With the ever-growing threat of cyber-attacks and major companies having data breaches, it seems like now more than ever is the right time to get yourself a VPN, a Virtual Private Network. Today, we’re going to be taking a look at FREEDOME from a company called F-Secure.
In case you are unaware of what a VPN is, I’ll do a quick rundown of what a VPN is and why you may want or need one since we have been through it previously in one of our many other VPN reviews!
What is a VPN?
So a VPN is a form of software that will basically help you keep your connection to the internet SECURE. It does this by encrypting your traffic and hiding your IP address using a tunnelling protocol, which pretty much makes a nice little tunnel for all of your data to pass through. Keeping it away from prying eyes.
It can also add multiple routes for your data to pass through, which will obviously decrease available speeds. However, if your data is harder to find and track, then it’s likely any potential hackers will ignore you and move onto some other schmuck without a VPN, won’t they? More fool them!
If you’re not particularly bothered about the fact people may want to steal your data for whatever their reasons may be, then worry not because there is still a reason for you to look into acquiring a VPN. That reason would be to get around GEOLOCKS.
If you’ve been flicking through Netflix and nothing has quite taken your fancy, what about turning on a VPN to say you’re in the states and browsing their catalogue instead? OR have you ever been scrolling Twitter and seen a video of a highlight from a recent UFC event, only for it to say this video is not available in your country? Well, a VPN will solve that too!
How does FREEDOME fair?
Now onto the review. I want to disclose before I get into the actual review, I was given a 365-day subscription to FREEDOME by F-Secure. However, those of you that have read my reviews will know that even with freebies, I won’t pull my punches and if I think this service is terrible, then I’ll be fully transparent!
If you’ve ever used a VPN before from any of the major providers, then this service will be familiar to you. F-Secure have set their FREEDOME app up in a way so that anybody could pick it up and use it pretty easily. While it may not be as easy on the eyes as some other software, it won’t take you long to get on your merry way blocking those pesky hackers snooping on your data. If I WANT you to see my obsession with K-Pop I’ll tell you myself, OKAY?!
One downfall of using a VPN is that you tend to sacrifice SPEED for safety, running a test on my 1GB download internet speed with the FREEDOME VPN freshly switched on, I got the following speeds. I’d say that’s perfectly acceptable. I mean a few years ago this was the absolute bleeding edge of broadband speed so, I’d accept running it almost all the time at this point given the low ping. Safety first right?
To test the speeds I played a few games of ranked Rocket League, I know, potentially risking my rank for the cause?! A true martyr. ANYWAY, it was absolutely spot on. My ping was constantly around 30 and I never suffered any spikes, though it didn’t make me a better player, a man can dream though right?
So it passed the gaming test, next I tried the download test. I picked a game at random from my Steam library. Destiny 2 will be the guinea pig. My download speed peaked at 33MB/s which, if I’m being completely honest is 100% fine with me, I’ve been spoiled by having the luxury of downloading games at 90-110MB/s these days. However, I know most of my mates get these speeds DAILY, WITHOUT a VPN.
So, performance here is absolutely solid honestly. Of course, this will vary depending on your own internet speed too, if you only get 5MB/s downloading games usually then you’re not going to suddenly be getting 33MB/s because of the VPN. Again, I have gigabit download speeds. Just rubbing it in.
So far so good, next thing is availability. FREEDOME is available on windows, the apple store and the google play store, so you can protect all your devices. But what good is that if the cost is out of this world? Well, don’t you worry! FREEDOME is absolutely priced competitively. Right now on the F-Secure site, for FREEDOME you can pick up a 12-month subscription for £24.99 for 3 devices or £49.99 for 7 devices, if you want to bump that to a 24-month subscription for 7 devices then you’re only looking at paying an extra £20. Not bad.
F-Secure does offer a few other online protection services also, but if you’re wanting FREEDOME in particular, your options are to get it on its own or you can get it included in the TOTAL package. If their other services do tickle your fancy you can pick up various subscriptions for their TOTAL package. The features of which can be seen in the image below, the subscriptions available are 12 months for 1 device at £39.99, 12 months for 3 devices at £49.99 or 12 months for 5 devices at £59.99. Again, not bad at all.
Overall thoughts of FREEDOME VPN?
I’ve experienced a fair few different VPNs from some of the biggest names in the business and honestly, I’ve enjoyed my experience with F-Secure so far. Given its very competitive pricing, it’s one that I could absolutely consider recommending to a friend or picking up a package with more devices so I could install it on the kid’s phones/tablets and PCs. Again, safety first right?
Our F-Secure TOTAL giveaway
That’s that! Now, if you’ve read this review and you like the sound of F-Secure and think their products are the ones for you, or maybe you just want to give it a go for yourself before potentially committing to a subscription. Then you are in luck as we are currently hosting a GIVEAWAY for a 1-year subscription of their F-Secure TOTAL service, which is their FULL package of online protection, featuring; safe internet security, their FREEDOME VPN and a password manager.
To enter just follow the link HERE and have a look through the ways you can enter on the Gleam giveaway at the of the post!
If you’re not the chosen one but you still want to give services from F-Secure a try then you can currently get a fully unlimited 5 day free trial of FREEDOME on the F-Secure website. OR you can get a free trial of the TOTAL package for 30 days, interesting! Until next time, stay safe out there and GOOD LUCK!
For even more software reviews like this, click right HERE.
3 comments
A decent VPN for sure. Does it work in China though?
The use of VPN apps (including FREEDOME VPN) is restricted in China. Due to the policy of the Chinese government, VPN connections are blocked in their network for both local residents and foreign people travelling in China. This prevents FREEDOME VPN from working in China.
F secure had many improvements for years and great expansion!