TunnelBear review: If you can stand the puns, TunnelBear is a speedy VPN - leadbettercoser1937

TunnelBear in brief:

P2P allowed: No
Business location: Canada
Act of servers: Unknown
Number of country locations: 20
Cost: $60 (billed annually)

Besides being a popular VPN, TunnelBear is known for two things: puns and skeumorphic design. The companionship has since given up nonpareil of those things, and it wasn't the puns. For years, TunnelBear's desktop program looked like an old-fashioned wireles made out of wood. You chosen your preferred area connexion from a drop-knock down carte du jour and flipped the switch to connect. That was pretty some it.

All that metamorphic in late 2016, when TunnelBear overhauled its background program to something more modern but with that TunnelBear flair.

When you original open up TunnelBear you're confronted with a world map with some extra particular. The trees, for example, change based on the Continent or region you're showing (palm trees midmost East, Umbrella Thorns in Africa). Your pre-VPN connecter location is sense along the map with a sheep, but once you tour on the VPN it turns into a tolerate.

tunnelbear 1 — TunnelBear's interface with a connection to Australia.

Apiece available TunnelBear country location has an empty barrel (bear, bear-el, get it?) icon along it. Select the body politic image you want, and the program will connect.

If you don't like the map method there's also a drop-down list at the top with the name of every country.

That's the primary part of the desktop curriculum. The left-handed panel also has a settings cog icon where you can actuate TunnelBear's extra features.

Note: This review is part of our best VPNs roundup. Choke there for inside information about competing products and how we well-tried them.

Features and services

On the whole, TunnelBear is a simple service without a lot of frills, but it does have a few headstone features worth checking out. Under Settings > Undiversified > Notifications, TunnelBear has a setting that volition alert you when you connect to an vulnerable Wi-Fi memory access item. Umteen VPNs have a kindred feature, but often that feature simply calls whatsoever Wi-Fi accession point insecure unless you connect to that service's VPN.

TunnelBear, past equivalence, only alerts you to true weaknesses like fundamental WEP security or a Wi-Fi point that doesn't have a password.

tunnelbearsecurity — TunnelBear's security settings.

Moving on to Settings > Security system, TunnelBear has a putting to death switch boast called VigilantBear that will block all internet traffic when you unplug from the VPN. A second gear place setting called GhostBear is an anti-censorship and restriction mechanism that works to produce your encrypted VPN data come out like regular network traffic. For Americans, this can buoy exist useful if you'rhenium on a network that throttles VPN traffic, for example.

At long last under Settings > Trusted Networks, TunnelBear lets you automatically activate TunnelBear on whatever Badger State-Fi network that doesn't appear in your Trusty Networks number. Adding a new network is as mere as connecting to it and clicking Add to Trustworthy Networks.

TunnelBear offers desktop programs and mobile apps for Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS. In that location are besides placeholder browser extensions for Chrome and Opera. The service allows you to wont capable five devices at in one case on a single account.

While most features are available on all platform (not including the browser extensions), the GhostBear characteristic is presently unavailable for iOS. TunnelBear says this is due to the limitations Apple puts happening third-political party providers.

Performance

TunnelBear's swiftness scores were impressive. Most every download speed in the USA, Germany, Hong Kong, and the United Realm scored double digits, with capable upload speeds.

As we aforesaid in our VPN fuze, online speeds can vary wildly in pure Mbps tests from day to daytime and even hour to hr, which is wherefore I don't bother to bring out taxonomic category measurements. Unfortunately, sometimes even a generic portion score South Korean won't tell the whole story of how healthy a VPN prat perform.

The bed line is that TunnelBear is capable and allegro for almost nation connections.

Update: This article was updated happening July 17, 2017 with updated speed lots.

Privacy, namelessness, and trust

TunnelBear does not title zero logging, just the selective information it does keep is bad generic wine. The society's privateness policy states that when you employment its service, it collects the version of your operating system and the TunnelBear app. It also logs the number of combat-ready sessions you use per month (only not the time spent along the VPN), as well as your number information usance each month.

TunnelBear does non collect the Information processing address you exercise to connect to the VPN or sojourn TunnelBear's website, nor is some of your online activenes logged when using the VPN.

When you sign ascending for an account, TunnelBear lonesome asks for an email address. However, it may also collect the Twitter account of users WHO practice a promotion for a unconstrained gigabyte of information afterward tweeting a substance just about TunnelBear.

Payment options admit Bitcoin, PayPal, and credit card game, meaning you can choose the amount of anonymity you'Re comfortable with when paying for the VPN.

TunnelBear is also upfront about its team and the company's address—all of which is available on the TunnelBear site. The company is located at 141 Bathurst Street, Suite 101 in Toronto, and its CEO is Ryan Dochuk. You tin find a complete listing of the TunnelBear team happening the company's website.

As TunnelBear is located in Canada entirely personal information is handled reported to Canadian law.

Ratiocination

TunnelBear is a good VPN, and its speeds should meet the needs of most VPN users. However, the service won't help if your primary goal is accessing Netflix USA from overseas. Privacy-minded users may not like that TunnelBear collects some information from users, but, once again, it's very generic information and doesn't include browsing activity. If that still concerns you, TunnelBear says it recently concluded a third-party code audit for the company's apps and servers that will be free in the coming months.

Editor in chief's note: Because online services are often iterative, gaining revolutionary features and performance improvements all over time, this review is issue to change in rules of order to accurately speculat the up-to-the-minute state of the service. Any changes to text or our final exam review verdict will cost noted at the top of this clause.