#TUNNELBEAR REVIEWS PLUS#

It’s also one of those incredibly important features every VPN should have.Ī kill switch is different to DNS leak protection (which TunnelBear also offers), but there is some cross-over. It does this by disconnecting you from the internet.

V igilantBear ensures your original IP address isn’t leaked if your connection with the TunnelBear server drops. (We kind of wish they referred to it as the GoldiLocks Suite.)įirst up is VigilantBear, the kill switch feature. TunnelBear further protects your internet connection with 3 security features. You get military-grade encryption and only the best VPN protocols! (Goldilocks and the) 3 Bears of Connection Security OpenVPN, with the option to switch to IKEv2 Instead, let’s take a quick look at what you’ll get with TunnelBear, based on the OS you’re using: We won’t bore you with all the encryption terminology or over-explain VPN protocols. In fact, they recently launched encryption upgrades. Thankfully, TunnelBear doesn’t disappoint when it comes to their encryption and protocol standards. To make our rule of exception, the provider also needs to safeguard users against external threats. We’re more or less satisfied TunnelBear isn’t a threat to user privacy, but that’s barely (bear-ly?) half the picture. Military-Grade Encryption and the Best VPN Protocols We’re still waiting on a 2019 audit, but so far, so good. TunnelBear was independently audited in 2017 and again in 2018.

#TUNNELBEAR REVIEWS PLUS#

On the plus side, there haven’t been any data breaches of any kind. They say it’s for “user support, troubleshooting and product planning,” but we don’t see why it’s necessary for TunnelBear to record it by default.Īll-in-all, we’re not completely satisfied with TunnelBear’s privacy policy – but it’s also not bad enough to write the provider off either. However, the fact they record your Operating System (OS) is… odd. Information related to diagnostics and account maintenance, for example, are par for the course with most VPN privacy policies. Still, the minimal data they do collect is stock-standard (for the most part). TunnelBear offers a minimal logs policy instead of the strict no-logs policy most (worthy) VPNs offer. When it comes to VPNs based in 5/9/14 Eyes countries, the privacy policy is the first thing letting us know whether we can make an exception to our rule about avoiding such providers like the plague. We always take privacy policies seriously.Įven before we started reviewing VPN providers, we’d pore through the fine print – which works in your favor, as we know most of you don’t do this (even though you really should ).

That said, TunnelBear was acquired by McAfee, a US company, in early 2018.Ĭanada and the US are two of the worst countries for a VPN to be located in, as both are 5 Eyes Alliance jurisdictions – AKA: countries who got together after World War II to share surveillance intelligence with each other. If you know anything about Canada, or bears, or Canadian bears, then the name “TunnelBear” makes absolute sense for a Toronto-based VPN. Take a look at How We Rate VPN Providers ! Not Great Locations (But the Bear Makes Sense…)

Tunnelbear reviews