies on the website and might use third-party analytics, but there’s no sign of data sharing or other dubious activities.

PrivateVPN‘s terms of service is a plus, being clearly written and far more readable than efforts we’ve seen elsewhere. There’s no lengthy list of things you can’t do, for instance – just the requirement not to cause harm to others or break the law. Works for us.

Performance

We emailed PrivateVPN, asked for a trial code and had a reply in under 10 minutes. You may not see that kind of speed if you ask a tricky technical question, but it’s good to know someone is listening.

This made for a very straightforward signup as there was no need to enter payment details. We just handed over our email address, entered the trial code we’d just been given, and were directed to the support website. By default this displayed setup details related to us (Windows client download, manual setup guides), but there were also sections for macOS, iOS, Android, routers and Linux.

Connectivity

I have setup using PfSense and OpenVPN. I have one gateway for everyday traffic, one for pentesting with port forwarding allowed via PrivateVPN and one more gateway for torrenting traffic.

All so far have not had a single issue. I swapped over from NordVPN as they lacked the port forwarding ability, which for me is a key need.
I would not want port forwarding enabled on my day to day traffic gateway but its good that they let the more technical among us choose ..