FlowVPN Review 2024 — Read This Before Buying

FlowVPN advertises itself as an unlimited VPN for all device types that’s better than the best. It also claims to offer the type of excellent speeds you’d expect from a top VPN. This caught my attention and made me curious about how well it actually performs.

Overall, I found FlowVPN unimpressive. It has decent security features and might work in countries like China. However, its privacy policy is lacking, and you can’t use it to protect your data while torrenting. To find a VPN that actually matches FlowVPN’s big talk, check out this list of our top-ranked VPNs that offer better security, privacy, torrenting performance, and more.

FlowVPN doesn’t mention any specific streaming platforms on its site. It also doesn’t say much about streaming in general. Since the company doesn’t hesitate to make bold claims in other areas, this makes me suspect it’s not really focused on streaming performance.

It doesn’t offer streaming-optimized servers or easily accessible support agents. These are key features that many of the top VPNs provide, which make it a breeze to stream in high quality. Optimized servers are constantly updated, so they continue to facilitate secure access to their intended platform. And 24/7 live chats let you ask for assistance at any time.

When choosing a VPN for Netflix and other streaming platforms, you’ll also want to consider two more key factors: whether the speed is sufficient for smooth streaming without lag, and whether it can securely access your favorite streaming platforms. Unfortunately, FlowVPN’s relatively small server network limits its speeds and the number of platforms it could potentially work with.

There are many VPNs that are specifically designed to help you safely access all the top streaming platforms from anywhere. If you want to watch services like Max, Hulu, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, and more in the best quality, check out this list of the top VPNs for secure streaming.

Flow VPN advertises fast connection speeds, but the actual speed you experience can vary depending on your proximity to the server you connect to. If there are no servers close to you, you might experience slower speeds. This is because data has to travel longer distances between your device and the VPN server, which can lead to delays and reduced performance.

It claims to offer rates over 100Mbps, but what’s really important is how little it lowers your speeds. For example, if you have a base download rate of 200Mbps, 100Mbps would be a 50% drop. The fact that it advertises its speeds in this way makes me dubious of their claims. The top VPNs only lower your speeds on nearby servers by 10-20%, and that’s what you wanna look for.

Server load can also significantly impact speed. High traffic on a server can cause network congestion and slow down your connection. Because FlowVPN has a smaller network of servers, you might experience slower speeds due to this congestion.

In addition, FlowVPN states that it uses backbone routes and unmetered connections to improve speeds. There’s a lot of jargon there, but that basically means they don’t have speed caps and that your data is routed through the fastest, most direct pathways.

The provider also offers WireGuard, which tends to be the fastest protocol. So, as long as you’re close to one of its servers, there’s a good chance it could give you decent rates. If you’d rather not risk it, I recommend you look into our list of the fastest VPNs that have been tried-and-tested.

FlowVPN doesn’t really market itself as a VPN for gaming. For good online gaming, the most important thing is your ping rate. This speed measurement tells you how long it takes your data to travel. You always want it to be below 100ms. Higher ping means slower responses to your actions, making it hard to play competitively.

However, like most VPNs I have tested, FlowVPN’s ping rate will always be significantly higher when the server is far away from your location. This means that you might struggle to enjoy your game without lag. Plus, since FlowVPN only has servers in a few countries, you might not be able to find one nearby.

If you want a VPN that performs well for gaming on nearby servers and some faraway ones, check out this list of my favorite VPNs for gaming.

FlowVPN has servers in 70 countries. Aside from the US, the UK, and Canada, most countries only have one server location. This can lead to overcrowding. The company also doesn’t disclose the number of servers it utilizes. If that number’s low, it could be another source of sluggish servers. So, I’m unhappy that they’re not more upfront about this.

I can’t confirm whether or not it owns all its servers. I contacted customer support to find out but never got a response. For clarity, I prefer when a VPN owns its servers because this assures me that no third party can tamper with them, which could affect data privacy.

On the plus side, I appreciate that FlowVPN includes Double Hop servers. These route your internet traffic through multiple VPN servers in different locations, boosting your online security and privacy. However, it could be even more secure if they made use of RAM-only servers, which delete all of their data after every reboot.

However, I was disappointed to find that FlowVPN doesn't offer dedicated IPs. Dedicated IP addresses are beneficial as they provide a stable and unique internet identity, helpful for activities such as hosting a website. Most leading VPNs provide this feature for an extra charge.

For VPNs that offer dedicated IP addresses and have extensive server networks, read this list to find a reliable option.

FlowVPN offers only the primary security features expected of a VPN to safeguard your online privacy. While it can successfully hide your true location, you’ll miss out on a few failsafes that the top VPNs all provide.

For example, it lacks obfuscation and private DNS servers. It's also unclear if it offers a kill switch, or IPv6, DNS, and WebRTC protection. Plus, it’s missing some modern features like perfect forward secrecy, which you get with top providers like ExpressVPN. You can browse this list for VPNs that offer more advanced security features.

Encryption and Security Protocols

FlowVPN uses AES 256-bit encryption, the same high security standard used by leading VPN services. This encryption is extremely strong, to the extent that even the most powerful supercomputer would need thousands of years to crack it. In terms of encryption strength, FlowVPN meets the industry standard.

It's not clear if encryption changes with different protocols

It supports multiple security protocols, including IPSec, Wireguard, SSH, PPTP, L2TP, OpenVPN, and IKEv2. I’m impressed that it offers WireGuard and OpenVPN, while the others are a bit out of date. OpenVPN is generally considered the safest protocol since it’s open-source, and WireGuard is usually the fastest in our tests.

Kill Switch

FlowVPN does not specify whether it offers a kill switch, a feature that disconnects your device from the internet if the VPN connection fails. I contacted customer support to ask about this, but I did not receive a response.

A kill switch is a crucial feature for me. If the VPN connection drops and there's no kill switch, your real IP address could be exposed, risking the tracking or interception of your online activities. Therefore, if you need absolute security, FlowVPN may not be suitable for you.

IPv6, DNS, and WebRTC Protection

I also didn’t find any information about whether or not FlowVPN protects against IPv6, DNS, and WebRTC leaks. The customer support staff have not responded to inquiries about this issue either.

Split Tunneling

FlowVPN's split tunneling feature lets you choose which apps or websites use the VPN and which use a regular internet connection. However, this feature is only available on iOS and macOS while using OpenVPN or WireGuard. Since FlowVPN doesn’t have the most extensive list of features, I was impressed that it offers this nifty customization option.

FlowVPN’s privacy policy isn’t very convincing. It’s quite short and simply claims it doesn’t log any data — without giving any specific details. It’s also headquartered in the UK, which is within the 5/9/14-Eyes Alliances, so you never know when your data may be shared with government agencies. On top of that, it hasn't undergone any third party audits.

Does FlowVPN Keep Logs? Maybe

FlowVPN’s privacy policy doesn’t give any specific details about the VPN itself. Almost every VPN has to store some anonymized information about your VPN use to keep its services running. This could be things like how much data was used or timestamps. However, FlowVPN doesn’t mention anything about this, and it makes it hard to trust them.

There are no assurances that it won't track your browsing history

I wish the policy made it more clear whether or not they track your online activities. This is especially concerning because I found some claims online that they monitor your activities to ensure you don’t use the service for torrenting.

I don’t recommend using any VPN that isn’t 100% upfront about what it does and doesn’t store. To find a VPN that’s been proven to be trustworthy with your data, you can try one of the best no-log VPNs in this list.

Was FlowVPN Audited? No

Unfortunately, I didn’t find any information to confirm whether or not FlowVPN has been audited or verified by a third party. When I contacted support to ask about this, I never received any response.

An audited privacy policy assures me that the service does what it claims. But, I wasn’t surprised since FlowVPN's privacy policy is almost nonexistent anyway.

Based in The UK

FlowVPN is located in the UK, which is part of the 5/9/14 Eyes surveillance alliances. This group of countries shares intelligence with each other about their citizens. Therefore, FlowVPN may be required to share data with government authorities when asked.

Does FlowVPN Work in China? Yes

Finding a VPN that works in China is challenging. Although FlowVPN doesn't have servers in China, support claims it to be effective there.

Most VPNs I have tested struggle to work in China

The Chinese government has blocked many VPNs, but there have been no publicly-reported cases of them going after individuals for using them. My team and I do not support illegal activities. We recommend understanding the local laws of any country you’re in before using a VPN.

FlowVPN has pretty strict policies against torrenting of any kind. In fact, it completely bans torrenting on its servers.

It obviously doesn't offer torrenting features like port forwarding

I found online claims that FlowVPN monitors your internet traffic to prevent P2P sharing. If they detect torrenting, they immediately cancel your subscription. Although torrenting is banned, this monitoring feels overly intrusive to privacy.

While torrenting is legal in most countries, downloading copyrighted files isn’t. We only recommend accessing torrents within the public domain. If you want to stay safe while downloading and seeding at high speeds, you can read up on our list of the best VPNs for torrenting.