TotalVPN launched in November, 2015 and is quickly growing into a major player in the VPN space. It’s no surprise as the team behind TotalVPN also manages large web hosting, online storage, and other popular web services. I’m sure the experience helped TotalVPN put the right team and infrastructure in place to serve their customers now and well into the future. Our TotalVPN review will take you inside the service. We put their network and custom client software to the test and look forward to sharing the results.
TotalVPN Plans and Discounts
TotalVPN keeps their pricing simple by offering a single premium plan with unlimited bandwidth and data transfer. You can connect to any of their 30+ server locations on up to 3 devices simultaneously. The retail price of the service is $12.44/mo. or $8.69/mo. if paid annually. That’s reasonable but we’re excited to share that TotalVPN is offering our visitors a discount of up to 50% off their VPN service.
The TotalVPN team is offering VPNSP visitors up to 50% off unlimited VPN access. The savings are applied to the first billing cycle. That makes the annual and 24 month plans a great value as the coupon stacks on top of the normal term discount. Instead of paying the $12.44/mo., you can sign up for a year of unlimited VPN from just $5.99 a month. That’s a savings of over 50% off the retail price.
Free vs. Premium VPN Plan
When you visit the Total VPN website you’ll notice that they offer free and premium VPN accounts. As you might guess there are some major differences between the two. We’ll outline them in a moment. First I’d like to point out that we’re normally skeptical of any VPN company that offers free service. In this case, TotalVPN is giving users just enough access to test the service and get acquainted with their software. We recommend their Total Premium plan which includes unlimited VPN access and a 30 day money back guarantee.
Let’s take a look at the differences between the free and paid VPN plans:
- Free VPN Plan – 3 server locations (Iceland, Singapore, Netherlands), speed is limited to 2 Mbps, limited data transfer, 1 device.
- Total Premium – 30+ server locations, unlimited bandwidth and data transfer, 3 simultaneous connections, premium proxy.
As you can see the Total Premium account has a lot more to offer. All new members are covered by their 30 day money back guarantee which is plenty of time to test their network and custom client software.
TotalVPN Upgrades and Add-Ons
You can upgrade your VPN account to add additional features and priority support. Let’s take a look at the full list of upgrades and add-ons:
- SuperCharge – connect to a reserved set of servers to reduce load and increase speed.
- Priority Support – VIP, front of the line technical support.
- Additional Connections – add an extra connection for a total of four.
Sign Up Process and Payment Options
The sign up process for Total VPN is simple. You start by registering for a free account. Enter in your name, email address, and choose a password. From there you will be greeted with a pricing page similar to the one shown above in our review. From there you can sign up for premium access. TotalVPN accepts PayPal and all major credit cards including Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. The amount of personal information required to sign up is based on the payment method.
Key VPN Service Features
Let’s take a look at some of features you can expect from TotalVPN:
- Public Wi-Fi Protection – protect your privacy when on public networks at airports, hotels, coffee shops, etc.
- Secure Connection – connect to any VPN server to encrypt your data.
- Bypass Censorship – access sites that would otherwise be blocked.
- Avoid Geo-Restrictions – unblock content in other countries.
VPN Server Locations
This is an area where the TotalVPN team is working hard. They have servers in key locations around the world and plan to continue growing the network. We noticed that TotalVPN offers multiple server locations in popular countries like the United States to ensure the best performance.
Let’s take a look at all the countries in which TotalVPN hosts servers:
- North America – Canada, United States
- Europe – Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
- Asia – Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Singapore
- Africa – South Africa
- South America – Argentina
- Oceania – Australia
Security and Privacy
TotalVPN supports multiple protocols including OpenVPN, PPTP, Cisco IPSec, and IKEv2. For now their Windows client only supports PPTP and IKEv2. We recommend you connect using IKEv2 until they add OpenVPN or SSTP support. You can also use the open-source OpenVPN client but that takes more effort and technical know how. The Mac client supports both PPTP and Cisco IPSec protocols. The Android app connects using OpenVPN, while iOS users can choose between IKEv2 and IPSec. They use 256-bit AES encryption for OpenVPN and IKEv2. Their PPTP protocol uses 128-bit AES encryption to secure your connection.
We also looked closely at the information TotalVPN logs. You’ll be happy to know that they have a zero monitoring policy. What does that mean? It means that they do not monitor your activities on the network and they do not keep logs of your browsing history. They log the IP address you logged in from, your username, and the protocol used. You can read their privacy policy to learn more about the information they log.
Customer Support
When it comes to answering questions, TotalVPN has a number of technical support options. For starters you have access to 24/7 live chat support via the TotalVPN website. They also have a knowledgebase and setup guides for a wide range of devices. You can also open a support ticket via email if you prefer that method to live chat support. The turnaround time on email support is a few hours. If you want front of the line access to answer any questions you can add priority support to your account.
TotalVPN Speed and Reliability
For a relatively new VPN service, TotalVPN has invested the necessary funds and effort to ensure members get the best experience. They are one of the fastest network’s we’ve had the pleasure of testing over the years. Their Windows client doesn’t have OpenVPN yet so we changed their default PPTP setting over to IKEv2 which is more secure. The results were very impressive. Let’s take a close look at our speed test results.
- TotalVPN US speed test – we connected to several US servers and all performed well. We achieved over 62 Mbps download speeds in Atlanta.
- TotalVPN Canada speed test – we didn’t notice much difference in performance between the US and Canada. We get over 60 Mbps download speed in Toronto.
- TotalVPN UK speed test – their network includes a server location in London where we got a download speed over 48 Mbps from across the pond.
- Conclusion – their network performed very well. The service is fast and reliable. The only area we noticed some slow down in was the Netherlands. They could use more coverage in Amsterdam. It will also be nice when they add support for OpenVPN in their custom client for Windows.
VPN Client Software and Compatibility
This is an area where most new providers fall behind. That’s not the case with TotalVPN. They have developed a full line of client software. Members have access to custom client’s for Windows and Mac OS X. They can also download custom mobile apps for iOS and Android. Connect from your iPhone, iPad, and a wide range of Android phones and tablets. You can also set up your router to run through the service and protect your home network. They are currently working on a VPN client for Chromebook users.
TotalVPN Windows client in action
The Windows client that TotalVPN developed is quite easy to use. You can easily choose from any of their server locations with the click of a button. They are all listed alphabetically by country and then by city inside popular countries like the United States. You can set favorites by clicking on the star next to the location. This will place them at the top of the list. You can also click on the star to show only your favorite server locations. Finally, you can find servers by using the search feature at the top of the client. This isn’t necessary yet but it will be more helpful as their network continues to grow.
There aren’t many settings that you need to configure in the Windows client. There is one setting that we suggest you change and that is the protocol. By default the software uses PPTP to connect. We would like to see TotalVPN default to IKEv2. Until then we strongly recommend switching the protocol used to connect to IKEv2. They use 256-bit AES encryption with 4096 RSA authentication for IKEv2 connections which is quite secure. We used it for all of our speed tests and the performance was very good.
TotalVPN Mac client in action
As you can see in the image below, the Mac version of the VPN client is very similar to it’s Windows counterpart. We’re equally impressed by the ease of connecting to the service for Mac OS X users. Once again you simply select a server location and click on the connect button. From there you will quickly connect to the server of your choice and switch between servers anytime. The only difference we noticed was in the settings.
Once again the software defaults to using the PPTP protocol. That’s fine if your goal is to unblock gea-restrictions but we recommend you change it for better privacy protection. Mac users have the option of using Cisco IPSec to connect to any server. That would be our recommendation. You can also set the client to run at startup and automatically connect to a selected server.
TotalVPN iPhone app in action
We appreciate the consistent look and feel between the desktop and mobile apps. The app supports iOS 8 and higher. You can run it on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. As you can see the server selection is the same as Mac. The only difference being the sort order. The server locations are sorted alphabetically by city. Otherwise the protocols are a bit different. The app defaults to Cisco IPSec and also supports IKEv2 connections. Either protocol is fine.
TotalVPN Android app in action
Once again, the Android app for TotalVPN is consistent with their other client software. You can connect to any server location and set favorites. The only difference we noticed was the protocol. Their Android app uses OpenVPN to connect. The app will run on Android 4.0.3 and up. You can expect the same experience when using their VPN from your Android mobile phone or tablet.
TotalVPN Review: Conclusion
TotalVPN may be new to the VPN space, but the team’s experience managing other online services definitely shows. They appear to have avoided the pitfalls that most new services fall into. They have a full line up of custom client software, the TotalVPN network is very fast, and they support a wide range of protocols to help protect your privacy. There isn’t much bad to say about the service. They have a good network infrastructure in place and are serious about user privacy. Their tech support is responsive and knowledgeable.
I would only recommend their free VPN account if your needs are very limited. The speed cap of 2 Mbps and very limited server locations would not work for me. However, their premium VPN plan is well priced and offers full access to their network on up to 3 devices at a time. You can enjoy unlimited VPN access from just $5.99 a month during their current promotion. All new members are covered by their 30 day money back guarantee. We highly recommend their Premium plan and look forward to your feedback.
