Le VPN Review

Fast and simple, but streaming is a no go

Le VPN is a fast VPN service that is designed to run as streamlined and as out-of-sight as possible, with a minimalist user interface, a wide selection of servers to choose from, and promises of high-speed anonymity online. While it does live up to many of its promises, most notably on the raw speed and variety of countries to choose from, it’s not perfect – especially when it comes to streaming. We tested and reviewed the service, so read on to see our findings and if it’s right for you.

Setup Process: Fast and simple

Getting setup with Le VPN is amazingly easy. You can pay for the service in a variety of ways, including Bitcoin, for an anonymous setup. It also works well on a variety of platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Whichever payment method or OS you opt for though, once you’ve signed up, you download the client and install it like any other. Then just login with your provided information and hit the connect button. You’ll automatically be connected to the most obvious server for your location.

That’s all you need to know about Le VPN if you want to use it as a basic VPN service, with your IP anonymized online. If you want to go a little further and select individual countries, you’ll have to delve through the somewhat unattractive user interface. It’s only a small point, but every country’s flag is heavily pixelated and text looks a little blurry in some parts of the UI.

Design: Basic and a little obtuse

The Le VPN app is very basic and clunky compared to some of the slick, user-friendly alternatives we’ve tested. It’s a basic white box that conveys a minimum amount of information, including an indicator that shows whether or not you’re connected, a link to manually select a connection location, a big connect button, a notation on your currently-selected VPN protocol, and your current IP address.

Options and the advanced location picker can be accessed from a context menu, along with links to your account and Le VPN support. Available options are fairly basic, and allow you to manually swap between the L2TP and OpenVPN protocols.

Unlike some VPN services, Le VPN has a wide selection of servers you can pick from. There are more than 100 countries to choose from, with multiple locations in most of them. That’s great if you want to appear to be from one country but find that a particular server is overcrowded. There is no way to know which one is the best for you though, as Le VPN gives you no indication of server load, distance from you, or user numbers.

If you want to pick one you have to dive into its various categories which are portrayed in compact lists in a small window, with no ability to drag it into a larger format for ease of use. There are also no grouped listings for torrent servers or streaming optimized servers. In fact, unless you want to watch content on an Italian service, you’ll find the options there are rather limited.

There were no US or UK-based streaming servers when we tested Le VPN. Although the SmartDNS service Le VPN offers does make it possible on occasion to access services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, that’s not guaranteed and it’s locked away in the website’s client area, making it far from easy to access.

You also can’t choose another server while connected to one. You have to disconnect first. That makes server-hopping a bit longwinded compared to most other VPN services.

Performance: Fast outside the United States

Le VPN puts up decent numbers through their European servers, but their US-based servers are abysmally slow. We were able to achieve a maximum download speed of 130.63 Mbps when connected to a UK-based server, but the fastest we could get out of a US-based server was just 32.36 Mbps. If you need to connect to US servers for any reason that requires fast downloads, you may want to look elsewhere.

Even with those low speeds, we were still able to perform basic tasks like web surfing, email, and even streaming video on sites like YouTube and CNN when connected to US-based servers without too much trouble.

Gaming saw occasional random stutters, which in high stake games was problematic. We also found websites and YouTube videos could sometimes take an oddly long time to load.

Streaming: Not great

Netflix is the gold standard of streaming service when it comes to unblocking region-locked content, and you won’t be using Le VPN to do that. We weren’t actually able to stream from Netflix on any of Le VPNs servers either in or outside the United States. We had no luck with Hulu or Amazon Prime Video either, although we were able to get BBC iPlayer working when connected to a UK server.

Privacy Policy: Good but not absolute

Le VPN is a Hong Kong VPN service, so it’s outside of most jurisdictions for Western governments. However, Hong Kong has been known to cooperate with international enforcement agencies in the past – one very notable example is the Kim Dotcom and MegaUpload case.

Le VPN does make a point of storing no activity logs, so they don’t monitor or store records of the sites you visit. They do store some logs though, including the IP you use to connect to the service and timestamps of when you connect and disconnect. That type of information has been used by law enforcement in the past, and even handed over from Hong Kong-based VPNs to US-based authorities, so take Le VPN’s “no log” policy with a grain of salt.

Le VPN’s terms of use do state that if legally obliged to provide information to law enforcement, it will. It also notes (quite clearly) that it will provide your identity to law enforcement if you’re found using any form of malware or performing a DDOS attack using Le VPN’s services.