VPN review

There are no favorites and there’s no server information, which we could accept in light of Encrypt.me’s mission to (over)simplify things, but if that’s the case, why employ non-standard terminology like ‘transporter’ in place of ‘server’, a well-known term even among technophobes?

Encrypt.me review

Simple VPN access built for the masses, but lax on security.

published 6 August 2020

(Image: © Future)

Tom’s Guide Verdict

Encrypt.me delivers good speeds and a bare-bones client that may appeal to some users. However, security buffs will want to be wary of the extensive logging, and those new to VPNs, despite the simplified interface, may want to reconsider given the second-rate user support.

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Pros

• + Good connection speeds
• + Service has been externally audited
• + Successfully unblocks Netflix and others
• + Simple design

Cons

• – No customizability
• – Session logging
• – Somewhat pricey
• – No kill switch in Windows, iOS or Android

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If you’re looking for a basic, bare-bones VPN client for day-to-day operations like checking your email securely or watching geo-blocked videos, Encrypt.me has you covered. Just be prepared for a rather spartan user interface that can be a bit confusing at first.

Encrypt.me is a small and relatively new addition to the VPN community, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a lot to offer to the right kind of customer. To find out if that’s you, keep reading our Encrypt.me VPN review.

Plans and pricing

Let’s start with the basics. Encrypt.me offers a monthly rate of $9.99, which is about industry standard, and a yearly rate of $99.99, which is a little more expensive than many of its competitors.

There are some interesting options here, though. First of all, you can get a one-week pass for $3.99, which is cheap and convenient for out-of-town business trips, for example – and, while it works out more per month than a service like Surfshark, you’re not tied up in a two-year plan.

Families can save with a $12.99/mo or $149.99/year plan which includes five licenses, while teams pay just $7.99/user/mo for up to 25 users, $6.99/user/mo for up to 100 users, and $5.99/user/mo beyond that.

One massive bonus is that all plans allow for unlimited devices and simultaneous connections, which means you can cover your whole household with just one plan. There’s also a two-week trial available with no payment information required, so if you’re sold, you can check out the plans in detail here.

• More: Save that hard-earned cash with the best cheap VPN

Features

With 107 servers in 49 countries, Encrypt.me doesn’t have the largest server selection, but it’s wide enough to cover most bases, and with its relatively small user-base, bandwidth shouldn’t be a problem. However, when we start digging into the details, we can’t say that Encrypt.me is the most secure VPN we’ve tested for a few reasons.

First, you have no choice of protocol: macOS/Android clients use OpenVPN, Windows and iOS apps use IPSec. While this isn’t a problem per se, different protocols offer different advantages, so just be sure you’re comfortable with the protocol choices in question.

Second, there’s some pretty significant logging going on: records of incoming and virtual IP, bytes sent and received, time connected, and start/end times are kept for 16 days.

Finally, Windows, Android, and iOS clients lack a kill switch, although for Mac users the OverCloak function blocks data leakages until a secure connection is established, which is a comparable function. It’s odd how this is limited to just Macs, though.

On the plus side, we’re happy to say that Encrypt.me has undergone (limited) third-party auditing, which we think all VPNs should be doing these days, and to be fair, none of the above security concerns is catastrophic for Encrypt.me’s target audience: average users looking to check email securely and watch the occasional overseas YouTube video. Investigative journalists operating under authoritarian regimes, however, should stay away.

• More: See which services rank on our best Netflix VPN list

We had no trouble connecting to US Netflix or BBC iPlayer despite the fact that Encrypt.me’s website specifically says the service cannot be used to do so (and even recommends StrongVPN instead). However, as promised, neither Disney+ nor Amazon Prime worked.

On the plus side, we got some good speeds: 67Mbps on a 75Mbps UK connection, and upwards of 240Mbps on a 600Mbps US line, which is very good.

Interface and in use

In our testing we found the balance between simplicity and security skewed in the wrong direction. Windows and macOS clients are really bare-bones, and some questionable design choices will confuse many users who are new to VPNs – which is curious, given this is Encrypt.me’s target audience.

Clicking the menu bar (macOS) or system tray (Windows) icon brings up the main screen, in a reassuring green with a giant white check-mark on it. Unfortunately, this somewhat misleading layout means you’re connected to a password-protected network, not that the VPN is active. You’ll have to click ‘secure my connection’, and when the dialogue turns blue, you’re good to go. We have to question the decision to make what’s essentially the ‘off’ setting green – has the universal color for ‘on’ changed while we weren’t looking?

There are no favorites and there’s no server information, which we could accept in light of Encrypt.me’s mission to (over)simplify things, but if that’s the case, why employ non-standard terminology like ‘transporter’ in place of ‘server’, a well-known term even among technophobes?

The mobile apps do it better. We get a favorites tab and, while the color scheme is still misleading, you at least have a slider saying ‘off’ when not connected to a server/transporter. There’s also split tunneling, and an auto-secure feature to automatically connect to the VPN on unsecured networks.

Support

Support from Encrypt.me is available in the form of a knowledge base or online chat.

Our experience with the online chat wasn’t stellar: we waited 10 minutes (despite being second in line), and the advice we received to get our Windows client up and running fell short (we did eventually get put in touch with the Windows developer who solved our problem). Additionally, although the website claims the live chat is open 24/7, as we write this article, the service is currently offline.

As for the knowledge base, you should find answers to your most basic questions, but if you hit any snags, you won’t find advanced trouble-shooting here (so get ready for a long wait with the live chat – if it’s online).

The competition

There are a number of other great VPN providers to choose from. Surfshark is one of the cheapest, with a $1.99/mo two-year plan, and includes support for Smart TVs and game consoles which is something Encrypt.me VPN doesn’t have.

If you’re after a truly premium service, we’d recommend ExpressVPN. It’s a little more expensive at $6.67/mo, but it has pretty much every feature you could want and tops our best VPN guide.

Encrypt.me: Final verdict

Encrypt.me is fast and has a good mobile apps, and has useful plans suited towards individuals and teams. However, despite the fact that it’s aimed at the tech unsavvy, some questionable design choices and a second-rate knowledge base make us disinclined to recommend it to newbies.

That being said, if you’re just looking for a no-fuss VPN solution to check your email securely from cafés and connect to overseas YouTube from time to time, the session logging and lack of kill switch needn’t be a deal breaker – plus the unusual pass system that allows you to get cheap, short-term cover is really useful if you don’t plan on being a regular user.

Encrypt.me VPN review

Automatically protect yourself on insecure Wi-Fi networks

last updated 23 June 2020

(Image: © Encrypt.me)

TechRadar Verdict

If simplicity is a top priority and you’re happy with the basics, Encrypt.me offers fair value and excellent US speeds. The Windows client is poor, but it’s better on Android and iOS, and the 14-day trial gives you plenty of time to check it out for yourself.

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Pros

• + Excellent US speeds
• + 14-day free trial
• + Apps have been audited
• + Unblocks Netflix, iPlayer

Cons

• – Poor Windows client
• – Some session logging
• – No P2P
• – Above average prices

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Encrypt.me is a popular VPN provider owned by StackPath, the company behind IPVanish, StrongVPN and other VPN brands.

The website has minimal details on the features you will get with this VPN, partly because it doesn’t have many. There’s no P2P support, no ability to manually install the service on routers or other devices, no secure DNS, malware blocking or anything even faintly surprising.

Even basic details like the number of countries or locations available aren’t easy to find. Are you curious about protocol support, or unblocking abilities? Encrypt.me is tight-lipped about most things – annoying, when we’re used to much more transparency from the likes of ExpressVPN.

• Want to try Encrypt.me? Check out the website here

Encrypt.me VPN subscription options:
• 1 month plan – $9.99 per month ($9.99 total cost)

Although the company claims this is all about keeping things simple and focusing on ‘the needs of average Internet users’, the website regularly uses technical language.

A list of plus points on the front page of the website includes items like ‘Deploy private endpoints in one-click’, ‘Using a Docker image means fast deployment everywhere’, and points out that if you ‘want to run your own private endpoint’, ‘we publish our endpoint software on GitHub.’ Are these items really simpler and more relevant to ‘the needs of average Internet users’ looking for a VPN, than something like ‘we support this many cities in that many countries’?

It’s a pity that Encrypt.me isn’t more forthcoming, because the company does have several features worth boasting about.

70 locations in more than 40 countries gives you plenty of options, for instance. Some companies have even more choice – HideMyAss claims 280 locations in 190 countries, for example – but Encrypt.me more than covers the basics, and its locations are spread more widely than you’ll usually see elsewhere.

There’s a full set of apps for iOS, Android, Windows and Mac, and even Amazon Fire OS 5.0.

Tired of annoying limits on devices or simultaneous connections? Encrypt.me is, too, so it doesn’t have any.

A smart auto-connection mode monitors the networks you’re using, and automatically connects to Encrypt.me whenever you access anything insecure. No need to remember to launch the app to do this manually, Encrypt.me handles everything for you.

Still unconvinced? Encrypt.me offers a 14-day free trial, no credit card details required, which is as good a deal as you’ll find anywhere.

Plans and prices

Encrypt.me plans are only average value, but the company makes up for this with some real billing flexibility.

Only need a VPN for a quick trip, maybe? A one-week pass can be yours for only $3.99, a major improvement on the $10-$13 you’ll often spend on minimum one-month accounts elsewhere.

Monthly billing is a reasonable $9.99, but the annual plan looks expensive at $8.33 a month, or $99.99 upfront. Surfshark offers twice the subscription length for less than half the cash (2 years for $1.99 a month, or $47.76 in total).

Encrypt.me makes up for this a little, though, with its ‘Families’ plans. These can protect up to five members of the family and all their devices for a total of $12.99 billed monthly ($2.60 per user). There’s an annual plan, too, although the savings are minimal at $12.50 a month, or a minimum $2.50 per user.

If you’re looking to secure your business, Encrypt.me’s Teams plan enables protecting as many team members as you need for $7.99 each per month (minimum of two, or $15.98), and includes central management and billing.

While that’s fair value (NordVPN’s Team plans start from $9 per user per month), some providers charge much less. Windscribe’s ScribeForce offers all its regular features, plus web management and centralized billing, for only $3 per month (minimum of five users, so a monthly $15 in that case).

Best of all, and as we mentioned above, if any of this sounds interesting, you can try out the full service for 14 days, no payment details required. Given that many providers no longer have any kind of trial, this is very impressive.

Privacy

Finding out what a VPN provider does with your data can be a struggle. In our reviews, we often plough through thousands of words of small print, FAQs, support pages and more, and we still don’t come up with any real answers. But Encrypt.me does things differently, with perhaps the clearest and most detailed privacy policy we’ve ever seen.

All sections have clear and straightforward summaries, with no complicated legalese. Read on and inevitably there’s a lot more detail, but the text is precise, well-formatted, and it tells you exactly what you need to know.

Take logging, for example. The company explains that although it doesn’t monitor where you’re going online, a record is maintained of your last 16 days of session data: the incoming IP address, the virtual IP, the bytes sent and received, the time you’re connected, and the source port of each outgoing connection, with start and end times. (The last one records the existence of a connection, but not where it’s going.)

Why? The company says it allows them to respond to complaints. If someone’s used Encrypt.me to send spam or hack a system, having session records enables the company to find the offender, pass along the complaint to them, or maybe take some further action (not ‘call the police’, more like ‘terminate the account’) if the offense is serious.

This won’t make a lot of difference to most people, and if you’re only using the service to unblock Netflix or send emails, you might not care very much. But if you need a true zero-log VPN, Encrypt.me isn’t it.

The company delivered better news in September 2019, when it announced the results of a public audit. Encrypt.me had contracted consultancy Security Innovation to thoroughly test its apps ‘and, to a limited extent, the Encrypt.me website’, and issued a full report. Only two vulnerabilities were found, one low severity, one medium, and both were fixed before the report appeared.

This isn’t the most thorough audit we’ve seen, though. It only covered the apps in any detail, for instance, and even then, Security Innovation wasn’t given the source.

There’s also no clear commitment to ongoing audits. Contrast that with TunnelBear, which now has annual audits of its ‘entire codebase, server infrastructure, website and apps.’

However, Encrypt.me is still showing far more transparency than the vast majority of the competition, and so it gets a major thumbs-up from us.

Getting started

Signing up for Encrypt.me’s trial was as easy as providing and verifying our email. A click took us to an account area on the website, where we could download apps for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and Amazon Fire.

The web console doesn’t have the low-level geekiness you’ll get with some providers (no guidance on sideloading Android apps or setting up custom OVPN files here). Many will see that kind of simplicity as a plus point, though, and Encrypt.me does have other advantages. You can have the website text you a download link, for instance. Or if you need to manage your account, there’s none of the usual browsing around nested menus or tabbed panels – just scroll to the bottom of the console and everything you need is presented in a few lines.

We downloaded and tried to install the Windows client. Tried, and failed, as the installer warned that ‘installing Encrypt.me requires changing a setting that conflicts with a security policy set on your computer. Encrypt.me cannot be installed.’ We tried rebooting, clearing our temporary folders, uninstalling any apps we thought might be conflicting, checking Windows and the Registry for related settings – but had no luck.

This seemed like a good chance to try Encrypt.me’s support. The support site is poor, featuring few articles, with most of those being dated and short on detail, so we opened a live chat session. Despite being at position #1 in the queue, it took more than 10 minutes before an agent arrived. It’s a problem with security policies, he said (well, yes, the error message told us that). He then asked if we had any third-party antivirus on the system? No, we didn’t. We were then advised to create a new user on our system, log in and install from that account, instead.

Although installing from a new user account is sensible troubleshooting advice as a general rule, we’re not sure how well it would go down with Encrypt.me’s target audience of ‘average internet users’ whose priority is simplicity. We tried it, anyway, and Encrypt.me still refused to install.

Switching to full-on geek mode, we set up and analyzed logs, checked key system settings, inspected the Encryt.me MSI file, checked the Event log and more, and sent an email to Encrypt.me with every important detail.

Some support teams ignore this kind of in-depth, low-level report, but to its credit, Encrypt.me replied immediately saying it had passed our data onto one of its Windows developers. The next day, a message arrived with a simple suggestion: find and if it’s zero, set it to one, and try again. It was zero, we changed it to one and that solved the problem.

Encrypt.me got off to a poor start, then, with the installer’s misleading error message (it wasn’t a security policy issue) and first-line support’s initial inability to help. The developer almost rescued the situation all on his own, by immediately diagnosing the (very unusual) issue and giving us the fix. But we’re still left wondering if users who weren’t able to collect together and send so much diagnostic information, would have seen the same result.

Windows client

Encrypt.me finally installed, we clicked the system tray icon and a simple pop-up appeared with an Encrypt Me button, along with tiny Location and Settings icons.

The pop-up displayed a green background with a white tick, which we suspect many users would assume means they’re protected. This isn’t actually true, though, and you must read a lengthy status description to find out: ‘Your connection to Identifying. is a trusted network, but not encrypted with Fastest Available set as your Transporter.’

That ‘Identifying. ‘ doesn’t fill us with confidence, as presumably it means the client has failed to figure out our network name, and the code isn’t smart enough to handle that and displaying something better (‘Unknown’).

The reference to a ‘Transporter’ is Encrypt.me-speak for ‘location.’ Your Transporter can be a city, a country, or ‘Fastest Available’ to locate the best server for your current location. That’s easy enough to understand, but we’re struggling to see why Encrypt.me thinks inventing new jargon is helpful to users.

The status line isn’t immediately updated with your latest chosen location, either (uh, sorry: your chosen Transporter). Suppose you connect to London, close the connection, change the Transporter to New York. The status line will still say you are ‘not encrypted with London set as your Transporter’, confusingly, until you’ve reconnected.

Clicking the Encrypt Me button launched an IKEv2 connection (there’s no support for OpenVPN or other protocols), getting us online in a very few seconds.

There’s little feedback on connection state. The client doesn’t use desktop notifications to tell users when it connects or disconnects, so you won’t know for sure unless you’re looking at the client console. Even there, Encrypt.me is less than intuitive; with green meaning ‘VPN off’, the client turns blue to indicate ‘VPN on.’

The client doesn’t seem to monitor your connection state, either. We forcibly closed our connection, and although the underlying Encrypt.me engine reconnected within seconds, the client didn’t display a single alert to tell us what was happening.

On top of that, there’s no kill switch to protect you if the VPN fails. When we closed the Encrypt.me connection, our real IP address became visible to the outside world. It was hidden within a few seconds, but if the client hadn’t been able to reconnect, perhaps because of a server failure, we could have been vulnerable until we happened to check the client interface.

A basic Settings dialog includes a Transporter area where you’re able to choose your default location. Most apps have their ‘Automatic’ setting at the top of the list as you’ll use it so often, but if it’s not currently selected, the Windows client displays its ‘Fastest Available’ option in the middle of the location list (the sequence runs Estonia, Fastest Available, Finland). You’ll quickly figure that out, but it’s another odd touch which detracts from overall usability.

There’s better news in the client’s ability to automatically connect whenever you access untrusted networks. Setting this up is more awkward than it should be, because the client doesn’t allow you to choose from a list of local networks, and instead forces you to enter a network name. It works, though, and the client can make life a little easier by automatically trusting Ethernet and cellular networks.

Mobile apps

Encrypt.me’s Android app has some major interface improvements over its Windows cousin. Out goes the horribly basic scrolling list of locations, for instance; in comes a neat panel organizing servers by continent, with a separate Favorites tab for your most commonly used locations.

The app remains easy to use, though, and while it’s very much aimed at novices, there are a handful of advanced options.

You can have Encrypt.me automatically secure connections to untrusted networks, for instance. Split tunneling support enables choosing apps you don’t want to go through the VPN. And an Auto-Secure scheme works as a kill switch, blocking internet access if the VPN drops.

Encrypt.me’s iOS app is a close visual match for the Android app, and is equally straightforward and easy to use. There are very few options or settings – ‘change protocol, what’s a protocol?’ – but that’s much less of an issue with iOS VPN apps, which generally have very few features compared to Android or desktop editions. An excellent App Store rating of 4.5 suggests most users are very happy with this approach, too.

If there’s a small issue here, it’s that the apps don’t appear to be updated very often (at the time of writing, it’s 98 days since the last iOS update, 124 days for Android.) Looking back at the iOS history, that’s fairly typical: the app has seen 10 updates over the past two years, and very few of those added any significant features.

Still, if the app works and does everything you need, that’s not a big deal, and overall Encrypt.me’s mobile offerings performed very well.

Performance

Encrypt.me doesn’t make any claims about its website unblocking abilities, saying that attempts ‘may or may not work at any given time’ and ‘this is not a market that we serve.’

We tried the service with a few platforms, anyway, and it did much better than the company’s official line might suggest, getting us into US YouTube, BBC iPlayer, UK and US Netflix (Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video were the only fails). Encrypt.me clearly isn’t the best unblocking choice because the company isn’t committed to supporting these services in the future, but right now, at least, it’s a reasonable performer.

There was even better news in our leak tests. Encrypt.me’s apps did an excellent privacy preserving job, with no DNS or WebRTC leaks to compromise our identity, and our browsing was protected at all times.

Moving on to the final speed tests, we found our local UK servers managed an average 67Mbps on a 75Mbps test line, very close to the maximum we’d expect from any VPN.

The real highlight came in our US tests, though, where Encrypt.me delivered an exceptionally consistent 225-240Mbps on our 600Mbps connection. We’ve seen a handful of VPNs deliver better results, recently – NordVPN managed 260-290Mbps, Speedify a variable but fast 275-400Mbps – but Encrypt.me’s performance trampled all over most of the competition.

Final verdict

Encrypt.me is very fast along with being user-friendly, and it can work well for mobile users. But its session logging, price, poor Windows client and all-round lack of features make it hard to fully recommend when providers like ExpressVPN exist in the world.

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