Do you want to know whether you can stay safe without revealing your IP address when surfing the net with Urban VPN? This article provides you with a detailed review of Urban VPN to know whether it is fake or real.
A fascinating addition to the free VPN market, Urban VPN is worth checking out.
Many VPN services actively market their freemium offerings in the hopes that users will upgrade to a premium plan.
Unlike other VPN services, Urban VPN won't even charge for its service. The United States is home to Urban VPN, which launched in 2018.
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**Official website: https://www.urban-vpn.com/
The company behind the service promotes itself as a free, limitless VPN that provides fast connections and full anonymity to its users.
Urban VPN Pricing
There is no paid upgrade available for the Urban VPN service.
There are no surprise fees, and there is no cost to go beyond the basic plan.
It is unique among free VPNs in that it does not restrict your data transfer or capacity.
The VPN has reliability problems, is slower than competing VPNs, and lacks certain features that would make it more appealing to users.
Urban VPN Security and Privacy: is Urban VPN Safe?
It's understandable to be wary about having your VPN connection go via third-party hardware; I certainly am.
While I was able to verify that OpenVPN was really being used by Urban VPN on the desktop, the company provided no information about the security of its mobile applications.
However, there is a wealth of data available on the site in other areas that are very important.
Urban VPN gathers a wide variety of information, including ‘clicked stream data,' visited websites, search engine results, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, device identifiers, and more, as detailed in the company's privacy policy.
However, the fine print of Urban VPN's free version suggests otherwise.
One premium feature is advertised as collecting “no user data beyond what is necessary to provide the functionality of the Services.” I'm curious to find out what it is, but the corporation is being cagey about it.
The free version, according to the End User License Agreement for the iOS application, also gathers “web page URLs and device screenshots,” ostensibly to “identify web pages that load poorly or applications that load slowly.” What drives the corporation to require screenshots if it already knows the URLs? And is it truly coming clean now that it tracks the applications you employ?
Even so, you can be certain that Urban VPN never shares the information it gathers. The policy does not guarantee privacy, however, and states that data may be shared “for security and fraud detection,” “as required by law or regulation,” or “with reliable collaborators and external parties.”
According to the internet platform, you may stop your data from being sold by selecting an option in the ‘About' section of the mobile VPN app. However, I was unable to unsubscribe from the app's notifications after tapping the “About” button on my Android device.
Similarly, there has been no public examination of Urban VPN's operations to confirm its claims. There is no proof that this website really “protects your privacy,” as it promises to do.
Urban VPN Speed and Performance
I use a variety of evaluation websites and services, including Speedtest's command line software, to compare the speeds of various virtual private networks between residential locations in the United States and a data center in the United Kingdom using desktop applications.
These results showed that the free desktop service provided by Urban VPN delivered speeds of less than 10Mbps on average inside the UK.
That's horrible. My first thought was that maybe there was an issue with the UK test setting, but the results for the US were far direr, with Urban VPN failing to get even 5Mbps.
On Windows, I use an automated speed testing suite. Due to the poor quality of Urban's output, I decided to do some short manual tests in Android.
Results improved dramatically, hitting 60 Mbps on a 75 Mbps connection, suggesting that Urban VPN may be able to provide usable speeds on your gadget.
Urban VPN Desktop Applications
When using Urban VPN on Windows, the interface is intuitive. You may use the search bar, the alphabetically-arranged list of places on the right, or just scroll down to find what you're looking for.
To establish a connection, just double-click a desired place, and to break off the link, just press the button.
The Mac software is almost similar to its Windows counterpart, with the exception of the additional status information shown on the right (including the user's original and current IP addresses, their current upload and download speeds, and the total quantity of data transferred).
It's a shame the applications aren't much better. To choose the closest server as an example, there is no “Automatic” setting.
You can make an informed decision without worrying about any lag or ping. There are no municipal-level options. While the “recently used” list is helpful, there is no Favorites feature to organize your most frequented spots.
If a connection takes too long and isn't successful, you can't even cancel it; the program will just time out after a certain amount of time has passed.
Not a single configuration option is available inside the app. There is no in-built option to prevent it from loading when my device boots up.
Only OpenVPN is supported; no other protocols are available. Auto-connect isn't supported, and neither is split tunneling or any other sophisticated feature. Neither is DNS leak prevention nor is there a kill switch.
I was thinking that this utter simplicity may be an advantage, particularly for novices who aren't ready to deal with anything beyond the essentials and who may be put off by the typical technical language.
The Mac software, however, was unusable for me since it either failed to establish a connection or allowed me to do so but blocked access to all websites.
There is nothing that can be done to identify or cure this sort of issue without simple accessibility to debugging logs or configuration information.
You may want to give Urban VPN a try because to its limitless bandwidth if your demands are minimal, for example, if you simply want to access one streaming service behind a firewall.
However, if security and functionality are your top priorities, find them elsewhere; Urban VPN does not meet any of those criteria.
Urban VPN Mobile Applications
Although the mobile applications for Urban VPN vary somewhat in appearance from their desktop counterparts (the location list is shown on a separate screen, and a Favorites system is available for your most frequently used servers), the two are generally functionally equivalent.
Simply press the screen to connect and tap it again to disconnect; no more settings or functions are available.
The mobile version of Urban VPN's free plan has far more restrictions. I was only given 100 MB of data transfer each day, which may be depleted in a matter of minutes.
At the very least, you may pay to obtain better service from your mobile applications.
Even the premium version has several annoying bugs. There was an automatic server selection feature in the applications, but using it yielded, shall we say, unexpected outcomes for me.
My first connection from the UK took me to a server in South Africa. The second time I tried to connect, the software sent me to Costa Rica instead. I was able to choose my own servers after that.
While manual selection helped in certain cases, it wasn't always effective. The software often disconnected from my preferred server, necessitating my switch to a different one.
Often times I simply gave up and attempted another time again. In my experience, cheap VPNs perform better than Urban VPN's premium service.
Urban VPN Browser Extensions
The Urban VPN browser extensions are available for Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome web browsers.
There is no need to sign up or pay for them. But there will be collateral damage.
I've already mentioned that the standard service may keep track of your browser history.
My Chrome add-on informed me that enabling “integrated Anti-Mining protection and Ad-blocker” required “giving us access to your visited URLs” before I could make full use of the service. That holds true regardless of whether or not you are using Urban VPN.
If it doesn't bother you, then accepting will unlock the full version of the add-on for your browser.
The only real differences between this and the standard Urban VPN software are the ability to toggle ad-blocking and anti-mining.
The additional goods listed on Urban VPN's website don't appear to provide much value to consumers and look more like an attempt to boost search engine rankings.
Particularly, there is a listing for “Free Anti Malware,” but no explanation of how this “product” is different from a standard add-on.
The ‘Free Hotspot Shield' is also advertised, although I don't know why; maybe the developers are hoping VPN rookies would download it instead of the genuine Hotspot Shield.
Urban VPN Support System: Is it Effective?
The vast majority of VPNs offer extensive documentation and user communities to assist you in troubleshooting and getting back up and running if you have any difficulties.
Similar to the remainder of the service, however, Urban VPN does not provide anything much.
There is no Help Center or FAQ page, and no documentation is provided on how to get started or fix common issues.
There is a little scant setup information on certain pages, but nothing that will really assist you in solving issues in the real world.
There isn't a generic email address for questions or discussions. Users who have paid for the service may access a Help button, which leads to a contact form.
To test the response time, I used it to ask a basic question about a product, but I got no answer.
The fact that, as I said before, Urban VPN's applications lack any customization options makes this news much worse.
If you're experiencing connection issues, for example, you may be able to fix the problem on your own without contacting assistance. There are no settings to adjust and no actual assistance available with Urban VPN.
Final Verdict
As my Urban VPN review comes to a close, my ultimate opinion is that I wouldn't suggest this service to anyone.
While the VPN's capabilities are impressive, such as its limitless bandwidth, high server coverage, user-friendly applications, and adequate support for streaming content, the provider's slow speeds, restricted features, lack of transparency, logging, privacy concerns, and customer service leave plenty to be desired.
Ad blocking and split tunneling are all features that should be included. Unfortunately, Urban VPN falls short in this respect since it does not provide any of these features.
I will recommend that you go with a paid VPN service that excels in all of these areas and has a zero-logging policy.
FAQs
Q. Is it recommended to use Urban VPN?
I would not suggest using Urban VPN. Despite the fact that it stands as a free virtual private network that really works with Netflix and the like, it has some questionable security features.
Q. Can I rely on Urban VPN?
Since no independent entity has verified the security of Urban VPN, I cannot recommend using it. Furthermore, it makes several alarming assertions that might expose your personal information to harm. There is no way to contact the VPN's developers with questions or problems, so you'll have to figure it out on your own.
Q. Is it ideal to use Urban VPN for gaming?
When it comes to virtual private networks, Urban VPN does an acceptable job. The service has servers in 84 different locations, so players from all around the world may enjoy their favorite online games. Games such as Fortnite and PUBG, which normally require players to have IP addresses from a certain country, may now be played with anybody, anywhere in the globe.
Conclusion
And that concludes this article about Urban VPN. The truth is that it is not advisable to use their service, considering how much of a security risk it could pose. This list contains over 5 top Urban VPNs that you can trust \, you can try any of them to see how it works for you.