Founded in 2001, Bitdefender is a VPN service based in Bucharest, Romania. The VPN has a secure location away from the jurisdiction of the intelligence-sharing 5, 9, and 14 Eyes alliances. They also promise high speeds, airtight encryption, and perfect tunneling protocols but is Bitdefender VPN safe?
The VPN in our opinion is relatively safe but we wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who values their privacy.
Table of Contents
Bitdefender’s Jurisdiction
The VPN is registered in Bucharest, Romania as Bitdefender LLC. Romania is a good jurisdiction for a VPN service because the country is not a member of the 14 Eyes surveillance countries that have an agreement to share intelligence. Thanks to its location, Bitdefender VPN is not legally obligated to hand over your information to spying authorities.
However, it is worth noting that some of Bitdefender servers are owned by AnchorFree, an American company based in California which also owns Hotspot Shield. This is a cause for worry because Hotspot Shield falls under the 5 Eyes alliance jurisdiction in the US and can be legally compelled by the authorities to hand over any data they have on you.
Insecure Logging Policy
As previously stated, Bitdefender VPN uses network and servers owned by Hotspot Shield. It is therefore important to consider both companies’ privacy policies if we are to know whether they collect customer data or not.
According to Bitdefender’s privacy policy, the company doesn’t log your activities but they collect some information which includes randomly generated or hashed device and user IDs, IP addresses, and tokens for the sole purpose of enhancing their services. This means that Bitdefender can tell which device you installed their VPN on and your exact location based on your IP address.
On the other hand, Hotspot Shield logs your username and email address, device ID, your IP address, and network information. Both companies claim that the information they collect is not shared with any third parties but if you are a user who values your privacy and security you wouldn’t want to use a VPN that logs user’s data and activities. A zero-log policy is the best.
Security Features
Bitdefender VPN does not provide you with options to choose how you want to be protected. They use OpenVPN protocol which is a powerful and secure tunneling protocol but fails to provide you with protocol settings that you can use to change or choose your preferred encryptions. They also use AES 256-bit encryption which is impossible to crack. Their protocols and encryptions could be better if they gave you the option to toggle the settings to your preference.
Bitdefender VPN has a solid system when it comes to DNS and IP address leaks. The system passed our DNS leak test. However, the VPN doesn’t have an option to turn DNS leak protection on or off.
Another notable downside of Bitdefender VPN is its lack of a kill switch. This means that if the VPN drops or suddenly goes down, your IP address and traffic will remain exposed to prying eyes or anyone tracking your online activities. A kill switch helps by immediately disconnecting your Internet connection when the VPN drops to protect your data and IP address.
Bitdefender VPN Alternatives
Bitdefender has several security issues ranging from insecure logging policy to lack of a kill switch. If you want a more secure VPN you could do better with the following alternative VPN providers:
- Provider
- User Rating
- Our Review
- Price
PureVPN- 4807 Votes
- $3.24 / month
ExpressVPN- 3795 Votes
- $6.67 / month
Conclusion
Bitdefender VPN is not a safe option if you value your privacy. They not only log your data but have unclear jurisdiction given that they use US-based Hotspot Shield’s servers. The alternative VPNs mentioned in this post provide safer and better services.