As well as their fairly decent network of servers, they also allow P2P activity (on specific servers) and have special streaming servers that have improved speeds. However, standard server speeds are a little disappointing and their price plans are quite expensive – interesting considering they’re a newer service. This review will look into the service as a whole and will try to elaborate on all of the features this newer company has to offer.
**Official website: https://goosevpn.com
GooseVPN is a newer VPN service that is based in the Netherlands. The service has servers in 22 countries and allows for P2P. Their security and privacy are also great and they offer an amazing 30-day free trial..
Pricing and Packages
As with the majority of VPN services available, GooseVPN has a series of tiered packages/plans that allow buyers to choose three options. These three options include an unlimited plan, which is split up into monthly or yearly payments and a limited plan which offered the same features but with a data limit of 50 GB. GooseVPN does something a lot different and something I have rarely seen in VPN services. They offer a limited plan which restricts the amount of data a user can have and they also include an unlimited plan. Usually, the data capped plans are used for free services before the user decides to upgrade. The apparent incentive the use of the limited plan is related to price – the limited plan is drastically cheaper than the other plans, priced at €2.99/month ($3.42 at the time of writing this). This is a lot cheaper than many other providers and the commitment is not needed.
In regards to the price of the other plans GooseVPN offers, they are a bit of chalk and cheese. This is because there is a big price difference between the yearly price and the monthly price, which although it is standard among the majority of VPN services, is a little too much in GooseVPN’s case. Their monthly plan costs a pricey $12.99, their yearly plan costs $4.99 and their 3-year plan costs $2.60. The yearly plan is pretty average in comparison to the rest of the VPN services on the market but the monthly plan is a little ridiculous. On a side note, their packages and plans do not differ depending on which one you decide to choose on. They all come with the same features and nothing is discriminated against, which is beneficial for the user, allowing them to customize their payments without the worry of losing VPN power.
Payment Options
A good VPN service should have a range of payment options and gateways to select during the initial transaction. The whole point of a VPN is to protect users’ privacy and security in the online world, so why the payment gateway of the VPN should service be any different? GooseVPN is a little disappointing in regards to their payment options. They, of course, offer the standard payment gateways through debit and credit card, accepting Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. They also accept payments through PayPal – the third-party payment gateway which is more secure than the other options. Its a shame to not see any use of Bitcoin, which is a lot more private than any other gateway on the market and keeps users completely anonymous if they know what they’re doing. However, I suppose this is a young company and they are still just settling in. Maybe in time, they will have Bitcoin as payment but we will have to wait and see.
GooseVPN Setup and User-Friendliness
GooseVPN was incredibly easy to set up and use. Once you have navigated your way around the website to the plans and packages, you will have to select your package and follow the sign-up process and payment instructions. You can sign up for their service using either your email and a password or a Facebook account. Once all that is completed and you have selected your plan, you will be given a user dashboard that will give you information about your account, payments and other useful things. Navigate your way to the download section and you will see a download option for a range of software and system. Choose your operating system and click download. For this review, I downloaded the Windows client. Downloading the software is quick and simple – not too different from a standard VPN service. You simply follow the instructions on the setup wizard, choose the file location and select your start-up and shortcut options. After that, you are free to use the VPN client. Once it pops up, you’ll see a little introduction screen from Goose telling you how you can use it. Enter your log-in details again and the VPN will be up and running. At first glance, the client was very simple. The main screen features a basic layout featuring a connection slider, your traffic consumption (which is pointless if you’re on the unlimited plan), your current IP address and a drop-down menu with the available servers. With the drop-down menu of servers, you could see which ones were dedicated to specific activities. For example, there are a lot of servers that allow P2P and this is indicated with a P2P icon next to the location. GooseVPN also has servers dedicated to streaming and downloading which are indicated with a little play button.
If you want to fiddle with your settings you will have to click the little gear icon near your IP address. This will open a separate window that you can use to change your security protocol, start-up settings, and other things. To be honest, it was very basic and there were not a lot of options for customization. The only thing I liked is the protocol selection, which clearly stated what the protocol did and how it benefitted the user’s experience. Initially, it is set to IKEv2.
Servers and Speeds
GooseVPN is an impressive little VPN and although is it fairly new and is stretching its legs, the service has managed to build a large network of worldwide servers. Excellent if your aim with the VPN to unblock content and get past the pesky geographical restrictions that stop you from watching your favorite shows. GooseVPN has servers in 26 different countries all over the world and some of these servers are in hard to reach places. It would be nice to see their next VPN server in South Africa though as this would take the cake. As for speeds, we were testing the VPN on a baseline connection speed of around 50MBPS. When we connected to a UK server with the VPN on (with OpenVPN protocol) the speeds did not drop too much – about 10MBPS. As for Europe the speeds were great and kept close to around 40MBPS. So far, so good. However, when connecting to a US server, the download and upload speeds plummeted to 3MBPS which was incredibly disappointing. They need to do some upgrading to their server network overseas. All the above tests were run on their standard servers, not their streaming/download servers. We decided to give those a go as well in regards to speeds. However, when connecting to a US “streaming” server we found the same result as we did with a standard server – disappointing speeds. If they are building servers dedicated to streaming, shouldn’t they be fast?
Compatibility
When GooseVPN first started they were only available with a few devices. However, they have recently upgraded and are now compatible with a whole range of systems and software. It is important for a VPN to be compatible with a range of devices to ensure own internet safety on our mobile devices as well as our computers, especially on public Wi-Fi. GooseVPN allows individuals to connect to all the standard systems, including Windows, Mac, IOS, and Android. They also allow you to connect to Chrome, Linux, NAS and even your route which they recommend for ultimate protection. What we especially liked about the service is they offer unlimited connections to all your devices. This means that you can have protection on all your devices, even if you own over the standard 3-5. It also means that you can lend your account to friends and family but I don’t think GooseVPN would want you doing this.
Customer Support
It would be nice to see a live chat option which is manned 24/7 but this may be an additional feature GooseVPN will add in the future. They also allow you to contact via email and you can use the search bar to find any answers on the website directly. I decided to test out their service by asking a simple question about their encryptions: what they offered and how they were different from each other. The response I got was fast, personalized and detailed.
Privacy and Security
As for the privacy and security of GooseVPN, everything is pretty tip-top. They use 256-bit encryptions on their networks and use other security features such as SHA-1 for handshaking and various others for authentication purposes. IN terms of the actual protocols you can choose when connecting, they allow you to choose between 4: PPTP, L2TP, IKEv2, and OpenVPN. As always, we suggest you use OpenVPN because it is the safest and more secure protocol on the market. We also suggest you avoid PTPP as it has been known to produce leaks and security breaches.
In terms of logs, users have nothing to worry about. The company is based in the perfect VPN location – the Netherlands. Their stance on privacy means that they opted out of the EU’s 2006 Data Retention Directive by excluding VPNs from the list. This means that they cannot be searched by the authorities for user logs which could destroy their privacy. Even though the company is free from Government agencies, they also do not keep any logs at all – not even connection logs. Nothing is kept on their network as is disclosed in the privacy policy. The only thing they do keep is bandwidth usage, which is not a problem for anyone. In terms of leaks, none were found in regards to DNS or IPv6.
Free-Trial and Refund Policy
GooseVPN does have an impressive 30-day free trial which gives users the ability to try the service risk-free. All new GOOSE VPN accounts have no-questions-asked 30-day money-back guarantee if less than 100MB of data has been used and if the user is still in their trial period. You just have to remember to cancel the contract before your next month starts otherwise you will lose this bonus. You do have to put down a few cents before taking the free trial but this isn’t an issue. They do not offer a refund policy, which is fine considering the large free trial.
Conclusion
GooseVPN is a new VPN service and is based in the Netherlands. This means that it has some of the best privacy and security that a VPN service can offer and keeps no logs regardless of the fact they are safe from authorities. Despite being a young service, they have servers in 26 different countries and allow P2P activity on their network (on specific servers). They do have some great features but the downsides include their expensive monthly rate and their terrible connection speeds. It would also be nice to see the live chat but all these can be improved in the future. At the moment, GooseVPN is looking to grow into a very promising VPN service.
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