The CyberGhost VPN team has been working for years to help protect the privacy of Internet users around the world. More than 10 million people have used the VPN service. CybeGhost is based in Romania and has thousands of servers spread across 88 countries. CyberGhost 8 adds support for WreGuard which means even faster connections. Today we’re going to put their new client software to the test and see just how well it performs.
CyberGhost 8 has been redesigned from the ground up. It has a sleek new design that gives you access to all the CyberGhost privacy features in one interface. This helps make the client one of the best choices for those new to VPN. In addition, CyberGhost 8 was designed for a wide range of users. Their team understands that there are many use cases for VPN. You might need the privacy protection of a VPN at your local hotspot. Perhaps you need to unblock restricted websites or geo-restrictions. The new client gives you these options along with DDoS protection for gamers and more.
CyberGhost VPN Plans and Discounts
The first thing you’ll notice when checking out CyberGhost is that the company offers both monthly and longer term VPN plans. As you might guess, the difference comes down to price. All of their plans are right in line with other leading providers. You will find that most companies offer discounts for longer term sign ups. This is why we recommend the 2 year plan + 2 months free which lowers the price to just $2.19 a month.
You can save quite a bit with the CyberGhost special promotions. As you can see the discounts increase along with the term. Regardless of which term you select, the service is available using a number of payment options. You can pay for CyberGhost using credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express), PayPal, or Bitcoin. You can also add their CyberGhost Windows Security Suite or a dedicated IP address for an additional fee.
VPN Server Locations
CyberGhost has grown their network by leaps and bounds over the years. They now manage over 6,600 servers in 110 locations spread across 88 countries. That’s a huge network footprint that gives you access to servers in just about every corner of the globe. Here is a full list of countries that CyberGhost hosts servers in:
- Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Hong Kong SAR China, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau SAR China, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Vietnam
Customer Support
As a CyberGhost member, you have several ways to get help with questions along the way. The first place to go is their website. Click on the “Help” heading at the top of their site to access the knowledgebase. You will find answers to frequently asked questions along with a streaming status update with a list of channels that are temporarily unavailable. The CyberGhost guides will help you set up the software and security suite. You can also submit a help request or reach out to support through the live chat feature.
CyberGhost VPN Speed Test
Since the CyberGhost 8 release added support for WireGuard, we used the protocol to test our speed on a Windows 10 box. The results were good to servers in the United States and United Kingdom. You can also connect to their network using OpenVPN or IKEv2 protocols depending on your needs.
- CyberGhost US speed test – after connecting to a VPN server in Miami we tested our Internet speed and found it to be 126.34 Mbps download and 20.46 Mbps upstream.
- CyberGhost UK speed test – we also tested a connection to a VPN server in London and our Internet speed was 54.51 Mbps download and 20.05 Mbps upstream.
- Conclusion – CyberGhost performed well in both our US and UK speed tests. Note: you can expect any VPN to slow your connection some as the traffic is being encrypted. You can also configure their Smart DNS service to gain access to Netflix and Hulu without the overhead of encryption.
CyberGhost 8 : Hands-On Testing
When you fully open the CyberGhost 8 dashboard it will give you access to the VPN and a few more optional services. Privacy Guard will help you take full control of your operating system settings for better privacy.Security Updater keeps all your apps up to date to protect your device from security threats. You can also add Intego to protect your system from virus and malware threats. All of these options are available directly in the app.
For the purpose of this review, our focus is on the VPN service. You can let the client select the best server location or choose one for yourself. When you open the CyberGhost VPN tab it will give you access to every server on their network. You can pick the country, city, or all the way down to an individual server. Those who need a dedicated IP address can add the feature to your account to gain access to your own IP. Otherwise, you will want to consider your purpose for using a VPN when considering which server location to connect to.
Once you select a server you will want click the connect button just under the “Start a Connection” heading in the app. Once connected the icon will light up in yellow. It will show the server location along with your new IP address. You can look up the IP address to confirm it’s location. Ours matched just fine in several tests. This is important for unblocking geo-restrictions.
Once connected you will be presented with a screen showing the new IP address assigned to you. At this point we were browsing the web from an IP address in Atlanta. As far as websites could tell we were located in Georgia.
The “For Streaming” option is the easiest way to connect to unblock popular streaming services and channels. This is especially helpful for ex-pats and international travelers. CyberGhost lists the services you can unblock for each server location, as you can see below.
The key to the “For streaming” section of CyberGhost 8 is the ability to select a server for your desired channel. For example, you can choose between the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, France, and Japan for Netflix. This gives you the ability to switch regions which opens unique content. At the time of our testing the client also had access to Disney+ in the US and Disney+ Hotstar in India.
Here a small sample of some of the popular streaming services available through the CyberGhost network. Note that you will still need an account to enjoy access to most the services.
- Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+
The next area of the CyberGhost 8 client we’ll look at is titled “Connection features” and gives you options to customize. You can tell the software whether or not to block malicious websites, block ads, block online tracking, use data compression, automated HTTPS redirect, and extra speed. Enabling any of these extra features will require you to upgrade to a premium account. There are more VPN settings that allow you to pick a protocol (automatic, OpenVPN, IKEv2, WireGuard), enable DNS leak protection, and automatic kill switch. This will help by blocking internet traffic if you VPN connection drops for any reason.
We will finish our look at the CyberGhost app with a quick overview of their Gaming Servers. CyberGhost offers a number of servers in Frankfurt, Paris, London, and New York, that have been optimized for gaming. Connecting to one of them will help you unblock geo-restrictions and protect against DDoS attacks. Play with friends in other countries while protecting your privacy.
The final option in CyberGhost 8 let’s you choose your own VPN server. As the name suggests this option let’s you select any server location. For example, if you want to connect to a server in Los Angeles, you will want click on the “All servers” tab and select the arrow “>” to the right on United States. This will bring up a list of every US server. From there you can enter Los Angeles in the search box at the top left of the screen. This will present you with a list of all the servers in LA along with the ping, distance, and load percentage for each server. Click on the star to favorite a servers for quick access.
Conclusion
You will be hard pressed to find a VPN that offers a better user interface than CyberGhost. Their latest release of the app is easy to use and filled with advanced features. It is a good fit for new VPN users and veterans alike. We recommend downloading CyberGhost 8 client and mobile app to fully test their network. There is so much functionality in the app that we’re encouraged by the ongoing development of the service. You can sign up for just $2.19 a month and gain access to over 6,600 servers in 88 countries.
