Reviews

CyberGhost review

CyberGhost offers intermediate control, but it's expensive if you have multiple devices

by: Simon Handby

24 Aug 2016

Price

£45

Fairly private; Some advanced settings; Supports router configuration

Some minor stealth shortcomings; Expensive

CyberGhost's PC app strikes a fair balance between a simple, intuitive client, and providing more advanced options to those who want them.

You can choose from 30 'simulated locations' and connect, or delve into the settings to configure extras such as obfuscating your browser information, social content blocking and more advanced connection settings. Among these, DNS forcing is enabled by default - CyberGhost uses its own DNS servers.

CyberGhost performed adequately in the stealth and anonymity tests provided by Whoer.net, but minor configuration issues meant the site guessed that we could be connecting via a VPN service. Elsewhere the service scored highly: it meets the PrivacyTools.io criteria, claims to do no logging, and also accepts payments in Bitcoin.

It's based in Romania, which offers EU data protections without 14-eyes surveillance group membership. Unfortunately, using CyberGhost we could neither view Netflix US content from a US server nor iPlayer content from a UK server, suggesting that geo-unblocking may not be its forte.

At 45 a year for a single device, the Premium subscription is expensive - some competitors include multiple devices for the same price or less, but the five-device Premium Plus option is 70. That said, CyberGhost does permit generic access through the OpenVPN, L2TP, IPSec and PPTP protocols, allowing network-wide implementation on suitable routers. While the service is fairly good, it's comparatively expensive.