CyberGhost VPN: Safe, Budget-Friendly, and Great for Streaming Trials

After reviewing CyberGhost’s privacy policy, we were comfortable using it despite some data collection for “statistical purposes.” The data is not identifiable and is anonymized.

We’re also reassured that CyberGhost has invested in a diskless server network. Because data is stored in RAM, it can’t be seized from physical hardware.

We like CyberGhost’s commitment to publishing transparency reports detailing the number of legal requests it receives. In 2022, CyberGhost also commissioned Deloitte to audit its logging practices, which confirmed a privacy-friendly policy.

This is reassuring, but we do have concerns. The transparency reports do not specify how many legal requests CyberGhost cooperated with. CyberGhost also refuses to share the full audit report, “to ensure none of the audit results are taken out of context and misunderstood.”

We’ve criticized PureVPN for withholding audits, so it’s only fair to criticize CyberGhost as well.

If you’re a privacy purist and want to minimize all risks, we recommend PIA. It has proven its no-logs policy in multiple court cases.

Romania Jurisdiction: Safe or Not?

Who Is Behind CyberGhost?

Over the years, we’ve tested CyberGhost with up to 120 global streaming sites and found it unblocks 77 of them.

We’ve been impressed by its unblocking overall, especially with optimized servers in countries like Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, and Poland, which we used to access local services like CBC Gem (Canada), Canal+ (France), and Joyn (Germany).

It’s especially strong for UK streaming, reliably working with BBC iPlayer, Channel 4, ITVX, and the UK Netflix library.

CyberGhost can switch between 10 Netflix libraries, which is more than most VPNs can unblock. Only a few, like Windscribe and ExpressVPN, unblock more libraries.

That said, it misses our top list for streaming. It doesn’t unblock DAZN, and it unblocks fewer overall services than ExpressVPN (104), NordVPN (102), Surfshark (96), and PrivateVPN (84).

We ran CyberGhost through a series of security tests. It’s safe to install and use, free of malware and viruses, and its apps didn’t leak WebRTC or DNS requests.

Using Wireshark, we confirmed that CyberGhost encrypts traffic and obfuscates data via several protocols, including the best option: WireGuard with ChaCha20.

This means CyberGhost is doing what a VPN should.

Kill Switch Issue

Since we started using CyberGhost, its network has steadily expanded to 100 countries.

Most servers are in Europe, North America, and Asia. Thanks to its wide network and multi-city choices, we recommend CyberGhost for countries like Germany, France, Indonesia, and South Korea.

It has also made progress in Oceania, significantly increasing its server count in Australia and New Zealand.

We like that the server list shows whether a server is physical or virtual. Many VPNs aren’t transparent about this, but some users care.

Only 30 countries use virtual locations, which is impressive for a network as large as CyberGhost’s.

While some prefer a fully physical network, we think limited virtual locations are a reasonable trade-off to achieve broader global coverage, especially in regions where deploying hardware is difficult, like the Middle East and Africa. And you don’t have to use them.

We’d prefer if CyberGhost owned its entire network. It currently rents many servers. That’s not unusual, but VPNs like IPVanish show the privacy benefits of a fully owned, well-maintained network.

Installation & Setup

Interface & Ease of Use

Day-to-Day Experience

In terms of anonymity, CyberGhost is solid for torrenting. Its privacy policy protects you from copyright trolls, and the kill switch helps prevent accidental IP exposure.

But speeds are an issue. Despite most of its network being optimized for P2P, we recorded an average bitrate of only 3.9MiB/s—a 61% speed loss.

For context, the best VPNs for torrenting lose less than 10%. PIA, for example, averages 9.6MiB/s.

We felt this on a local server: a 20GB file took 81 minutes to download. Without a VPN, it took 32 minutes. Using PIA, it took 33 minutes—only one minute longer.

You also can’t improve torrenting speeds with port forwarding. CyberGhost doesn’t offer it, citing privacy reasons.

While CyberGhost reduces risk, we recommend a more powerful VPN for torrenting.

CyberGhost has apps for every major platform, and its browser extensions are notable because they aren’t just proxies—they actually encrypt your data. They also work well with streaming sites, including US Netflix.

To rank higher for device compatibility, CyberGhost could create a router app. Right now you must install it manually. This is common with most VPNs, but after using ExpressVPN’s seamless router app, we hold others to the same standard.

We were also surprised by the modest seven-device limit. Once you exceed it, you’ll be asked to remove a device.

Some VPNs let you install on unlimited devices and only limit concurrent connections. CyberGhost restricts installation at the device level.

Smart DNS

CyberGhost includes useful features in its standard package, such as an ad blocker that stops 83% of ads and trackers. It’s not as effective as uBlock Origin, but it’s still worth enabling.

Split tunneling is another welcome feature. It let us route specific websites outside the VPN. For example, we excluded Amazon so we could access our local storefront.

We also like Force HTTPS, which redirects insecure URLs to HTTPS versions. While HTTP sites are rare, CyberGhost ensures you never end up on them.

Dedicated IP Address & Premium “NoSpy” Servers