NordVPN Review 2023

Last updated: September 22, 2023 Shares: 0

NordVPN is one of those VPN providers that you can add to the list of best VPN NZ services because of its impressive security and privacy features. The service allows you to unblock all the famous streaming services like Netflix, BBC iPlayer, and others with a single click.

Read this exclusive NordVPN review to know how you can stay safe and anonymous online while browsing the web through this affordable VPN service.

Quick Overview

Security and ease of use – It is one of the most user-friendly VPN services
Streaming – Unblocks US Netflix and BBC iPlayer
Speed – Impressive connection speeds suitable for streaming activities

Jurisdiction – Where NordVPN is situated?

NordVPN mainly hails from a safe jurisdiction i.e., Panama. The country is not a part of any of the 5 eyes, 9 eyes, or 14 eyes group. Similarly, Panama is not liable for sharing its users’ information with any country or authority. Furthermore, NordVPN does not have to abide by any specific data retention laws.

Pricing – How much does NordVPN cost?

NordVPN offers budget-friendly pricing plans to its users. The provider is catering to the online privacy needs of its subscribers through three types of pricing packages. These plans are monthly, one-yearly, and two-yearly that you can subscribe to by paying $11.99/month, $4.99/month, and $3.29/month, respectively.

If you are willing to use its 2-year pricing plan, you will have a massive 60% discount. Surprisingly, NordVPN does not offer a free trial feature, but you can use its generous 30-day money-back guarantee in case you do not want to use NordVPN after the subscription.

Get NordVPN

Other Prominent Features

Like ExpressVPN, the Panama-based VPN service also provides exciting features to its users. You can consider these features in the shape of NordLock and NordPass.

NordLock

NordLock allows you to secure and synchronize your files on the Cloud stress-free. Interestingly, you can use 3GB storage on Cloud without any cost. This way, you can safeguard all your sensitive professional and personal data to a certain extent.

NordPass

NordPass works just like a password manager where you can store your sensitive passwords appropriately. You can store all your important passwords on Cloud and access them on Desktop, mobile, laptops, and other devices securely.

NordVPN Customer Support

NordVPN does provide an impressive customer support section that can solve all your queries timely. Besides, you can use its excellent live chat feature to get the solutions of your problems related to billing and installation-related questions stress-free.

Luckily, you can explore its other subsections like Help Center, FAQs, and Tutorials to find out the other exciting features of NordVPN in detail.

Security – Is NordVPN Safe and Secure?

As already mentioned, NordVPN mainly works from the user-friendly country. Therefore, NordVPN is safe to use since it offers a wide range of tunneling protocols and encryption levels.

As far as these protocols go, you can use OpenVPN (TCP/UDP), IKEv2/IPSec, and the latest WireGuard to secure your crucial information online. Apart from this, NordVPN provides AES-256-CBC with a 2048-bit DH encryption key.

Likewise, the service does offer another security feature by the name of “Perfect Forward Secrecy” that uses unique session keys for every browsing session. This feature provides even more privacy and better encryption to your data.

Logging Policy

As far as the NordVPN data logging policy goes, it does not share its users’ data with third parties. Furthermore, the provider does keep a log of its users’ original IP address, browser types, and devices’ operating systems to manage and improve their services’ performance overall.

Apart from this, NordVPN collects your email address and payment information, including payment details such as owner name, zip code, etc. from its users at the time of account creation.

NordVPN No-Log Audit Report

NordVPN takes no half measures when it comes to building a positive image and reputation among its users. This is the reason the service came up with the idea of an independent audit. Recently, a famous auditing firm, Price Waterhouse Coopers, AG Zurich Switzerland, audited NordVPN ‘s no-logging claim in detail.

As expected, the claim of NordVPN about no-logging is legit and trustworthy according to their audit report.

NordVPN App Security Audit

NordVPN went through another audit during the year 2019, similar to a no-log audit. However, the audit was related to the performance of NordVPN different apps in terms of security/privacy.

An independent audit firm, VerSprite, performed different tests on its Android and iOS apps to discover vulnerabilities, threats, and risks in these apps. Based on the issues and threats found according to the audit report of VerSprite, NordVPN acts swiftly and made necessary changes accordingly.

Additional Security Features

NordVPN provides a wide variety of security features that take its users’ privacy next level. These features include CyberSec, kill Switch, and so on.

CyberSec

CyberSec prevents annoying ads from popping up on your screens. Moreover, it also protects your devices from malware and phishing attacks.

Kill Switch

This feature allows you to protect web browsing activities even if your VPN service suddenly stops working.

Split Tunneling

This feature helps you disable VPN for selected apps. It means you can route your internet traffic without encrypting it with a VPN over the web. Besides, split tunneling enables you to differentiate between your VPN traffic and non-VPN traffic easily.

Is NordVPN leak-free?

NordVPN does not leak your actual IP address, DNS, and WebRTC information online. Moreover, the service does not have any virus or malware attached to its Windows setup URL link. Here are the proofs:

IP Leak Test:

We checked its IP leak protection features on IPleak.net and received the following result:

DNS Leak Test:

We tested its DNS leak protection feature through DNSleaktest.com and found the following result:

WebRTC Leak Test:

We checked its WebRTC leak protection feature via IP8.com and received the below-mentioned outcome:

Virus Test:

We tested its virus-free feature on VirusTotal and found the following result:

NordVPN Server Locations

NordVPN offers 5400+ servers in 59 countries worldwide. It means you can connect to any server of your choice be it the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc from anywhere.

Specialty Servers

What makes NordVPN different from the other VPN services like ExpressVPN is its specialty server feature that helps you choose optimized servers based on your needs. You can consider these types in the shape of dedicated IP servers, double VPN servers, obfuscated servers, onion over VPN servers, P2P servers, and standard VPN servers.

Dedicated IP Servers

NordVPN provides a dedicated IP feature to its privacy-conscious users that help them use personal IP addresses to secure their online privacy.

Double VPN Servers

You can use the double VPN server feature if you want to encrypt your data twice. The said feature passes your internet traffic via two different VPN servers.

Obfuscated Servers

These servers help you bypass severe online restrictions imposed on various oppressive countries like China, Russia, Iran, and others.

Onion Over VPN Servers

If you are willing to protect your digital footprints with TOR (The Onion Router) alongside NordVPN, you should consider using onion over VPN servers.

Standard VPN Servers

You can connect to your desired high-speed servers to mask your actual IP addresses and protect your browsing activities.

Is NordVPN fast?

NordVPN is another fastest VPN service like ExpressVPN that allows its users to watch their favorite TV shows and movies at excellent connection speeds. We checked its performance in terms of speed on different servers using a base internet connection of 20 Mbps.

NordVPN speed after connecting to US Server:

After connecting to the UK Server:

After connecting to the New Zealand Server:

Based on the above results, NordVPN seems to be on the higher side on account of speed. The provider offers relatively higher connection speeds on its different servers overall. When we examined its speed on the US server, the rate dropped by 16%.

Surprisingly, the UK and New Zealand servers provided the same speed as the former offered 19.1 Mbps download speed and the latter provided 19.3 Mbps download speed. It means the rate decreased by 10% on both servers.

Can NordVPN unblock Netflix and BBC iPlayer?

You can opt for NordVPN for unblocking American Netflix and BBC iPlayer while residing in New Zealand. NordVPN worked quite well when we tried to unblock episode 2 of the “Away” TV series using its United States (New York) server. Here is the result:

Similarly, we were able to access ” I Am Not A Rapist”, a famous BBC Three documentary from BBC iPlayer’s content library on our Android device:

Aside from Netflix and BBC iPlayer, you can use NordVPN to access region-blocked services like Disney Plus, Hulu, and others while residing in New Zealand or any other country.

Does NordVPN support torrenting?

Fortunately, you can opt for NordVPN for accomplishing your torrenting tasks securely from anywhere. Suppose you want to download your desired torrenting files anonymously in New Zealand. In that case, you should connect to its dedicated servers that help you protect your torrenting activities from ISPs and other surveillance actors.

Does NordVPN allow gaming?

You can use the service to play your favorite geo-restricted games without any hassle. When you connect to the NordVPN server, you can reduce ping and overcome geo-limitations issues instantly. You can play any video game on multiple devices, be it Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and others.

The provider supports numerous gaming consoles like PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox, Xbox One, Xbox 360, etc.

How many devices does NordVPN support?

NordVPN is one of the most compatible VPN services in the market. Luckily, you can install the service on your preferred devices, be it Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Routers, Smart TVs, Gaming Consoles, Chromecast, Apple TV, Web Browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and so on), etc.

Windows

The service offers an attractive and light-weight app to its Windows users. The app enables you to use different features using its Settings menu like internet kill switch and CyberSec. Besides, you can select your desired countries from the Countries tab instantly.

Android

NordVPN also offers an excellent Android app that helps you experience various security benefits like Split Tunneling, CyberSec, Auto-Connect, and others. This way, you can surf the web on your desired Android devices without any hassle.

iOS

Similar to Windows and Android, the service provides an impressive iOS app to its users. You can use different security features like an internet kill switch, IKEv2/IPsec protocols, specialty servers, and others using its smart iOS app.

Does NordVPN offer a simultaneous connections feature?

It offers 6 multi-logins feature that lets users protect their multiple devices with a single account. If we talk about other VPN services like PureVPN and IPVanish in terms of multi-logins, they offer 10 simultaneous connection features to their users.

Therefore, the service needs to improve its performance considerably regarding multi-login feature.

Can I use NordVPN while working from home?

You can use NordVPN while working from home to secure your multiple devices, including office computers, laptops, tablets, mobile devices, etc. The Panama based service offers an exclusive 6 multi-login benefit that lets you safeguard all your preferred devices from hacking, data breaches, identity theft, and other issues to a certain extent.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Offers 5000+ servers worldwide, including New Zealand
Supports Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Routers, Gaming Consoles, Smart TVs, etc
Works with Netflix and BBC iPlayer
Supports torrenting activities of its user

Cons

Does not offer a free trial feature

FAQs

Is NordVPN legal?

It is legal and safe to use NordVPN legally, but you should not use the service for fulfilling illegal objectives.

Is NordVPN better than Norton?

The service offers dedicated P2P servers to its users. However, Norton Secure VPN does not provide such luxury to its subscribers. Furthermore, the server count of NordVPN is much better compared to Norton Secure VPN.

Did NordVPN get hacked?

During the year 2019, the service officially confirmed that cybercriminals hacked it, and they accessed one of its data centers in March 2018. But, the data center did not store their users’ activity logs, which means no username and password were intercepted.

Does NordVPN let you watch Netflix?

It allows you to unblock US Netflix and content libraries of other regions such as the UK, Canada, Japan, etc. without any trouble.

Do we recommend NordVPN?

We recommend NordVPN to our users who do not want to compromise on their privacy at any cost. The service mainly operates from the user-friendly country, Panama, which is not a part of any 5, 9, or 14 eyes group. Interestingly, the provider does not log its users’ information and offers relatively inexpensive pricing plans.

If we talk about its performance highlighted during this NordVPN review in different domains like security, compatibility, streaming, torrenting, and customer support, NordVPN seems to be an excellent choice.