Let us start our NordVPN review with a look at their brief history. They were started as an Internet security company by Panamanian based Tefinkom co S.A in 2008 and began offering VPN service in 2012. Being Panamanian based allows them to maintain their “no-logs” policy since Panama has no data retention directives. Their VPN service has grown rapidly due to its constant attention to feedback provided by its customers and innovation of new technology with old. Currently, the NordVPN network consists of about 559 servers in 49 different countries across the world. The only continent they do not have servers in is Antarctica. NordVPN offers custom software clients for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, and most recently Android. This allows everyone, even those with little technical knowledge to immediately begin using their service.
Pricing and Special Offers
NordVPN provides their service as a single package that is sold in three different term length plans. This means that no matter the plan you choose, the service and support will be the same. Like many VPN providers, they offer increasing discounts on these plans based on term length. The lengths of these plans are monthly, 6 months, and 1 year. This means that currently you can get a month of NordVPN service for $8.00, 6 months for $7.00 per month, and 1 year for just $5.75 per month. Therefore, you can save 28% off their regular monthly price if you sign up for a year of their service.
So, what do you get for your money with NordVPN? They offer the following benefits to all of their subscribers:
Free custom VPN Software for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, and Android
VPN protocols: OpenVPN (TCP-UDP) for Windows, Mac OS X, and Android, with IKEv2 for iOS
6 Simultaneous connections
Unlimited VPN bandwidth and usage
Worldwide virtual IPs from 559 servers in 49 different countries
Shared IP addresses among subscribers for better privacy
Dedicated IP servers
Double VPN encryption servers
DDoS resistant servers
VPN over Tor and support for P2P and file sharing
Streaming media settings that will let you stream media from any server
Support for OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP, IPSec protocols with setup guides
The ability to bypass censorship and geo-restrictions
Wi-Fi hotspot protection against hackers and identity theft
VoIP support to save on long distance costs
30-day money back guarantee
NordVPN has a number of ways to pay for their VPN service. They accept the following standard credit cards: VISA, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover. If you like to keep all of your online payments in one place, they also accept PayPal. For those who want a little more anonymity, you can pay by Bitcoin through Bitpay. They also accept payments through Paymentwall. If you pay by either PayPal or Bitcoin, all that is necessary to establish an account is a username, password, and an email address.
Risk-Free Trial Period
NordVPN knows that you would like to try their service and see how it performs for yourself before you decide to take the next step and purchase it. Therefore they offer all new subscribers a full 30-day, 100% money back guarantee. This is more than enough time for you to completely test out their VPN service and support. Try it on multiple devices and destinations to be sure you are happy with their service.
If for any reason you are not completely satisfied, they will refund your complete purchase price. They will however try to resolve any issues you might have because they would like to keep you as a customer and say they can solve 99% of these issues. If after this, you are still dissatisfied with the NordVPN service, they will refund your full purchase price.
Subscriptions purchased via iTunes Store and Google Play Store are subject to their respective refund policies. This means, NordVPN does not grant refunds if you purchased service directly though the iTunes and Google Play stores. Also, no refunds will be given later than 30 days from purchase date.
NordVPN Network and Server Locations
As we said in the introduction, the NordVPN network has 559 servers in 49 different countries, spread across the world. They have servers on nearly every major continent including Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, North America, and South America.
The best coverage is in the United States (317 servers), Germany (66 servers), United Kingdom (28 servers), The Netherlands (22 servers), Canada (17 servers), and Australia (11 servers). Here is a list of the number of servers in each region and the countries they are in.
Africa – (2 servers)
Egypt, South Africa
Asia – (13 servers)
Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam
Europe – (177 servers)
Germany – (66 servers)
United Kingdom – (28 servers)
Netherlands (22 servers)
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine
North America – (336 servers)
United States – (317 servers)
Canada – (17 servers)
Costa Rica, Mexico
Oceania – (14 servers)
Australia – (11 servers)
New Zealand
South America – (2 servers)
Brazil
Looking at this list of countries, it is easy to see that NordVPN has servers all over the world and multiple servers in more popular locations as we mentioned previously. Their network supports these VPN protocols: OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec, and PPTP. In addition it also supports HTTP and Socks5 proxy connections.
The NordVPN network also consists of servers for a specific purpose. These purposes along with the locations that fulfill them are as follows:
Double VPN (3 locations – select the one closest to you)
Lithuania – Latvia, Taiwan – Hong Kong, United States – Canada
Tor over VPN (2 locations – select the one with least load)
Latvia, Sweden
Ultra-fast TV (4 locations for fast streaming)
Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, United States
Anti DDoS (4 locations – select the one closest to you)
Canada, Germany, Italy, United States
Dedicated IP servers (1 location – 2 servers)
United States only
NordVPN is committed to the freedom of the Internet and allows file sharing on many of its servers in Romania, Russia, Sweden, Lithuania, Netherlands, Canada, and South Africa. As you will later see in our NordVPN review, hovering the mouse over the server name in their Windows client will reveal the uses for which those severs are optimized. Most of the P2P servers are in so called Internet friendly countries.
Privacy and Security
NordVPN has an extensive privacy policy that spells out exactly what personal information (specifically names, email addresses, chat logs) they keep on their users and how it is used and secured. They have a strict “no-logs” policy when it comes to their subscribers activities while using their VPN service.
Our top priority is customer data security. Operating under the jurisdiction of Panama allows us to guarantee our no-logs policy meaning that your activities using privacy solutions, created by NordVPN.com are not monitored, recorded, logged, stored or passed to any third party
From the moment NordVPN.com user turns on NordVPN.com software, their internet data becomes encrypted. It becomes invisible to governments, ISPs, third party snoopers and even NordVPN.com. Further, we have a strict no-logs policy when it comes to seeing user activity online: being based in Panama, which is internet friendly country and does not require data storage or reporting, we are empowered to deny any third party requests. Period.
From this excerpt, you can see that NordVPN does not store logs of any their user’s online activities. All session information is destroyed once the session is closed. They are located in Panama, which has no mandatory data retention laws. They feel they can therefore, reasonably deny all third party request for any such information.
What kind of encryption does NordVPN offer to users of their network? Most of the VPN servers on their network support OpenVPN (TCP/UDP), L2TP, PPTP, HTTP, and Sock5 proxies. They have many excellent setup guides to manually install these protocols on a large number of devices.
Their Windows, Mac OS X and Android custom clients and apps use the OpenVPN (TCP/UDP) protocol. The initial handshake encryption is SSL based and uses 2048 bit. All data is encrypted and decrypted using a AES-256-CBC cipher with a 2048 bit DH key. Their iOS app uses IKEv2 which is an excellent choice due to its support of MOBIKE. Both OpenVPN and IKEv2 are considered secure and reliable protocols by most VPN providers. This means that regardless of which operating system you choose, you will always know that all of your Internet traffic is securely encrypted with a reliable connection when using the NordVPN service.
NordVPN Support
NordVPN is one of the few services that has a 24/7 live chat to answer any light technical, sales, or billing questions you might have. We tested their live chat support and we are happy to say that they were up to the test. They responded almost immediately to the question we asked regarding the encryption employed by their VPN service. Equally swift was their answer informing us that their iOS app now defaults to the IKEv2 protocol. They also directed us to a URL where we could look at the differences between the UDP and TCP protocols that OpenVPN can use. For more technical problems, they provide a 365/24/7 email ticket support system. They also have an extensive FAQ database.
Hands-On Testing of the NordVPN Network
NordVPN has custom software for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, and a just released Android app. You can download these custom clients from their client download page of their website. This can be accessed from clicking on “Tools & Information”, which is on their website main menu. Once the drop down list opens, click on “Download” under the NordVPN.com heading as is illustrated below.
Once the download page opens, hover over the box which describes your OS and then click on the “Download” button that appears as is shown for the Windows client in the next image. This will download the appropriate NordVPN client installer to your machine or transfer you to iTunes Store to get the iOS app or Google Play for the Android app.
They also have manual setups here to configure their VPN using a variety of protocols including OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, SSTP, and PPTP on Android, iOS, Linux, Chome OS, Windows Phone, Tomato routers, DD-WRT routers, Asus WRT, Pfsence, and others. They even have a special tutorial for VPN access in China via Obfsproxy. These can be found on the tutorial page of their website. Links to this page are also found on their download page.
Once you sign up for an account, they will send you a welcoming email with your username and password. You can use these to connect to their VPN network of servers using your chosen client software. This will allow you to immediately enjoy the peace of mind offered by their service. Alternately, you can also use this information and their tutorials to manually setup their service for other devices that you may have.
Connecting with the NordVPN Windows Client
As we said before, you can download the NordVPN custom software from their “Download” page which is accessed by clicking on “Tools & Information” on their website main menu and then clicking on “Download” in the resultant dropdown list. We have illustrated this earlier in this review at the beginning of the “Hands-On” section if you need more help. Once you get on this page, click on the “Download” button that appears when you hover the mouse over the Windows box as is shown.
This will bring up a dialog window that will let you save the Windows client installation file to your computer. The client requires Windows XP or above. The client setup page also has manual setup guides to configure Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, and Windows Vista with OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, SSTP, and PPTP. Windows XP has manual setup guides for OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, and PPTP.
Once the client is downloaded to your computer, right-click on the file and choose “Run as Administrator”. This will complete the installation of the Windows client and it will open for the first time. It will create a desktop shortcut for subsequent launches.
The first time that the client launches, it will require that you enter your NordVPN credentials to verify that you are authorized to use it. Enter your NordVPN “Username” and “Password” that you obtained from your welcoming email. Also remember to check the box beside “Remember me” so that you will not have to reenter your credentials every time you launch the client software.
There is a link here to create an account if you do not already have one. Also, there is a link to recover a “Lost password”. If you have forgotten your password, you can click this option to start the process to reset it. Before we log into the Windows client itself, let us take a look at the “Settings” and “Help” screens that can also be accessed from the “Login” screen.
The first of these, “Settings” is shown in the screenshot below-left. Clicking on “Settings” in the upper right of the login window will open this screen. It starts with a couple of checkboxes that will let you set the startup behavior of the software. The options you can set are as follows:
Start with Windows – This will launch the client software when Windows starts up.
Start minimized – This will start the client minimized to the system tray.
DNS leak protection – When set, this will ensure that all DNS request are processed through the VPN to the DNS servers input below it.
DNS Servers – IP addresses for the primary and secondary DNS servers when DNS leak protection is active. These were pre-filled by the software.
Smart Play – This activates the SmartDNS over VPN feature that NordVPN says is better than VPN alone because it provides the benefits of unrestricted streaming while still encrypting all of your transmitted data.
Show news – This permits news popups by NordVPN and special offers.
Auto connect to – This will let you choose any VPN server on the NordVPN network to automatically connect to once the Windows client is launched.
Default protocol -This will let you choose the default protocol that OpenvPN uses for its connections while using the Windows client.
UDP – This is the faster of the two protocols but provides little or no error-checking and no correction. This is the client default for most connections.
TCP – This is slower than UDP but provides error checking and correction for dropped or out of order packets. This makes it good for areas with weak signals or over longer distance connections where packet loss is more likely.
Check for updates – Checking this box ensures that your Windows software will always be up to date.
The lower part of the settings screen shows the processes that have been added to the app VPN Kill switch. It will let you select from currently running processes or browse for executables to add to the list of applications to stop if the VPN connection drops. Pressing the “Running process” button will open a window containing a list of the current running processes, clicking on the “+” to the right of it will add that process to the VPN app kill list.
The second screen we want to take a look at is the help screen. It can be accessed by clicking on “Help” at the top right of the login screen.
The above screenshot shows links to the different ways you can get help with any issues you may have regarding the NordVPN service. These links and where they will redirect you to are as follows:
Frequently asked questions – Clicking on the “You may find your answer here” link will redirect you to the FAQ page on the NordVPN website so that you can see if your issue has been previously solved.
Live Support – Clicking on the “Start the conversation with an experienced CS specialist” will open a chat window where you can discuss any problems or questions you may have about the NordVPN service with the appropriate staff in real-time.
Email NordVPN – Email support@nordvpn.com to open a support ticket.
Log file – This has two different links.
Clicking on “Click here to open log file” will open the log file for the last few VPN connections so that you can examine it.
Clicking on “Submit log file” will open a dialog window to send the log file to the NordVPN support staff to help them diagnose your connection problems.
Now that we have examined the Settings and Help screens for the, let us login to the client and see how to use the NordVPN service. Recall from above that you must enter your credentials and click on the “Log in” button. Once you do, you will see a screenshot similar to the one shown below-left.
This is the client main screen with the “Country” tab selected. From here all you have to do to connect to a VPN server on the NordVPN network is select the country that you want to connect to and then click on the green “Connect” button. Let us try a connection now. Scroll down until you see Mexico and then click on it to select it. This will highlight it in pale blue as shown in the second screenshot below. Next, click on the green “Connect” button.
This will cause a connecting screen like that shown in the third screenshot to appear. This screen shows that you are connecting to your chosen server and has a large yellow “Cancel” button to stop the process if you change your mind.
The last screenshot in the image above shows the completed connection to a VPN server in Mexico. The top of the screen shows some account information. This is followed by the new virtual public IP address assigned by the Mexican VPN server and your virtual location, Mexico. These are the location and IP addess that the open Internet sees you at. This is followed by the a horizontal gauge showing the server load percentage. Under this is a green “Change server” button with a red “Disconnect” button to the right of it.
Clicking on the “Change server” button will stop your current VPN connection and return you to the “Country/Server” selection screen where you can choose another location to connect to. Clicking on the “Disconnect” button will do the same. Click on the Disconnect button now.
This will return you to the Country selection screen with Mexico still selected as is shown in the first image below. Now scroll down and double-click on the United Kingdom as is shown in the second screenshot below. Double-clicking on the country/server is another way to connect to a VPN server so after the connection process is complete, you will see a screen like that shown in the last screenshot. Whenever you connect to a server by selecting a country, the software will automatically connect you to the fastest server in that country.
Now click on the “Change server” button which will return you to the country selection screen. Notice that the United Kingdom is now highlighted as the selected server. Suppose you want more control over the server you connect to in a country, then you can click on the “Server” tab above the list.
This will open a list of all the VPN servers in the NordVPN network and allow you to choose the one you want to connect to. To help you with this decision, the software will generate a real-time “server load %” and “ping value in ms” for each server. Clicking on the “Refresh server status” button will give you the latest real-time results and takes only about 30 seconds. This is illustrated in the screenshots in the image below. The first thing you will notice about these screenshots is that if you hover the mouse over the server name a popup will appear indicating the potential use for that server or what it has been optimized to do. The servers are organized first by the following purposes as is shown in the first two screenshots:
Anti DDoS – This is a group of four servers that have been optimized to protect against DDoS attacks which gamers can appreciate.
Ultra Fast TV – This is a group of servers specifically set up to create a fast streaming experience from four of the most popular countries for streaming media. Moving the mouse over each country will display its most popular streaming providers.
Double VPN – Connecting to these servers is all you need to do to take advantage of their double encrypted VPN.
Tor over VPN – Connecting to a server in this group will ensure that your Tor connection is private and securely encrypted.
Dedicated IP servers – These are in the United Sates and hovering the mouse over one gives you some idea as to their primary purpose. You can get a static dedicated IP from one of the servers.
Standard VPN servers – These are by country name in alphabetical order.
Similarly to the countries, all that is necessary to connect to a specific VPN server is to double-click on its name or select it and then click on the “Connect” button. Click on the “Singapore #3” server in the first image below to see how easy this is. You will first see the connecting screen followed by the completed connection one as is shown below.
You can see that whether you chose to connect by country or by server, The NordVPN Windows client makes it easy for you to connect to one of their VPN servers. Just a couple of clicks will have your privacy protected and all of your Internet traffic encrypted. Clicking on Smart Play will have you watching all of your favorite streaming media shows from all over the world while still protecting your Internet traffic. Their software client has DNS leak protection and an application VPN kill switch as well. It uses OpenVPN UDP by default which is regarded as one of the best VPN protocols with the option to change it to OpenVPN TCP if you need to.
Connecting with the NordVPN Mac OS X Client
As we said before, you can download the NordVPN custom software from their “Download” page which can be accessed by clicking on “Tools & Information” on their website main menu and then clicking on “Download” in the resultant dropdown list. This was shown earlier in this review at the start of the “Hands-On” section. Once you get on this page, click on the “Download” button that appears when you hover the mouse over the Mac OS X box.
This will bring up a dialog window that will let you save the Mac client installation file to your computer. The client requires Mac OS X 10.10 or above. The client setup page also has manual setup guides to configure Mac OS X with OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, and PPTP.
Once the client is downloaded to your computer, open the file from where you downloaded it. A popup window will appear requesting that you drag the NordVPN icon to your applications folder. This will install the app to your computer. Open the NordVPN app from this folder to launch it.
The first time that the client launches, it will require that you enter your NordVPN credentials to verify that you are authorized to use it. Notice that the bottom of the screen says, “Log in to access NordVPN service”. To access the login screen, click on the menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the upper left of the screen and it will slide out as is shown in the screen below.
Enter your NordVPN “Username” and “Password” and then click on the “Login” button. The app will automatically remember these. If you have forgotten your password, there is a link here to start the process to reset it. There is also a link here to create a NordVPN account if you do not have one.
Once you correctly enter your credentials you will see a screen like the one shown above. Note that the bottom of the screen now says, “Successfully logged in”. This is the map screen. You can zoom in and out on this screen and select a location to connect to by clicking on the pin in the country.
Before we look at connecting to a VPN server on the NordVPN network, let us take a look at the settings menu which has now replaced the login menu. Click on the Menu icon in the upper left of to reveal the settings screen which is depicted below with a few of the settings expanded to show how they work.
The above screen is divided into three sections as follows:
Account info – This shows your username and the account expiration date.
Since you are not connected to a VPN server, It shows your true public IP address.
Help – Help has three different ways that you can get assistance with a question or problem.
Help center – This will open up the main FAQ and support webpage so you can search it for the answers you seek.
Email support – This will open a support ticket for your issue.
Live chat – this will open a live chat session with one of the NordVPN support staff. Based on the topic you select, you could speak with a billing or tech support person.
Settings – This contains some settings that allow you to control the general behavior of the NordVPN client.
Smart-Play – Setting this to on will allow you to stream some of your favorite streaming media which might be geo-restricted from your country from any of the NordVPN servers without needing to access a server in the country the media is streamed from. This means you could connect to a server in your country and access streaming media from other regions without needing to change VPN servers.
Autoconnect to – This will open a window with a list of all of the NordVPN servers for you to choose one to autoconnect to when the app launches as shown in the above image.
Notifications – Turning this on will allow popups whenever you connect or disconnect from a NordVPN server.
Start on boot – This will automatically launch the client when you start up your computer. Turning this and autoconnect on will help to ensure that you are always connected to the VPN when using your machine.
Sign out – Clicking on this will require that you reenter your credentials the next time that you log in.
Now that we have examined some of the general settings for the NordVPN Mac OS X client, let us take a look at how easy it is to connect to a VPN server on their network using it. All that is necessary from the map screen is to click on a pin of the country that you want to connect to as was done by clicking on the United States pin in the screenshot below. Notice the message now says, “You have successfully connected to the United States”.
The NordVPN Mac client will automatically connect you to the fastest VPN server in the country you select. The map screen provides a quick and easy way to connect to a VPN server on the NordVPN network. This can also be useful if you want to quickly change servers and test to see which offers you the best performance.
Another way that you can connect to the NordVPN service is by using the search feature at the top center of the screen. You can search for a particular purpose like “stream Hulu” or a specific country like the United Kingdom. If you search for a purpose, a number of countries will pop up to help you fulfill it. You just need to select a country that you want to connect to. Then click on the connection switch beside the search to complete the connection.
The image above shows a screenshot of the dropdown list that appears when you click on the “I want to …” search box. This list is organized as follows:
Favorite servers – We will look at how to set favorite servers later in our review.
Most recent connections – This shows the last five connections you made with the latest connection shown first.
All countries – An alphabetical table of countries in the NordVPN network.
Other purposes – Watch Netflix, stream Hulu, use Torrents, and other specialty purposes offered by NordVPN.
Similar results can be obtained by clicking on the Explore button as is shown in the following three screenshots. The screenshot below shows the full list of countries. This is the default when you click on the explore button. Selecting a country and then clicking on the connection toggle will complete your connection to the fastest VPN server in that country.
The screenshot below shows the “select a country” list filtered by P2P. Your choice is now down to just six countries, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Sweden. As soon as you select one of these and then toggle the connection switch on, you can be confidentially sharing files on the NordVPN network.
The following screen shows the “select a country” list filtered by Zattoo. Your choice is now down to just four countries that stream Zattoo content: France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland. Choose one of these, then toggle the connection switch on and you can be enjoying all of your favorite Zattoo shows in just a few seconds.
As you can see from the above examples, connecting to the fastest VPN server in a country is a simple process with the Mac client. Simply choose the country you want to connect to and toggle the connection on. It you want a little more control over the server you connect to in a particular country you can click on the eyeglasses in the upper right corner of the client screen.
This will open the servers screen which contains a complete list of all the servers so you can choose the one that you want to connect to. To make this choice easier, each server includes a load% value, ping time (ms), and the distance from you.
This servers screen (shown above) will also let you select those favorites that we mentioned earlier in this section. Just click on the open heart to the right of the server name. This will create a solid red heart which indicates that that server is now a favorite. The servers screen is organized as follows:
Favorite servers – This makes it easy to find and connect to your favorite servers because they are at the top of the list.
Purpose servers – This includes the Anti DDoS, Dedicated IP, Double VPN, Tor over VPN, and Ultra fast TV servers.
Recent connections – This makes it easy to reconnect to a server you used recently if you find you need to.
Complete server list – This list is sorted alphabetically by country.
To connect to a server from, simply select a server and then click on the “Connect” button on the right side of the screen.
The screenshot below shows the configuration settings that the client has. They are only three of these and they are as follows:
System of Measurement – This will let you toggle the distances shown between US Imperial System (miles) and the Metric System (km)
Protocol – This will let you switch between the two OpenVPN protocols.
TCP – This is the transfer Control Protocol and better for reliability but slower due to its error detection and correction of packet transfers.
UDP – This is the User Datagram Protocol and the default for most uses because it is faster that TCP.
Enable DNS – This will enable you to use your own custom DNS. You should use the NordVPN DNS unless you have a reason not to so that you can take advantage of Smart Play and other features.
You will notice that this screen also shows the current server selection and its parameters. You can connect from this screen by clicking on the green “Connect” button as well. The last tab that we will examine for the Mac client is the Kill Switch tab.
The kill switch, when activated, will allow you to choose applications which will be stopped when the VPN connection drops. This can help keep your sensitive information safe from accidental exposure on the open Internet. Once you toggle the kill switch on, you will see a screen showing a list of apps that you can add to it. Selecting an app and opening it will add that app to the list of apps that will be killed if the VPN connection drops.
Our review of the NordVPN Mac OS X client found an app that was two-click easy to use. Simply select a VPN server location and then click on the “Connect” button or connect toggle to complete your connection to your chosen server. In map mode, just clicking on the map location will connect you to the fastest server in that country. It can not get much easier than this. Some unexpected features like a VPN application kill switch, the choice between TCP and UDP, and Smart-Play were also included.
Connecting with the NordVPN Android App
As we said before, you can download the NordVPN custom software from their “Download” page which can be accessed by clicking on “Tools & Information” on their website main menu and then clicking on “Download” in the resultant dropdown list. This was illustrated earlier in this review at the start of the “Hands-On” section. Once you get on this page, click on the “Download” button that appears when you hover the mouse over the Android box. This page also has links to manually configure Android devices with OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, and PPTP.
This will take you to the Google Play store where you can download and install the Android app to your device. The app requires Android 4.0 or above. Once you are on the Google Play Store, tap on the “Install” button to start the install as is shown in the first screenshot below. After the install starts you will see a screen like the second one. Tap on the “Accept” button so the installation can continue as in the third screenshot.
Once the install is complete, you will see a screen like the last one above. Tap on the “Open” button to launch the app for the first time.
The first time that the software aunches, it will require that you enter your NordVPN credentials. Tapping on “Sign in” on the first screen below will open the second screen where you can then enter your NordVPN “Username” and “Password”. Tapping on “New to NordVPN?” will take you to create a NordVPN account.
Once you have properly entered your credentials, as was done on the third screenshot above, then tap on the “Sign in” button to finish launching the Android app. This will bring up the “Server map” screen which is illustrated in the first screen in the image below. This screen will allow you to zoom in and out and slide the map in all directions. This is illustrated in the second screen which shows a zoomed in view of North America and the third screen which shows the Oceania region. The “Server map” screen depicts the NordVPN network graphically on the map as a series of blue location pins in different countries. The switch is gray and in its “Off” position indicating that you are not connected to the network.
Connecting to a VPN server from the server map screen is easy, simply tap on a pin in the country that you want to connect to. For example, tap on the United States pin on the server map shown in the second screenshot above. You will see a screen like that shown on the left in the image below. Tapping on the pin for the United States displays a prompt to connect to it. Now, tap on the green “Yes” button to complete the connection.
Since this is the first time you have connected to the NordVPN service, the Android OS displays a trust message. Tap on the “I trust this application” box and then “OK” to confirm that you trust NordVPN. After which you will see a screen like the third one above which says, “Connected to United States”. Notice, both the switch and location pin are now green indicating that you are connected to the NordVPN network. Zoom the map out and you can see that you are indeed connected to a VPN server in the United States as shown in the last screenshot. Now, suppose you want to change servers to a VPN server in Canada. Simply tap on the location pin in Canada. This will result in a screen similar to the one shown on the left in the image below. Now tap on the green “Yes” button to begin the change VPN server process. This will first disconnect you from your current server as shown in the second screenshot, then start connecting your new server as shown in the third.
The forth screenshot above shows that you are now “Connected to Canada”. Zooming out shows that you did indeed switch from a VPN server in the United States to one in Canada. The last thing we want to examine for the server map screen is how to connect to a specific server in a country using it. Let us illustrate this by connecting to a VPN server in France.
First slide left to Europe on the map interface and then zoom in to France. You should see a screenshot similar to the one shown on the left below. Notice you are still connected to a Canadian VPN server. Now, instead of tapping on the location pin for France, long-hold it by placing your finger on it and leaving it till you see a screen like the second one below. Long-holding on a country pin opens a list of servers in that country. It just so happens that their are two servers in France. This list displays each server number, the load percentage, and the distance from your location.
You will also notice a white heart in a grey circle. Tapping on this heart will make it a favorite which will be indicated by the circle turning red. Favorite Server #3 now by tapping the heart beside it. This will result in a screen like the third one shown above. Finally complete the connection to Server #3 in France by tapping on the switch to the right of it. After the app disconnects you from Canada, it then connects you to VPN Sever #3 in France. The last screen above shows that you are now “Connected to France”.
Now that we have looked at the “Server map” screen and the ways you can connect to a VPN server using it, let us examine the NordVPN Android app menu. This menu can be found in the upper left corner of the app and is designated by three horizontal bars. Tap on the menu now. You should see a screen like the one shown below left. Notice, you are still connected to the VPN server in France. This menu has the following items on it:
Countries – This opens a list of countries in alphabetical order that you can connect to which we will examine in greater detail in just a moment.
My Account – This will open a screen that will let you extend your current subscription or visit the NordVPN website to change your password.
Full server list – This will show you a complete server list including specialty servers. We will examine this in greater detail later in this review.
Send feedback – This will let you compose an email to support@nordvpn.com with feedback for the Android client. The subject is prefilled with Android Beta.
Live chat – This will open a live chat session with a NordVPN support professional.
Use TCP – This will set the app to use TCP instead of UDP when it can. Note this could slow the connection.
Sign out – This will sign you out of the app. Remember if you sign out, you will have to re-enter your credentials the next time you launch the app.
Now that we have looked at all of the menu items, let us take a look at the two that can be used to make VPN connections: Countries and Full server list. Clicking on “Countries” in the menu (screen on the left below) will open a screen that contains a list of your most recent connections. This is followed by a list of all the countries in the NordVPN network in alphabetical order as is shown in the second screenshot below. Recall that you are still connected to Server #3 in France. Tap on the switch to the right of Canada to connect to a VPN server there. Zoom out and you will see that you are now “Connected to Canada”. That is all it takes to select or change a server on the countries screen. Simply, tap on the switch beside the country you want to connect to.
Tapping on the menu again will bring up a screen like that shown on the left below. Notice that it now shows that you are connected to Canada. Tap on “Full server list” and you will see a screen similar to the second one. This is the “My Favorites” list and as you can see it has the favorite you saved earlier, France #3. Now tap on the “All servers” tab. This tab contains a list of servers by purposes which include the following: Anti-DDoS, Dedicated IP server, Double VPN, Standard VPN servers, Tor over VPN, and Ultra fast TV. Tapping on any of these will display a list of servers that you can connect to accomplish that goal. This is followed by a list of the countries in alphabetical order. These are shown in the final two screenshots below.
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