Boxpn VPN

BoxPN is a no-frills, simple VPN service that has been around since 2009. Its price point seems attractive, but I found its lack of functions and low number of servers off-putting.

I tested every aspect of BoxPN, from speed and security to privacy, customer support, and device compatibility. I found that, while BoxPN is safe and easy to use, it’s let down by poor performance and a lack of transparency over privacy.

Based on my findings, I can’t recommend BoxPN. However, if you want to try it out, you can test it with its 7-day money-back guarantee and get a refund if you’re not satisfied.

[features-overview-table]

Streaming — Stable for Netflix, Fails for Most Others

BoxPN works with a limited number of streaming platforms. During tests done by my international team and I, the quality was pretty good with its compatible services. However, it’s pretty weak for streaming when compared to its top competitors, and this category isn’t one of its strong suits.

Works With: Netflix, Hulu, & BBC iPlayer

BoxPN can safely access Hulu and BBC iPlayer from anywhere. We were able to stream in the highest quality during our tests, which impressed us since it doesn’t have optimized locations for these platforms. We also didn’t experience much added buffering or load times.

Check out our table below to see how it fared with Netflix during our international team’s tests:

Doesn’t Work With: Max, Amazon Prime Video, & Disney+

Unfortunately, BoxPN can’t securely access Disney+, Max, or Prime Video. We tried switching browsers, but it didn’t help. And although BoxPN offers a large variety of protocols, adjusting their settings didn’t improve its compatibility. If you want to stay safe while enjoying all of your favorite platforms, check our list of the best VPNs for streaming.

Speeds — Slow Overall, With Some Servers Unusable

BoxPN significantly decreased my internet speed across every server I tested. All VPNs can be expected to slow you down somewhat, but BoxPN made my connection unusably slow on a lot of the servers I tried.

I also noticed that BoxPN’s speeds were inconsistent around the network, and not always due to distance — evidence that the VPN’s small network can get congested and slow.

I tested each location for ping, download and upload speed.

• Ping: measured in milliseconds (ms), this is how long it takes for the data to reach from one party to the other. The lower this value, the more responsive the connection. Ping of 50ms to 150 ms is considered good to average, with a ping of below 50 ms considered optimal.
• Download speed: measured in megabits per second (Mbps), it tells you how fast data is downloading through the connection. This will determine how good your streaming quality is going to be, for example.
• Upload speed: measured in megabits per second (Mbps), it tells you how fast data is uploading through the connection. This value is important when uploading images or videos on social media.

Here is an overview of my test results:

Speeds were not always consistent with physical distance from the server, but long distance meant lower speed.

Normally, the larger the distance from the server, the more speed is lost, but BoxPN had some anomalies. The London (UK) server did a fabulous job, while most other servers were significantly slower than my home connection.

First, I checked my own connection without a VPN in Budapest, Hungary, to find out my base speed for comparison.

No VPN

Then I connected to local servers first. BoxPN recommends OpenVPN (UDC) as the fastest connection protocol, so that’s what I chose.

Local servers

The closest location to me was Prague (Czech Republic). While the ping for this server was still in the acceptable range, my speeds dropped significantly.

Prague (CZ)

The next closest server was Düsseldorf, Germany. This had better speed but it still created significant drops.

Düsseldorf (DE)

Interestingly, the London (UK) server was by far the fastest, and gave me ping, download, and upload speeds fast enough for most online activities.

London (UK)

Speeds were abysmal even on local servers, except the London (UK) one

While the London server I tested performed well, my other results showed that connecting to even local servers with BoxPN will significantly slow down your speeds, which is discouraging.

Long-distance servers

Overall, long distance servers gave much higher ping and very low download and upload speeds.

California (USA)

The low speed of US servers is especially problematic since the US generally has some of the fastest internet speeds in the world.

Rio De Janeiro (Brazil)

Tokyo (JP)

Australian servers are usually the true tests of VPN speeds for those of us living in Europe, as they are the furthest away. The Sydney server gave back a disappointing result. These are speeds that would seriously hinder even surfing on the internet.

Sydney (AUS)

Long distance servers had even worse results, with speeds that are not even comfortable for simple web surfing

Both my results from long-distance and local servers were disappointing. Of all the servers I tested, only the London location was able to give me fast enough speeds for everything I want to do online.

If you want a VPN with reliable speeds, I’d recommend you look at the results of our fastest VPN tests instead.

Are BoxPN’s Speeds Fast Enough for Gaming? Only For Lightweight Games

BoxPN’s servers are not capable of the 15ms ping that is considered ideal for fast-paced games such as first person shooter games like CoD or Unreal Tournament.

However, you can enjoy less demanding games even with higher ping values. I fired up World of Warships on Steam, and I tried playing with a short and a long distance server.

Once the game loaded, it ran smoothly — with at least 10 FPS and with a ping of 53ms

On the Düsseldorf (Germany) server, ping was 53ms and the game loaded with 10 FPS. Then I tried a New York (USA) server, and the same game had 16FPS and 107ms ping. Loading took somewhat longer than normal, but gameplay was smooth.

Gaming isn’t impossible with BoxPN but I was disappointed I couldn’t play more demanding online games like PUBG or Fortnite.

Server Network — Small but Functional

BoxPN has a significantly smaller server network than well-known competitors. They claim to have more than 150 servers in 32 countries, but the website is not transparent about exactly how many they have in each location, or even whether these are their own servers (a vague claim on their website says they own the “majority” of their servers).

There is also no indication anywhere about whether these servers are physical or virtual. My question on the subject was escalated to the technical team, and in a few hours I got a response that their servers are all physical.

The US is the best covered country with 7 locations (plus 2 for Netflix). In Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the UK you can choose from 2 different locations, in the other countries only one location is covered.

With BoxPN, you can choose from static or dynamic IP addresses. Using a static IP means that you get the same IP address every time you connect to the VPN, which can be useful when you are surfing on sites that require a Captcha every time you access them from a new IP address.

However, using a static IP means all of your activity while connected to the VPN can be traced to one IP address — which is not great for privacy or anonymity. I would always recommend opting for dynamic IP addresses, which give you a different IP address every time you connect.

BoxPN has servers in China (Hong Kong), Russia, and Turkey. This is a bonus as it’s rare to find a VPN with servers in these countries, due to their strict VPN regulations.

However, BoxPN doesn’t explain how they keep their Chinese, Russian, and Turkish servers (and your information) safe from local government surveillance. In fact, its privacy policy actively states that the VPN will disclose your data to comply with legal obligations — so I would not trust these servers if you want to browse privately or anonymously. Skip ahead to my privacy review to find out more.

Security — Industry Standard, Nothing to Write Home About

BoxPN offers a choice of 128-bit and 256-bit AES encryption and a wide range of protocols.

Disappointingly, there aren’t many other security features available. I was particularly disappointed to see that BoxPN doesn’t offer split tunneling or any blockers for ads, trackers, malware, and phishing as these are common features in other VPN services.

Encryption

You can choose from 128-bit and 256-bit encryption, although your choice might be limited to which security protocol you’re using. With OpenVPN, BoxPN lets you choose either level of encryption.

However, using L2TP and IPSec with the VPN only lets you use 256-bit encryption and PPTP only supports 128-bit encryption.

It’s nice to have the option to customize the security settings in this way, as some people might prefer to use the slightly quicker 128-bit AES encryption. However, I always go for 256-bit encryption as it’s the most secure option (that’s why it’s known as “military-grade” encryption).

Security protocols

BoxPN offers OpenVPN-UDC, OpenVPN-TCP, PPTP, L2TP, and SSTP as basic options in the desktop app. IPSec and Wireguard are also available, but you have to manually configure them. I was impressed to see Wireguard support available as not many VPNs have adopted this protocol so far.

BoxPN has an extensive knowledge base with detailed explanations on how to install these protocols on different operating systems.

• OpenVPN: OpenVPN is a widespread and versatile protocol. It exists in 2 versions: UDP is faster and automatically recommended by BoxPN, while TCP is slower, but can be more stable.
• PPTP: an obsolete protocol whose security flaws have been widely discussed. It is not recommended for use anymore.
• L2TP: an extension of PPTP, this protocol uses double encryption, which means it can be slower than other protocols. It is recommended as a backup when OpenVPN is not available.
• SSTP: a new and improved version of PPTP that’s particularly effective at bypassing firewalls like the ones used in government censorship. It’s not as secure as OpenVPN but can be useful if you’re having trouble getting around internet restrictions.
• IKEv2/IPSec: this is a protocol that’s ideal for mobile surfing, and gives consistently good speed. However, setting it up from BoxPN is not trivial: you need to follow an approximately 5-minute procedure with every single server you want to use with this protocol. The process is well documented, and it worked perfectly for me.
• WireGuard: This is a fairly new protocol, but it is known for delivering consistently faster speed than OpenVPN. However, there is a chance that your static IP address will be logged on the VPN server until it is rebooted. This may cause a privacy issue even if BoxPN itself does not store this data.

I compared speeds with the different protocols, and the result is that none of the protocols offer consistently better speed than the others. This is true for both short and long distance servers.

Leak and Virus Tests

I tested 6 different servers and BoxPN passed my leak tests on all of them, which means that no DNS, RTC or IP leaks were present. When I was connected to the Düsseldorf (Germany) server, it completely masked my true location in Budapest.

BoxPN passed my IP, RTC and DNS leak tests, meaning that it is safe to use with no leaks

I also ran a virus test on BoxPN’s installer, to make sure it’s completely safe to download. I was pleased to see that the installer was clean.

BoxPN’s installer was free from any viruses or malware

Automatic Kill Switch

BoxPN only provides an automatic kill switch in its desktop app. A kill switch cuts off your internet traffic if you lose connection to your VPN. It prevents your traffic from defaulting to (and exposing your online activity to) your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

It’s disappointing that BoxPN’s mobile apps don’t give you the same protection.

Even in the desktop app, I found the kill switch feature difficult to find and enable.

The kill switch function is not conveniently placed

However, I liked that you can select which programs you want to kill when the VPN drops – so you can make sure that your torrent client will disconnect as soon as you are not protected by a VPN but keep other programs active if you want to.

Privacy — Worrying Logging Policy is Off-Putting

BoxPN claims it does not keep logs of your activity and IP address. However, they keep email addresses and payment information, plus Google Analytics and cookies data.

It’s normal for a VPN to store your email and financial data, for repeat subscriptions, and the privacy policy states that Analytics and cookies data is only used to improve the VPN’s website.

What I couldn’t see any mention of in the policy was whether the VPN stores any of your connection logs (your IP address, when you connected, how long you connected for, or how much data you used).

The privacy policy is not as straightforward as it is with other VPNs who are serious about privacy

I dug a little deeper into the policy and found something even more worrying:

The second clause means that BoxPN will hand over your data to protect the company in case of a legal dispute. Since the VPN claims not to log any of your online activity, name, or location, it theoretically shouldn’t have any identifying data about you to hand over to a third party.

However, if BoxPN does store your true IP address and connection logs, they could be used to identify you. I contacted the VPN’s support team for clarification and am still waiting on a reply.

Overall, this privacy policy is less watertight than others I’ve seen and the lack of transparency itself is worrying. I wouldn’t feel comfortable recommending BoxPN as completely safe and private — especially if you’re based in a country where VPN use itself is illegal, and being connected to using a VPN could get you in trouble.

Location — In The Privacy-Friendly Seychelles (But Is It?)

BoxPN claims to be located in The Seychelles. It’s owned by Edelino Commerce Inc., an IT company registered in The Seychelles — which is outside the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliance. 5/9/14 Eyes countries are in an intelligence sharing pact, so it’s better news for your privacy that BoxPN’s HQ is located outside of the Alliance.

However, I noticed the Terms of Use on BoxPN’s website mention “local, state, and federal laws”, which sounds like American wording. A quick background check also shows that the BoxPN website is hosted in Chicago.

All of these details seem to suggest that BoxPN is actually based in the US, which is part of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliance and is not known for being privacy-friendly. Again, just the lack of transparency here is worrying enough by itself.

Independent Audits — Or The Lack Thereof

BoxPN has not had any independent audits of its practices, therefore we must take all their claims at face value. This is not the best practice among VPNs, as audits build credibility and trust.

Torrenting — P2P Traffic Supported on Most Servers

Torrenting with BoxPN is straightforward — most servers can be used for torrenting.

I tested the Düsseldorf (Germany) and the California (US) server, and the former downloaded a 2GB movie in 6 minutes, while the California server downloaded the same in 5 minutes.

However, neither the desktop nor the mobile app shows which servers are suitable for torrenting. After some searching, I eventually found the server list within my account on the BoxPN website — but it was annoying to have to go to this extra effort to find out which servers I could use for torrenting.

The list of servers is comprehensive and easy to understand – too bad it is tucked away on the website instead of the app

I tested some of the servers that were not recommended for P2P to see what would happen. Surprisingly, I didn’t notice any difference in my torrenting experience.

Torrenting was possible from a server that is supposedly not suited for the purpose — BoxPN did not automatically switch to a P2P-friendly server

The torrent proceeded to download in the usual manner, and IPLeak.net confirmed that my connection was still associated with the same server.

It might be that the servers BoxPN doesn’t recommend for torrenting are just ones that might be a bit too slow. However, it was good to see that torrent support really is consistent across the network — even more so than the VPN lets on!

Does BoxPN Work in China? Yes, but Not Reliably

BoxPN’s customer support said the VPN works in China but couldn’t confirm 100% reliability.

When I asked if BoxPN works in China, customer support had a less than confident answer

If you’re looking for a VPN that does reliably work within the Great Firewall, check out our recommendations for the best VPNs for China instead.

Simultaneous Device Connections — An Average Offering

BoxPN allows you to connect 5 devices at the same time.

I downloaded and connected to the VPN on 4 of my devices simultaneously and didn’t notice any drop in performance.

Device Compatibility — All Major Operating Systems Except macOS

BoxPN has a native app for Windows, Android, and iOS but not for macOS. It also offers mobile apps that are free to use.

I was surprised to see that the VPN lacks native macOS support; it’s quite unusual for a modern VPN. You can set the VPN up manually on Macs but it’s definitely an inconvenience, especially if you’re not tech-minded.

You can also set up BoxPN manually on Linux, KDE Plasma, Gnome 3, Raspbery Pi, DD-WRT and Asus routers, Apple TV, Roku, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, PlayStation, Xbox, and smart TVs.

You’re much better catered for as a Windows user; the Windows app is the most intuitive and also the only one with an automatic kill switch. It’s very simple to download and set up, and was ready to use in a few minutes.

The app has a quick connect button that automatically connects you to the best server for your chosen country and security protocol. You can start servers to add them to your list of favorites.

BoxPN’s Android app has a sleek design and live chat feature, but little info on the servers

The Android and iOS app are hugely simplified compared to the desktop app. You only get a list of countries rather than a list of available servers. However, there is an Optimal Location function that connects you to the best server.

Overall, BoxPN’s app offerings are okay but not exactly impressive. If you’re a macOS user and want a VPN with a native Mac app that you don’t have to manually set up, I would choose one of our best VPNs for Mac instead.