NordVPN: our opinion on the safe bet in the industry

NordVPN is undoubtedly the most visible VPN brand in France and probably in the world. A real tour de force for this Lithuanian company which is barely more than 10 years old. An experience that pays off, since the service offered today is undoubtedly at the top of the list of VPN providers, as highlighted in our comparison of the best VPNs.

In short: our opinion on NordVPN

NordVPN interface: easy to use, feature-rich

NordVPN quickly differentiated itself from its competitors by taking care of its interface. Where other VPN providers generally make do with a long, somewhat sad list of servers, NordVPN takes the user on a journey by displaying a pretty map of the world. You don’t need to be a computer genius to understand: one click on the city of Berlin and we are connected in Germany. A good way to make the use of a VPN and the principle of relocating an IP address to a server concrete.

The ease of use of this interface is all the more commendable as it is practically identical on computer and smartphone. Impossible to get lost: we find the world map, a search bar to find a country or a city, the possibility of connecting to specialized servers, etc.

The great strength of the NordVPN application is to offer an interface that does the job perfectly for those who just want a VPN to relocate their IP address while offering numerous options and settings in the application settings. The general options include:

• a Kill Switch;
• a complete split tunneling menu (except on iOS);
• the choice of VPN protocol;
• a welcome dark mode.

Two small flaws, however, are quite annoying: when installed on Windows, NordVPN tends to push other paid services from Nord Security such as NordLocker (cloud offer) or NordPass (password manager). We are not far from the “good” old days of shareware.

Another annoying detail on Windows and Android: the application constantly (and aggressively) reminds the user that it exists. On Windows, NordVPN thus offers by default a connection to an automatic VPN server as soon as a connection to a new network is detected and opens automatically as soon as the PC starts. On Android, unnecessary notifications are common. Fortunately, everything is regulated in the settings, but this incentive to constantly connect to a VPN is tiring.

What’s the point of having NordVPN? The main characteristics

Here is what NordVPN offers on paper:

NordVPN Main Features

Daily use

NordVPN’s service is very responsive. The connection to a server is very fast and as long as the servers are geographically close, the speeds are really very good. Even on long sessions behind a VPN, it is very rare to be disconnected from the server. An appreciable aspect when watching a video on a streaming platform.

NordVPN and SVOD

Regarding SVOD platforms, we tried to launch a few films and series on a streaming video platform from an American server. It doesn’t always work. This is not the fault of NordVPN, but rather of these video platforms, which are hunting down VPN servers. In this case, no secrets, you have to change location until you find a server that works. Usually two or three tries are enough.

NordVPN servers

Concerning the location of servers, NordVPN’s country offering has been reduced in recent years. NordVPN no longer offers servers in Russia or India, due to local data laws. The provider considers that the servers located in these countries no longer guarantee the confidentiality of user data. Finally, with the exception of a few servers in South Africa, NordVPN does not offer any servers in Africa.

Also note that NordVPN does not offer servers in China and that the connection to the brand’s VPN servers works very randomly once on Chinese territory.

Specialized servers, online protection: the many bonuses of NordVPN

As we said a little above, NordVPN is very efficient and easy to use when it comes to connecting to a VPN server. But its application is full of more or less practical features. Here are some notable ones.

The Mesh network

This is a feature that NordVPN highlights a lot in its application. The principle consists of installing the NordVPN application on several devices: your PC at home, your smartphone, a friend’s PC. On these devices, by activating the Mesh network, you have the possibility of connecting them via an encrypted connection tunnel. On paper, the advantages are interesting: you can transfer files from one device to another (peer to peer), but you can also connect from your smartphone to the PC in your home to use its local network . A sort of “local VPN” in fact.

Is this really practical? On a daily basis, you have to admit that this is not a killer feature that you will use on a daily basis. From a cybersecurity point of view, this is an interesting tool if you have sensitive data to send from one device to another.

Anti-threat protection

This is NordVPN’s integrated “antivirus” in its application. We put quotes because this antivirus seems quite light. It essentially just watches what’s happening in your browser and blocks malware, web trackers, certain “intrusive” advertisements (which ones? Mystery) or cleans links. In fact, it is difficult to know on what basis NordVPN relies to block or not these elements.

Dark web monitoring

On paper, it’s a good idea: you enter your email address and the app notifies you when it ends up in a data leak from the dark web or a data leak declared by a website. Practical for websites, but unfortunately useless for leaks on the dark web. We don’t really know what information was leaked.

Nordlynx, security audit, bug bounty: the security advantages of NordVPN

NordVPN communicates a lot on the security front. The brand has a few tricks up its sleeve.

NordLynx

The company has developed its own VPN protocol, called NordLynx. This protocol doesn’t come out of nowhere, it’s actually a connection protocol based on Wireguard, but improved by NordVPN engineers to strengthen its security and privacy. In fact, using this protocol considerably accelerates the connection speed to the servers.

Data Privacy Policy

Like all major VPN brands, NordVPN regularly monitors its declaration of absence of activity logs. This is an important issue for VPN brands, because it proves that they do not keep any data from users passing through their servers. NordVPN does audits regularly – and it’s probably one of the most frequent – ​​and the last one was at the end of 2022.

Bug bounty

Following a data leak in 2019, officially without much consequence, NordVPN set up a Bug Bounty program on the Hacker One platform. If the platform is to be believed, the program works well and regularly rewards ethical hackers for their discoveries.

In short, NordVPN seems to take the security of its users and its network seriously. However, we regret that unlike ProtonVPN the source code of its application is not open source to verify what its customers actually collect.

How much does a NordVPN subscription cost?

NordVPN currently offers three subscription types: monthly, one-year, and two-year.

• One month subscription: 12.99 euros
• One-year subscription: 59.88 euros, or 4.99 euros per month
• Two-year subscription: 86.13 euros, or 3.19 euros per month

The two-year subscription is the most advantageous. But at 86.13 euros, it is in the high average of market prices. This is certainly far from the 156 euros of ProtonVPN, but also very far from the 59.76 euros of Surfshark.

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