VPN Client for Mac review

Barely even works

VPN Client for Mac
(Image: © Future)

TechRadar Verdict

No matter how many chances we gave VPN Client for Mac, it simply refused to connect, with the exception of a couple of instances. And judging by the App Store reviews, we're not the first to encounter this issue. On paper, it isn’t a terrible solution - it’s affordable, supports torrenting, has servers in many countries around the world, and supposedly can unblock Netflix. That said, you’d have to make peace with some of your information being logged and lack of customer support.

Pros

  • +

    It’s cheap

  • +

    Lots of subscription options

  • +

    Server network scattered all over the world

  • +

    7-day free trial

Cons

  • -

    Barely even works

  • -

    Some logging

  • -

    Only supports Mac

  • -

    Basic app

  • -

    No live chat

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As its name implies, VPN Client for Mac is a Mac-specific VPN service. The apps haven't been updated in a while, which might explain the serious difficulties we and other users encountered.

Price

This service is available under five subscription options that differ in length. The cheapest is the three-year Premium plan that costs $89.99 or $2.49/month.

Other options include the one-year Professional plan, three-month Standard plan, one-month Economy plan and seven-day Vacation subscription. The company also offers personal VPN servers.

Every subscription option supports VPN connections on up to five Mac devices. And before making up your mind, you can take the platform for a spin thanks to the seven-day free trial.

The provider also claims that “in case you are not completely satisfied with our services, you are entitled to a full refund”, unless you made in-app purchases in the App Store, in which case you’ll have to take it up with Apple. It doesn’t say for how long this guarantee remains valid.

The only accepted method is credit/debit card, as it’s charged through Apple’s App Store.

VPN Client for Mac

(Image credit: Future)

Alternatives

Certainly, any of the well-known VPN providers would be a better choice than VPN Client for Mac, including ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Surfshark, or CyberGhost

First of all, none of them focus on just one platform, but offer gorgeous and feature-rich apps for all the major operating systems and devices (and then some). Secondly, they allow you to contact their customer support in any way you see fit and will respond almost instantly, in addition to providing detailed information on their websites. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, they connect to whichever server you want, each time, with no error messages or complaints.

Streaming

This VPN vendor claims to be able to unblock the localized Netflix, Hulu, and BBC iPlayer libraries but, as we had so much trouble connecting, it was impossible to test whether this is actually true.

About the company

This VPN was developed by a company called Nektony Limited, with a head office in Hong Kong and its whole development team working from Ukraine.

This VPN vendor has 90+ servers in 57 locations around the world, including in Israel, Cyprus, Croatia, Moldova, Isle of Man, Iceland, Chile, Israel, Turkey, South Africa, and others. While the number of VPN servers is small, they are well spread across the planet.

Privacy and encryption

There isn’t much technical information on the website but from what we could see in the app, this provider deploys IKEv2, OpenVPN, Wise TCP, and Wise UDP connection protocols.

Torrenting seems to be allowed as there’s an article on the best practices for torrenting that include using this VPN. This was confirmed by customer support which told us there are servers specifically designed for P2P download.

In its Privacy Policy, this provider states that it collects “encrypted information about a number of connected devices for each account, as the maximum permitted amount is limited”. It may also ask you to collect information about your email address, connection type, IP address, location, and OS version.

It also adds that its software uses the KeepSolid Inc. platform of VPN servers, so any data collected by Nektony may also be collected by KeepSolid Inc.

VPN Client for Mac

(Image credit: Future)

Support

As it hints in its name, this VPN service only supports macOS devices. At the time of writing, the app has a rating of 3 stars (out of 5) as judged by 10 users. Its version history shows it was last updated two years before this review was written, which means the provider may have just given up on it.

If you need help with anything, you can try the FAQ section or the help center, but these weren’t terribly helpful in our case as they don’t have as much information as some. This provider also has a blog with the last post from March 2019, as well as accounts on Twitter (last post in May 2019) and Facebook (last post in May 2020).

You might also try a more direct route, via email or support ticket. We tried this method and got a response when asking general questions about the platform. However, we never received a response when we asked about the connection problems. 

Speed and experience

VPN Client was easy to set up. We only had to follow the provided link to the App Store and everything was done in a jiffy. However, our problems started when we tried to actually use it. Whichever server we clicked on, we’d get an error message. With some tinkering in the device’s settings, we managed to force the connection a couple of times but only to one server: Milan, Italy. Customer support ignored our plea for help.

On a testing connection of 88.61Mbps and from a physical location in Southeast Europe, the server in Italy gave us a measly 16.70Mbps, so we wouldn’t expect anything better from other locations (even if we did manage to connect).

Verdict

VPN Client for Mac would only work for us on a rare occasion, we didn’t get any help from the customer support, and the app was last updated two years before we wrote this review. Even if you somehow get it to work, we doubt you’ll be impressed - the app is pretty basic and it only supports Mac OS.

Instead, we suggest a truly you opt for a leading VPN service that will provide the best possible experience with well-designed app, thousands of server and live chat any time you need assistance.

Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.