TorGuard VPN Review 2024: A Detailed Features Overview, Competitors and Trends
TorGuard is a bit of a misnomer as the VPN service has nothing to do with TOR browser or network. Originally designed for Torrent users worldwide, the VPN has gradually developed into one of the most sought-after VPN services worldwide. It packs in all the essential features which any basic or advanced user would ideally look for in a VPN. With an enormous server pool and support for the most used protocols, no wonder why the VPN has become an automatic choice for so many users the world over. Let’s now take a look at whether the VPN is actually worth your money or not.
| Location | Florida, USA |
| No-log policy |  |
| Hiding IP | |
| Kill-switch | |
| Max connections | 8 with Standard plan 12 with Pro plan 30 with Premium plan |
| Total servers | 3000 |
| Total countries | 50 |
| Compatible devices | WINDOWS, Mac OSX, DEBIAN x32Bit, DEBIAN x64Bit, REDHAT x32Bit, REDHAT x64Bit, Android, iOS, and extensions for Firefox and Chrome as well as routers |
| TOR support | |
| Torrenting | |
| Netflix | |
| Does it work in China? | |
| Servers’ speed (overall) | Above Average (Asia servers are not at par with US and EU servers) |
| Usability | Easy to use |
| Customer support | Live chat, email-based support, resource articles and forums |
| Website | https://torguard.net/ |
TorGuard is an outstanding security-centric VPN that works perfectly to keep your traffic data perfect and helps your browse the web anonymously. The fast and relatively inexpensive VPN is definitely not the best choice for Netflix users, but it still does better than many other VPNs in the same price range on quite a few aspects. If you do not want to trade ease-of-use for security, you’d be happy to know that TorGuard has successfully bridged the gap between online security and user convenience. It’s a pretty fast VPN with an impressive set of features, and it’s definitely one of the most secure VPNs on the market right now. Also, TorGuard is a good choice for users who want to customize their experience by picking from a bunch of add-on options.
It’s actually one of the safest VPNs available right now. TorGuard supports a vast array of VPN protocols, including solid encryption, OpenVPN, and its ability to mask VPN traffic as HTTPS traffic to bypass VPN blockers and geo-restrictions makes it an ideal choice for users who have reasons to worry about censorship rules and surveillance. Like the top rated VPNs, it also has a kill switch, which secures your internet traffic in case of an abrupt connection drop.
However, one of the major downsides of TorGuard is that you have to pay extra for accessing Netflix and other streaming services, taking this into account I can’t say that this is the best VPN for Netflix. While this might be a big turn-off for penny-pinchers, you might take delight in the fact that TorGuard maintains full transparency when it comes to their logging policy (which I have explained right below). You can be rest assured that your online activities and your IP address won’t be revealed to any third party. The service, which is considered great for P2P file sharing and torrenting, is not suitable for beginners in my opinion. Manual selection of protocol settings and encryption is not something that beginners can handle with ease. With that being said, TorGuard does offer some excellent features for nearly every kind of user. Here’s a breakdown.
TorGuard Logging Policy
“The personal information provided is collected solely for private use by TorGuard.net as it relates to standard business operations. Upon registration for services at TorGuard.net the account owner’s name, email address, and date/time is stored. This information is recorded to prevent fraud and abuse of TorGuard.net services. No data is ever provided to a third party unless required to do so by law. TorGuard.net users can modify or remove the personal information stored at any time. Upon request, TorGuard.net will provide a user information on what account related data is stored. Registered users may request removal of all personal information at any time by contacting the support department or the official TorGuard.net data controller.”
Like most premium VPNs, TorGuard also has a zero-log policy. TorGuard doesn’t store user IP’s or the time stamps on their VPN or proxy servers, not even for a microsecond. However, there is a tendency among some VPN users to misuse VPN services, which brings us to the question – how do they maintain an abuse-free and fast network? One of the support executives confirmed me that not even their network engineers can back track abusers by their IP’s. How do they stop such abusers then?
Apparently, the VPN service provider uses packet-level filtering at firewall level to apply uniform rules to the shared servers, thereby blocking the abusers. This additional layer of security, which is termed as ‘shared VPN setup’ ensures top-notch security for the end users. For instance, if somebody tries to use TorGuard to promote their illicit or spam business, the VPN will just implement new firewall rules for effectively blocking the misused protocol for every user on that particular server. The VPN service handles abusers per server, and not on a per user basis.
Is It Compatible With TOR Browser?
By routing your traffic through the TOR browser to a VPN would help you in hiding your traffic from the malicious exit nodes. When you pair a VPN with the TOR network, your traffic is encrypted and it doesn’t get decrypted when you leave the network. Therefore, exit relays that spy your traffic won’t see anything. TorGuard is one of those VPNs which are compatible with TOR. If you want to enjoy the additional anonymity guaranteed by TOR, you can couple it with the TOR browser.
Is Torrenting Allowed?
As I mentioned it before, TorGuard was originally designed for BitTorrent users who wanted to do P2P sharing anonymously. The Tor in TorGuard stands for Torrent, and not TOR browser. While it is difficult for a user to know whether they will be punished for using VPN for torrenting, some VPNs are actually more torrent-friendly than others, and TorGuard is definitely one of these VPNs. The VPN service provider offers a dedicated proxy only for torrenting, which clearly shows their level of commitment. TorGuard claims that their servers are optimized for torrenting, and while this seems merely a marketspeak, I could download at least two movies using TorGuard with BitTorrent without a glitch.
Can You Access Netflix?
Technically, yes, but it will cost you extra. Neither TorGuard VPN nor TorGuard Proxy works with Netflix. While most of the premium VPN services are designed to allow their users access Netflix unconditionally, TorGuard’s charging extra for Netflix streaming is a shame. You have to buy their dedicated streaming IP, which would set you back for USD 7.99 monthly, USD 18.99 if you go for the quarterly plan, USD 36.99 for the six-month plan, USD 54.99 for full one year, and USD 82.48 for two years, respectively. Bear in mind that the charge for the add-on service is non-refundable. The worst part is, even if you go for the add-on service, you may not be able to access the streaming service by using random servers.
Does It Work In China?
Fighting censorships in China is a long and seemingly never-ending battle for all the VPN service providers out there, and TorGuard has been striving to get around the Chinese censorship as well. Despite Chinese government’s draconian censorship laws, TorGuard has been running its mainland servers to help their Chinese users get access to social media and other geo-restricted websites and services. Jeremy, one of their support execs confirmed me that their servers in China are still working, although the service providers have admitted on their official website that it’s becoming quite difficult for them to ensure uninterrupted VPN access for their users in China. While most of their servers have been removed from China as on date, their Chinese users can still reap benefits of their fast Stealth VPN speeds in Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand as well as Vietnam. If you are ready to make your VPN connection a little more undetectable at the expense of seed, you can use their ‘Stealth Proxy’ layer on top of their VPN.
Google Trends is a treasure trove of data for internet marketers. To gauge the popularity of TorGuard among American consumers over a certain period of time, I turned to Big G and the search results I got in return reflected the overall popularity of the VPN service in the US region for the past five years.
I noticed that the VPN service’s popularity has occasional highs and lows, and it reached peak popularity during autumn 2022. Over the past 12 months, there is a clear upward trend in the “TorGuard” search query.
In order to better understand how popular is TorGuard VPN I compared it with two nearest competitors – PrivateVPN and StrongVPN. The graph below shows that for the last 5 years TorGuard remained an absolute winner in Google search with a slight decline from summer 2020 till summer 2022.
While a lot of countries allow free access to the worldwide web for their citizens, some governments restrict access to the web and even to the popular social media sites that are used by millions of people every day. At present, six countries are known for their despotic censorship rules, namely China, Turkey, Iran, Vietnam, Pakistan and North Korea. Fortunately, TorGuard has successfully engineered a double-layered security approach and if you use their Stealth Proxy and Stealth VPN together, you can access social media sites in countries that have deep-packet inspection policies in place. TorGuard Stealth VPN, powered by OpenVPN client with obfuscation, makes internet traffic invisible. If you wish to access social media websites from any of these six countries, I recommend pairing Stealth Proxy with Stealth VPN.
I tested out the VPN on a 100 Mbps internet connection, and it did a commendable job in pulling off a download speed of 54 Mbps. Definitely, it’s not the fastest VPN, but 54 Mbps is a decent speed and is just enough for regular downloading chores. Their US server pulled off a download speed of 31.66 Mbps and upload speed of 31.16 Mbps, while the EU server turned out to be considerably faster than the New York server (download speed: 53.83 Mbps and Upload speed: 49.31 Mbps). Their Hong Kong server, however, let me down as I only got a download speed of 9.59 Mbps, which is super-unimpressive, to say the least. If you are planning to route your traffic through one of their Asia-based servers, you should take that into consideration. Otherwise, it offers relatively fast download and upload speeds.
Downloading the application and installing it on my system was a pushover, and I didn’t even had to go through their how-to guide for installing the program (in case you have not used or installed a VPN before, there’s plenty of how-to stuff on their website which you can read and implement easily). After signing up, I just had to visit their website’s ‘downloads’ section and select the device. After going through the steps of the installation wizard, all I had to do is launch the application on my desktop.
TorGuard’s apps are rather old-school, but the application seems to be a perfect choice for VPN veterans who know how to customize their experience. The home screen of the application features a lot of useful info, including but limited to your VPN protocol, your current and acquired IP address and more. I particularly liked the minimal design of the application. While selecting a server from the drop-down menu and selecting a combination of ciphers, I experienced no hiccup whatsoever. The advanced settings are also sensibly organized, which is yet another plus of this VPN service.
TorGuard’s customer support service, however, is not at par with that of other premium VPN services. While the support section is brimming with scores of how-to guides and troubleshooting articles, you would find it difficult to navigate through their help articles. Also, they haven’t explained complex technical matters in Plain English, which might be a big problem for beginners. The forums are useful in finding answers to specific queries, but the forums are mostly maintained by other TorGuard users, and not their support staff. However, my live chat experience was pretty good as the support agent I chatted with was able to answer all my queries precisely. I also sent them an email and got a prompt reply.
1 Month
$9.99 /month- Billed $9.99 every month
- 30-day money-back guarantee
6 Months
$29.99 /6 month- Exclusive 50% Discount
- Billed $29.99 every 6 months
- 30-day money-back guarantee
1 Year
$59.99 /year- Exclusive 50% Discount
- Billed $59.99 every 12 months
- 30-day money-back guarante
As is the case for most VPNs, the bigger the subscription plan you sign up for, the greater your savings are. The fact that they enjoy five different customized pricing plans is a big plus. The most expensive subscription plan (and no prize for guessing), is the monthly plan, which would set you back for USD 9.99 for one month. You can snag biggest savings by signing up either for the one-year plan or the two-year plan. If you are going to purchase a bundle plan, you might find it quite difficult. Nevertheless, you can get in touch with their customer support team and they would be able to link you up with the ideal plan that should meet your precise needs. TorGuard is a mid-range VPN price-wise. It’s not the costliest VPN, but it’s not the cheapest one either.
If you are looking to beat the censorship rules and attain the highest level of anonymity and privacy for a decent price, TorGuard is the ideal choice for you. The one-year plan and the biennial plan offer solid value for money. Its performance is quite decent across the server network. However, given the fact that the latencies are high in some parts of the network, you should look for some other VPN for gaming (I recommend IPVanish) in case you are an avid gamer and paying for a VPN for mostly gaming purposes. Their zero-log policy is exactly what it reads, and you can even club their stealth VPN protocol and stealth proxy to bypass the censorship rules in China. In a nutshell, if you are tech-savvy and desperately looking for anonymity online, this one is a good choice.
