F-Secure Freedome VPN makes great promises for quality by claiming to be “30 years of experience”, “simple, elegant interface” and “fast servers – – but can it respond to its claims?
F-Secure Freedome VPN Summary
Daily Policy | Intrusive Logging |
IP, DNS, or WebRTC Leaks | No |
Countries | 23 |
Servers | Unexplained |
IP Addresses | 29+ |
Support | Live chat |
Simultaneous Connection | Between 3-7 |
Cheapest Price | $ 4.58 / month on a 24-month plan |
Official Website | F-Secure.com |
F-Secure Freedome Pros
- Strong encryption
- Good VPN speeds
- VPN shutdown switch exists and no IP / DNS / WebRTC leak
- Simple custom VPN applications for four popular platforms
F-Secure Freedome Cons
- Keeps detailed user logs, including IP addresses
- No router or Linux support
- Very small server network (23 countries)
Ease of Use
F-Secure Freedome VPN is very easy to manually configure or download and install on your device without requiring prior VPN knowledge.
Once installed, F-Secure Freedome’s dedicated VPN applications are perfect for inexperienced VPN users or those looking for ‘click and forget’.
The home screen is incredibly simple, and it’s handy for beginners to find a system that explains how virtual locations in the upper right corner work and where you need to connect for the best possible performance.
However, advanced users will be disappointed by the lack of manual configuration offered.
Server Locations
F-Secure Freedome has a very small server network of only 23 countries that can be selected worldwide.
Most of F-Secure’s VPN servers are located in Europe and North America. Popular destinations include UK, USA, Canada and Australia.
F-Secure Freedome offers three VPN server options in Asia:
- Hong Kong
- Japan
- Singapore
However, there are no VPN servers in Central and South America and Africa.
Although F-Secure does not disclose the number of individual VPN servers in the Freedome network, the customer support team has confirmed that the network consists entirely of metal physical and virtual VPN servers.
Some of the servers are owned by F-Secure Freedome, some of them are widely hired among VPN services.
Speed and Reliability
F-Secure Freedome VPN isn’t as fast as our top rated VPNs, but it’s pretty fast on nearby servers. Connecting to the nearest zone will help you experience the highest speeds. You can expect F-Secure to reduce your Internet connection by about 20% on the same country connections.
It needs to be fast enough for HD broadcasting with very little buffering. Using F-Secure Freedome’s UK VPN server, we’ve reached a speed of 74Mbps starting from a 100MB connection.
Before using F-Secure Freedome:
When connected to F-Secure Freedome:
Download speed without F-Secure Freedome: 91.59Mbps
Download speed with F-Secure Freedome: 73.91Mbps
Loss of download speed while running F-Secure Freedome: 19%
For long-distance VPN connections, F-Secure Freedome can reduce your download speed by 60%, far from the speed of our fastest VPN services.
F-Secure’s upload speeds are pretty good (33% reduction in same country connections), but the intrusive logging policy should be more than enough to shut down torrent uploaders.
The delayed F-Secure Freedome’s ping time is slightly higher than what players want.
Platforms and Devices
F-Secure Freedome offers dedicated VPN applications for only four platforms:
- Microsoft Windows
- Apple MacOS
- iOS
- Android
Unfortunately, there is no way to manually configure F-Secure Freedome VPN software to work with any other device, such as Linux.
Depending on the price plan you choose, you can use the F-Secure Freedome VPN with up to three or seven devices at the same time.
F-Secure Freedome does not offer any local applications for game consoles such as Xbox or real-time devices such as Amazon Fire TV Stick.
You cannot install F-Secure Freedome VPN even at the router level, so there is no way to protect any device other than the four main platforms shown above.
F-Secure Freedome does not have any browser plug-ins or plug-ins for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, or Safari.
Pricing and Opportunities
1 Year
£3.33
monthly
1 Year
£4.83
monthly
1 Year
£4.17
monthly
F-Secure Freedome has VPN subscriptions that vary depending on the number of different devices you can use VPN at a time. The more devices you choose to protect, the cheaper it is per device.
F-Secure comes with a five-day free trial – you don’t need to provide personal or payment information, so there’s no risk of automatic renewal. The free trial lets you try the full-featured software without data or speed restrictions.
F-Secure also has a 30-day money back guarantee, which is completely free of questions. This means that you do not need a specific reason to request a refund; even if you change your mind, just contact the support team to get the money back.
Encryption and Security
F-Secure Freedome will be secure enough for most everyday users, but does not have many configurable options.
Windows, MacOS, and Android proprietary VPN applications only run on our preferred VPN protocol OpenVPN, which provides the best balance between performance and privacy.
The iOS application runs on IKEv1 / IKEv2 (user selectable), the latter is the second best in OpenVPN, but still very secure.
Encryption is performed with AES-256, which is considered to be ‘unbreakable’.
F-Secure Freedom comes with the necessary VPN kill switch feature that cuts all web traffic if a VPN connection breaks to prevent leakage of your real IP address.
F-Secure Freedome VPN has no other configurable options, so there are no split tunnels, port controls or VPN servers optimized for Tor.
Customer Support
Because the company has so many different products and even different VPN packages, you need to do some web browsing to avoid getting lost in the irrelevant content. The customer support of the F-Secure Freedome VPN service is good, although it is a bit difficult to navigate.
Do you recommend?
Because F-Secure Freedome is easy to use, it is attractive for those with little technical knowledge. However, we do not recommend this because of the intrusive logging policy.