NordVPN Review: Features, Security and Pricing

Overview

NordVPN is a well-known premium VPN service. This assessment reflects the experience of a subscriber who plans to leave once the current contract ends, citing two specific concerns.

This assessment reflects the experience of a subscriber who plans to leave once the current contract ends, citing two specific concerns.

Login before the tunnel

Signing in happens through a web browser before the VPN connection is active. The service describes this as secure, but with no tunnel in place the login is protected only by ordinary HTTPS, the same as any other site, and the DNS lookup for the login server travels outside the tunnel, revealing to an eavesdropper that NordVPN is in use.

DNS leak change

The subscriber configured static DNS servers from two providers that do not rely on Cloudflare. For a long time, leak tests on several sites showed nothing, but after an unexplained change the tests began reporting Cloudflare as the DNS resolver. A live chat agent said the dedicated IP option was needed for that capability, an explanation the user rejects because the same setup previously worked.

Takeaway

Concerned that further changes could erode privacy even more, the subscriber is choosing to leave before anything else shifts.