Urban VPN is a promising entrant to the free VPN market. Many VPN companies advertise their free version in the hopes of convincing users to upgrade to a premium subscription. However, Urban VPN does not even have a subscription plan: the service is free.
Urban VPN was formed in 2018 and is based in the United States. The service advertises itself as a free VPN with unlimited bandwidth, fast speeds, and 100% secure connections. “The only 100% FREE, 100% fast, and 100% anonymous VPN in the world,” their motto states. It’s a bold claim, to be sure.
Urban VPN Key Specifications
- Urban VPN’s subscription plan is FREE
- Supports operating systems such as Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.
- Offers unlimited simultaneous connections.
- Urban VPN has a zero log policy.
- Uses a strong OpenVPN protocol.
Urban VPN Speed – How Fast Is It?
Any VPN’s speed is a major requirement. People were mostly interested in a VPN’s capacity to establish a secure and anonymous connection when they initially came out on the market. Nowadays, a fast enough streaming speed to watch Netflix, for example, is just as crucial. The speed test results of Urban VPN are presented ahead.
- No VPN:
Without VPN, download speed was 335.64 Mbps, upload speed of 460.22 Mbps and latency of 8 ms.
- Local Server:
When connected to a server in the Netherlands, the download speed was 252.28 Mbps, Upload speed 568.35 Mbps and 8 ms latency.
- US:
Download speed in the US was 33.55 Mbps, 147.64 Mbps upload speed and 671 ms latency.
Security – How Safe is Urban VPN?
We examined the security and anonymity of Urban VPN more closely. We looked at three key areas: encryption, logging policies, and the information needed to set up an account.
Protocols
Information on protocols is difficult to come across on the Urban VPN website. We couldn’t discover any information regarding the VPN protocols utilised by the Urban VPN Android and iPhone applications. This is quite terrible because encryption is essential.
The good news is that Urban VPN’s Windows and Mac clients employ the OpenVPN protocol. This VPN protocol is by far the most “battle-tested” and provides a decent blend of high internet speeds and rigorous security. On the other side, UrbanVPN does not specify whether they use a 256-bit encryption key or the slightly obsolete 128-bit encryption key.
Privacy and Logging
In their logging policy, the provider indicates that they collect certain “online identifiers” from their consumers. This applies to Android IDs as well as IP addresses. According to UrbanVPN, IP addresses are collected from users to “identify their geographical location.” “Why should UrbanVPN want to know this?” is, of course, the question.
In addition, UrbanVPN discusses the collecting of other sorts of data, such as the websites that users visit and the searches that they conduct. This data is immediately anonymised. As far as we’re concerned, this is a little hazy and provides little comfort.
The fact that Urban VPN sells “anonymized” data to third parties – which we only discovered afterwards – worsens the problem. According to the Urban VPN website, you may opt-out of this. When we looked into how to accomplish this, we couldn’t discover a way to block data sales anywhere in the app. Not in the Windows app, at least.
Urban VPN’s Usability: How User-Friendly Is It?
This is maybe even more necessary with a free VPN like Urban VPN. This is because, like any other free VPN service, Urban VPN will draw a large number of casual VPN users who aren’t sure whether or not they want to invest in a VPN service.
Website for Urban VPN
There are a few user-friendly components on the Urban VPN website. There is, however, space for development. When you arrive at the webpage, you may download the VPN right away, just click “Free download”.
The installation process is straightforward. The top menu also allows you to quickly select a certain product. You can get Urban VPN for Chrome (as an extension) or Windows, for example.
Non-English speakers will appreciate the fact that the website is available in ten languages, including Spanish, Italian, French, and German.
Installing an Urban VPN
Simply follow the instructions below to complete the procedure.
- To get started, go to the Urban VPN website.
- In the top menu bar, click one of the “Free Download” buttons or your operating system icon (see the first screenshot in the section above).
- When you click the button, a file will automatically download.
- Carry out the installation procedure.
- Launch the Urban VPN application. This will happen automatically if you leave all other settings unchanged after installation.
Appearance and simplicity of usage of Urban VPN
In terms of user-friendliness, the software interface of UrbanVPN is, of course, the most significant factor.
The UrbanVPN software is, without a doubt, the most basic VPN client we’ve ever seen. The programme is simple, with merely a list of server locations to pick from and an On/Off button for establishing or terminating a VPN connection.
A kill switch, manual server selection, protocol selection, and split-tunneling are not available with UrbanVPN.
Urban VPN’s Server Network
Urban VPN currently offers the following 40 server locations.
- Africa: Algeria, Morocco, South Africa.
- Asia: Hong Kong, Japan, Mongolia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand.
- Europe: Austria, Belarus, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine.
- North America: Canada, Mexico, the United States.
- Oceania: Australia, New Zealand.
- South America: Brazil, Peru.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it safe to use Urban VPN?
The provider tracks IP addresses and sells allegedly anonymized consumer information to third parties. Also, Urban VPN’s protocols and security precautions are not explicit and open. We have concluded that UrbanVPN is not a secure alternative.
How does Urban VPN manage to be free?
A VPN is almost seldom, if ever, “totally free.” You pay a modest token fee, while others charge you for your data. Similarly, unless you disable this in the app, UrbanVPN plainly states that it resells user data. We were unable to locate a way to opt out, though. By using a peer-to-peer VPN technology, UrbanVPN lowers maintenance expenses to a minimum.
Is Urban VPN a VPN that we recommend?
No, we don’t think UrbanVPN is a good idea. The sole advantage of utilising UrbanVPN is that owing to the P2P network that UrbanVPN uses, streaming services are less likely to identify the VPN. However, you won’t be able to access Netflix in the United States. Even for streaming, this makes this VPN less appealing to many people. As a result, we would recommend investing in a premium VPN, which will keep you safe while allowing you to stream foreign content.
Conclusion
Yes, the VPN is completely free. Yes, it’s one of the few free VPNs that doesn’t impose speed or bandwidth restrictions.
The VPN, on the other hand, has stability concerns, slow speeds, and a lack of helpful supplementary features like a kill switch. The service provider keeps track of data and even sells it to third parties. Finally, this VPN lacks many of the features that are usually required of a VPN. Downloading torrents, streaming American Netflix, and delivering a seamless, anonymous gaming experience are just a few examples.
