TunnelBear VPN has apps for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS, and VPN browser extensions for Chrome, Opera, and Firefox. Interestingly, mobile apps use bear sounds for notifications. Moreover, you can enable Trusted Networks, which connects you to a VPN automatically when a trusted network is detected. Connecting to a VPN requires a single click thanks to The Closest Tunnel feature, which connects you to the fastest (and closest) VPN server automatically. TunnelBear VPN Installation and User Interfaceīoth desktop and mobile TunnelBear VPN apps are easy to use and have a minimalistic, lime-green colored user interface.
They offer a bot that redirects to a knowledge base and support via e-mail and social media. The VPN provider does not have 24/7 web chat Customer Support. TunnelBear VPN’s built-in Ad-Blocker feature is effective at blocking ads, scripts, and malware you come across while browsing. Unfortunately, the added security also means your VPN speed is reduced. It hides your VPN by scrambling data and making it look like a regular HTTPS connection, allowing you to circumvent VPN firewalls. GhostBear is TunnelBear VPN’s obfuscation feature that akin to Stealth Mode in our Windscribe VPN review. SplitBear is their name for a split tunneling feature, allowing you to take certain apps outside of the VPN tunnel while keeping others in. It will kill your Internet traffic if your VPN connection fails, preventing an identity and location leak. VigilantBear is this VPN provider’s name for a kill switch feature. The VPN provider publishes results, and highlights which security flaws and data breaches they patched. Starting in 2017, a reputable security firm, Cure57, did an annual audit of TunnelBear VPN’s practices, infrastructure, codebase, and web and desktop apps. torrenting but doesn’t offer specialized servers for it. The following are some of the extra features of TunnelBear VPN: P2P Traffic Yes, TunnelBear works in China, but only when a GhostBear is enabled. You cannot select a protocol manually, unfortunately. TunnelBear VPN has only implemented IKEv2 (Windows and iOS) and OpenVPN (Windows, Android, and macOS). We weren’t able to unblock BBC iPlayer, ESPN, ESPN+, or Disney Plus. Additionally, the VPN provider unblocked the following services: We managed to bypass the Netflix VPN block in the US, Canada, and the UK. When we used VPN test sites to check our VPN, we found TunnelBear VPN had no IPv4, IPv6, DNS, or WebRTC leaks. TunnelBear VPN allows up to 5 concurrent VPN connections on one subscription. Streaming was very limited in the UK too, up to 720p/HD quality. In the US we experienced permanent buffering, and SD/480p quality at best. However, connecting long-distance, especially to the UK and US servers, makes streaming impossible. Streaming speed while connected to a local VPN server is close to ideal. Download speed went down by 94%, while ping went up 12 times. Unfortunately, the situation declined rapidly with a United States server. By connecting to a server in the United Kingdom, we experienced a shrink in download speed by 66%, while the ping increased six-fold. With that said, we automatically connected to a VPN server in our country (in Europe) and saw a download speed reduction of only 6%. The speed and latency are perhaps the most important part of our review of TunnelBearVPN.