Confirmed VPN Review

Next-generation transparency to earn trust, combined with impressive speeds and a dash of versatility.

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 macOS, but now it’s available for Windows and Android as well.

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. In other words, Confirmed says that most VPNs only claim no logs, yet their VPN servers can access all personal data.

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.

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

Security and privacy

Unfortunately, there’s no information on available protocols (OpenVPN, IKEv2, etc.) and privacy features whatsoever.

All we know is that there’s no kill switch and 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.

Does Confirmed VPN log your data?

Short answer: no identifiable logs.

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.

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

Almost all other competitors with no logs policy would at least do that, collect information when you’re visiting the website. 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…”

But then this sentence continues:

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

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

But before we could get too concerned about this, the policy goes on explaining. In human terms, no individual has access to this data. The privacy policy assures you that you can’t be identified through the logged data without alerting you first.

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.

Does it leak?

Even though Confirmed VPN doesn’t provide any information about its leak protection features, our tests have shown no IP or WebRTC leaks present.

However, we 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.

This might due to the fact that there’s no setting related to a kill switch. So, chances are you could leak vital sensitive information in the event of a connection drop.

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, we 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 and performance

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.

Server coverage

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.

Speed test results

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

• Download: 135 Mbps (45% of baseline)
• Upload: 167 Mbps (58% of baseline)

United Kingdom

• Download: 150 Mbps (50% of baseline)
• Upload: 233 Mbps (81% of baseline)

Singapore

• Download: 87 Mbps (29% of baseline)
• Upload: 6 Mbps (2% of baseline)

All in all, we were seriously amazed by the fast connection times and speeds we experienced. Honestly, we didn’t see this coming.

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.

Ease of use and multi-platform support

Confirmed VPN supports the four major desktop and platforms:

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

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.

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?

Unblocking Netflix and other streaming platforms

This is how Confirmed VPN rolls when it comes to Netflix.

This VPN unblocks Netflix US, UK, and AU.

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

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.

P2P and 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.

Online censorship in China and elsewhere

Confirmed are not clear about their security features and the VPN doesn’t offer kill switch functionality.

Based on these drawbacks, it’s safe to say that we don’t recommend using it in any country where online censorship is enforced. This includes China, Russia, Iran, and any other repressive states.

Customer support

Confirmed VPN offers the following support options:

• FAQ
• Email support
• No live chat support

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.

With only a few thousand downloads (Android client has 10k+), 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.

Pricing

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.

Bottom line

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.