VPNhub is a brand-new service offered by the well-known adult video hosting and streaming service, Pornhub.
Although it’s offered by Pornhub, it’s an entirely independent service that can be used by anyone. It was launched to help protect people using their devices on the go – though we won’t query what they’re trying to use it for.
Given that VPNhub is owned by such a huge streaming service, you would hope that they had enough money to do a great job of making a good VPN service.
But is that really the case? We’re going to find out in our comprehensive review of VPNhub.
VPNhub Specs & Offers
| VPN Name | VPNHub |
|---|---|
| Leak Test | No Leaks |
| Logging Policy | Logs |
| Speed | Slow |
| Torrenting | Torrenting & P2P Forbidden |
| Netflix | No Netflix |
| Jurisdiction | Inside Five Eyes |
| Servers / Countries | 46 / 46 |
| Max Connections | 1 |
| Kill Switch | Has Kill Switch |
| Anonymous Payment Methods | Not Available |
| Free Trial | 7 Days |
| Refunds | No Refunds |
| Customer Support | Email, Ticket |
| Price Starting From | $6.99 |
VPNhub Pros
Sign-Up Process: Easy enough
Signing up was easy enough. We simply registered with an email address and password.
VPNhub does not use an anonymous accounts system like Mullvad, so if you’re privacy-conscious, you may want to use a throwaway address.
On Android and iOS, you can use the free version without creating an account.
Product Interface: Very sleek indeed, with plenty of configurable options
The VPNhub product itself looks very nice and operates smoothly. It closely adheres to the Pornhub color scheme with orange and black as the primary colors.
From the main interface, you can connect and disconnect from the VPNhub service and choose which location you would like to connect to.
By clicking the settings cogwheel, you’ll be taken to a comprehensive collection of checkboxes and dropdown lists that let you configure the VPN to your liking.
As you can see, you’re able to choose what happens on startup, enable and disable the kill switch (yep, they have one!), and choose which tunneling protocol you’d like to use.
The logs pane will show you the information that VPNhub is logging. When we checked, this was just a log of connects and disconnects that merely showed a timestamp and connected location.
Encryption and Protocols: Military-grade encryption
VPNhub offers plenty when it comes to encryption and protocols. The choices are AES-256 and AES-128 encryption, alongside OpenVPN and IKEv2.
OpenVPN can be used over either TCP or UDP. TCP is slower but more stable whereas UDP is faster and less reliable. With UDP, packets can sometimes be lost whereas this virtually never happens with TCP.
For most things, you’ll want to go with OpenVPN over UDP.
As for encryption, AES-256 is the strongest of the two and considered military-grade encryption. Nice to see some solid protection here (hehe).
IP and DNS Leak Test: No leaks detected
No leaks were found when we tested VPNhub out on a few services.
Kill Switch: Yep, make sure you activate it!
VPNhub does include a kill switch. It’s not enabled by default so make sure you head to settings from within the VPN app and enable it if you decide to buy a VPNhub subscription.
VPNhub Neutral Points
Servers and Locations: Not much on offer, but hopefully we’ll see more soon?
VPNhub’s premium plan provides you with access to 46 different countries. Some countries only have one server whereas others such as the United States and Canada have multiple.
Although they don’t offer as many servers as leading services like NordVPN and ExpressVPN, their list is growing all the time.
When they launched, they only listed 13 countries, so you can see how quickly they’ve grown since their first launch in mid-2018.
Considering their youth, we’re putting this in the Neutral pile; with any luck, by next year they’ll offer hundreds, if not thousands of servers to users.
Customer Support: 24/7 support, but no live chat
VPNhub states on their website that they offer 24/7 customer support. If you send in a request via email, you will typically receive a reply within one business day and never longer than two business days.
Because the service is 24/7, support tickets and other requests are turned around quite quickly.
We’d love to see them add live chat support at some point, definitely!
Product Documentation: Basic queries
There is a comprehensive FAQs section on their website that contains solutions for most basic queries.
It’s a good start for a new service. Hopefully, they’ll add some more documentation soon.
VPN Speed and Performance: Some serious slowdowns
Using VPNhub’s premium service, we undertook an analysis of server speed and performance. Although all VPNs will detract from your overall download and upload speeds, the better the VPN service, the lesser impacted your speeds will be.
We connected to a U.S. server in Los Angeles:
These speeds are quite good, but they’re not the best we’ve ever seen. Our download speeds are typically over 200Mbps so this represents quite a reduction overall. For reference, these were our speeds at the time of testing:
Still, these speeds are good enough for streaming, downloading, torrenting, and P2P activities.
Device Compatibility: Limited to the most popular devices
At the moment, VPNhub works with Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. There is currently no support for any other devices or routers.
For Android and iOS users, there’s a free plan. However, to use VPNhub on your Windows or macOS device, you must purchase a premium subscription after a 7-day free trial to test out the service.
Overall, an okay lineup, if a bit stark. Given the VPN’s relative youth, we hope to see some progress here soon.
VPNhub Cons
Netflix Test: Oops, something went wrong…
Although VPNhub is new, it looks like they haven’t figured out how to get around Netflix’s blocks.
We could not access Netflix through any VPNhub server we tested and got the classic Netflix proxy error and an Unexpected Error too. Fun!
If you’re looking for a VPN to get you through to your favorite shows, you’ll be better off with these VPNs.
Torrenting Policy: Probably not if you’re looking to download anything less-than-legal
VPNhub’s Terms of Service state:
“You agree that your use of the Service shall be lawful and that you will comply with the usage rules. In furtherance of the foregoing, and as an example and not as a limitation, you agree that you shall not:
…
Violate any applicable laws or regulations, or encourage or promote any illegal activity including, but not limited to, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, defamation, invasion of privacy, identity theft, hacking, cracking or distribution of counterfeit software, or cheats or hacks for the Service;”
So, no—you cannot use VPNhub for any illegal torrenting or any other unlawful activity.
If you’re looking for a VPN to cover your tracks while downloading a bunch of stuff you don’t actually own or have licenses for, look elsewhere, starting with our list of the best VPNs for torrenting.
VPNhub doesn’t sound like they’ll cover for you.
Pricing & Plans: Pricey premium
VPNhub offers both free and premium plans for iOS and Android devices. For macOS and Windows users, you must have a premium subscription.
The service costs:
- $13.99 per month when billed monthly or
- $83.88 for an entire year’s worth of access
When purchasing one year’s access, it works out at $6.99 per month which makes it 50% cheaper.
This is on the pricier side to be sure, as most VPNs offer a year’s service for around $60 or lower.
Still, you can try it out for yourself for 7 days under their free trial.
Refund Policy: Very unclear
It’s not clear whether or not there is a refund policy in place with VPNhub.
In their FAQs section, there’s a portion that discusses cancellations, but it makes no mention of getting any money back other than for “coins” which is apparently some kind of in-app currency. We’re guessing there isn’t a refund policy in place, particularly given the emphasis on a free option and a further 7-day free trial.
A shame, but not totally unexpected.
Payment Methods: Credit and debit cards accepted, but nothing else
You can pay for VPNhub through typical payment methods such as a credit or debit card.
At the time of writing this review, there was no option for PayPal or any anonymous payment methods such as cash or cryptocurrency.
Given that we’re sure many users like to remain anonymous on their other service, Pornhub, we’re surprised that we didn’t see any offers to keep personal information off the table here.
Logging Policy: A lot of information collected
Like most VPNs, VPNhub states that it doesn’t log sensitive data, but is this true?
When you first launch VPNhub, you are given the option to allow or prevent VPNhub from assigning you an advertiser ID. By taking an advertiser ID, your browsing habits are tracked so that VPNhub can collect and profit from them.
So, make sure you don’t opt into this. It’s nice to see them give you the option!
For further information, we turned to VPNhub’s privacy policy and found that they do keep some of your personal information and cannot guarantee that it will not be disclosed to or reviewed by other parties.
Because of this, we cannot call VPNhub a no-logs VPN. They do log some information, and this is not good news for privacy-conscious users. Here’s what they collect:
It’s clear they try to minimize some of it (i.e deleting some logged information after your session has ended), but we can’t rightly praise them, considering how much is logged.
VPNhub as a Business
VPNhub is brought to you by the same company as the popular adult streaming website Pornhub, which is based in Canada.
However, it’s a completely separate service and the two are not tied together. In fact, vpnhub.com is operated by a company called Appatomic Ltd.
It’s also not built from scratch. They’re using a white-label service meaning the technical side of the VPN is being run by another company – WLVPN. This is the same white-label VPN service that some J2 Global assets like StrongVPN and encrypt.me use.
VPNhub is ‘safe for work,’ though the logos do share a resemblance – so be careful if someone catches you opening it up. (It’ll be an easy mistake to make!)
Jurisdiction
VPNhub is based in the U.S. and as you may know, the U.S. is a member of Five, Nine, and Fourteen Eyes. These are agreements between major world states—the UK, USA, and Canada, for example—that compel the collection and sharing of information, intelligence, and evidence.
It’s always nice to see a VPN registered somewhere like Panama or Switzerland where foreign governments and authorities cannot request or access any information about you and your usage of a VPN service.
Because of VPNhub’s somewhat intrusive logging policy, this should be a cause for concern.
They do offer reassurance with a Warrant Canary section in their privacy policy, in which they state they’ve never received any requests for information, and no searches or seizures have occurred – though it’s worth bearing in mind they’re a young company, and their customer base is likely still growing.
VPNhub Conclusion: It’s still new, and it shows
VPNhub is pretty middle of the road, with some highlights. It’s a service that has improved since launching but still has a long way to go before we can personally recommend it over some of our top performers.
It’s quick enough with a decent number of servers. It’s also easy to use with plenty of options for toggling if you wish to do so. Encryption is secure. We didn’t detect any leaks, and it uses OpenVPN over TCP or UDP. Plus, it has a kill switch.
We weren’t in love with the fact that you can basically only pay by debit or credit card though, and their somewhat intrusive logging policy leads us to believe that they would be willing to disclose information to the authorities if questioned.
It also doesn’t work with Netflix and we wouldn’t feel confident torrenting on the service.
Because of the questionable position regarding logging and its unsuitability for streaming and downloading, it’s hard to recommend VPNhub to any serious VPN users. Don’t forget they’re using a white-label VPN service.
Most of all, its pricing is too expensive given its deficits.
There are far better, stronger, cheaper, and faster VPNs out there that are truly anti-logging. We’d recommend one of these instead.
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