CyberGhost VPN: The Ultimate Guide to Online Security

PROS

Large, well-distributed server fleet
Allows up to seven simultaneous connections
Several add-ons, including antivirus
Outstanding speed test scores
Newly completed third-party audit

CONS

Expensive
Confusing privacy policies

CYBERGHOST VPN SPECS

Free Version	×
500+ Servers	√
Simultaneous VPN Connections	7
Blocks Ads	√
Server Locations	90 Countries
Geographically Diverse Servers	√
Free Version Data Limit	No Free Version

By directing your web traffic through an encrypted connection to a distant server, a VPN shields your personal information and makes it more difficult to track you online. It’s a potent tool, and we think CyberGhost VPN is one of the top VPNs out there. It offers the biggest VPN server network we’ve yet seen and permits a generous seven connections at once. However, the service is pricey and lacks all the VPN features that we’ve come to expect from top-tier goods. Our overall Editors’ Choice for VPNs, Proton VPN, offers more features at a lower cost.

What Is the Price of CyberGhost VPN?

The monthly price for a CyberGhost VPN subscription is $12.99. That’s significantly more than the 5 euros ($5.32 at the time of writing) per month that Editors’ Choice winner Mullvad VPN charges, as well as the current average of $9.78 per month that we’ve seen across all the VPNs we’ve reviewed.

CyberGhost VPN provides a discount for longer subscriptions, like the majority of VPN services do. The price of a 28-month plan, which renews annually for the same price, is $56.94. Customers should be aware that their two-year plan effectively turns into an annual plan because that could be confusing. The plans offered by CyberGhost VPN are very alluring, especially in light of the fact that the average annual plan among the VPNs we tested costs $65.82. However, to see how well the VPN works for you, we always advise starting with a monthly plan. Be aware that CyberGhost VPN occasionally modifies its pricing scheme.

Keep in mind that access to CyberGhost’s NoSpy high-security servers costs an additional $59.88 per year for monthly customers. NoSpy servers are provided without charge to customers who sign up for any plan lasting longer than a month. We go into more detail about these specialized servers below.

There are many good free VPNs available, so cost shouldn’t be a barrier when it comes to security. Users of TunnelBear VPN’s free service can access the entire network of servers, but their monthly data usage is limited to 500MB. editor’s choice award Our favorite free subscription, offered by Proton VPN, has no data cap but only a few server restrictions.

Major credit cards, PayPal, and Bitcoin are all simple ways to pay for a CyberGhost VPN plan. But more on that later. Paying with Bitcoin means forgoing the opportunity to purchase some of CyberGhost’s add-ons. Both Editors’ Choice winners IVPN and Mullvad VPN accept cash payments made to their respective headquarters if you’re interested in a strictly cash transaction.

Seven devices can be used concurrently with a CyberGhost VPN subscription, making it a good value for a household with many devices. Five devices is the industry average for VPN providers, but this trend appears to be slowly shifting in the direction of consumers. There is no restriction on how many devices you can connect simultaneously with Atlas VPN, Avira Phantom VPN, IPVanish VPN, Surfshark VPN, and TunnelBear VPN.

Although a VPN is an effective tool, it cannot guarantee your safety from all threats. We strongly advise using a password manager, standalone antivirus software, and multi-factor authentication wherever it is offered.

What Does Your Money Buy You?

In its home country of Romania, where CyberGhost VPN is based, the company claims that its NoSpy servers(Opens in a new window) are specially tuned servers housed in a high-security server facility. The Secure Core servers from Proton VPN are comparable in that they both have enhanced physical security. However, Proton VPN uses its Secure Core servers to establish multi-hop connections, whereas CyberGhost does not. We were unable to test NoSpy servers this time because access to them cannot be added to an existing subscription. Once we have a chance to test the NoSpy servers out for ourselves, we will update this review.

CyberGhost boasts that it offers malware and ad blocking in addition to VPN security. Although we haven’t evaluated the effectiveness of these features in any VPN products, we generally suggest that readers use standalone tracker blockers and antivirus software. Although a VPN is not required to use Tor, CyberGhost VPN is unable to route your traffic through the Tor anonymization network, unlike Proton VPN and Editors’ Choice winner NordVPN. Split tunneling is, however, a feature of CyberGhost. This enables you to prevent a specific URL from using the VPN connection.

The dedicated IP addresses provided by CyberGhost VPN make sure that your traffic always appears to originate from the same IP address and may make it less obvious that it is VPN traffic. The business takes pride in its tokenized system for allocating dedicated IP addresses without keeping track of who uses which IP address. In addition to the subscription cost for CyberGhost VPN, dedicated IP addresses are offered in Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the US for an additional $5 per month.

Some VPN providers are starting to broaden their selection of goods. Editors’ Selection As an illustration, NordVPN offers an encrypted file locker, a password manager, and built-in antivirus security. If an email address appears in a data breach, a free service called ID Guard(Opens in a new window) will notify you. With subscriptions lasting a year or more, CyberGhost is also bundling a license for the cloud storage file encryption service Boxcryptor. These extra services were not assessed during our testing. Keep in mind that CyberGhost VPN formerly provided a password manager as well, but the service is no longer taking new subscribers and will be completely discontinued on January 1st, 2023.

CyberGhost Security Suite for Windows(Opens in a new window), which costs an additional $5.99 per month in addition to a VPN subscription, is the biggest addition to the CyberGhost VPN toolkit. The total cost is dependent on how long the subscription is for. The Security Suite for Windows’ internal components include Intego’s antivirus defense, a Microsoft information-protection tool called Privacy Guard, and Security Updater, which keeps track of your apps’ required updates. Anyone with a CyberGhost VPN account can access this tool, but it only works with Windows 7, 8, or 10 devices.

The fact that Intego, a Mac-exclusive antivirus provider, powers the antivirus for CyberGhost VPN caught us off guard. Intego’s Mac product performed particularly poorly at detecting Windows malware in third-party lab testing, as we noted in our 2017 review. That’s a little concerning for it to be in a Windows-only antivirus package, but we’re holding off on making a final judgment because we haven’t evaluated CyberGhost Security Suite for Windows’ effectiveness.

Which VPN protocols is CyberGhost capable of?

There are many ways to protect a VPN connection, and WireGuard is currently the hottest method. This VPN protocol is quickly emerging as a new standard because it offers faster speeds and more advanced encryption technology than other VPN protocols. Additionally, it is open-source, allowing anyone with the desire to examine it for potential flaws. The impressive list of platforms that CyberGhost VPN supports, including Fire Stick TV, Android, Android TV, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, and various routers, includes all of them.

On all of its platforms, with the exception of macOS, CyberGhost VPN also supports the excellent and open source OpenVPN protocol. IKEv2, another popular VPN protocol, is supported by Windows, Mac OS X, Android TV, iOS, and Amazon Fire TV Stick.

Servers for CyberGhost and their locations

You have more options for selecting the ideal server and for disguising your location the more server locations a VPN offers. Large server networks can also increase your chances of finding a server nearby, regardless of where you are.

In 91 countries, there are about 9,200 servers for CyberGhost VPN. Although there are not as many countries as there are servers, it is still the most we’ve seen. HMA VPN boasts servers in 190 nations, while ExpressVPN works in 94.

Even though the vast majority of its servers are in the US and the UK, it still has a good global distribution with better-than-average performance for South America and Africa, two continents that VPN providers frequently overlook. China, Hong Kong, Russia, Turkey, and Vietnam are just a few of the places where CyberGhost VPN does have servers.

However, not all VPN servers are created equal. Since virtual servers are software-defined, multiple virtual servers can coexist on a single hardware server. Virtual locations are created by configuring any type of server to appear to be somewhere other than their actual location. Virtual locations and virtual servers are neither inherently good nor bad, but we prefer VPN services that are open about where your data goes and how it’s handled. We appreciate that CyberGhost VPN provides a list of all of its server locations that makes it clear whether they are virtual locations or not(Opens in a new window).

According to a company representative, some of the server infrastructure for CyberGhost VPN is rented, but some servers—like its NoSpy servers—are directly owned. No matter who owns them, CyberGhost VPN’s servers are encrypted and only operate in RAM, so no data is kept on a hard drive. There wouldn’t be any data to look at even if the server were physically removed by the attacker.

How Is Your Privacy Protected by CyberGhost VPN?

Any security or privacy software that you use must have your trust that it won’t put you in danger. This is crucial for VPNs because they may have the same level of knowledge about your online activities as your ISP. One of the main motives for using a VPN in the first place is to protect those activities. CyberGhost VPN seems to do a good job overall of preserving user privacy. Below, we’ll try to summarize.

The privacy policy of CyberGhost VPN outlines the information it gathers, how it uses it, and the information it does not gather (Opens in a new window). Although the policy’s preamble is excellent and simple to understand, it quickly transitions into something much denser and more challenging to read. The business should imitate Editors’ Choice winner TunnelBear VPN and create a straightforward and informative policy for its users.

CyberGhost VPN does not keep track of users’ IP addresses, DNS requests, browsing histories, connection/disconnection timestamps, session lengths, bandwidth, or the VPN server you connect to, according to the company’s documentation(Opens in a new window). That’s really great. Although only in aggregate, it appears that the company does gather data on connection attempts and successes. According to a company representative, the CyberGhost VPN not only does not keep track of user activity, but it also has no way of knowing who is connected to which server.

We were assured by a company representative that subscription fees from users are the only source of income for CyberGhost VPN. We want to hear that because a VPN should protect your information, not use it for profit.

Knowing where the VPN provider is based and under what legal authority it operates is crucial because issues involving law enforcement and VPN providers can be complicated. In contrast, CyberGhost VPN is based in Bucharest, Romania, and is governed by Romanian law, despite having offices all over Europe. According to a company representative, the business is unable to respond to legal requests for information because it lacks personal user data. This is supported by the business’s quarterly transparency report(Opens in a new window).

CyberGhost S.R.L.(Opens in a new window), the organization’s full name, is a subsidiary of Kape Technologies PLC. Among other privacy and security firms, Kape also owns Private Internet Access VPN and ExpressVPN. Kape was formerly an adware business known as Crossrider (Opens in a new window).

The business declared in September 2022 that it had finished an independent audit(Opens in a new window) with Deloitte. This audit’s goal was to determine whether the company’s privacy policy is actually supported by its infrastructure, unlike its prior evaluations(Opens in a new window). Although audits are not perfect tools, we think they are a useful way for businesses to show their commitment to user protection. According to the Deloitte audit’s terms, only subscribers have access to the complete document. We searched for a copy, but we couldn’t find one. The business needs to fix this.

CyberGhost VPN for Windows in-depth review

On an Intel NUC Kit NUC8i7BEH (Bean Canyon) desktop running the most recent version of Windows 10, we tested the CyberGhost VPN windows app. We reached the maximum number of installations, CyberGhost VPN informed us during the installation. We had to visit the online client portal and remove a few devices from our account before continuing. You can only be logged in on seven different devices at once, a CyberGhost VPN representative explained, so you must manually log out or remove the device, as we did. The representative added that only the operating system and device model are recorded by CyberGhost VPN. We prefer that the service only restricts concurrent connections, not installations.

A more subdued dark blue and gray color scheme, with orange highlights that appear to glow on the screen, has replaced the flat colors used in earlier visual updates. The app’s large central button invites you to click it and establish a connection with its recommended server. The app expands when the arrow on the left is clicked, revealing a more thorough server selector and extensive settings. Although the app lacks TunnelBear VPN’s uniqueness and friendliness, we appreciate how closely it mimics Windows 10’s look and feel. The Dark and Light modes of the app only apply to the expanded panel; the main panel is always dark in color.

The pulldown menu located below the connection button allows you to change the VPN’s location. By expanding the list, you can see all the servers nearby and add your favorite servers to a list of favorites. We appreciate the flexibility that this gives users. You can also see the load on individual servers and the precise number of connected users from the server list. CyberGhost VPN’s network options are further broken down by server lists for gaming, torrenting, and streaming.

A kill switch that stops your computer from transmitting data in the event that the VPN abruptly disconnects is available in the Privacy Settings panel. According to the Block Content toggle, it prevents DNS domains linked to ads, trackers, and malicious activity. The effectiveness of ad blocking for VPNs is not tested by PCMag.

You can configure specific actions for CyberGhost VPN using the Smart Rules panel. This includes, among other things, what the app should do when a new Wi-Fi network is detected or how the app should connect right away at startup. You should edit these if you want a true set-and-forget experience.

You can specify URLs that CyberGhost VPN should route outside the VPN connection on the Smart Rules Exceptions tab. For banks and streaming services that might block VPN traffic, that is helpful. You might anticipate that you could do the same for app traffic on the App Rules tab, but that is regrettably not the case. Instead, whenever you open one of the apps you’ve added to the list, CyberGhost VPN launches and connects automatically.

A selection of surprisingly sophisticated security features can be found in the settings menu. You can, for instance, force CyberGhost VPN to use a random port, alter the app’s VPN protocol, or disable IPv6 connections. You won’t need to touch the majority of these, but we like having them nonetheless. You can manually select IKEv2, OpenVPN, or WireGuard if you don’t like the app’s default choice of VPN protocol.

When it comes to blocking VPNs, Netflix is very aggressive. Sadly, during our testing, CyberGhost VPN encountered some difficulties with Netflix. While connected to a New York-based VPN server, we could only stream a portion of Netflix content, and we experienced the same issue when connected to a CyberGhost VPN server designed for Netflix streaming. However, blocking VPNs is somewhat of a cat-and-mouse game, so a VPN that supports Netflix today might not tomorrow.

DNS or IP address leakage is not acceptable for VPNs. We discovered that our IP address was concealed and that our DNS information was secure using the DNS Leak Test tool(Opens in a new window). Do not forget that we only tested one server. Other servers might not be configured correctly.

Speed and effectiveness

Your internet speed will almost certainly suffer if you use a VPN. We use Ookla’s internet speed test(Opens in a new window) tool to conduct a number of comparative tests in an effort to gauge the extent of that impact. For more information on our methodology and the boundaries of our testing, read our feature on how we evaluate VPNs.

(Editors’ note: Ziff Davis, which also owns PCMag, owns Ookla.)

Excellent speed test results from CyberGhost VPN outperformed most of the opposition. The results of our download and upload speed tests were both decreased by 13.3% and 26.7%, respectively, by CyberGhost VPN. It caused an 11.2% latency increase.

Our ability to access the PCMag Labs has been restricted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, necessitating some adjustments to how we test VPN speeds. Since then, we’ve switched to a rolling testing model, and we’ll keep you updated as new findings are made public. The table below includes a comparison of CyberGhost VPN with each VPN we tested.

Although our testing is helpful for comparison, it should not be interpreted as a comprehensive assessment of each service. The same tests conducted at various times or locations will undoubtedly differ from ours. Additionally, we advise against selecting a VPN solely on the basis of speed. Much more significant factors include the service’s price, features, and privacy safeguards.

A Good Decision

CyberGhost VPN is best suited for someone who needs a VPN for specific activities due to its enormous server list. That could be video streaming, a highly accurate location spoof, or something similar. These activities may be made possible thanks to the company’s deployment of WireGuard and its excellent speed test results. The apps from CyberGhost VPN are overall well-designed, and we’re especially pleased that the business has finished an independent audit of its infrastructure and policies.

CyberGhost VPN aims to give users more for their money by adding to its arsenal of security tools. We’d like to see it match some of the features of rival products, like multi-hop or split tunneling for app traffic, though it mostly succeeds. Although we are confident in its reliability, the business needs to improve its privacy policy to make it easier to understand.

Although the competition can’t match CyberGhost VPN’s size, many of them can compete with it on features, price, or even both, as is the case with Proton VPN, our Editors’ Choice winner overall.