AdGuard VPN is a VPN service offered by AdGuard, a company that offers several digital security products. The company was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Cyprus. The VPN uses the AdGuard-developed TrustTunnel protocol and has applications on a wide variety of protocols. The VPN offers both a free tier with 3GB of monthly data and two simultaneous device connections, and a paid tier with unlimited monthly data, support for 10 simultaneous devices, and servers in 48 countries. We tested the paid version for this review.
Our Verdict
AdGuard VPN is a great VPN for torrenting, although it lacks support for port forwarding, which can limit the number of peers you can connect to. It has excellent overall security with a functional kill switch and leak protection. That said, it lacks anonymity-preserving registration options, requiring an email address and password to create an account, but you can pay with cryptocurrencies.
Functional kill switch and leak protection.
Accepts cryptocurrencies.
Only supports the TrustTunnel protocol.
Lacks port forwarding support.
No registration options that preserve anonymity.
AdGuard VPN is acceptable for private browsing. It has great overall security with no leaks and a functional kill switch that keeps you protected in case the software crashes or your device restarts, but it's held back by poor policies and business practices. Its biggest sin is that it lacks any independent audits to prove that it upholds its privacy policy and to show that its security infrastructure is effective. The VPN also only supports the TrustTunnel protocol, leaving you less flexibility in case other protocols suit your needs better.
Functional kill switch and leak protection.
Accepts cryptocurrencies.
Only supports the TrustTunnel protocol.
Lacks independent, third-party audits.
No registration options that preserve anonymity.
AdGuard VPN has poor policies and business practices. The company hasn't published any independent security or privacy policy audits that verify any of its claims or prove that its infrastructure is keeping your data secure. Also, while the privacy policy claims that the company doesn't store any traffic logs, it does claim to store usage metadata and other peripheral information that they can share with sub-processors or other affiliated companies. Lastly, while the company generally upholds transparent communication, the terms of service signal a lack of confidence in its users, mandating arbitration in the case of legal disputes and providing no clear data-deletion timeline.
Accepts cryptocurrencies.
Only supports the TrustTunnel protocol.
Lacks independent, third-party audits.
AdGuard VPN offers excellent security. It encrypts your IP address and DNS queries while you're connected, and its proper TLS implementation protects you from man-in-the-middle attacks. Additionally, its kill switch ensures that your data won't leak outside the VPN tunnel if your internet reconnects or you restart your system.
Functional kill switch and leak protection.
Only supports the TrustTunnel protocol.
We're testing this VPN's speed on an ongoing basis and will update this verdict when we have more data. See the Performance section of the review to look at the data we've collected so far.
Only supports the TrustTunnel protocol.
Performance Usages
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
AdGuard VPN has both a free tier with a 3GB monthly data limit and a paid tier. We subscribed to and tested the paid tier.
Popular VPN Comparisons
AdGuard VPN is a fairly run-of-the-mill service that isn't particularly noteworthy in the consumer VPN landscape. On the plus side, it delivers functional security performance that keeps your IP address and traffic hidden while you use it, and it has a functional kill switch that prevents any leaks if your internet connection drops or your device restarts. On the downside, it doesn't have any third-party audits that prove it upholds its privacy claims, and it has some flaws in its terms of service and data-handling policies that make it harder to trust than other VPNs like IVPN, Mullvad, or Windscribe.
For more recommendations, check out our articles on the best VPNs for privacy, the best VPNs for Windows, or the best free VPNs.
Test Results
Like most providers, this VPN doesn't secure its internet routing (BGP) properly. This means that even if your ISP protects against attacks like router hijacking, your traffic could still be misdirected once it enters AdGuard's network. This is only a concern for highly targeted and resource-intensive attacks that are feasible only for governments or large corporations to orchestrate.
While this VPN claims not to log your internet traffic while you're connected, there are several other concerning statements in the company's privacy policy. First, the policy states that AdGuard records traffic usage metadata that includes 90 days of data usage. Additionally, the data processing agreement has a stipulation that users authorize the VPN to share data with a list of subprocessors and transferred to other companies within their corporate group, without listing those companies. This statement directly contradicts the privacy policy's claim that the VPN service doesn't share your data with other organizations.
This VPN hasn't published any independent audits to confirm its privacy policy adherence.
This VPN's company practices are unremarkable. The company hasn't published any independent third-party audits to verify the integrity of its security infrastructure, leaving the security of your data and personal information in question. Also, the terms of service can change without notice, and they allow the company to suspend your account at its complete discretion, stipulate mandatory arbitration for legal disputes, and don't outline a data deletion timeline.
The company has generally good transparency, but is guilty of slightly hyperbolic marketing claims.
This VPN supports credit/debit cards, PayPal, and a variety of cryptocurrencies.
We're testing this VPN's performance on an ongoing basis, and will update the text for the download speed, upload speed, and latency tests when we have more data.
We conduct this test using QUIC and HTTP/3 because HTTP/2 wasn't working with the automation flow that we use to conduct this test. Based on our observations, HTTP/2 would likely yield faster speeds.
This VPN offers a free tier with a 3GB monthly data limit.
This VPN has Linux apps for Debian, Ubuntu, Elementary OS, Linux Mint, and RPM-based distributions.
It's also available on various other platforms, including iOS, Android, Android TV, and Chrome and Firefox extensions.
TrustTunnel is the only protocol option that this VPN offers on desktop and mobile platforms. It's an open-source protocol that was developed by AdGuard. Its primary intention is to obfuscate VPN traffic to make it look like regular HTTPS traffic in order to get around VPN censors.
This VPN only supports IPSec with IKEv2 on routers.
