Perfect Privacy Review

Perfect Privacy’s name suggests that it has all the bells and whistles to keep you safe from online snoopers and predators. In our last Perfect Privacy review, we couldn’t even get the VPN service to work, let alone test its features. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case this time around. 

Key Takeaways:

• Perfect Privacy is a handy VPN provider with interesting features to help you stay safe while browsing.
• The VPN has high latency as well as slow download and upload speeds.
• Perfect Privacy is more expensive than other premium VPN providers.
• It has RAM-only servers and is transparent with users through its warrant canary.

At face value, the VPN seems to have a trove of unique features that should give the best VPN providers a run for their money. In this review, we give Perfect Privacy another chance to prove its worth, examining its security and privacy features, pricing, server locations, streaming performance and customer support.

Perfect Privacy Alternatives

Perfect Privacy Review: Strengths & Weaknesses

Features

Perfect Privacy offers a number of valuable features to help you browse the internet safely. First on the list is a VPN kill switch, which Perfect Privacy calls a firewall. This feature cuts off your internet connection as soon as your VPN connection drops, ensuring that IP addresses and traffic won’t be exposed. 

Perfect Privacy’s kill switch has three modes. In the default mode, the kill switch will only be activated when you turn off your VPN. In the second mode, the kill switch is always active when Perfect Privacy is running.

This means that no program can access the internet unless when the VPN is off. This is a useful mode if you want to switch servers while using the VPN. The third level, which is the highest security level, allows you to use the kill switch even if the VPN is off.

Perfect Privacy makes port forwarding available on the “IP and Ports” tab. Port forwarding makes it easier for data received through a VPN server to pass through your device’s firewalls, speeding up your connection overall. However, keeping ports open makes your VPN slightly less secure — so, although it’s active by default, Perfect Privacy thankfully gives you the option to turn it off.

Unfortunately, there’s no split tunneling feature, so you can’t select or restrict certain apps or URLs from going through the VPN tunnel. Split tunneling is a common feature of the best beginner-friendly VPNs. 

Protection From Tracking

Perfect Privacy also has the multi-hop VPN, which encrypts your traffic four times. These multiple encryptions make it hard for any snooper to track, access and compromise your data. Considering some of our best multi-hop VPNs encrypt traffic twice, Perfect Privacy’s four-level encryption is eye-catching. 

The stealth VPN feature protects you from traffic monitoring, known as deep packet inspection — a common practice in restrictive regions like China and Russia. Just like Surfshark’s camouflage mode, this feature works by masking your VPN packets, making them look like ordinary HTTPS packets. Take a look at our post on the best VPNs for China to see other VPN providers with a similar feature. 

Perfect Privacy also includes HTTP and SOCKS5 proxies as one more option for hiding your VPN usage. These proxies do not encrypt your traffic, so we don’t recommend them for sensitive data. However, they do provide a quick way to get onto blocked websites without slowing down your connection at all.

TrackStop Ad and Tracker Blocker

Perfect Privacy’s TrackStop is a good solution to stop ads, prevent social media tracking and block malware and phishing sites. You can customize TrackStop’s filters to perform specific functions. For example, you can set up a child-protection filter or a fake news filter.  

NeuroRouting

NeuroRouting is an AI-based routing feature developed by Perfect Privacy’s technical team. In short, this feature uses AI to determine the best way to route your traffic in real time. It sends your traffic through multiple VPN servers, ensuring that your traffic remains in the encrypted network for as long as possible. This reduces the number of attack points and makes your data harder to track. 

Perfect Privacy Features Overview

	Visit Perfect Privacy
General
Payment methods	PayPal, Credit card
Accepts cryptocurrency
Simultaneous connections	Unlimited
Supports split tunneling
Unlimited bandwidth
Free trial available
Refund period
Worldwide server amount	3,200 servers in 80 countries
Desktop OSes	Windows, MacOS
Mobile OSes	Android
Browser extensions
Can be installed on routers
Streaming
Can access Netflix US
Can access BBC iPlayer
Can access Hulu
Can access Amazon Prime Video
Security
Encryption types	256-AES, Camellia-128
VPN protocols available	IPSec, OpenVPN, SSH2
Enabled at device startup
Allows torrenting
No-logging policy
Passed DNS leak test
Killswitch available
Malware/ad blocker included
Support
Live Chat
Email support	24/7
Phone support
User forum
Knowledgebase

Pricing

Perfect Privacy’s pricing is surprisingly exorbitant, considering it can’t match the best VPNs performance-wise. Let’s start with the one-month plan. At $12.99 per month, the VPN’s monthly plan is even more costly than ExpressVPN ($12.95), which offers a lot more value for your money. 

Perfect Privacy doesn’t have a quarterly plan like IPVanish (read our IPVanish review) or a six-month plan like ExpressVPN (read our ExpressVPN review). However, it has a one-year plan at $9.99 per month, which also feels like extortion if you compare it to NordVPN’s $4.99 per month yearly plan. Interestingly, Perfect Privacy claims their one-year plan is their most popular. 

Even Perfect Privacy’s two-year plan feels a lot like daylight robbery: You’ll need to fork out $214.95 in total ($8.99 per month). Surfshark, one of our cheapest VPNs, costs only one-fourth ($59.76 in total) of Perfect Privacy’s two-year plan and you get two extra months free to boot. 

Unfortunately, Perfect Privacy offers only a seven-day money-back guarantee, meaning after a mere seven days, you can’t request a full refund. This is woeful, considering most VPNs offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, with some — like CyberGhost or Hotspot Shield — bumping this up to 45 days.

The one thing Perfect Privacy gets right when it comes to pricing is the variety of payment options. Aside from the regular credit and debit cards and PayPal, you can pay with over 50 payment options through Paymentwall. Alternatively, you can pay anonymously with Bitcoin.

Perfect Privacy

• Unlimited GB
• Unlimited
• Yes

7-days money-back guarantee

1-month plan, 1-year plan

1-month plan

$12.99/month

1-year plan

$10/month

$119.99 billed every year

Save 23%

2-year plan

$8.96/month

$214.95 billed every 2 years

Save 31%

Ease of Use

Overall, Perfect Privacy’s UI could do with some improvements for visual appeal. It’s simple to use, but the menus can get quite intricate on the Windows app. 

Perfect Privacy has apps for Windows, macOS and Android, although it doesn’t have native clients for Linux or iOS. For the purposes of this review, we tested Perfect Privacy’s Windows app on desktop and Android on mobile. 

Android App & iOS App 

Perfect Privacy’s Android app is much more sleek and polished compared to the Windows app. That said, it still lacks some vital features that can make the user’s life a lot easier. For instance, there’s no power button on the homepage to connect or disconnect the VPN. 

The VPN client also lacks a handy location picker, so you’ll have to scroll through the server list to find what you’re looking for. 

Furthermore, we found it difficult to change key preferences on the Android app. For example, there is no option to choose between protocols.

The “settings” button only allows you to change your default server, ignore battery warnings about the VPN and set up an always-on VPN. 

Desktop App 

The last time we reviewed Perfect Privacy, we were concerned about its lack of visual appeal. Unfortunately, the VPN has not made any improvements in that regard: The software looks dated and has the feel of a ʼ90s app. 

Perfect Privacy can surely learn a thing or two from the likes of Surfshark and ExpressVPN, which both have a sleek, polished and modern interface. Learn more in our full-length Surfshark review.

That said, Perfect Privacy is pretty straightforward to use. When you open the app, you’ll be greeted with the VPN’s server list, as well as each server’s ping and available bandwidth. If you want to customize the VPN, click on the “settings” button at the bottom of your screen. 

There, you can tweak a variety of options, from protocols to startup preferences. 

Server Locations

Perfect Privacy has VPN servers in only 26 countries. This number is one of the lowest server distributions we’ve seen for a paid VPN service. If you read our best free VPN providers article, you’ll notice that TunnelBear offers free VPN servers in 40 countries, while Speedify’s free servers cover 30 countries. 

Considering this scanty server spread, you’d expect the VPN to use virtual servers to beef up the numbers. However, Perfect Privacy completely renounces virtual servers and uses physical servers instead.

If you’re on the hunt for a VPN with an excellent VPN server count and distribution, we recommend CyberGhost (over 8,000 servers in over 91 countries). Learn more in our CyberGhost review.

Perfect Privacy Server List

The table below shows Perfect Privacy’s full VPN server count and spread. 

As you can see from the table, most of Perfect Privacy’s servers are in Europe, concentrated in the Netherlands, Germany and Great Britain. The U.S. has only five servers and you can find a server each in some Asian countries, including Japan, China and Singapore. 

Unfortunately, Perfect Privacy has no servers in Africa and South America. However, this is not surprising since many VPNs offer few servers or neglect those locations altogether.

Speed

In our last Perfect Privacy VPN review, we could not make a judgment call on the VPN’s speeds because the VPN couldn’t connect. This time, we were able to connect and test various server speeds across different locations. 

Rather disappointingly, Perfect Privacy posted subpar speeds, especially when you compare its performance with our best fast VPN services. 

How We Ran Our Perfect Privacy Speed Tests

We ran our speed tests using a high-speed internet connection in Accra, Ghana. First, we checked our connection speeds without a VPN. We did this to obtain benchmark values to compare and note the speed drop-offs with a VPN. 

Next, we connected to Perfect Privacy servers on various continents. Perfect Privacy doesn’t have servers in Africa and Central America, so we couldn’t test those locations. 

It’s important to note that your actual latency and download and upload speeds might differ slightly from our results based on various factors, including your location and internet speed. However, the values from our testing are useful indicators to give you an overview of the VPN’s performance. 

Perfect Privacy Speed Test Results

As you can see from the table below, using Perfect Privacy VPN led to significant speed drop-offs across the board. Our download speeds in particular took a considerable hit. This means that if you’re watching videos or streaming with Perfect Privacy, you’re likely to experience lags and buffering. 

Both download and upload speeds in the U.S. dropped significantly. Even Hong Kong, which is farther away from our testing location, had better upload and download speeds. The upload speed in the U.K. was much better than in the U.S., but the download speed was woeful. 

As expected, faraway locations like Brazil and Australia had low upload and download speeds as well as high latency. 

Streaming Performance

Unblocking streaming services is certainly not Perfect Privacy’s forte. We tried to unblock various streaming services, including BBC iPlayer, Hulu and HBO using Perfect Privacy, but we could not access the platforms — even after changing servers. 

We had these same results during our last review and it’s clear that Perfect Privacy has not made any progress in streaming performance. To be fair, aside from claiming to unblock ipTV, the VPN service doesn’t claim to unblock other streaming services anywhere on its website. 

Can Perfect Privacy Unblock Netflix and Amazon Prime Video?

Unsurprisingly, Perfect Privacy can’t get past Netflix’s geoblocks. If you need a Netflix VPN, check out our post on the best Netflix VPNs. Similarly, Perfect Privacy can’t unblock Amazon Prime Video, so you’ll need one of the best VPNs for Amazon Prime Video. 

Security

Any VPN worth investing in must have strong encryption. Although there are several encryption options, the industry standard is AES-256, which is virtually unbreakable. Protocols are also vital here, since they can help you get a good balance of speed and security. 

Perfect Privacy uses AES-256 encryption as its default, with AES-128 and Camellia-128 encryption standards as alternatives. The PPTP protocol (which we’ll discuss below) uses MPPE-128 encryption. If it’s all confusing to you, read our piece on AES encryption to understand how it works. 

When it comes to protocols, Perfect Privacy offers three options: OpenVPN, IPsec and SSH2. OpenVPN, the gold standard among protocols, boasts fast speeds and is virtually unbreakable. It’s an excellent choice if you’re using a VPN in highly restrictive countries like China and Russia because it supports obfuscation. OpenVPN is also an excellent choice if you want to use your VPN on a router.

As you can see in our VPN protocol breakdown, IPsec is not as secure as OpenVPN, but it’s a handy choice if you want high download speeds without consuming too much CPU power. Finally, the SSH2 tunnel works with only specific apps, making it a hard sell as a protocol choice. Perfect Privacy also offers the PPTP VPN protocol, which was developed by Microsoft. However, we don’t recommend this protocol since it can be decrypted. 

The WireGuard protocol arguably has the best mix of speed and security, but it’s not available on Perfect Privacy. If you’d like to use the WireGuard protocol, look at NordVPN, PIA, and Mullvad. 

Privacy

Perfect Privacy’s privacy policy is lengthy and quite detailed. However, it is broken down into bite-sized sections and isn’t full of legal jargon, making it easier for the average Joe to dig out key details. Throughout the document, the VPN service makes it amply clear that it’s a no-logs VPN focused on protecting user privacy. 

Right off the bat, Perfect Privacy states that it doesn’t collect, monitor, review or store your connection data. However, to render its service to users, the VPN logs login credentials, email address and the expiration date of each account. As you can see in our ExpressVPN review, it’s fairly common for VPNs to log such details.  

It’s good to see that Perfect Privacy has also shunned traditional servers and turned to RAM-only servers. In short, these kinds of servers wipe your browsing data and configuration files with every reboot. Even if hackers or authorities manage to access the VPN’s records, there’ll be nothing to see. What’s more, no data can be recovered if the power is disconnected. See our PIA review for another example of a VPN that runs RAM-only servers. 

A Transparent Privacy-First Approach

Perfect Privacy is headquartered in Switzerland, a privacy-friendly jurisdiction with favorable data laws, where other VPNs like VyprVPN and ProtonVPN have made their homes. 

Interestingly, Perfect Privacy has a warrant canary where it updates users of all the warrants, subpoenas and court orders it receives. While a warrant canary doesn’t mean Perfect Privacy is suddenly a privacy juggernaut, that level of transparency is refreshing. That said, Perfect Privacy publishes its updates monthly. NordVPN raises the bar, posting daily updates on its warrant canary.

Another exciting thing about Perfect Privacy is that it’s hellbent on never logging customer data, even in the face of sanctions and shutdowns. The company writes on its website: “we would rather discontinue Perfect Privacy than to record your data and compromise your privacy.” This is reminiscent of some of our best VPNs for India, who removed their physical servers from the country when the government introduced a new logging law and VPN ban. 

2016 Dutch Server Seizure

Although Perfect Privacy has not undergone an independent audit of its privacy policy, it does have some strong evidence to put weight behind its statements. In 2016, two of its servers in Rotterdam, Netherlands, were seized in a police investigation.

Although we don’t know what was being investigated, we do know that the Dutch police eventually gave the servers back, and never announced the use of any evidence from Perfect Privacy in an investigation or court case. It’s still not total confirmation, but it makes us a lot more confident that Perfect Privacy’s no-logging policy can be trusted.

Customer Support

When we review VPNs through the lens of customer support, we check for three main things: a comprehensive knowledgebase, various communication lines and the promptness and depth of the customer support team. 

We explored Perfect Privacy’s knowledgebase and we were impressed with the breadth of articles, including step-by-step manuals, troubleshooting guides and FAQ. 

We like that the manuals cover setting up Perfect Privacy on all kinds of devices, with clear steps and screenshots to help even a first-time user feel like an expert. 

If you can’t find what you need in the knowledgebase, you might get lucky with Perfect Privacy’s user forum. 

You can check the threads to see if your concerns have been addressed already. Otherwise, feel free to post yours. Most threads have a torrent of messages so it shouldn’t be long before you get some helpful responses. 

Direct Support

Perfect Privacy also offers a ticket system where you can reach out to a customer service agent. The process seemed unnecessarily cumbersome, as we were required to fill in several fields. Besides, the VPN’s customer support section is filled with German content, so you’d likely have to scroll down to find the English version. 

We sent a dummy ticket, but we didn’t receive a response after several days. 

Unfortunately, Perfect Privacy doesn’t offer live chat support. That means that your best bet for a quick response is to use the ticket system. 

Perfect Privacy VPN Review: The Verdict 

Perfect Privacy isn’t anywhere close to perfection. The VPN has some unique features to help secure your traffic, and it boasts a sound and transparent privacy policy. However, the VPN falls flat on several fronts. 

The VPN will reduce your upload and download speeds significantly, and will likely make your streaming and internet browsing experience anything but smooth. With its paltry server network, it’s not the best choice for getting past online censorship. 

Although Perfect Privacy has a wide range of contact channels, its customer service is barely responsive. To top it all off, the VPN is more expensive than premium VPN services. 

Do you agree with our Perfect Privacy VPN review? Will you still use the seven-day money-back guarantee to test the service out? What is your personal Perfect Privacy rating? Let us know in the comments section below, and as always, thank you for reading.

FAQ

• Is Perfect Privacy VPN Safe?

  Perfect Privacy VPN is safe to use. The VPN comes with strong encryption, RAM-only servers and a solid privacy policy. So far, there has been no record of customer data breaches.

• Does Perfect Privacy Log?

  Perfect Privacy does not collect or store any logs related to your connection data. The service has RAM-only servers, so personal information is wiped with every reboot.

• Is Perfect Privacy VPN Free?

  Perfect Privacy is not free. You’ll have to purchase one of the three paid plans to access the service: a one-month, a one-year or a two-year plan.

• Who Is Perfect Privacy?

  Perfect Privacy is a VPN provider with servers in 26 countries, including Sweden, Russia, Iceland, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. The service has been in existence since 2008 and has developed some unique features, including TrackStop and NeuroRouting.