CyberGhost VPN Review (Free) 2013

Summary
  • 7/10
    Features - 7/10
  • 6/10
    Speed & Reliability - 6/10
  • 6/10
    Security & Privacy - 6/10
  • 7/10
    Usability & Compatibility - 7/10
  • 7/10
    Support & Documentation - 7/10
  • 9/10
    Value for Money - 9/10
7.0/10

Summary

CyberGhost VPN has some limitation in speed but they offer a free service that provides enough power for light browsing and daily needs. It's not recommended for someone seriously focused on security or that needs a large bandwidth. Keep in mind that the review for CyberGhost VPN falls under the free VPN category.

This is a review of CyberGhost VPN FREE. For the Premium Service, check CyberGhost VPN Review 2015 (Premium)

CyberGhost VPN is a Romanian-based VPN provider that accents anonymity on the Internet over having access to geo-restricted content. They offer both premium/paid VPN accounts and free VPN access, of course, with quite a few limitations for the latter. We tested their free accounts and this is how it stacked up to the competition:

Features

CyberGhost VPN uses OpenVPN on port 9081/UDP as the only available protocol in the free version. The set-up is straight-forward as the user only has to download and install their proprietary software which includes a OpenVPN client and TUN/TAP Virtual Network Adapter Driver. The Software itself is not what you call sleek and it does tend to get a bit bloated with lots of options and graphical elements you don’t need. You can, for example, load up a streaming TV series, from Hulu, Netflix and the such, right from the Dialer’s UI (this is available only for the premium accounts with access to US-based Servers).

The Application is compatible with all major operating systems, both desktop and mobile (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android).

The Sign-up Process is straight-forward and the user is required to enter the desired user name and password. The application detects guessable passwords like “1234” and warns the user about the security risks of using weak passwords, suggesting to use the strong password generator included in the CyberGhost VPN software. The software gets some bonus points for using a Virtual Keyboard (on demand) to protect against key-loggers.

They use certificate authentication for OpenVPN (the certificates are automatically generated when you sign-up), which is more secure than user/pass authentication.

However, major points are lost due to the fact that (at least in the free version) the user is not allowed to select the desired server for the VPN connection. The application does this, on a geo-ip basis which means that this service, while great for providing anonymity and on-line security, is pretty much useless for those who want to access content that is not available in their respective regions.

It is also worth mentioning that the sign-up process does not ask for other details than a login and password (not asking for your name, address etc.): another bonus point.

Speed

Our speed tests were not as comprehensive as with other providers, solely because we could not select the desired server in the free version of the service.

CyberGhost VPN states that all free connections are limited to 1 Mbit/second bandwidth and our test reveals that their description is spot-on. We managed to get anywhere between 2 to 7 Megabits/second troughput in the flash-based speed tests (speedtest.net and alike – which are pretty inaccurate) but while we tried downloading large files from different locations around the globe, we only got 0.8 to 1.2 Mbit/second troughput.

Conclusions

CyberGhost VPN is a solid VPN provider, with a user-friendly application and decent offerings for the free accounts. They seem to be quite popular among VPN providers, claiming to have over 2 million users. Their Discussion Board is also big (counting over 13k users and over 26k messages as of today). The speed limit of 1 Mbps is enough for some light browsing.

While we liked the fact that it uses OpenVPN as the protocol for connection and that they do manage to offer 1 Mbps throughput, as described on their website, we did not appreciate the fact that we were not allowed to select any other server, except the closest to our location. For this, and the somehow bloated U.I. of the proprietary VPN connection software, CyberGhost VPN gets a 7 out of 10 rating.

We will review their paid VPN service at a later date.

10 thoughts on “CyberGhost VPN Review (Free) 2013”

  1. Pingback: Free VPN Providers
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  3. Cyberghost (CG) free is great, and entices you to upgrade promising a substantial increase in speeds, both up and download.
    I did that, paid for ayear and was very disappointed that the speeds were virtually the same as the free service.
    dont upgrade, there are no advantagees, the Free cuts you off after 3 hours but you can log back in right awaay for another 3.

    Reply
  4. Unfortunately, CyberGhostVPN Premium is rather unreliable, at least using Viscosity on OSX. I get a lot of errors when trying to connect to any of their servers. Waiting for maybe half an hour or so usually solves this, without me having to change anything at all.
    I would not call this reliable, or recommendable.

    Reply
  5. @Philby Hi there!
    Thanks for the feedback. We received some issues reported with Voxility on support, but it’s not a general situation.
    You might want to try our Mac client version. Please subscribe below to get it:
    https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/en/getcg/mac
    We also scored rank 4 on LifeHacker on top 5 best VPNs 2014 so I’d say were solid: http://lifehacker.com/5935863/five-best-vpn-service-providers#pd_a_7901915

    If you other technical problems, please write at [email protected].
    Cheers!

    Reply
  6. Hello, I’ve premium account and the Android app doesn’t work for me at all for over a week and over mobile data only. I’ve tried all mobile operators in uk, different devices, uninstalled it on and off several times, reset network settings several times, and the same messages comes up all the time which says that the app cannot connect. Tech support keep repeating the same every day, and every day they are saying that they will make an escalation and they never do. That’s in my opinion is hilarious as these people just copy paste some sentences from somewhere and aren’t bothered to help at all. So please AVOID CYBERGHOST if you value your privacy on the go and over mobile data as it just not going to work, help will never come, nor you will be provided with solutions or when the problem it should be fixed. Best

    Reply

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