Confirmed VPN Review

Last update: 12.21.2018.

Overview

Next-generation transparency to earn trust, combined with impressive speeds and a dash of versatility. Check out our Confirmed VPN review to uncover why we had some “Wow!” moments mixed with “What?!” It’s a must-see for real!

Let us introduce you to one of the youngest additions to the ever-growing VPN market, Confirmed VPN, “the only VPN you can trust.” To be frank, we can’t help but crack a smile when we see such claims. Yet, we don’t want to judge a book by its cover either.

Confirmed VPN was created a year ago by Rahul Dewan (CEO at Duet Display) and Johnny Lin (ex-iCloud engineer) as Confirmed, Inc. Originally, this VPN was developed for iOS and Mac OS platforms, but now it’s available for Windows and Android as well.

This newcomer has a serious mission: to make VPNs great again. Yes, no smaller than that.

This VPN service decided to go for absolute transparency. Why? Because the creators felt that the VPN industry had been infested by too many liars and scammers. They even use this as their promotional strategy to vilify others. In other words, Confirmed says that most VPNs only claim no logs, yet their VPN servers can access all personal data. This data can be sold to or shared with third parties, including the authorities.

To remain all transparent and be the first among 1,000+ VPN providers, Confirmed VPN even founded their own transparency protocol called Openly Operated™. This is essentially a set of standards a VPN employ to remain transparent while being audited by third parties.

Confirmed VPN claims no activity logs, no data sharing or selling to third parties. You can try this VPN service for free if you choose the 7-day free trial. However, there’s only one payment method, and it’s obviously not an anonymous one. So much for their efforts to be the only VPN you can trust.

This VPN has a rather limited server fleet. There are only 12 regions to change around. Strangely enough though, Confirmed VPN can still offer impressively good speeds. In fact, some of the best speeds we’ve seen lately.

We do have some concerns about Confirmed VPN’s security features since there’s not much to know about them. Literally, there’s no information on the web yet. Oh, by the way, have we mentioned that Confirmed VPN is based in the US? Well, at least we know that it’s under US jurisdiction.

So, is this VPN service really a “game changer”? Is Confirmed VPN safe to use? Let’s see now in more detail if our Confirmed VPN review can confirm all claims.

As for us, we can claim to have written the first ever in-depth Confirmed VPN review in the world. At least, we haven’t found any others yet.

Security & privacy: is Confirmed VPN safe to use?

Just because they say so, it doesn’t make Confirmed VPN demonstrably safe to use, right? We can’t take anything coming from VPN providers for granted. Unless, of course, a service has been put to the test and has proven to be trustworthy or true to its word.

One thing’s for sure at this stage, Confirmed VPN is too young to have data sharing scandals or FBI cases ending with no useful data shared on its plate. Basically, what we have is our own experience, our common sense, and their Privacy Policy. Let’s see what we can learn from this mix.

Privacy Policy dissection

Confirmed VPN has a rather short, concise, and user-friendly Privacy Policy. It needs a bit of editing and design to be more readable and visually digestible though. And, hopefully, the developers will take note after reading this very first Confirmed VPN review in the world.

First incision

This provider claims that they don’t log or store your IP address when you visit the official website.

Wow! That’s probably unheard of. Almost all other competitors with no logs policy would at least do that, collect information when you’re visiting the website.

So far so good.

Second incision

Confirmed VPN does record the total amount of bandwidth, which is used for throttling purposes, and they keep this data for 30 days.

At the same time, no website data or traffic seems to be stored.

Third incision

Here comes the real thing, the most important bit:

“For website traffic and data through our VPN, we do not log or store any website or traffic data for a user for any period of time…”

Guess how this sentence continues! You won’t believe it, with our favorite “magic” word:

“UNLESS the user has violated the Acceptable Use provisions of Confirmed’s Terms of Use.”

Okay, we’ll wait a sec to let it sink in.

It looks like your web traffic and data is actually monitored by Confirmed VPN.

Because otherwise, how on earth can they decide whether your online activities are in violation of the Terms of Use or not?

But before we could get too concerned about this, the policy goes on explaining. Like they knew the critical reader’s mind would go “what?!” at that very sentence. So, to soothe your nerves, Confirmed claims that all the rule triggers that determine if your data is a violation are performed algorithmically. In human terms, no individual has access to this data. Phew! We feel slightly better already.

The rules mentioned above are also industry standard to detect abusive behavior. The policy assures you that you can’t be identified through the logged data without alerting you first. Well, if that’s comforting, so be it.

Basically, all this algorithmic monitoring is performed to make sure that you’re using the VPN service appropriately without abusing it. Again, lawful users of Confirmed VPN have nothing to fear. Unless… just kidding.

Fourth incision

This provider also claims that they can’t access any personal data, which can be proven or checked by third parties through the Openly Operated™ verification standards.

“The limited data we collect on our servers is encrypted with a key that we cannot access without automatically sending the user an alert to the user that we are accessing this data.”

In summary, we can say that the Confirmed VPN Privacy Policy is relatively clear, but a bit of a hard read due to the bad editing and design. It seems that there’s indeed some monitoring going on in the background even if this data isn’t personally identifiable. All your information is supposed to be stored encrypted.

However, Confirmed can access the decryption key after notifying you.

If we consider that they’re also willing to share data with the authorities and are based in the US, well, we’re a bit concerned. Transparency or not, if you want to be anonymous, you may want to look elsewhere, and buy an established market leader VPN.

Security and privacy features

Well, truth be told, there’s no information on available protocols (OpenVPN, IKEv2, etc.) and privacy features whatsoever. Or, we’re just blind.

All we can know is that Confirmed VPN uses the usual AES-256 bank-level encryption algorithm to cipher your web traffic. We don’t like to stay in the dark, though. Such a lack of reliable information makes us feel a bit doubtful.

So, for future reference, we’d like to see more transparency about the security and privacy features and operations. We’ll update our Confirmed VPN review as soon as something changes or gets cleared up in that regard.

The Confirmed mission

This newcomer is not without a serious mission. The Confirmed VPN team realized that they couldn’t merely stay a small fish in the ocean of VPN sharks. To increase user trust in cybersecurity apps and services, this company came up with a set of standards and named it Openly Operated™.

What is Openly Operated™

Confirmed created these standards to ensure that their entire operation is transparent. Third parties can see whatever is really happening with collected data and so on. The requirements of this verification system are as follows:

• Open Source Code: all server and client code must be 100% open source.
• Open Infrastructure: all configuration and back-end infrastructure must be public.
• Audit Logs: public, unforgettable, and comprehensive operational logs.
• No Tampering: don’t allow employees to access servers directly (SSH).
• Documentation: code and infrastructure must be documented for auditing.
• Independent Audits: publish results of independent audits periodically.
• Read-Only Account: allow read-only access to servers (no user data) upon request.
• Bug Bounty Optional: active bug bounty programs increase overall security.

All in all, our Confirmed VPN review team has found that this service seems legitimate and promising, but there are some obscure points. Hence, if you need good online security and anonymity, we advise you to read our full review to help you with your decision.

Speed

The first real “Wow!” moments, when we put Confirmed VPN to the test, were our in-depth speed tests. We must admit: we were impressed. And, as you may know by now, we’re pretty difficult to impress. That said, let’s see what “ridiculously fast” means for Confirmed VPN.

This was our baseline speed result before connecting to the usual VPN regions:

Then, we launched Confirmed VPN and connected to our usual test regions one by one. Here’s what we found.

United States – East

United States – West

United Kingdom

Germany

Australia

Singapore

All in all, we were seriously amazed by the fast connection times and speeds we experienced. Honestly, we didn’t see this coming. Confirmed VPN has servers only in 12 regions globally. That’s like the smallest VPN server fleet in the history of our reviews. Certainly worth a high-five on that one.

With these speeds you can easily satisfy all your online needs, be it streaming HD or 4K videos, online gaming, or simple web browsing with a spoofed IP. Well done, Confirmed VPN!

How to download and install it

There are two ways to go about downloading the Confirmed VPN client for your device. First, you can visit the official website and click your preffered platform button on the main page.

This’ll either directly initiate the installer download (Windows and Mac) or redirect you to the respective online store (Android and iOS).

Second, since you can’t do anything until you actually sign up for an account, it makes more sense to start with that. To sign up, click the Account button in the far right corner of the top menu. Press the Sign Up Free button. Now, enter a valid email address (not necessarily your personal one) and a strong password. Click the Sign Up button to finish the process.

Next, log in to your email account and click the Confirm Email button in your confirmation email. Don’t be surprised if you see this in your browser when you do:

It seems that it’s pointless to wait because, for some reason, no redirection ever occurs. What’s more, even if you click the Open Confirmed VPN button, nothing happens.

So if you want to log in to your account to download your client, click the Account button at the top again, and sign in with your credentials.

Now, you’ll see a Download menu option. Use it to download your client or clients.

To make sure you have the right platform versions, these are the ones supported by Confirmed VPN:

• macOS 10.10 and later
• iOS 10.0 and later
• Android 5.0 and later
• Windows 10 and later

Once you have your client installer on your device, the installation itself is very simple. Just follow the following 4 steps to install Confirmed VPN:

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

That’s all, folks!

How to use Confirmed VPN

When we thought that we’d seen all the simplest and easiest-to-use VPN apps, Confirmed VPN came along, and our whole world collapsed. This is seriously the simplest VPN software you can find on the market today. Well, once you launch the app, that is. So let’s examine it closer.

The not so simple launch sequence

Unfortunately, we were somewhat put off by the number of unnecessary clicks and screens. We simply don’t like it when you have to waste time going through several steps just to start using your VPN.

After you launch your client, this is the welcome screen you’ll see:

Here, you can either choose to Get Secure or Quit. But, why the choice? Didn’t we just run the app to secure our online activities? Maybe we’ve changed our mind in the past 2 seconds while Confirmed VPN has started up. Okay, we got it.

So, you press Get Secure just to confirm your intention.

Then, you need to sign up to create an account or sign in if you have one. Press Submit to continue. Now, you’d think that finally, you can start using this VPN. But no.

Yet another confirmation screen. These Confirmed VPN guys must be obsessed with confirmation. Or, they aren’t sure of themselves somehow.

Okay, now you see that you’re signed in as yourself, so press the Continue button to finally start. But hey, wait a sec!

What?! We thought we’d already installed the Confirmed VPN app. Click the Install Confirmed button just to confirm again that you intend to use this VPN.

Well done, brave user! You’re in!

The simplest interface in the galaxy

And now, behold the simplest interface humanly possible to design:

As you see, there’s no unnecessary or overly technical information displayed. There’s nothing shown here, for that matter. A big Power button, a selected region in a drop-down menu, and that’s it. Can it get any simpler? We don’t think so.

Using Confirm VPN is just as easy. Click the Power button to get connected to the selected location. And, click the button again to disconnect. Questions?

How to change server location

Click the region drop-down menu and change location to a server of your choice.

However, our Confirmed VPN review squad found an inconsistent bug regarding the location change process. If you’re connected to a VPN server and try to select another region, chances are you’ll only seemingly change your IP. We found that 4 out of 5 times the DNS leak tests still showed the previous location data.

Whoopsie! Therefore, we advise you to always disconnect from a server first, select another location, and then, click the Power button again to connect.

Before it seems like you’ve found the best VPN in the galaxy, let us talk about its two major drawbacks.

Drawback #1: VPN locations

Confirmed VPN can only offer you 12 regions or rather, 11 countries, globally. This is the poorest coverage we’ve seen so far.

These regions are the following, in order of appearance:

• United States – West
• United States – East
• United Kingdom
• Ireland
• Germany
• Canada
• Japan
• Australia
• South Korea
• Singapore
• India
• Brazil

Drawback #2: Confirmed VPN menu

You might think that the simple surface could hide a myriad of menu options and setting customizations. But let us stop you right there. Hold your unicorns! We don’t want you to nurse false hopes. So, here’s the deal. Click the Menu icon in the top right corner.

And now, select the VPN Settings option.

Yep, that’s it! You can enable the whitelisting of websites. So much for customizing VPN protocols and other privacy features. Kill switch? Did anyone mention the kill switch? Huh, for a moment there, we thought it was an essential feature. But no there’s information or setting related to a kill switch. So, chances are you could leak vital sensitive information in the event of a connection drop.

The Speed Test menu opens your default browser with fast.com, the dedicated Netflix speed test site loaded.

Well, there’s nothing more to add. For a beginner VPN user, Confirmed VPN is a good toy for sure. But more serious users won’t be satisfied with it just yet.

Confirmed VPN free trial

Good news for those who’d like to give Confirmed VPN a chance – yes, it has a 7-day free trial. However, you can only start this trial if you enter your credit card details. Anonymous payment option? Forget it. You can only pay by credit card. But don’t you forget to cancel your subscription in time because you could be charged for a whole year.

How to set up the free trial

First off, you’ll need to create and confirm your account. Then, download and install Confirmed VPN on your chosen device. Next, launch your app and use your account details to sign in. Don’t get too excited, though, because you won’t be able to use your VPN yet.

Now, press the Agree & Continue button and… whoops! This comes up:

Well, if you haven’t chosen a plan by logging in to your account on the official website, this is your chance. As a matter of fact, this screen is rather pushy since you can’t even go back, cancel, or do anything, but submit your credit card details. Once you do so, you can finally use Confirmed VPN to secure your online activities for free.

Confirmed VPN for Netflix

After reaching this point in our Confirmed VPN review, our team had no hopes whatsoever to access any of the main Netflix regions. And oh boy, were we wrong!

The greatest surprise we’d seen lately, thanks to Confirmed VPN. This is how it rolls when it comes to Netflix.

Netflix US

Yeah, dude!

Look at this speed test too:

Netflix UK

Yes, sir! Just like that.

With this speed that eerily resembles the previous one:

Netflix AU

Yeah, mate!

Then, our speed test ended up with another mysterious number:

We also tried other regions like Netflix Canada, Japan, and Germany, but didn’t succeed. Still, we must praise Confirmed VPN for this performance. Well done!

BBC iPlayer fans, hold your breaths for a sec more. We’re here with some great news. Confirmed VPN can also access BBC iPlayer after you connect to the United Kingdom server. Here’s our proof:

Since lots of renowned VPN providers fail to bypass the rigorous detections of media streaming centers, we believe that Confirmed VPN is a great choice. But, if you’re interested in our best VPN for Netflix picks, you know what to do.

Confirmed VPN for Torrenting

Would you like our short remark? Nope, you can’t use Confirmed VPN for torrenting. End of story. They seem to be working on allowing P2P file-sharing on a few servers but there’s no official promise, of course.

The truth is, there’s no information on their website about this. We found Reddit threads and comments where users claimed to have contacted Confirmed’s customer support about torrenting. That’s how we learned that it was not allowed.

So, let us help you find the best VPN for torrenting if that’s what you’re looking for.

Live chat support

With only a few thousand downloads (Android client has 10+K), Confirmed VPN may not have the infrastructure to serve users with live chat support. In fact, the whole support system is quite poor and disappointing: there are basically two ways to get help.

Open the Support menu on the website. Now, you can choose to see the client Release Notes and the FAQ. Just so you know, the FAQ has only 7 topics covered; some, in just a few sentences. You won’t really find real support there if you’re experiencing technical issues or have a related question.

Another way is to contact support via email. This may take time, to be honest. We still haven’t heard back from them regarding our questions. We’ll update this Confirmed VPN review once we know more.

Pricing

So, here comes the cold shower. Compared to what Confirmed VPN has to offer, we find the pricing plans unreasonably high. Considering there’s no customization basically, no protocols to choose from, or other extras… well, we wouldn’t pay this much.

On average, this VPN has an almost double price for the annual plan in comparison with top VPNs like TorGuard, and more expensive than NordVPN.

Confirmed VPN referral program

We must mention that Confirmed VPN has a referral program. You can get a 10% discount every month for every friend you refer. You’ll find the dedicated page once you log in to your account on the website.

Bottom line of Confirmed VPN review

To conclude our Confirmed VPN review, we can appreciate the effort and hard work the Confirmed VPN team has invested in this project so far. Being only one year old, this VPN service and its apps are certainly worth a try.

Confirmed VPN has great speeds for all your purposes. And, it couldn’t be easier to use it too. We’ll need some more time to discover more about its security and privacy. Right now, it looks transparent and true to its word. Although, we don’t really like the possibility that your web traffic is watched over, even if by an algorithm.

We also find it a bit “cheap” and a bit, well, “transparent” in a bad way that out of the two testimonials on the website homepage, one is from 9to5Mac. This is the company where a co-founder of Confirmed VPN is the CEO. The other testimonial is from TechCrunch where we read the first promotional piece on Confirmed VPN. Well, we may have to wait for more users and bigger names to join the Confirmed family to see more clearly. Until then, good luck with your VPN hunting. Make a wise choice.