SlickVPN Reviews

The main theme of most VPN services has something to do with hiding and camouflage. SlickVPN’s choice is the chameleon in this matter, because its versatile feature set makes it act like this fascinating reptile. Their Windows client and website include it in the logo, and the list of features the SlickVPN offers strongly relate to this theme. Take for example the automatic IP changing function that will grant you a new IP address every couple of minutes. In fact, you yourself can set this duration. This poses some threat, as during the swapping of your IP address, your connection can be tracked for a short while. Luckily, SlickVPN offers you built in DNS leak protection to prevent this; moreover it is automatically enabled once you installed the software.

SlickVPN has two types of connection available: TCP and UDP. UDP is faster, but TCP comes in handy when you want to simulate HTTPS traffic. You are also provided with three ports to choose from for your connection. Next to these, you can set a number of preferences that will improve your overall experience. Balancing is an option that will automatically choose gateways (servers) for you. Load Balance will choose gateway based on server load. Closest Balance will select the one closest to you, and Random Balance will connect you to a random server each time you connect. In the case of the latter, this means that if there is more than one server available for a location, you will connect to a randomly chosen one. If there is only one however, Random Balance will not take any effect. And lastly, SlickVPN has free proxies available from the main page of their official website, complete with SSL protection.

The Advanced options are a bit more interesting place to be. You can add OpenVPN parameters manually to improve the capabilities of your security protocol. We recommend using this feature for people who are adept at technology, and especially security protocols. If you wish to further pimp your VPN experience with the advanced settings that SlickVPN has up its sleeves, we recommend contacting customer service first.

The selection of countries is great at SlickVPN. The 46 locations include some very hard to reach or just rare examples. A VPN server in Africa is a rarity with VPN providers, but SlickVPN offers access in South Africa. Latvia, Chile and also Taiwan and Thailand are also included. The 151 servers are unequally distributed, with the majority of them being reserved for more popular locations like the US, the UK, Australia and The Netherlands.

In terms of speeds, SlickVPN fares a bit better than average. The Windows client and also the Mac client both come with SlickVPN’s own speed test feature. This is useful indeed, however you’ll see that we used our external speed testing tool for our probing to provide a more objective viewpoint. We tested in a 256-bit OpenVPN encryption envirovment, and while connections were slower, they did not suffer as much we expected from such a high security safety protocol. We must also highlight here that despite OpenVPN is a bit slower – and despite it runs on a 256-bit encryption – you will only experience a marginal speed loss at worst. This means that connections are not the quickest, but they are still acceptable.

SlickVPN has three of the mainstream safety protocols available: OpenVPN, IPSec and PPTP. On desktop operating systems, OpenVPN is the default setup. It is considered so staple in fact that its presence is not indicated anywhere. We understand that it is the safest protocol available these days, but at least a notification would be welcome. And it is indeed the safest, as SlickVPN provides it with a 256-bit encryption. IPSec and PPTP are also available on Windows, Mac OSX and Linux operating systems, but they are generally less effective than OpenVPN. However, mobile devices work better with IPSec, therefore in the cases of iOS machines and Android, it should be chosen over OpenVPN.

SlickVPN also has a user-friendly log policy. Your connection logs themselves are information available only to you through the client – the company does not store them. In fact, the only two bits of data that are stored are the length of your connections, and the timestamps. Your bandwidth used for example is not paid attention to.

SlickVPN supports a good range of devices, and especially router selection is appealing. Still, in terms of Microsoft operating systems, you can establish connections on Windows 8 and 7. It is somewhat strange that as a rare exception, SlickVPN does not support Windows Vista or XP. Mac is also welcome, either via a client similar to Windows, or via Tunnelblick. For both clients there is an extra guide available solely to help you set them up. Linux Ubuntu and Mint are similarly available on OpenVPN and PPTP.

For mobile and other devices, things get a bit more interesting. For iOS (the iPad and iPhone to be exact), you can access VPN through PPTP, IPSec and OpenVPN. With Android, the situation is different. OpenVPN is the preferred protocol, but on pre-Ice Cream Sandwich devices, you can also use PPTP, which we do not recommend though.

As mentioned, router selection is great. For Merlin and Tomato, you get the same setup guide. For DD-WRT however, there is a division between DD-WRT 2015 and previous versions, both cases are supported on OpenVPN. You also set things up on a .ovpn basis, that is via open source configuration files. And lastly, Synology NAS and Pfsense are also welcome.

Five different plans are offered by the company. All of them come with the same set of features and preferences – the only difference between them is duration. Therefore, one month costs $5 only with SlickVPN during its special sale, while normally it fares at $15, a substantially worse price. For 3 months, your overall fee is $10 or $3.33 per month, but as normally it’s priced at $35. Half a year costs $3.33 per month or $20 in total during sales as well, and $50 without it. And one year will make your purse lighter by $2.41 per month or $28.99 overall, which is a big difference from the regular $75. We recommend that if you are thinking about picking up SlickVPN, their special sale is a good time, as these commotions are very favorable.

Next to the packages that offer regular durations, there is also a daily plan. You can purchase it in blocks of 4 to 20 days, for $0.75 for a day. Still, with the discounts in full swing, you are better off with even the one-month duration. SlickVPN does not offer a free trial. Instead, you are granted with a 30-day refund option with every purchase. There is one hitch to it – and here we quote the official website’s refund policy – that “providing termination notice within the month, quarter, or year does not entitle [the] customer to [the] refund or proration of fees”.

One of the most interesting aspects of SlickVPN’s service is that you can pay by cash, money order or check even, as their mailing address is publicly available. Next to these, your payment options include the classics; MasterCard, Visa, American Express, PayPal and Discovery.

Overall, SlickVPN is a good service. Considering how quickly they entered and gained ground on the VPN market, their efforts are impressive. The country and server selection is one of the best already, even if they lease them. A better than average set of features such as DNS leak protection and automatic IP changing make sure that your presence online is hidden as well as possible. Though we do not recommend PPTP, the other two security protocols are usable. SlickVPN does well in helping you turn into a chameleon that takes on the flag colors of other countries with great ease. There really is not one single aspect of their service that is outright bad, except the lack of one perhaps, the free trial.