CyberGhost Review

CyberGhost is one of the top VPN services in our list of the best VPNs. It protects user online privacy with industry-standard encryption and offers various specialty servers for efficient performance in torrenting and streaming. CyberGhost also offers a 45-day money-back guarantee, which is much longer than the standard 1-month guarantees from other providers. However, not all is perfect.

9.5

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Is CyberGhost VPN safe?

CyberGhost safeguards your data with 256-bit AES encryption and strong security features like an automatic kill switch. Additionally, independent audits and market-standard WireGuard protocol show that your data with CyberGhost is safe and impossible to crack.

With a variety of features aimed at protection and a better browsing experience, CyberGhost is a truly secure premium VPN provider.

Stay secure online with CyberGhost

If you care about security, like me, CyberGhost has you covered. It uses a kill switch to block internet access if the VPN connection drops. Plus, it offers RAM servers for fast data processing and improved security – they don’t store data when powered off. Additionally, CyberGhost includes dark web monitoring to scan for mentions of your personal info, helping to prevent identity theft by alerting you to any risks.

Encryption and tunneling protocols

CyberGhost uses AES-256 and ChaCha20 encryption to ensure your connection remains safe. AES encryption is now considered the strongest nowadays. It’s used by US government entities such as the NSA, military, and many others for secure communication and data storage. Even Google employs AES-256 encryption to protect all stored data, ensuring robust security measures.

CyberGhost supports these tunneling protocols:

• WireGuard – a next-gen tunneling protocol known for being extremely fast and secure. Most VPNs are already phasing out older options and adding support for this one. It’s nice to see that CyberGhost isn’t late to the party, with WireGuard available on all applications.
• IKEv2 – one of the older protocols, provides good compatibility with most devices. Especially good on mobile and available on CyberGhost’s iOS app.
• OpenVPN (UDP/TCP) – still the most popular VPN protocol. CyberGhost allows you to force TCP instead of UDP mode, which is the default.

Automatic kill switch

Just like most premium VPN services, CyberGhost has a kill switch. You can turn it on from the Privacy settings tab.

I encountered some server issues during tests. The connections were a bit unstable, so this was an opportunity to test its kill switch in action. I can confirm that it was successfully triggered whenever the link to the server was lost.

However, I found it a bit frustrating that you can’t customize the kill switch on a per-app basis. Also, you can’t turn it off on mobile devices. By contrast, NordVPN allows you to enable either a system-wide or an app kill switch, which allows for more flexibility, and the mobile kill switch is also optional. You don’t have to always be connected to a VPN. Thus, CyberGhost still has room to improve its kill switch on both desktop and mobile apps.

Privacy and logging

CyberGhost doesn’t log traffic data or connection logs. This has been proved by the 2022 September independent audit, made by Deloitte, which also audited Surfshark.

The company is based in Romania, which, although a member of the European Union, is a privacy-friendly jurisdiction. Data retention laws pushed by the EU were declared unconstitutional in Romania. Also, Romania doesn’t belong to the Fourteen Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance.

However, there still are some concerns about this provider worth considering, such as app permissions and user IP tracking in ‘extreme’ cases.

For example, in 2016 the free CyberGhost mobile app was flagged as malicious because of an unnecessary amount of permissions required for users. The free app is no longer available. Nevertheless, the current CyberGhost mobile app still has a long list of trackers and permissions, which include accessing precise location information.

Additionally, CyberGhost does log certain user data such as hardware information, and also offers law enforcement to activate a limited tracking feature for specific user IP addresses, which is not exactly the same as having an absolute no-logs no-tracking policy like NordVPN or Surfshark has.

CyberGhost servers and locations

Overall, CyberGhost VPN has approximately 11500 servers in 100 countries. So, it’s one of the providers with the biggest fleets. In comparuson, NordVPN has 6400 servers in 111 countries and Surfshark 3200 servers in 100 locations.

In terms of different region coverage, CyberGhost isn’t that different from most VPN service providers:

The best coverage is in Europe, with the Americas taking the second spot. The takeaway is that CyberGhost’s huge fleet allows it to provide coverage even in areas less favored by VPNs, like Africa. However, remember that some servers are virtual, meaning they aren’t physically located in the country. This is the case with Argentina, Portugal, Indonesia, and Egypt, for example.

All things considered, CyberGhost’s server fleet is definitely its strong point. This can be extremely useful if you’re located further from Europe, the Americas, or the Far East.

Does CyberGhost work in China?

Yes, CyberGhost VPN works in China and can bypass its frustrating Great Firewall. You don’t need to do anything more than register with a valid email address and a password to use the CyberGhost app there.

For me, it seems a bit too simplistic, as I know that in China, many VPN providers are blocked. Some, like NordVPN, require a multi-step configuration process to work properly, which proves that bypassing China’s firewalls is not just a walk in the park.

That said, our research team can’t really test whether CyberGhost works in China without being there physically. The support says it works, but our gut feeling says it’s a little too simple of a registering process for such a country. Make of that what you will.

CyberGhost features

CyberGhost VPN provides many extra features despite the service’s ridiculously affordable price tag. Plus, these tools are far from one-dimensional, warranting detailed descriptions, which you can find below.

• Specialized servers – servers optimized for achieving specific tasks
• Dedicated IP – a server and IP address exclusive to you
• Ad blocker – a tool for blocking online ads and other nuisances
• NoSpy servers – provider-owned servers for maximum privacy
• Smart rules – a feature for automating various CyberGhost behaviors

Specialized servers

CyberGhost VPN offers specialized servers for torrenting, streaming, and gaming, which not all providers include. This feature is user-friendly, making it accessible even for less tech-savvy VPN users.

• Downloading servers are optimized for torrenting with P2P clients like uTorrent, located in countries where torrenting isn’t heavily penalized for faster download speeds. In my testing, CyberGhost’s torrenting performance was average. VPNs like NordVPN often provide better speeds with dedicated P2P servers.

• Streaming servers are tailored for accessing platforms like Netflix and Hulu with optimized speed and stability. They are optimized to bypass geo-restrictions and provide stable, fast connections for high-quality streaming. During in-house tests, these servers reliably unlocked content without interruptions, offering a smooth streaming experience. For example, while streaming Netflix, CyberGhost maintained 86% of initial speeds, which is decent, but NordVPN performed better, retaining 90% of baseline speeds.

• Gaming servers are designed to minimize latency, which affects how quickly your internet responds. High latency can cause lag, disrupting your online gaming. I tested CyberGhost’s gaming servers and found they increased our latency by 10 ms compared to playing without a VPN, which is acceptable. The connection remained stable throughout our testing. CyberGhost stands out as one of the few VPNs with dedicated gaming servers, unlike NordVPN, which offers the fastest server option but not specifically for gaming.

Dedicated IP

This feature is primarily useful for people who need to whitelist specific IPs to allow connection to your website or server. When you purchase a dedicated IP option from CyberGhost for an extra , you get assigned a unique IP address just for you. That way, you can be sure that no one else is using it. It’s a perfect solution for those needing a consistent IP address for seeding torrent files or reliable streaming.

Generally, dedicated IP isn’t considered a privacy feature, and it won’t bolster your anonymity. After all, it’s easier to track you down if you’re always using the same IP.

However, I found that CyberGhost uses a unique token system that allows complete anonymity. You will receive a token that you need to activate in the special Dedicated IP section of your app.

Your dedicated IP can’t lead back to your email or VPN account. In turn, the company has no records of dedicated IP ownership, so by losing the token, you’re losing the subscription as well.

However, like NordVPN and Surfshark, CyberGhost doesn’t just give out dedicated IPs for free. The price for CyberGhost’s dedicated IPs is from $2.50 to $5.00 a month on top of your subscription. You can choose from options in the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore, Japan, or Australia, which is a lot of locations, but still less than 25 NordVPN dedicated IP locations.

Ad-blocker

CyberGhost claims their ad-block feature will protect you from annoying ads that are following you through the web. So, in theory, this should make your load times faster, and help you avoid malware distributed through ad networks. Plus, it should save data on mobile devices by stopping the ads from loading.

It blocks some ads, but NordVPN’s Threat Protection works better. For example, I tested the CyberGhost ad blocker with Hulu, and the feature didn’t work as expected – it didn’t block ads or show any detection of them. With CyberGhost, many ads remained visible, including banners, gifs, and even ads on YouTube videos, while NordVPN TP managed to block all of them. Thus, if you’re looking for a VPN with an excellent ad blocker, CyberGhost is not the best choice.

NoSpy servers

NoSpy servers are fully managed by CyberGhost, which means that no third party has access to them. This provides the user with more advanced privacy measures. The NoSpy servers are located in Romania and come with an extended bandwidth for faster speeds. They also support P2P connections, so you’ll be able to torrent without any fear of being found out. No other VPN has an equivalent option, although NordVPN’s obfuscated and RAM-only servers could be compared.

Smart rules

Smart rules is a feature that helps to automate CyberGhost. I liked this tool, as once configured, the app will do some tasks itself, saving you clicking time.

Some rules can be as simple as starting CyberGhost when the system reboots. It’s also possible to specify a particular country or server to which CyberGhost should automatically connect.

You can also take it to the next level by automating which programs automatically start when CyberGhost initiates a connection. That way, you don’t even need to wait around for a connection confirmation. The app that you’re using will automatically start after your VPN app starts.

You can configure the Smart rule further by indicating to trigger your setup on unsafe Wi-Fi networks. Plus, there are options to allow particular websites, which effectively works as a split tunneling.

While this feature might seem like a novelty when compared to other top providers, the fact is that VPNs like NordVPN or ExpressVPN simply have all the same features, just separately and under different names. For example, NordVPN offers auto-connect for unsafe networks and has a separate split tunneling feature. Therefore, CyberGhost’s Smart Rules are not really that extraordinary, although definitely a useful set of features to have.

Pricing: how much does CyberGhost cost?

Right now, the most affordable CyberGhost plan is $2.03 per month, available with the 2 Years + 2 Months subscription. If you opt for monthly billing, it will cost you $12.99 each month. The 6 Months plan falls in between at $6.99 per month.

CyberGhost falls on the lower end of the price range, especially for its longer subscription plans, making it one of the more affordable VPN options available. Additionally, you can try this provider with a 7-day risk-free trial.

CyberGhost has a good refund policy: they offer a 45-day refund window for plans of 6 months or longer, and a 14-day refund window for monthly plans. This policy is straightforward, with no troubleshooting required before issuing refunds.

It’s nice that you can choose anonymous payment options to pay for your subscription. Aside from credit cards, Amazon Pay, and PayPal, paying with cryptocurrencies is possible. In my experience testing CyberGhost with a one-month subscription paid via Bitcoin, obtaining a refund was relatively straightforward.

Speed performance: is CyberGhost fast?

In theory, CyberGhost is a solid choice if you’re looking for a speedy VPN because it includes WireGuard. However, our test results show that the service isn’t utilizing the protocol to its fullest potential.

• Baseline: 500 Mbps download / 500 Mbps upload – WireGuard

During in-house manual speed tests, CyberGhost returned fairly impressive numbers and didn’t have severe speed impacts (at least on the surface). Despite this, our testing experience was far from ideal because web pages loaded fairly slowly and we encountered frequent connectivity issues and errors. Thus, it leads us to the conclusion that there are some issues with how CyberGhost implements WireGuard.

CyberGhost performance with other protocols

Let’s take a look at how fast CyberGhost is with the other protocols:

• Baseline: 460 Mbps download / 470 Mbps upload

• IKEv2 – 238 Mbps / 160 Mbps
• OpenVPN (UDP) – 46 Mbps / 174 Mbps
• OpenVPN (TCP) – 109 Mbps / 76 Mbps

IKEv2 stands out as the runner-up to WireGuard. Both upload and download speeds were relatively high, although the 50% speed loss is nothing to brag about. Meanwhile, OpenVPN was exceptionally slow compared to the rest.

Overall, here’s how CyberGhost tunneling protocols compare to each other in terms of speed, security, and connection stability:

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All in all, CyberGhost is pretty slow, especially when compared to a performance giant like NordVPN, which has a 90% original speed retention rate. CyberGhost offers speeds that will be good enough for most tasks and usage cases but not much more. In terms of protocols, you should stick to IKEv2, as the WireGuard performance is not the best, at least for now.

CyberGhost compatibility

Here are all the devices, operating systems, and browsers that CyberGhost is compatible with:

Interface and ease of use

CyberGhost VPN works just like any other worthwhile virtual private network, making it easy to secure your online connection with minimal clicks.

Upon opening the app, you’re greeted with the option to immediately connect to the best server location by clicking the large power button. Usually, this will be a server in your current or neighboring country. Once connected, all your online traffic will become invisible to your ISP and other unwelcome onlookers.

Naturally, you can select a preferred country by clicking the “Best server location” button and picking one from there. Otherwise, you’ll need to extend the app by clicking the arrow on the left. Then, you’ll see all possible connection options, including the wide range of server categories CyberGhost offers.

Let’s take a closer look at what CyberGhost apps offer and how they compare to each other:

CyberGhost VPN on Windows

The Windows client looks and feels great. It’s unobtrusive and doesn’t have lots to be confused by, making it just the thing for less tech-savvy users.

With that said, it could use some polish. For example, sometimes, a fallback feature that automatically connects you to OpenVPN if your selected protocol fails would kick in. Although it’s a useful addition, I’d like to see more customization options regarding it. Especially since they have faster tunneling protocols.

At some points, the app was unable to connect to the selected server. The connection status indicator didn’t help much. There were no indicators of whether the connection was initiated, failed, or timed out.

CyberGhost’s search bar displays only countries and not cities. However, when you open a server list of a country, only the city names are shown. In turn, the search bar doesn’t let you browse through the countries anymore.

All in all, the app looks nice, intuitive, and rather feature-rich. As a matter of fact, it feels like one of the best apps for new VPN users.

CyberGhost VPN on macOS

The Mac client of CyberGhost VPN is similar to Windows, but has some improvements.

For example, there are options to turn on data compression to reduce download size, which is useful if you have data caps as part of your Internet contract. Also, just like in the Windows version, you can block malicious ads and websites.

Automated HTTPS redirect forces websites to load in a more secure version (provided that such a version even exists).

However, the app isn’t issue-free. For example, the kill switch on macOS could work better. When you wake the system from a sleep state, the client successfully establishes a VPN connection, but there’s still no Internet access.

CyberGhost VPN on Linux

CyberGhost’s experience on Linux isn’t as good as it could be. Everything from the setup to use is done in such a way that is either inconvenient or even counterproductive.

To install the app on Fedora 33, you have to log in to the website and select your distribution’s exact version. However, you’re still given the Fedora 32 version, no matter which option you pick.

To run it, you have to run an install script, which doesn’t work because it finds that your OS version is invalid. You have to manually enter the commands that the script should have performed automatically to install it.

However, if you still have Fedora 32, you won’t have any problems installing CyberGhost.

We were finally able to set it up for PopOS, and, thankfully, experienced (almost) no bugs while using it. Nevertheless, the app’s functionality could be more intuitive in general, as the command lines are a bit too long for my liking.

Cyberghost VPN mobile apps

CyberGhost VPN on iOS and Android are mirror images of each other. They both have a pretty minimal design and offer similar features.

On Android, in terms of tunneling protocols, you’re given a choice between OpenVPN and WireGuard. On iOS, it’s a choice between WireGuard and IKEv2. This means that, on average, iOS users will enjoy better speeds, at least until CyberGhost developers fix WireGuard.

On Android, the app asks for location permission, which is somewhat unusual, but it’s used for reading the name of the Wi-Fi hotspot that you’re connected to. You shouldn’t read into it too much. If you don’t want to give any permissions, you can still use the app as much as you want – the only feature that won’t work is Automatic Wi-Fi Protection.

Overall, CyberGhost mobile clients work a bit better than their desktop counterparts, and the app design works great on mobile in general.

CyberGhost VPN browser extensions

CyberGhost also has free browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave, and Opera. So if you’re a subscriber, there’s not much to gain from using one that you wouldn’t get from the app.

You can choose from four countries – the US, Romania, Netherlands, and Germany. The browser add-on will bypass some simpler blocks but don’t expect this to work with streaming websites. There are no other features, and your traffic is only encrypted with SSL.

Customer support

CyberGhost has a lot of customer support options. When we contacted their customer support about Linux issues via the 24/7 live chat, we quickly got to an agent. The responses were quick, professional, and related to the issues at hand. If the problem proves to be too difficult to solve right away, CyberGhost customer support will create a ticket and get back to you with a solution.

On their customer support portal, you can find guides and FAQs to solve your issues. They have a pretty large catalog of various tutorials, which covers even devices like game consoles and Kodi devices. It will be very useful for new users who have only recently started using VPNs.

Is CyberGhost good for streaming?

Since CyberGhost has specialized servers for streaming, it’s straightforward to find one that unblocks any given media platform. During in-house tests, CyberGhost managed to unblock every single streaming service that the research team and I tried. Thus, it easily earns a top spot among the best VPNs for streaming and is surely on the same level as NordVPN or Surfshark when it comes to unblocking content.

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Unblocking Netflix with CyberGhost

The specialized server for Netflix unblocked the US library on the first try. However, Netflix was very slow, and I had to wait around for a couple of minutes while the search results were loading. However, once the show started, there were no issues, so it may also be the fault of Netflix.

Unblocking other streaming platforms with CyberGhost

CyberGhost also works quite well with other streaming platforms. For example, we could easily access and stream content on Max, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video.

BBC iPlayer also worked without a hitch and was a lot faster than Netflix. There were no errors, but I had to switch to a streaming server optimized for BBC iPlayer. The same can be said about geo-blocked YouTube videos.

All in all, CyberGhost is a really good VPN for streaming.

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