Windscribe Review

UPDATED Mar. 2024
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Windscribe is a relatively young Internet privacy and security company headquartered in Ontario. Since its inception in April 2016, it has accumulated more than 4 million users worldwide and received praise from trusted publications like CNET, Techradar, and Lifehacker.

The company is entirely self-funded (and profitable), which allows it to focus entirely on providing its users with the best privacy and security solutions imaginable. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, keep reading our candid Windscribe review to learn more about the service and its capabilities.

Windscribe Homepage

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Speed & Performance

Our testing team located in Belgrade, Serbia (Europe) experimented with 21 Windscribe servers over a period of one week to gauge its average speeds and determine how its encryption package affects connections on different server locations.

Surprisingly, our top performer was a server in New York, followed by Stockholm, London, and Perth. Servers in Miami, Paris, and Singapore also provided us with decent performance while we had traditionally subpar results in India (Nagpur), which managed to retain only 0.54% of our original download speed.

Windscribe guarantees unlimited server switching, speeds, and bandwidth (for premium users) and we did not experience any major problems or sudden disconnects during our tests for this Windscribe review. The client takes mere seconds to connect to any server, including those in the US.

LocationPing (ms)Download (Mbps)Upload (Mbps)
Americas
New York, US13021.073.49
Los Angeles, US18916.391.13
Miami, US15627.714.05
Dallas, US16611.82.92
Vancouver, CA20122.793.44
Toronto, CA13419.966.63
Europe
London, UK6229.525.22
Amsterdam, NL5526.96.41
Frankfurt, DE4027.373.69
Bucharest, RO5428.626.82
Paris, FR50244.55
Oslo, NO6513.324.97

Supported Platforms

Windscribe supports all the major platforms, including Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10), Mac (10.09 – 10.10 and 10.11+), Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS), iOS (9+), Android (4.2.2+/direct APK), Amazon Fire TV (Gen 2+), Nvidia Shield, and Kodi. The Blackberry download button on the official website was only implemented as a joke. Windscribe also offers browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera, as well as manual setup tutorials for routers (DD-WRT and Tomato). Alternatively, you can purchase one of the pre-configured Windscribe routers.

Finally, the site also features configuration generators for OpenVPN, IKEv2, and SOCKS5, which allows you to set up this VPN on any device that supports these connection protocols.

Servers

Windscribe features hundreds of servers spread across 60 countries and 110 cities, with free users having access to a portion of this network. The company guarantees unlimited speeds, bandwidth, and server switching. Free users, however, have access to 10GB per month and need to purchase a premium subscription in order to get more traffic.

Windscribe Servers printscreen

Windscribe offers shared IP addresses, which enables you to “blend into the crowd” perfectly during your online sessions. Alternatively, premium users can purchase a static IP, either for residential or datacenter usage. This option lets you use port forwarding with up to 10 ports per device, avoid blacklists, implement better access control or share IPs with other members of your ScribeForce (subscription option designed for teams).

Windscribe supports unlimited simultaneous connections, which is a vastly superior option to being able to secure only a couple of your favorite devices at the same time. Sharing your VPN connection within one household is allowed, but distant account sharing is perceived as a violation.

Safety & Security

Windscribe supports the following connection protocols:

  • OpenVPN (TCP/UDP) – Offers the best balance between security and speed;
  • IKEv2 – Used as a default option but easily blocked;
  • Stealth – This mode encloses OpenVPN within a TLS tunnel via Stunnel. It should be used only in countries with extremely high levels of government censorship (China, for example) when all other protocols fail;
  • Wstunnel – Encloses OpenVPN within a WebSocket. You should use it only in extreme cases.

Windscribe encrypts your traffic with AES-256 cipher paired with 4096-bit RSA key and SHA-512 authentication. This is a very solid setup that even the most modern computers cannot crack. On top of this, the company provides its users with perfect forward secrecy, which means that the software generates a new session key every time you connect to WIndscribe. In other words, even if some malicious online entity manages to get a hold of your encryption key, they will not be able to do anything with it the moment you end your online session.

Windscribe also implements a piece of software called R.O.B.E.R.T. that allows you to block ads and trackers, avoid malware infections, customize access rules, and optimize loading times of the sites you visit since you will not be seeing any ads or trackers.

Windscribe software R-O-B-E-R-T

You can also use split-tunneling to customize your VPN protection by choosing to route some of your apps through a secure VPN tunnel and leave some unprotected.

Apart from featuring a powerful firewall, desktop apps enable you to generate a secure hotspot and effectively turn your device into a Wi-Fi router or create a proxy network for other devices.

Windscribe Proxy Settings

Browser extensions, on the other hand, come with the following features:

  • AutoPilot – Automatically picks the optimal server for your location;
  • Double Hop – Routes your connection through two Windscribe servers instead of one;
  • Ad blocking – Blocks ads and trackers, which also lowers overall loading times;
  • Time Warp – Alters your time zone to match the location you are connected to;
  • Cookie Monster – Keeps track of all the cookies and deletes them when you close the tab;
  • Split Personality – Rotates your user agent randomly to lower the chances of basic fingerprinting;
  • WebRTC Slayer – Blocks WebRTC to prevent any potential leaks.

Windscribe representatives shy away from the term killswitch, deeming it incorrect and misleading. They use the term firewall to denote the same thing. In other words, the implemented firewall will prevent your devices from establishing any type of connection outside the secure tunnel provided by Windscribe. This functionality will also drop your connection entirely in case your VPN becomes compromised or disconnected.

Windscribe Ipleak.net Test

Logging & Privacy

Windscribe collects the following data:

  • When you visit the website – Windscribe uses Piwik web analytics platform to gauge the usage of the official website. The platform is hosted on its own servers, so your activity on the site cannot be seen by anybody else.
  • When you sign up – The registration process requires a username and a password, nothing more. You can also provide your email address if you want to be able to recover your password in case you forget it. However, if you choose NOT to enter your email, you will only get 2GB per month instead of 10. If you purchase a premium subscription, the company will also store your transaction ID for a period of 30 days.
  • When you use the service – In order to track the aforementioned 10GB caps, Windscribe records the total amount of bytes transferred within one month. It also keeps the timestamp of your last activity on the network. Note that Windscribe DOES NOT monitor or log your source IP, historical records of your VPN sessions or the sites you visited. In other words, you do not have to worry about traffic logs of any kind.
  • When you are connected to the server – When you establish a connection with any given server, the company stores your time of connection, OpenVPN/IKEv2 username, and the amount of transferred data. This information is stored in the server’s memory and discarded when you disconnect. In order to prevent account sharing, the company also monitors and stores information about the number of parallel connections on your account.

If you choose to delete your Windscribe account, the only information that will remain is your username, password, and email address (if provided).

Since Windscribe logs a bare minimum of user data, any legal warrants requesting your information would yield nothing of value. In other words, there is no way to link any type of online activity with your user account.

Streaming

As we already mentioned in this WIndscribe review, the software comes with some pretty impressive speeds that allow you to stream in full HD without any buffering issues or similar problems.

Windscribe features server locations dedicated to unlocking different regional versions of Netflix called WINDFLIX. However, these are premium locations and as such, unavailable to free users. At the moment, there are WINDFLIX US, UK, and Canada. There is still no server dedicated to Japan, but we hope there will be one in the future.

Torrenting

Windscribe allows torrenting on all server locations except India, Japan, and WINDFLIX. Simply connect to any other location and you can enjoy P2P filesharing without any problems. Having said that, the company does warn its users against any illegal activities.

Plans & Pricing

1 Month
3 Months
6 Months
1 Year
2 Years

1 Month
$9.00
3 Months
/
6 Months
/
1 Year
$4.08
2 Years
/

Apart from its free limited version, Windscribe offers three different subscriptions, including 1 month for $9.00 per month, 1 year for $4.08 per month, and a custom plan where you can choose the number of servers for $1 per location. You can also purchase a static IP for $8.00 per month (residential) and $2 per month (datacenter). If you want to buy VPN protection for your entire team, this option costs $3 per seat on a monthly basis.

Windscribe Pricing

Windscribe accepts credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, and American Express), PayPal, Paymentwall, and Bitcoin. Since you have access to a completely free limited version of the software, the company only offers a 3-day money-back guarantee. However, if you exceed 10GB of usage, you will not be eligible for a refund.

Support

Windscribe features a very informative and comprehensive support section on the official website paired with a friendly bot named Garry that plays the role of a live chat operator and is perfectly capable of answering most of your questions. Impressive as he may be, Garry is still just a bot, so he will direct you to a human support representative the moment he is unable to provide you with a satisfactory answer. This is a very elegant solution in our opinion and Garry was able to answer 99% of our inquiries.

Windscribe Pros & Cons

As we wrap up this Windscribe review, here’s a quick overview of the features that wowed us and the aspects of the service that could use some improvement.

Pros
  • Good speed and server performance
  • Solid encryption
  • Numerous security features
  • Automatic killswitch
  • Port forwarding
  • Perfect forward secrecy
  • Servers in 60 countries
  • Supports all popular platforms
  • Config generators for OpenVPN, IKEv2, and SOCKS
  • Dedicated servers for Netflix
  • Torrenting is allowed
  • No traffic logs
  • Excellent customer support bot + live support
  • Budget-friendly
  • Free limited version
Cons
  • 3-day money-back guarantee

User Reviews (59)

Windscribe customer rating based on 59 user reviews.

The Windscribe reviews listed below reflect the opinions and experiences of real users and are in no way influenced by the VPN provider reviewed here. Before publishing each review, our team checks whether it was submitted by an actual user in an effort to prevent false or spammy reviews.

  1. Anonymous | March 1, 2020

    Uses Perfect Forward Secrecy, so even if the encryption keys are stolen, it will only decrypt the last hour of your traffic! Also Uses 4096 bit encryption

  2. Jerem | December 3, 2019

    Windscribe may not be 100% perfect, but it’s a lot better than many of the other VPNs you’ll come across. Trust me, i’ve used too many to count, and often ended up being dissapointed. Windscribe is the only platform I know to continuenly update and provide reliable funcsitons that work!

  3. Eben | November 18, 2019

    Windscribe is by far a 5* VPN that has everything you’ll need. It has been the only VPN i’ve used over the last 2 years and it’s honestly been the only once i’ve needed. It’s grown in leaps and bounds, and has continued to only improve. I’ve enjoyed seeing the VPN grow and get better, especially with its most recent updates. Love the new look, the new features, yet the same quality services! I would recommend this to any VPN user looking for the ‘right one’.

  4. Stellar | October 28, 2019

    Windscribe has grown in leaps and bounds and continues to be one of the best VPNs i’ve used in years. Very stable connections with a selection of servers to choose from too. Windscribe has continued to maintain their VPN, while keeping the design and ease of use in mind. It’s got one of the best security features i’ve seen in a while, especially because it works! So many VPNs claim to do this and that, but then once you invest you find that to be a lie. With Windscribe you actually get your moneys worth!

  5. Arvin | October 21, 2019

    Windscribe is a VPN that has worked well since it first came around a few years ago. It has continued to grow into a successful and reliable VPN and has been my top VPN to use since I first downloaded it. It’s great for both personal and business use and i’ve recommended it to family and colleagues. Worth checking in my opinion.

  6. Reign | October 8, 2019

    Great value for money in my opinion. Lots of good features and security systems in place that provide exactly what it states. I’ve been very impressed by the overall performance of Windscribe and recently decided to upgrade, which I had no regrets going. It has only helped provide me with the extra servers I need plus the good features i wanted.

  7. Sandra | October 1, 2019

    Always been happy with the services Windscribe has provided, and they continue to please me with their updates and good features. Their servers are well maintained and provide strong connections, all of which i’ve been able to test out and have found to work extremely well. I’ve even been able to stream, download, and upload without any problems at all.

  8. Raffy | September 23, 2019

    Windscribe is a great VPN and it is definitely worth checking out if you’re looking for something that you can rely on and that provides 100% reliable servers then Windscribe is the VPN you should try out. Whether you’re looking for a few servers to use or a generous amount, both the free and pro plan is great. Though the free plan only has a few servers to use, it still provides strong connections and the security system on both accounts work really well. Worth looking into.

  9. Joe | September 18, 2019

    Really impressed with the recent update. Love the new design and overall layout. Lots to use and benefit from with Windscribe, plenty which other VPNs don’t provide. Really pleased that US Netflix works as I travel a lot! 5 stars from me!

  10. Amber | September 3, 2019

    You won’t find anything much better than Windscribe especially when you consider the ‘full package’ and the price you pay. It’s affordable, reliable, and lives up to what it says it’s going to provide. Customer support has also been helpful with a decent turnover time and a positive outcome. So far, I’ve been very impressed with Windscribe.

  11. Zion | August 28, 2019

    If you’re looking for a VPN that will provide you with the full package, then Windscribe is the one for you. From reliable speeds and plenty of servers to choose from, to their regular updates and fixes, to the good customer service, great security, AND amazing features (Netflix is a must!). Windscribe is my all time favorite and I’d never go back to any of my previously used VPNs.

  12. Rick | August 9, 2019

    Windscribe has been a really easy platform to use. While you are limited server wise on the free plan, you do get a lot out of it if you sign up for the Pro Plan. I recently went Pro and have been very impressed with how the VPN has been working. Great selection of features and safety installments, plus a ton of servers to make the most off. Definitely worth looking into if you’re a heavy VPN user.

  13. Junice | July 31, 2019

    Still a huge fan of windscribe 2 years down the line. It continues to prove it’s one of the best VPNs out there! The updates have been good and the speeds are still very strong and reliable. Security-wise, I ‘m pretty sure windscribe is one of the top VPNs that offers this type of security. It’s worth investing in and something I would really recommend others to use especially if you’re one that is conscious about security.

  14. Kyle | July 22, 2019

    You’re not going to find anything much better than Windscribe. I’m very happy i’ve found a VPN that lives up to its name and actually provides you with that it advertises. Normally, VPNs say they can do this and that, but when it comes down to it, it doesn’t deliver what it advertises. With Windscribe, I’ve found all features and funcions, plus servers to work without a problem. It’s also priced fairly which is a major plus!

  15. Lori | July 15, 2019

    Windscribe has been a life saver for me. It’s been a great way to stay connecting while abroad, especially if I’m in a location that bans certain sites. I’ve found the servers to be good with reliable speeds, both downloading and uploading, and I’ve also found the cruise control really does connect you to the best server. Overall it’s a VPN I would recommend, not just based on its speeds, but also due to its great level of security and the cool features that are included.

  16. Precious | July 1, 2019

    Windscribe is a one of kind VPN with a great easy to use platform that can be used on multiple platforms and multiple browsers. I’ve had it on computer and tablet for other 1 year now and i’ve had no issues with speeds or security breaches. The security level they have is fantastic and the extra added features that come with it is great. I’d highly recommend checking Windscribe out even if it’s just for a quick test on the free plan.

  17. Bethany | June 27, 2019

    Windscribe is my all time favorite VPN. It’s been about for a couple of years now (probably a little bit more) and i’ve been using it since it first came about. I’ve seen how much better and faster this VPN has grown and i’ve never stumbled across any issues. It’s got a ton of great features and so many extra levels of security in place, you know you’ll enjoy a safe surfing session.

  18. Stanley | June 3, 2019

    I’m a big fan of windscribe after having it on both my desktop and phone for almost 6 months. It’s been a great extra feature to have especially when on the go and needing to connect to geo-restricted sites. I’ve been in China and had no problem watching US Netflix!!

  19. John G. | May 14, 2019

    If you’re looking for a vpn that actually works and does what it’s supposed to do then you’ve come to the right place. Windscribe by far is the best VPN I’ve used in a long time. It has a great selection of features that also provides security when browsing, it has a ton of locations to choose from if you’re a pro member and being able to connect multiple devices to one account is a major plus. Overall, Windscribe is a must have in my eyes and one I’d recommend investing in.

  20. Christian | April 1, 2019

    If you’re conscious about finding the extra level of security one needs when surfing online, look no further as Windscribe gives you just that. I originally downloaded it due to wanting to be able to connect to different servers and unblock certain sites, but upon finding out the security levels they have in place to protect you and your identity/data, I was even more in love with the app. It works great and has so many features that outdo the other VPNs out there.

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