CyberGhost began its life in Bucharest, Romania in 2011, and that Romanian base is more important than you might expect. Romania is not part of the surveillance sharing alliances, making privacy claims harder for VPN providers based in the US or UK and the country has no mandatory data retention law that would force a VPN to log user activity. This jurisdiction, together with a server network that has grown to over 11,500 servers in 100 countries, is what CyberGhost has built its service on. The company has over 30 million users worldwide and is owned by Kape Technologies, which also owns ExpressVPN and Private Internet Access.
Like most VPN services, CyberGhost has two main functions: hiding a user’s real IP address, and encrypting their internet traffic. What sets one VPN apart from the others is how many countries it can pretend the connection is coming from, how fast those connections are, how serious the provider is about its no-logs claims, and what specialized features it adds beyond the basics. CyberGhost’s key competitive advantages are the number of servers, streaming optimization and price.
Dedicated Servers and Server Network
CyberGhost has a network in 100 countries, and most of the servers are physically located in the country they claim to be located in (not geo-located in another country). The specialized server categories are the most impressive. Streaming servers – over 100 in more than 20 countries – are optimized for specific platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Max, Disney+, Hulu and BBC iPlayer and tagged for the service they’re optimized for. Gaming servers in many countries are optimized for low latency. Torrenting servers allow P2P traffic. The labeled, purpose-built server categories make it easy to choose the right server for a task, instead of guessing which general server performs best for streaming or downloading.
NoSpy Servers
CyberGhost has its own set of servers called NoSpy servers, located in Romania and run entirely by CyberGhost staff instead of third-party data centers. Routing through a data center run by an outside company introduces a choke point where that company might, in theory, be forced to monitor traffic. CyberGhost runs the hardware itself, which means the NoSpy servers cut out the middleman — the company claims this is a more secure option for privacy-minded users. NoSpy access is included in the subscription.
Encryption and Protocols
CyberGhost encrypts traffic with AES-256, the standard for secure VPN services. The service supports protocols like WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2. WireGuard is the fastest VPN and has the lowest latency because it is so lean. The RAM-only server infrastructure means servers store no data to disk – every reboot wipes the server completely, so there is no persistent data that can be recovered from the hardware. Perfect forward secrecy changes encryption key for each session so breaking one key does not reveal past or future traffic.
No-Log Policy & Monitoring
CyberGhost claims it does not log, store or sell user information. That claim has been audited independently by Deloitte, who looked at the infrastructure and not just the written policy. CyberGhost also has a transparency report, where it lists all the legal requests it gets, and how it deals with them. This is important, as a real no-logs VPN has nothing to hand over, no matter who is doing the asking.
Kill Switch & Leak Protection
The kill switch cuts off all internet traffic if the VPN connection fails unexpectedly so the device won’t fall back to an unprotected connection without you knowing and reveal your real IP address. Protection from DNS leak routes CyberGhost passes your DNS queries through CyberGhost DNS servers instead of your ISP when you use CyberGhost . That means your ISP will not see your sites even if you use the VPN .
Split Tunneling
Split tunneling means you can route certain apps or websites through the VPN while leaving the others on the direct connection. The feature is available on Android and in a more limited form on Windows. A user can direct a streaming app through the VPN and keep local banking and other services on the direct connection.
Content Blocker
A built-in Content Blocker stops DNS requests to domains known to serve ads, trackers and malware, blocking that content before it ever reaches your device. It works for all applications, not just web browsing, because the blocking occurs at the DNS level, not on the browser.
Multi-Device and Dedicated IP
The Dedicated IP add-on provides you with one IP address that is uniquely yours, so it helps reduce the number of CAPTCHA prompts and verification checks that shared VPN IPs often trigger. One subscription allows up to seven simultaneous connections on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux, Smart TVs and streaming devices.
