KeepSolid VPN Review

VPNs are a part of the modern digital landscape and they’re only becoming more and more common as internet users take an ever greater interest in security – their own, and the security of their online data.

The letters VPN stand for Virtual Private Network.  A VPN works by hiding your IP address, the sites you visit, and what you do there, from any prying eyes that might want that information. 

You might be thinking that nobody’s interested in your information, but you’d be surprised. Businesses, scammers, and even governments all have their own reasons for spying on you.

So, a VPN can help stop them, but which one should you get?  An effect of the growing popularity of VPNs is that there are so many to choose from.  We’ll take a look at KeepSolid VPN in this review so you can decide for yourself whether it’s the right one for you.

Overview

KeepSolid VPN is not one of the big names in the VPN game, but it’s a solid option with some useful features that’s good for streaming, despite some security concerns.

Security Features

VPNs exist primarily to keep your information private online, so security is usually the primary concern for people who are buying one. 

So, how does KeepSolid VPN do on that score?  The short answer is “well, not too bad, actually”.The first thing to say is that it uses the all-important 256-AES encryption that’s become the standard for any VPN worth its salt. 

It’s also the same encryption method that governments and financial institutions use to keep their secrets hidden, so you can be sure it’s solid.  A general rule of thumb is that any VPN which doesn’t use 256-AES isn’t worth trusting, so it’s reassuring that the KeepSolid VPN does.

This is not all that counts in its favor, though.  The KeepSolid VPN features a kill switch and split tunneling features. A kill switch is a setting that will automatically disconnect your device from the internet if the connection to the VPN is lost at any time.

This is very helpful because, should you stay connected whilst your VPN is down, your data and information is out there for bad actors and cyber criminals to snoop on.  

In our opinion, split tunneling is always useful feature with a VPN. Split tunneling allows you to choose which of your internet activities goes through your VPN and which doesn’t.

This allows you to keep your important information safe whilst not having all your internet traffic being slowed down by having to encrypt trivial stuff.

It’s not all good news, however – there’s one major fly in the ointment when it comes to security, and it’s to do with where the company is headquartered, namely the United States.

Why is it a problem for a VPN provider to be based in the US?  Well, it’s due to the fact that the US is a member – a founding member, in fact – of the Five Eyes Alliance. 

This is an intelligence sharing alliance that also includes several other countries that share espionage information between themselves.  These countries and their agencies can put pressure on companies in their jurisdiction to give information on their customers to them. 

Obviously, this isn’t a great outcome when the key service that VPN provides is specifically meant to keep your information private. This privacy concern is magnified by the fact that KeepSolid VPN does keep certain information that you might want to keep secret. 

For instance, KeepSolid tracks your name, email address, IP address, total amount of data that goes through the VPN and several other items. 

For the average consumer, this may not be of great concern. However, if you are an internet user looking for maximum possible privacy, then KeepSolid probably isn’t the VPN for you.

Streaming

However, there are other reasons that people like to use VPNs.  One of the most common is to get around region locking restrictions on streaming services.  What does this mean?  

Well, you’re probably aware that most streaming services restrict the content you can access based on your location.  You might have tried to watch a YouTube video, for example, only to receive a message saying it’s unavailable in your country.  VPNs allow you to get around these restrictions by making you appear to be somewhere else. 

Live outside the UK and want to watch a show that’s only available on UK Netflix or on the BBC?  No problem – just pick a UK server and get watching.  Or, at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. 

Not all VPNs are that good at it, though, so how does KeepSolid match up? Pretty well, overall.  Our tests found that it can get around the region locking on Netflix, as well as on other streaming services like BBC iPlayer. 

While the status of any VPN to unlock any given streaming service is constantly in flux, some are still better than others and KeepSolid VPN seems to be on the positive side of that split.

However, it’s also worth considering speeds when it comes to streaming.  After all, it’s no good unlocking content you’re desperate to view only to discover that it takes all evening to buffer, is there?

Speeds

The good news is that the speeds are very respectable. All VPNs will slow you down at least a little, since the encryption processes that keep you safe and hide your IP address take time to apply.

With that being said, the decrease in speed that we experienced was minimal and not enough to seriously impact streaming, even when streaming in 4K.

However, if you’re hoping to do a lot of torrenting, the news isn’t so good – we found that the torrenting servers (of which there aren’t very many to start with) were not quick enough for our liking.  If you torrent a lot, another VPN might suit you better.

Servers

This is one area where KeepSolid VPN doesn’t quite match up to some of its rivals.  It features only around 400 servers, which is substantially fewer than companies like ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and CyberGhost, which have servers numbering in the multiple thousands.

Whilst having 400 servers doesn’t have to be deal killer and isn’t necessarily the end of the world, it does leave you (and your fellow KeepSolid VPN subscribers) with fewer options and leaves open the possibility that the KeepSolid servers will slow down due to overuse.

As we mentioned above, there aren’t very many servers reserved for torrenting, and we those we used were not very quick. 

It’s possible that these servers would work better if we were nearer to them, but since there are so few of them, it’s not at all guaranteed that you’ll be close enough to a streaming server to benefit from this.

Subscription Plans And Pricing

There are a few different options for subscription plans.  You can go for a one-month plan, a one-year plan, a three-year plan, or even a lifetime plan.  All of these plans are available in two varieties: plans that allow you to connect up to five devices and plans that allow you to connect up to ten devices.  

As you’d expect, the longer-term plans represent a greater up-front cost but a lower monthly commitment when broken down on a month-by-month basis.

We’ve also noticed regular offers and deals from KeepSolid which bring down these prices, so it might pay to wait for one of these before you decide to part with your money.

Nevertheless, the prices even without any of these deals are still pretty reasonable and in line with industry pricing. They are not, by any means, a huge bargain but they are certainly competitive.

Free Trial

The VPN offers a 7-day free trial, so you can take it for a test drive.  This isn’t especially generous as far as VPNs go, given that some will give you up to a month for free, but it’s not terrible.

There’s also a 7-day money-back guarantee, so you can treat that period as an extension of the free trial, if you like.

Payment Options

You can pay for KeepSolid VPN in a range of ways.  Cards are the most common way, of course, but you can also use the obvious alternative payments methods like PayPal, Apple Pay, etc. Interestingly, and this is not standard practice for VPNs, you can also pay with Bitcoin too.

If payment by crypto currencies is important to you, then you should also consider other VPNs that accept crypto payments like the TrustZone VPN.

Platforms

You’ll be pleased to know that KeepSolid VPN is available for a wide range of platforms.  This includes the obvious major ones like Android, Windows, iOS, and macOS, but also a few less common ones.  This includes Linux, Windows Mobile, and others.  This puts it above average in this category among VPNs.

Customer Service

If you have any problems with the VPN, your main port of call will be to email the support team.  They’re usually able to respond within a day or two, but it is a bit disappointing to see that there is no 24/7 live chat function for customer support, a feature which several other VPNs do have.

Final Thoughts

Overall, whether KeepSolid VPN is the right choice for you depends on your needs.  It has several useful security features, but it’s ultimately undermined on that score by the data it collects and the possibility that it might pass that information on to US government agencies if pressed. 

If security is your number one concern, then please note that there are better options out there.

However, if security is not paramount, then you’ll still be getting a very solid VPN package which will work very well for most other purposes.

The KeepSolid VPN is reasonably priced and value for money, particularly if you manage to catch a special offer.  When it comes to VPN shopping, you could certainly do a lot worse.