What time is it?
It’s time for a VPN review!
And today I’ll tell you about the service called TigerVPN. I’m going to answer all the major questions you may have about this VPN:
- How safe is it to use?
- How good are its speeds?
- What are some special benefits and features?
Here’s a quick navigation menu for you to jump straight to the part you’re most interested in:
- TigerVPN: Unique Benefits and Features
- Pros and Cons of TigerVPN
- TigerVPN: Speed and Security Tests
- TigerVPN: Benefits and Features Tests
- TigerVPN: Frequently Asked Questions
- User Reviews about TigerVPN
| TigerVPN pros | TigerVPN cons |
| ⊕ No usage logs | ⊗ Keeps some connection logs temporarily |
| ⊕ A lot of servers and countries | ⊗ IPs are shared between thousands of users |
| ⊕ No IP leaks | ⊗ No kill switch |
| ⊕ Wide platform support | ⊗ Can’t bypass Netflix’ geo-restrictions |
| ⊕ Slovakian jurisdiction | ⊗ Slow-ish |
| ⊕ Strong encryption | |
| ⊕ Allows torrenting | |
| ⊕ Karma rewards system | |
| ⊕ 7-day refund | |
| ⊕ Great payment options |
I can recommend tigerVPN for its good jurisdiction, security, and choice of servers. However, it leaves some things to be desired, especially speed, so you may consider the following alternatives:
TigerVPN: Unique Benefits and Features
TigerVPN is a pretty solid choice as far as VPNs go. It has a 3-day free trial and a 7-day money-back guarantee, good encryption, and provides a lot of servers to choose from.
Its most unique feature, I feel, is the Karma Rewards loyalty program (more on that later!). It’s always nice to have some bonuses to get, and the bonuses tigerVPN provides are very useful.
Like TunnelBear VPN, tigerVPN was founded in 2011 and similarly features a consistent animal-themed design. Great minds think alike, I guess.
The tiger mascot is wacky and drawn in a distinctive style, and you just can tell that the designer was having lots of fun while drawing this character in a multitude of various situations.
What’s wonderful about it is that it’s very memorable, which contributes to brand recognition.
On its website, tigerVPN claims to be torrent and Netflix-friendly. We’ll find out if it’s true in the corresponding sections of this review.
Pros and Cons of TigerVPN
Let’s take a look at TigerVPN’s advantages and disadvantages. In this chapter, I will show you what those are in detail.
No Usage Logs
On its Privacy Policy page, tigerVPN says it outright that it doesn’t keep its customers’ usage information. What it means is that it doesn’t keep the data about websites that they visit.
However, the provider is clear that it does keep some information (see the cons section below for more on that). It knows how you use its website but that is it in terms of usage logs.
While it is not great, neither is it terrible, as how you use other websites remains secret from tigerVPN.
TigerVPN also assures its customers that their personal data is not going to be sold to or shared with third parties.
It’s true that it is the standard but not every company in the industry adheres to it.
Big Selection of Servers and Countries
TigerVPN may not offer as many servers as, say, ExpressVPN, but I’m very satisfied with their geographical variety:
- 300+ servers;
- 61 locations;
- 42 countries.
All continents (save for Antarctica, duh) are covered. I particularly like that Asia is taken care of pretty well (with 14 locations). The only ones slightly lacking in coverage are Oceania and Africa (1 location each).
Some of the locations provided by tigerVPN are surprising, to say the least. For example, there is a server in Hanoi, Vietnam! And from what my tests show, it is a real server and not a fake one. (You can find more information on the use of virtual server locations by some of the free VPN providers here).
You can check out the exact server locations on this page.
No IP Leaks
Though I will talk more thoroughly about security tests in the next chapter, I cannot help but mention such a great advantage here as well:
TigerVPN doesn’t leak your real IP.
And in such, it fulfills the primary function of any virtual private network: it keeps its users’ whereabouts hidden. A big plus!
Wide Platform Support
It doesn’t matter if you need a VPN for your Windows, macOS, iOS, or Android—TigerVPN has got you covered!
While the apps are extremely easy to use, tigerVPN also offers guides for those who want to customize their experience by doing a manual setup.
Moreover, guides for Linux and Chromebook are available as well as instructions for setting tigerVPN up on a DD-WRT-running router:
This last point is extremely useful in particular because with a VPN-protected router, you can enjoy safe Web browsing on as many devices as you have while using Wi-Fi.
Slovakian Jurisdiction
TigerVPN operates under Slovakian laws and that’s good news. Slovakia has been known to fight data retention laws of the EU tooth and claw for quite some time so the state can’t force the provider to keep and share its users’ logs.
What is more, Slovakia lies outside of the Fourteen Eyes territory. It means that tigerVPN’s customers do not have to worry about foreign intelligence agencies spying on their use of the Internet.
Strong Encryption
TigerVPN uses AES 256-bit encryption which is among some of the strongest. While not a unique accomplishment for a VPN, it still counts as a great thing to have in one.
Allows Torrenting
That’s what tigerVPN itself has to say about the matter:
And in fact, it even provides some further advice on how to best use it for torrenting:
Karma Rewards Loyalty Program
This is one of my favourite things about tigerVPN.
Something similar exists in TunnelBear where you can tweet about the service to get additional traffic on the free plan but I think that the Tiger’s rewards are far more awesome (and the traffic is unlimited anyway).
Basically, you get additional connections for following tigerVPN on various social media and reviewing it on review aggregator sites.
It allows you to get up to 4 extra connections.
If used with the top plan, it can bring you up to a whopping 9 simultaneous device connections!
That’s quite a few. Even very good providers such as CyberGhost usually offer fewer.
7-Day Refund
TigerVPN offers a 7-day money-back guarantee, which is very useful for the purposes of checking the service out and deciding if it suits you well enough.
As you can see in the screenshot above, there’s also a 3-day free trial.
Great Payment Options
TigerVPN is one of the few virtual private network providers that accept payment with cryptocurrencies.
That’s very useful for those who wish to always remain anonymous on the Internet (although there might arise some problems with getting a refund, should such an option be chosen).
Besides Bitcoin, the subscription can be bought with the help of:
- credit cards;
- PayPal;
- Giropay;
- Mobiamo;
- Mint;
- Sofort.
Well, that was a sizeable list of pros!
However, there are some cons to go through as well.
Keeps Connection Logs Temporarily
Despite the laws of Slovakia not requiring it to do so, tigerVPN keeps following logs:
- email address;
- payment information;
- account password;
- geolocation;
- operating system;
- the version of the app;
- traffic usage;
- servers a user connects to;
- VPN protocol a user employs.
While emails and passwords, among several other things on the list, are understandable (how else would you be able to have your account?), others like server and location information are somewhat concerning.
TigerVPN claims that it is used solely to see what servers are popular in certain locations and to expand their network accordingly. This data is deleted after 6 months.
Another thing that brings some relief is the fact that this usage data (traffic, servers, etc.) is anonymized and shows the total of all customers using a particular location.
IPs are Shared Between Thousands of Users
Important note: this is not necessarily a disadvantage.
It makes it impossible to connect a given action to a given user, as it is done from an IP used by many other customers.
But this increased anonymity comes at a cost: there are fewer IPs and they are easier to ban.
Which brings us to the next point…
Can’t bypass Netflix’ geo-restrictions
Naturally, the more times a piece of location-restricted Netflix content gets accessed from the same IP, the more suspicious it looks. And with the shared IPs tigerVPN employs, it’s only a matter of time before the streaming giant notices and bans them.
Unfortunately, tigerVPN is unable to bypass Netflix’s geo-restrictions as of the time of writing this review (July 2019).
No Kill Switch
A kill switch is a very important feature for a VPN to have. Without it, it is possible for your secure tunnel to fail and for your traffic to become visible to your ISP and, potentially, third parties.
Its importance is the reason I was almost shocked not to find this feature in tigerVPN. It’s not something fancy, it’s a necessary safety net!
I really hope a kill switch gets added in future releases because security-wise, tigerVPN shows a lot of promise.
Slow-ish
TigerVPN is not among the fastest VPN services. I will tell you more about them in the Speed and Security Tests chapter and give a detailed analysis of how using tigerVPN affects my Internet speed.
TigerVPN: Speed and Security Tests
I have mentioned TigerVPN’s performance in previous chapters of this review but now it’s time to have a closer look at how it does in terms of:
- speed;
- security.
Speed Tests
First of all, I tested my Internet speed with no VPN. Here’s the result:
Then I tested TigerVPN’s speeds. I started off with Europe and later moved further away from my real location.
The first server I tested was in London. It showed the following speeds:
As you can see in the above screencap, the download speed does suffer a bit while the upload speed stays largely the same.
A Zurich server also provides good speed:
However, another European server—one in Budapest—shows a much worse result.
Just as it was to be expected, servers in the Americas generally show even slower speeds due to being located at a greater distance from me.
Here is a server in Buenos Aires:
Both the download and the upload speeds suffer and drop down almost to single digits.
So they do when I’m connected to a server in Chicago.
With another US server, the one in Seattle, the upload speed I got was within the acceptable range. However, the download speed was too low to actually download any file larger than a couple of megabytes.
I also tested a server in Hanoi. As Vietnam is also quite removed from me, the speeds there were the worst among the bunch:
TigerVPN comes with a feature called TCP Override. In the menu of the app, it says that choosing this option should help those who experience slow and unstable connections:
Essentially, it changes the port tigerVPN connects on from 1194 to 443. It makes it harder for the ISP to realize that a customer is using a VPN in the first place as well as solves some technical incompatibilities.
If slow speeds were caused by such incompatibilities, enabling TCP override would help increase them. In my case, unfortunately, there must have been a different reason for the heavy speed drop because I noticed no considerable change with this option enabled.
Here’s what the results of my speed test looked like without the override (connected to a server in New York):
And here’s how the TCP override influenced them:
While there was a small increase in the download speed (and a decrease in the upload one), the overall picture remained about the same.
To conclude, tigerVPN doesn’t offer the best speeds around when you far away from the server you’re connected to. If you need a speedier alternative, be sure to check out Private Internet Access.
Security Tests
While not-so-fast speeds can be somewhat annoying, they aren’t putting anyone in danger.
However, if a VPN leaks IPs, its customers’ personal data is at stake.
Let’s find out how well tigerVPN protects its users’ privacy!
The first server I tested was the one in Zurich. The test showed that no leaks were present:
As was the case with the server located in Hanoi:
The Buenos Aires server also didn’t leak my real IP or location:
And this American one set in the state of Washington proved to be safe as well:
To sum everything up, tigerVPN doesn’t leak its users’ IPs. It is also protected from DNS and WebRTC leaks.
Great job!
And now to the benefits and features tests.
TigerVPN: Benefits and Features Tests
Is tigerVPN easy to use?
The short answer is yes.
First, you go to tigerVPN.com.
Second, you choose a payment plan. Here they are:
The prices are nothing special and very close to those of NordVPN, although tigerVPN lacks an option to subscribe for 2 years or more while Nord doesn’t allow for a 6-month subscription.
After you buy the plan, you click the Download button and grab the file.
Alternatively, you may download the file without paying to activate the free 3-day trial.
Then you launch it.
Once the installation is over, you’ll be given an option to run the VPN app itself.
The app menu is very straightforward. It includes:
- the list of servers,
- the favorites list (you can add a server to it by pressing the heart icon),
- the settings button,
- and the connect/disconnect toggle.
Conveniently, it also tells you how many days you have left if you have the free trial.
Here’s what the settings menu looks like:
As you can see, there is no kill switch here. This menu is pretty barebones and mostly includes cosmetic changes that only affect the appearance of the app and not its functionality.
If anything goes awry, you can contact tigerVPN’s support team via a contact form on the website.
It’s not necessarily a live chat. The response time can vary a bit according to the website itself. One day, it said that it typically took 3 hours…
…and the next day this time was raised to 24 hours:
Can you use TigerVPN to watch Netflix?
The provider’s claims that it is possible weren’t confirmed. Sadly, Netflix was able to see through the use of a different IP-address whenever I connected to a US-based server.
First, I tried using a Miami server to watch a US-restricted movie:
It didn’t work.
I tried a server in New York but also to no avail:
To watch Netflix’s region-restricted content, you may want to refer to this list of best VPNs for Netflix.
Can you use tigerVPN for torrenting?
TigerVPN is supposed to allow the use of torrenting.
I’m happy to confirm that this claim is true!
TigerVPN: Frequently Asked Questions
It doesn’t keep usage logs but keeps some connection info. It largely pertains to all customers using a server so it’s impossible to tell who was doing what exactly.
TigerVPN is under the Slovakian jurisdiction. As Slovakia isn’t a 5-9-14 Eyes member state, this fact means that tigerVPN is quite safe to use in terms of security.
User Reviews about TigerVPN
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