Summary
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Features - 4/104/10
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Speed & Reliability - 4/104/10
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Security & Privacy - 4/104/10
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Usability & Compatibility - 5/105/10
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Support & Documentation - 4/104/10
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Value for Money - 6/106/10
Summary
FrootVPN is a free service, so there isn't much to complain about. There are issues with the security, transparency of the company and of course the fact that they only offer one server location. However, if you are on a budget, FrootVPN might just be the service for you.
FrootVPN is a VPN service that looks like a paid one but, well, it’s free. Unlike other free VPNs it is not supported by advertising or donations.
UPDATE: Starting on January 2015, FrootVPN is no longer a free service.
What’s interesting is that it is being advertised on Pirate Bay.
That’s quite a big ad if you ask us. So who might be behind it? Could it be the staff running Pirate Bay? Or some of their friends? It will be hard to answer these questions at this moment, so let’s see if the service is any good.
What we do know thus far, and also according to Torrent Freak, is that TPB has driven many new users to FrootVPN with the mainpage logo.
Apparently their website is down at the time of writing this review, but we’ll try reaching it later. Later edit: the website had problems for a couple of hours due to a DDoS attack.
Features
FrootVPN has only one VPN server location, in Sweden. They provide VPN access using OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec and PPTP protocols. They don’t have any custom software to use the service, but have tutorials for all modern operating systems. OpenVPN security features 2048 RSA keys with 128-bit Blowfish cipher:
Logging and Privacy
They don’t have any Privacy Policy, though according to their FAQ page they don’t store logs of any kind.
For registration, they ask for username and email address. No other details are required to register for a free VPN account.
Speed and Reliability
Speed was decent in our tests or rather great considering it is a free VPN service. Even if it doesn’t come close to what we experienced with some premium VPN services, but then again – it is free! We tested it with OpenVPN.
Results with FrootVPN connected from European source:
Results with FrootVPN connected from US source:
Our line speed (without VPN) in both European and US locations is over 100 Mbps so there was no speed bottleneck on our end. As you can see, the speed is quite decent – most of the time in the 10 – 20 Mbps range.
Support
FrootVPN provides support via email only.
Conclusions
The good:
- The service is free
- Speed is decent, quite good actually for a free service
- Not asking for personal details when signing-up
- P2P is not blocked
- no tracking tools in their website
- no logs (as always: “what they claim”)
The bad:
- Only one VPN location
Final Notes
Perhaps we’d add more negative comments if it was a paid service. But for a free VPN it is good. Do we trust them? is it a scam? how do we know the user is not the product, like with many free services? We can’t be sure, but what we are quite sure is that they will start monetizing the service at some point. In the meantime, if you are low on budget and look for an easy way to secure your connection and your torrent downloads, then FrootVPN is a good choice. For paid VPNs and everything that’s included with them, such as more locations, quick support, custom-software and more, we recommend to check any of our top-rated VPN providers.
Not a trustworthy VPN. Somehow a user was able to get my email address that i only used for frootvpn and bid on an ebay item that had a different email. That user emailed me (on the frootvpn email) and said item was paid etc and then i got an email from ebay “We had to cancel bids and purchases on the following item(s) for the buyer, , because they were made without the account owner’s permission” WTF? So someone was able to record my activity and use it to try to scam me.
The worst VPN out there. Customer service doesn’t reply, and if they do, they don’t help. They tell you the most amateur things like ‘disable your firewall’ and ‘uninstall antivirus programs’. Been asking for a refund for weeks, and they keep claiming ‘it’s in process’ when they rarely reply. Refunds are instant. I’ve also heard they have ripped off people on their CC. DO NOT USE. You will be scammed.
Hope this review can be updated so we users will know the improvements made by this provider, I want to try it even though it has lots of not so good feed backs from its users. Want to see it myself especially now that it is paid. Will look forward for your updates VPN reviewer! Cheers to this 🙂
It can’t be the worst, I am a user for months and I am quite satisfied with the service they’re providing me. Its cheaper than the other VPN’s and I am really happy for being anonymous online, they help me access sites which restricts me before. Was a little unstable at first but speed now is great. So go FrootVPN! Keep improving your service and I’m looking forward for more great updates. 🙂
Declared “30-day money-back guarantee” is FAKE. They do NOT make a refund if you are not satisfied!
I’ve used their service for two days, experienced ~4-5 hours (out of 48) of downtime. So, uptime was just 90-92%. I asked them for refund (they had agreed) and sent them billing data they asked. Since that, they never answered to my emails nor sent me my money back. More than 10 days passed.
SCAM.
Do NOT trust them.
Ive been with them since they were free, and am still happy. I havnt needed the support and i expect it would be bad. But if you know what your doing it seems to work fine. They have support for 4 countries supported now and have recently updated their encryption.
As for privacy? I would not trust any vpn provider with my internet banking traffic. Its a murky world out there.
I have been trying to use Froot VPN since August. The service has been very intermittent, and most of the time I cannot connect. My wifi shows that I am connected to one of their servers, but most days, I cannot get my browser to connect to the internet when I am connected to their servers. And when I can connect to the internet, the connection usually dies within a few minutes. I have tried everything that their support people have asked me to do, and nothing seems to work. I am fed up, and I want my money back, which they don’t seem to want to do.
Money back is a fake. Didnt want to return money, dont answer on PayPal claim. Paypal return me money, not that scam bags….