A VPN protects your privacy by routing your traffic through an encrypted connection to a remote server, blinding your ISP to your activities and making you harder to track online. Bitdefender Premium VPN is a sturdy product that’s a great value at a decidedly non-premium price. It doesn’t have much to differentiate it from an increasingly competitive market, however.
How Much Does Bitdefender Premium VPN Cost?
Bitdefender has long offered a VPN as part of its growing family of security products, making it available for standalone purchase earlier this year. A subscription for Bitdefender Premium VPN starts at $6.99 per month, which is well below the $9.96 per month average we’ve seen across the VPNs we’ve reviewed. There are still a few even cheaper VPNs out there. Mozilla VPN comes in at just $4.99 per month, and Editors’ Choice winner Mullvad VPN at €5 ($6.09 at time of writing). Alternatively, you can purchase a subscription to Premium VPN at a discount when you purchase Bitdefender security suites, and the Bitdefender Premium Security bundle includes both Bitdefender Premium VPN and Bitdefender Total Security.
As is the case with most VPNs, Bitdefender Premium will cost you less overall if you opt for a longer subscription. An annual subscription costs $29.99 for the first year and then $49.99 per year after that. We’re not fans of this confusing system (Surfshark VPN uses something similar) but both of those figures are significantly less than the $70.06 per year average we see across VPNs we’ve reviewed. That said, we recommend starting with the shortest subscription option so you can test out the VPN in your home to see if it works for you.
Alternatively, you can opt not to pay for VPN protection and use a free VPN instead. Editors’ Choice winner ProtonVPN has the best free subscription we’ve seen, as it places no data limit on free subscribers. It also has an affordable, tiered subscription system letting you find a plan that fits your budget. A Bitdefender representative tells us that users who exhaust the seven-day free trial period can continue using the Bitdefender VPN with a free Basic subscription that’s capped at 200Mb per day. Unfortunately, the Bitdefender Premium VPN site does not offer a mechanism to enroll directly with a Basic subscription.
You can purchase a Bitdefender Premium VPN subscription via major credit card, PayPal, or a cash payment via PayNearMe, wire transfer, or electronic check. The company does not accept cryptocurrencies. If anonymity is a concern, Editors’ Choice winners Mullvad VPN and IVPN accept cash payments made through the mail.
What Do You Get for Your Money?
A Bitdefender Premium VPN subscription allows you to connect up to 10 devices simultaneously, which is double the usual limit we see among VPNs. That’s a good value, particularly for large families or homes with many devices. A few companies are moving away from this limitation, however. Avira Phantom VPN, Encrypt.me VPN, Ghostery Midnight, IPVanish VPN, Surfshark VPN, and Windscribe VPN place no limit on the number of devices you can use at a time.
(Editors’ Note:Editors’ Note: Encrypt.me and IPVanish are owned by J2 Global, the parent company of Ziff Davis, the publisher of PCMag.com.)
The Bitdefender Premium VPN app supports split tunneling, which routes specific traffic outside the VPN connection. This is useful for activities that are low-risk but high-bandwidth. Interestingly, you can only designate URLs to go outside the VPN tunnel. Most other VPN apps let you select specific apps, as well. The URL option is still very useful. Considering that some apps may use unusual URLs to send data in the background, it may create some problems, however.
Besides that, Bitdefender Premium VPN doesn’t have much beyond basic VPN protection. It does not provide integrated ad-blocking, as some other VPNs do. It does not support multi-hop connections that route your traffic through two VPN servers instead of one, nor does it support push-button access to the free Tor anonymization network. The company has told me it plans on adding these features later on. Only ProtonVPN and NordVPN offer multi-hop, split tunneling, and Tor access.
One unusual feature Bitdefender includes is the option to have the VPN connect automatically when you access particular kinds of content. The default options include financial, file sharing, and mature content, among others. This is useful for anyone who only wants to use a VPN for specific tasks. You can also configure the VPN to connect automatically for specific apps or URLs.
While VPNs are useful tools for improving your privacy, they cannot protect against every ill. We highly recommend using standalone antivirus software, creating unique and complex passwords with a password manager, and enabling two-factor authentication wherever it is available. You can get the anonymizing benefits of Tor for free and without a VPN, although access via VPN is usually more convenient. As a side note, we noticed that Bitdefender promises “Complete online protection and anonymity” on its site. That’s an overstatement for any VPN, and there’s enough misinformation out there already without security companies adding to it.
Bitdefender’s VPN Protocols
Like some other antivirus companies, Bitdefender licenses its VPN product from a different vendor. In this case, Aura’s Hotspot Shield VPN provides Bitdefender with the underlying infrastructure and technology. As a result, Bitdefender Premium defaults to using the custom Hydra VPN protocol created by Hotspot Shield. While it is unique to Hotspot Shield, its developers assured us that they did not create their own cryptographic system—a practice many security experts frown on.
Bitdefender told us that it uses OpenVPN, the industry standard open-source VPN protocol, as a fallback option. The Bitdefender product currently does not support WireGuard, the latest VPN protocol that promises better speeds and newer technology all with the transparency of open-source projects. WireGuard is so new that not all VPN companies have fully embraced it, although that is changing.
Bitdefender Servers and Server Locations
The more countries in which your VPN provider has servers, the more options you have to spoof your location or find a nearby server when traveling. Bitdefender Premium VPN offers servers in 48 countries, which is only slightly below average. Annoyingly, the server list is not available on the company’s website. That said, it’s a solid list of locations, including servers in Africa and South America — two continents often ignored by VPN companies. Bitdefender Premium VPN provides servers in regions with repressive internet policies, including Russia, Turkey, and Vietnam. The company also has servers in Hong Kong.
In terms of total network size, Bitdefender boasts some 1,300 servers across the globe. Keep in mind that having more servers does not necessarily make a VPN better, but that’s still a respectable number. CyberGhost leads the pack with over 6,500 available servers.
Because Bitdefender Premium VPN uses Hotspot Shield’s servers, Bitdefender doesn’t own or operate any of that infrastructure. A Bitdefender representative told us they vetted Hotspot Shield’s operation and were satisfied with its security. When we reviewed Hotspot Shield VPN, a representative for that company said that it does not own all its servers, which is not unusual. Hotspot Shield does, however, share server infrastructure with five other VPNs owned by its parent company, Aura. Hotspot Shield, and thus Bitdefender Premium VPN, does not use tamper-resistant RAM-only servers, a practice some other VPN services have adopted, and one that we appreciate.
None of this is inherently problematic, but it is complicated. Mullvad VPN, for contrast, has a tool that lets you see information about its entire server network, where those machines are located, and whether they are leased or owned.
Some VPN companies make use of virtual servers and virtual locations. The former is when a single hardware server plays host to multiple virtual servers, and the latter is a VPN server configured to appear someplace other than where it is physically located. Both are useful for VPN companies, but we like to see transparency about how and where users’ traffic flows. Bitdefender says it has physical servers in most locations, and it uses virtual servers to address scaling needs. We’d like the company to be clearer about how its network operates. While it doesn’t offer the most countries, we like the balance that ExpressVPN strikes by having servers in 94 countries and using very few virtual locations in the process.
Your Privacy With Bitdefender Premium VPN
All of your web traffic is funneled through a VPN company’s infrastructure. That could give an unscrupulous operator enormous insight into your life. To gauge a VPN’s trustworthiness, we question each company about its practices and examine its privacy policies.
The Bitdefender privacy policy is difficult to read, not only because of the rather small font and complicated legal language, but because it covers several products provided by the company. Other antivirus companies that provide VPNs have similar issues. We’d like to see Bitdefender break out its VPN-specific policies into a clearer document, perhaps in the human-readable mold of Editors’ Choice winner TunnelBear VPN’s policy. If you’d like to read along, VPNs are discussed in section 7.3 of the Bitdefender policy.
That said, the document is very thorough and refreshingly honest. Instead of grandiose promises, it is realistic and thoughtful. The company promises not to sell user data (which was reiterated to us directly). The company promises to anonymize data wherever possible, and to make all non-anonymized data difficult to match to an individual.
A company representative assured us that Bitdefender does not gather any user traffic and does not store user IP addresses. They also told us that Aura, the company behind Hotspot Shield VPN and the provider of Bitdefender Premium VPN’s underlying technology, does not receive any user information and sees only anonymized traffic. That’s all good, but we would like to see this spelled out explicitly in the privacy policy.
Bitdefender Premium VPN is owned by Bitdefender SRL, which is based in Romania and operates under Romanian law. It’s the company behind Editors’ Choice winning antivirus software. The company says it will comply with legal requests for information from law enforcement, but we’d like to see more information about efforts to protect user information from authorities. Unlike many VPN companies, Bitdefender includes exhaustive contact information. While many VPN companies are newly minted, Bitdefender has been a major player in the industry for years.
Unfortunately, the company does not publish a transparency report and does not have a warrant canary. It also has not undergone a third-party audit. While audits are imperfect tools, they are important demonstrations of good faith and transparency. Given that the product is whitelabeled from another vendor, it may be difficult for the company to commission a meaningful audit. Hotspot Shield has not released the results of a third-party audit, nor has it updated its transparency report since 2018. TunnelBear VPN has set a standard in this area and has published four annual audits thus far.
Hands On With Bitdefender Premium VPN for Windows
There are Bitdefender Premium VPN apps for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows. In our testing, we used an Intel NUC Kit NUC8i7BEH (Bean Canyon) desktop running the latest version of Windows 10. To use Bitdefender Premium VPN, you will need to create an account with Bitdefender Central, the company’s online service hub. Unlike Mullvad VPN or ExpressVPN, you will use the usual username and password combination to access the app. Frustratingly, Bitdefender Premium VPN did not allow us to copy paste our complex and unique password from our password manager.
The Bitdefender Premium VPN app brings many design features we associate with mobile applications. The entire app stays within a single, vertically oriented window, with a black rail of buttons running down the left side. Its grey and white interface is very clean, punctuated with accents of blue and purple. It’s a good first impression, but one that lacks the panache and friendliness of TunnelBear VPN.
We like that the app has a large connect button, making it very easy to get online and tell whether or not you’re connected to the VPN. Other nice touches include an optional dark mode, and a Dashboard section that shows cards with various connection stats.
That visual simplicity does somewhat limit the app’s utility. Without a map interface, like the one found in NordVPN or ProtonVPN, you’re limited to selecting a VPN server from a searchable list. By default, the app will choose the server it thinks is best. Server locations are only viewable at the country level, so you won’t be able to pick and choose between multiple servers in the same location.
The Autoconnect area of the Settings menu lets you define situations where the VPN should connect automatically. These are more fine-grained than most VPN apps, which usually only allow automatic connection on startup or when connecting to wireless networks. Bitdefender Premium does that but will also connect automatically when you use specific apps, visit certain URLs, access particular kinds of content, or use P2P file-sharing software. It’s a good approach if you don’t plan on leaving your VPN on all the time.
Some streaming services block access from VPNs, presumably to enforce geographically restricted content licensing deals. While connected to a US-based VPN server, I had no trouble streaming from Netflix. Keep in mind that the back-and-forth between Netflix and VPNs changes often, so your experience may differ.
Speed and Performance
A VPN usually slows upload and download speeds as well as increasing latency. To get a sense of the impact from different VPN providers, we use the Ookla Speedtest tool to record performance with and without the VPN running, and then compare the results to find a percent change. You can read How We Test VPNs to see the whole process in its glorious, tedious detail.
Editors’ Note:Editors’ Note: Ookla is owned by J2 Global, which owns PCMag’s publisher Ziff Davis.
In our testing, Bitdefender Premium VPN had mixed results. Its download performance was quite good, reducing Speedtest results by 38.3%, which is better than the median we’ve seen across all the products tested this year. Its upload and latency results were less impressive, reducing download Speedtest results by 82% and increasing latency results by an eye-popping 1,623%.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has limited our access to the PCMag Labs facilities, necessitating changes to our usual VPN testing. This year, we’ve moved to a rolling model and will update periodically with new testing data. You can compare Bitdefender’s performance against other VPNs in the chart below.
Network speeds are highly volatile, subject to huge swings because of location and time of day. As such, you shouldn’t expect a VPN to perform the same for you as it did for us. Our results are best used for comparison between VPNs and not as a benchmark of an individual product.
A Simple, Affordable VPN
Bitdefender Premium VPN doesn’t have the advanced features or smart design found with our Editors’ Choice winners. What it does offer is VPN protection from a trusted name at a very affordable price, and with enough simultaneous connections to cover a large household. It’s a serviceable option, especially if you’re already a Bitdefender customer.
