TorGuard Review

TorGuard was founded in 2012 by VPNetworks LLC. Since then, it’s never been acquired or merged with another company.

It’s founder and CEO, Benjamin Van Pelt, is the only employee we can find on LinkedIn. Florida’s company registration website only lists “Losey PLLC” and “Title Authorized Member” as people associated with VPNetworks LLC.

The company structure is rather unclear. There isn’t a lot of information available about TorGuard’s employees. This isn’t uncommon with VPN service providers, though.

TorGuard states it “does not collect or log any data from its Virtual Private Network (VPN) or Proxy services.” We analyzed the service’s logging policy and can confirm it does not appear to collect user activity data.

The company only collects anonymous statistical network data to determine server loads. TorGuard doesn’t log any information that could be used to identify your web activity.

Proven Not to Log in Copyright Court Case

While TorGuard’s logging policy has never undergone an independent audit, it’s already submitted the ultimate proof of keeping no logs: in a court case.

In March 2022 TorGuard settled a copyright infringement lawsuit involving several major Hollywood movie studios. The studios claimed that TorGuard actively assisted users in bypassing blocks on torrent sites.

While TorGuard may have lost the case, and as a result now blocks all torrenting traffic on its US servers, something far more important emerged from the trial: no identifiable users logs were submitted by TorGuard.

This is the best possible outcome for TorGuard subscribers, and definitive proof that you can trust it not to keep any logs.

Based in Privacy-Unfriendly US

TorGuard is based in Florida. The US is one of the least privacy-friendly countries in the world. This is because the US is a member of the Five Eyes international intelligence-sharing alliance. This means the government can demand surveillance data from companies and share it with an intelligence agency without your knowledge.

TorGuard’s customer support did tell us that it would only comply with an “official court ordered ruling,” but even then, it would only be able to submit “blank hard drives.”

This is because TorGuard has a zero-logs policy, which means it wouldn’t have any user web logs to hand over to US authorities. And since it doesn’t record any customer activity, there’s no way of authorities identifying individual users and their online activity.

TorGuard’s standard subscription is awful for streaming. It didn’t unblock any Netflix libraries and it failed to block other US streaming platforms. However, it does give you access to all UK streaming platforms, including BBC iPlayer and All 4.

TorGuard doesn’t stream Disney+, HBO Max or Hulu

TorGuard was quickly detected and blocked by Disney Plus, HBO Max, and Hulu. You should avoid using TorGuard’s standard plan for streaming on US platforms.

We weren’t able to stream HBO Max using TorGuard’s non-streaming IP addresses.

Hulu didn’t even let us login with the VPN service connected. Instead, we received this reminder:

“Error: Hulu is available in the U.S. only, and cannot be used with an anonymous proxy service.”

TorGuard Is Surprisingly Good at Unblocking UK Platforms

We were pleasantly surprised to see TorGuard did a great job at unblocking BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, and All 4. We didn’t experience any buffering, either.

TorGuard’s generous speeds allowed us to watch BBC iPlayer.

But we don’t know how long it will be working for. Its standard servers are not the most reliable when it comes to streaming.

To test its performance, we connected to TorGuard servers in six different continents and measured our internet speeds before and after. We use a 100Mbps internet connection, similar to what your baseline internet speed at home might be.

Here’s a table showing how TorGuard performed in our speed tests:

TorGuard just manages to break the top 20 VPNs for speed. It offers performance that’s more than strong enough for anything you want to do online, but it is its consistency in almost every global location we test that makes it stand out.

In fact, TorGuard is one of the very best VPNs to choose if you like to connect to a range of locations on various continents. Here’s how its international connections compare to some bigger-name VPN rivals:

Of all the locations we test for, Australia (which is as far away as you can get from where we test in New York, US) is the only location that suffers a significant drop in download speeds.

The TorGuard settings give you an incredible amount of control but aren’t for the faint-hearted.

There’s a lot of advanced settings — though we wonder how many are actually useful on a day-to-day basis. There’s eleven different options for customizing the app’s appearance.

Nevertheless, these additional settings let you add extra layers of security, enable ad blocking, switch to using TorGuard’s proxy servers, or even execute custom scripts.

Also, TorGuard followed ExpressVPN in updating its server infrastructure to purely RAM-based (diskless) servers. This means no data is ever recorded on server disks.

Powerful Encryption

TorGuard uses AES-256-CBC encryption and secure VPN protocols. Alongside OpenVPN, TorGuard fully supports WireGuard on all platforms, and was one of the earlier VPNs to do so.

A strong selling point is that it owns private no-logs DNS servers. This means that it encrypts all your DNS requests (the websites you visit) while using the VPN. Only a few VPN services offer this level of protection, including VyprVPN and StrongVPN.

Complicated Kill Switch

TorGuard includes a VPN kill switch and owns its own DNS servers, ensuring your personal data is protected.

TorGuard’s kill switch can be found under Network in Settings — make sure you turn it on.

The kill switch stops your internet connection entirely in the unlikely event your VPN connection drops. In doing so, your true IP address is never exposed.

TorGuard has a defunct kill switch option under General.

When we tested the Arm killswitches after first successful connection option, we found that it didn’t turn on the kill switch or the app kill feature. Even when we restarted the app, it didn’t come into effect. TorGuard’s customer support team confirmed that this feature was being “phased out.”

And, there are plenty of advanced settings to satisfy even the most security-conscious. The most notable features are:

• App Kill
• Custom proxy servers
• Dedicated IP addresses
• Ad blocking DNS servers

TorGuard Doesn’t Leak Your IP Address or DNS

We ran TorGuard through multiple IP, DNS, and WebRTC leak tests. It passed all the tests and didn’t leak any of our personal information.

We connected to a server and Germany before running the tests. As you can see in the screenshot below, the test didn’t detect our network details in the UK.

In our latest tests, TorGuard didn’t leak any data.

Virus & Malware Checks

We ran a malware and virus check on TorGuard’s app installer to make sure it didn’t contain any viruses. TorGuard was completely clean and virus-free.

TorGuard’s installer contains no malware.

Single Server Breach

In May 2018, TorGuard suffered a security breach.

TorGuard immediately disclosed in a blog post that the attackers had gained root access to the VPN’s servers. However, the attacker was not able to decrypt user traffic or launch DDoS attacks because the key is kept strictly off the server.

TorGuard issued the following statement:

TorGuard VPN or proxy traffic was not compromised during this isolated breach of a single VPN server and no sensitive information was compromised during this incident.

Despite the minimal impact of the server breach, the handling of the situation was questionable. Following the attack, TorGuard and NordVPN were entangled in a bizarre scandal, where TorGuard filed a lawsuit against NordVPN citing hacking and blackmail.

Copycat Code

In July 2015, VPN.AC released a blog post accusing TorGuard of copying code from its browser extension and putting its users at risk of cyber attacks.

TorGuard was using VPN.ac’s geo-location API server address, which meant its users’ IP addresses could’ve been exposed to VPN.ac.

The browser extension has been since updated to remove the security concern.

TorGuard’s Security Initiatives

TorGuard has taken steps towards preventing security breaches:

• Bug bounty program
• Diskless RAM servers

However, there are a few missing initiatives that would further ensure security:

• Infrastructure security audit
• Vendor security assessment
• Warrant canary

TorGuard has a good amount of servers. It operates 3,000+ servers in 50 countries, and 60 cities, covering most popular locations.

In comparison, CyberGhost has an extensive server network, located in 100 countries and 110 cities.

TorGuard hasn’t released the exact number of IP addresses it offers, but it’s going to be over 3,000 – at least one for every server.

There’s plenty of options in the US, including 11 city-level servers, which are all spread out evenly across the country.

We’ve recently seen some downsizing of TorGuard’s server network. There’s now only four countries with SOCKS proxy support: Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

TorGuard used to have multiple servers in Africa, but there’s now just one in South Africa. There’s also two servers in the Middle East, in Dubai and Israel.

If you’re in South America or Africa, or need to connect to those regions, we recommend looking for a better alternative such as PIA. It has servers in four countries in Africa and five countries in South America.

TorGuard’s Windows and macOS apps are identical, which is extremely rare for a VPN. Despite this, they run completely differently on the two operating systems. The macOS client is much faster and didn’t cause any bugs like the Windows’ client did.

Both desktop apps have an incredibly long list of customizable settings and features. A few of the options are a bit redundant and the amount can be intimidating to a VPN beginner.

To improve your user experience, we recommend ticking Remember Credentials on every app before logging in. This saves you having to enter your details each time you connect to a server.

Windows & macOS

TorGuard’s Windows app isn’t the best on the market. Immediately after we installed it, our test device started lagging.

To switch protocols, click on the hamburger icon. You can choose between OpenVPN, WireGuard, and OpenConnect. There’s a ton of different port options, including 443, 80, 9201, and 1198.

If you purchase a residential IP address, dedicated IP address or streaming bundle, make sure to register your new IP address in settings, under Server.

TorGuard is much better on macOS than it is on Windows. It doesn’t cause any lag and connects very fast.

We’re disappointed there isn’t a search bar. But you can filter servers alphabetically and filter servers by specialized type or region.

It’s also missing a couple of options that are on the Windows client, including the option to install TUN/TAP adapters, block outside DNS, and a few design features. But, unless you’re a highly advanced user, we don’t think you’ll miss these features.

TorGuard’s setup process is complicated compared to other VPNs. When we first installed it, we had to enable an uncomfortable number of permissions.

We don’t often see this many requests for permissions on macOS VPN clients. Asking for permission to view System Events and perform actions in the app is a bit concerning.

On the flip side, VPNs must have a certain amount of permissions to run properly and it might use this information to detect bugs or software failures.

iOS & Android

You can choose between OpenVPN (UDP and TCP) and WireGuard (UDP) protocols on Android. In settings, you can also toggle for whether you want the VPN to attempt reconnecting if the connection drops and to turn on IPv6 leak protection. You can also configure your own dedicated IP address, static DNS, or proxy.

However, TorGuard doesn’t offer a kill switch on Android.

TorGuard offers a split tunnel feature called Restricted Apps on Android devices. This gives users the ability to include or exclude apps from their VPN connection, so you can use your original IP address when necessary.

Just like in the desktop apps, you can sort by alphabetically, in reverse alphabetically and by proximity. You can also then filter by specialized server type or region.

The iOS app features far fewer customizable settings and a different design to the other clients.

TorGuard’s iOS app offers more protocol options than its Android counterpart. You can choose between:

• IPSec
• IKEv2
• OpenVPN
• WireGuard

It has a couple of negatives. First, it doesn’t have a functioning kill switch. It didn’t matter whether we toggled on or off, restarted the app or kept it running, it never stopped the network connection when we disconnected.

Secondly, servers are listed either alphabetically, by proximity, or showing your favorites. You can’t filter servers by region or by specialized server type, such as stealth or dedicated IP, like you can in the Android and desktop apps.

Amazon Fire TV App

TorGuard has a user-friendly Fire TV app. You can choose between trusted protocols, WireGuard and OpenVPN.

However, TorGuard’s standard subscription doesn’t unblock any international Netflix libraries. If you have a standard subscription, you’ll only have access to Netflix’s own library of content. We also don’t like that there isn’t a kill switch.

Below is a video of TorGuard’s app in action on our Fire TV Stick:

While TorGuard isn’t good for streaming, it’s a very good VPN for torrenting.The VPN service allows P2P traffic on all its servers (apart from those in the US), and it doesn’t log any user web activity.

In our P2P benchmark tests TorGuard achieved an average download speed of 7.0MiB/s, compared to 10MiB/s without a VPN.

We downloaded our 1GB test file very quickly using TorGuard.

It also features a must-have VPN kill switch and a transparent no-logs policy. All necessary attributes of a torrenting VPN.

Seeders can also use port forwarding with the VPN, although this is limited to ports above 2048. It’s supported through protocols OpenVPN, WireGuard and OpenConnect.

US Servers Banned from BitTorrent

On 13 March 2022, TorGuard settled a case in court with 27 film studio companies which accused it of saving no user logs and promoting torrenting of copyrighted material.

TorGuard settled to “use commercially reasonable efforts to block BitTorrent traffic on its servers in the United States using firewall technology.”

Excerpt from VPNetwork LLC’s Stipulation of Dismissal, stating TorGuard will block BitTorrent traffic on its US servers.

Despite the final outcome of the court case, there are three key takeaways which affirm TorGuard’s status as the one of the best VPNs for torrenting.

First, TorGuard did not expose any customer data during the course of the legal battle, which means it stuck to its no-logs policy and protected its users’ data. If a VPN has an intrusive logging policy, it is not safe to use for torrenting.

TorGuard has not been forced to log network usage data. Due to the nature of shared IPs and related hardware technicalities of how TorGuard’s network was built it is impossible for us to do so.

Second, TorGuard is only taking steps to block BitTorrent traffic on its US servers. This means users are free to continue P2P activity on servers in other countries. If you’re in the US, there are nearby servers in Canada or Mexico.

Third, TorGuard is not the only VPN to be sued by major film studios and settle to block traffic on US servers. In January 2022 VPN Unlimited similarly agreed to block BitTorrent and even more torrenting websites, including PirateBay and Popcorn Time.

How Does TorGuard Compare to Other Top VPNs for Torrenting?

This table shows how TorGuard compares to other VPNs for important torrenting features like P2P speed, server count and features.

TorGuard has VPN applications for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and even Linux. Very few VPN services offer a native Linux client with a graphical user interface.

You can also set up TorGuard on your home router, or you can buy a pre-configured router from TorGuard’s website. This lets all devices in your home use the VPN connection.

There’s also a custom TorGuard VPN app for Amazon’s Fire TV Stick. While it’s not very to stream popular content platforms, it’s well-suited for watching Kodi streams anonymously.

You can also use TorGuard with a wide range of games consoles and streaming devices, by connecting them to a router that’s running the VPN software.

However, there are VPN services that have a Smart DNS tool, which TorGuard doesn’t. Smart DNS lets you change the DNS settings of devices such as Apple TV, Xbox and PlayStation, with those of a VPN server.

Using Smart DNS is a lot easier than setting up a VPN on your router. We recommend using Surfshark VPN on devices that don’t support native VPN apps.

A TorGuard subscription also comes with extensions for Chrome and Firefox browsers. Both extensions have the exact same layout, settings, and number of server locations.

There’s a huge selection of countries to choose from (43 in total) and even some city-level servers. We’re pleasantly surprised to see it’s one of the few VPN browser extensions that fully encrypts your traffic (using SSL). This means it’s much more secure than other browser extensions which are just proxies.

In settings, you can also enable TorGuard’s DNS filtering ad block tool and exclude certain websites from the proxy connection.

All these features worked well in our latest tests. Nevertheless, we would still recommend connecting to TorGuard’s VPN as it gives you greater flexibility in choosing protocols and adjusting the settings.

Stunnel Obfuscation

TorGuard uses the open-source obfuscation tool Stunnel to help it get around heavy censorship in authoritarian countries like China and Turkey. TorGuard can sometimes work in China and bypass the country’s crackdown on VPNs. This is thanks to its proprietary Stealth VPN protocol, Stunnel.

Stunnel wraps traffic in a layer of TLS encryption to make it harder to identify as VPN traffic. You can enable Stunnel by ticking a box in the TorGuard app’s settings.

You can connect to its Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, or US servers for better internet speeds out of China.

Just beware that TorGuard’s website is currently blocked in China, so you’ll need to download the VPN before you travel.

The Stunnel protocol also works in other highly-censored countries like Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Dedicated Streaming IP Address

You can pay an extra $7.99 per month for a dedicated streaming IP address, which is more likely to get around streaming geo-restrictions.

However, this is poor value as other VPNs, including CyberGhost, offer multiple streaming servers included in their standard pricing.

Additionally, if you sign up to the Pro plan, you get a dedicated IP address for free with your subscription.

Streaming Residential IP Address

If you want almost guaranteed access to geo-blocked streaming content, you can pay an extra $13.99 per month for a residential IP address in the US.

A residential IP address is rented from an ISP based in the country. It makes the connection look much more authentic and difficult for streaming platforms to detect.

It can also improve your browsing experience as you can often bypass annoying captchas.

However, it’s not the cheapest option if you want an annual subscription. Windscribe offers residential IP addresses to its premium subscribers for a one-time annual fee of $96.00, which translates to $8.00 per month. You can also choose from more countries, such as Canada, Germany, Spain and the UK.

TorGuard’s Streaming Bundle

TorGuard offers a streaming bundle that includes a standard subscription plus two dedicated IP addresses for streaming.

TorGuard’s streaming bundle is expensive for what you get.

Despite the claim it lets you “Stream What You Want, Whenever You Want,” you’re restricted to only two IPs addresses in either the US, UK, or Japan.

We don’t recommend purchasing the bundle because you only get access to two countries’ streaming platforms. Whereas with other VPNs, you can get access to multiple countries, all without having to pay for an add-on.

Additionally, you only get dedicated IP addresses, not residential IP addresses, so you could still encounter geo-blocks.

Here’s a quick table comparing TorGuard’s streaming bundle with ExpressVPN’s standard subscription.