In the March update, Nord VPN introduced the ability to pay for a subscription using Qiwi, Union Pay, YooMoney and others. After the withdrawal of payment Visa and MasterCard, this is one of the few paid VPNs that supports payments from Russia.
It seems even more curious against the backdrop of information that Nord VPN has been on the RKN block lists since September last year. What’s the point? Let’s figure it out.
I don’t see or hear anything
Perhaps the main issue that worries people is safety. Nord VPN comes from the small country of Panama, which is famous for being a privacy paradise. You may be wary that American CloudVPN is listed among the developers, but the services of these guys are only needed for simplified collection of funds for a subscription.
The reputation of the service is clean, the service does not keep logs, and in Panama there are no laws requiring the collection of user data. The security audit was conducted by one of the members of the "Big Four" – the largest consulting companies in the world. The report results are available to any user in their personal account, but let’s save you time: everything is in order.
Netflix and Torrents
Most VPN services do not support data exchange in pear2pear networks, which includes torrenting, and Netflix completely blocks attempts to access content through a proxy or VPN.
For P2P traffic, in particular torrents, the Nord VPN network has as many as 4,600 servers from 46 countries around the world. Plus, right in the application, you will be recommended the best server for downloading a particular file.
As for Netflix and other streaming services, there were no problems with access.
Little amenities
Among these, we can note the ad blocking function – a great analogue of the good old AdBlock.
Separately, it is worth highlighting the Double VPN function – the ability to redirect your data through two servers at once, thereby encrypting them twice.
And of course, Kill Switch is an emergency disconnection from the network when the VPN suddenly becomes unavailable. Helps protect your data when using public Wi-Fi hotspots.
What are the cons
Alas, they also exist. The most significant, perhaps, can be considered the fast connection feature: Nord VPN, like many other services, when choosing this feature, will choose not the server closest to you or a server with high bandwidth, but the least loaded one.
Well, the connection speed leaves much to be desired – sometimes you can make yourself a cup of tea while the connection to the server occurs.
A few words about blocking
Yes, the service has indeed been blocked in Russia for half a year now. However, as practice shows, VPN services included in the list of Roskomnadzor are not sitting idly by and are looking for ways to bypass the block. For example, they increase the number of available servers – you can’t block everything.
Alas, the service is exclusively paid. In fairness, it is worth noting that it is more difficult for free services to survive blocking, due to the lack of finance and incentive for any countermeasures.