Goose VPN is one of the more rather peculiar, but one of the most famous VPN services in the market. With a little under 100,000 users across all their platforms, they’re truly one of the favorites.
A lot of people, especially those knowledgeable when it comes to VPN, question the popularity of the provider. What does make Goose VPN one of the most wanted and the most trusted VPN services in the market?
That’s what we’ll be talking about today. Aside from discussing its features, we’ll also go deep into its roots to divulge whether or not it’s something you should consider for yourself, your family members, or even in your business.
What You Need to Know About Goose VPN
One of the pioneers of the VPN industry, Goose VPN is the VPN service owned and controlled by Goose B.V., a company from Rotterdam in the country of Netherlands. That alone is enough to tell you what this is all about.
A VPN service from the country of Netherlands? – We got a lot to talk about with it! The Netherlands is one of the countries most known for their boldness and their total innovation and brilliance, that’s what we’ll find out in just a bit.
The thing about Goose VPN is the fact that it’s called “Goose VPN;” which is funny, but clever at the same time. They were able to pull this idea off by offering the VPN packages they have, starting from the egg, which is the smallest – to a full-grown goose with a bowtie, the biggest plan they have.
Let’s head on to the features that Goose VPN is offering!
Encryption, Protocols, and Security
When it comes to encryption, Goose VPN wouldn’t ever fail you. The company utilizes bank-grade AES 256-bit encryption, which is considered as the safest and the strongest encryption standard in the industry today. Not even the fastest and the most advanced of supercomputers are able to crack it!
In all technicality, the AES-256 encryption is a foolproof system for hackers and for cybercriminals; this puts you in a position where you’re more than safe, secure, and protected.
Similar to other VPN service providers, Goose VPN breeds on a few protocols, making them compatible to a wide range of devices that users in the market are using. They’re offering OpenVPN, L2Tp or IPSec, IKEv2, and PPTP.
All these protocols are what makes Goose VPN compatible with a wide range of devices, software, and systems.
And while they utilize all these protocols, they’re open to the fact that the IKEv2 protocol is a protocol that works best with new devices, however, it can get intercepted pretty easily; so, they still suggest everyone to use OpenVPN, while it’s slower than the bunch, it’s virtually hard to block.
Logging Policy
In case you’re not aware, The Netherlands is a country part of the Nine Eyes agreement. The Nine Eyes agreement, in its simplest terms, is an agreement covering nine countries, five (5) of which are countries from the Five (5) Eyes agreement, plus The Netherlands, France, Denmark, and Norway, and the goal is for them to be able to share information on intelligence, to promote “World Peace.”
This means that your data, logs, and activities can be requested by the government of the Netherlands from Goose VPN, and there’s a high chance that they’ll give it to them.
When it comes to the logging policy, though, Goose VPN makes it clear that they neither store nor collect data from you. If you’d care to look at their Privacy Policy, they state there that their team encompasses all information about people.
In addition to that, the company also says that they neither sell, nor trade your personal information to third-party companies and businesses.
While they say these things, they still can’t escape the fact that they’re in a country, part of the Nine Eyes Agreement, which is a total bearer of bad news for people who want total and complete anonymity while they’re connected to the internet.
Usable Kill Switch
Just like how many VPN service providers integrate, Goose VPN is equipped with a Kill Switch that can instantly kill off your connection in the event that the VPN service fails.
Many people disregard the fact that the Kill Switch is one of the best and the most useful tools there is because this facility is just a thin line of difference between your data and your activity being exposed.
Imagine you’re using a VPN service without a kill switch, and the VPN service disconnects or fails, and you know nothing about it because only the company knows this. During this time, your activity is already exposed to whoever can access it – it’s just like you’re using raw internet connection.
With Goose VPN, their Kill Switch is named “Smart Safe” and it’s lethal; the moment the VPN fails, the Kill Switch will instantly turn your connection off and disconnect you, promoting high instances and chances of security; that is if you have it enabled, though.
GooseVPN
Pros
- Popular VPN
- No-logging policy
- 256-bit AES encryption
Cons
- Not as fast as other providers
Connection Speeds
In their FAQ Guide, they state there that the reduction on the speed of their connection is normal because using a VPN requires your network to take an additional level to be used. Good for them in this point for being honest because when we tried and tested their speeds, it was atrociously and brutally lower than what we expected.
We tested it through various connection speeds we have available, and it gave us the lowest speeds we ever experienced in testing VPNs out.
At a specific connection speed, we tried the U.S. server in Los Angeles, and we experienced a speed that was 8% slower for the download speed, and a 89% slower speed for the upload speed.
After so, we tried their server in the Netherlands, and the results came out the same as how we got it from the U.S. server.
The ping was lower, and the download speed was a bit lower; still sitting at that 9 mbps speed, and the upload speed was just at the same slow rate.
Overall, speed is not Goose VPN’s forte, so if you are to use Goose VPN with the hopes of achieving ultra-high speed connections, you’re missing the point.
Streaming and Torrenting: Allowed?
Goose VPN, however, is one of the VPN service providers that allowed the access to the U.S. Netflix library in the wide majority of their servers. You can access the U.S. Netflix library in almost every server they have in the U.S., which is a plus point.
We also tried accessing the library of the Netherlands for Netflix and it reflected positive output, too! This was one of the strongest points that Goose VPN had over the course of all the tests we had.
It’s able to access Netflix in whatever server, which basically means that the protocols they have really are working. But what about torrenting? Is it allowed?
If you would look at their FAQ Guide and you search for torrents, you’ll see the resolution and the answer that they do allow torrenting BUT, yes, there’s a “BUT,” it’s only for specific servers. When you look at the different servers they have available, you need to find the server that has (P2P) beside it.
Those servers with P2P are the only servers that allow torrenting. It’s allowed, but only at a limited capacity and capability. If you ask us, there’s no problem with it. So long as it’s allowed and that my data is not going elsewhere, it’s fine for us.
Device and Platform Compatibility
Goose VPN is one of the few VPNs to offer applications on smartphones. Not only that, they also made it to a point where they’re allowing it on a wide range of devices, not just your regular computers, laptops, and smartphones.
As a matter of fact, we tried it on all our devices and it worked perfectly! It’s compatible with iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Chrome, Android TVs, and even some routers!
One of our team members even tried it on their router and it worked perfectly! Their entire network was connected and was protected in seconds!
Customer Service and Support
When it comes to customer service and support, Goose VPN upgraded. A few years back, they weren’t offering 24/7 email support, and now, they do. The 24/7 email support they’re offering had an average of four (4) to six (6) hours of response, which is not good if you’re looking for a quick and easy answer.
So, we then tried their chat support. Their chat support was great; in fact, there was immediately an agent ready to answer all our queries within a few minutes. This was a good start for their chat support, until the agent, who was named Daryl started telling us answers.
It was like Daryl was just reading off of the FAQs without actually giving me real answers to my problems. It was good, and we were just testing it out, but might’ve been better and more helpful if the answers were natural and were concrete, not just like it was read off of a piece of paper.
When it comes to responsiveness, we give it a 5/5; but it could have been better if the answers were natural and more of on a subjective manner.
Rates and Prices, Payment Options
Goose VPN only has one offer or package, and it’s all the same. When you subscribe, you get the chance to avail everything that they offer – from the VPN service, the unblocking of regionally-restricted websites, the kill switch, and so on.
They divide their plans out into four (4) options: the 1-month plan, the 1-year plan, the 2-year plan, and the 3-year plan.
Goose VPN offers undeniably considerate rates
All features are included, whatever plan you pick. The only difference it would have will be with the amount of savings you get on a monthly basis, given the fact that the one-month plan is like 62% higher versus taking the one-year plan.
- 1-Month Plan – billed at $12.99 per month, NO SAVINGS
- 1-Year Plan – billed at $4.99 per month, pay $59.88 every year, 62% SAVINGS
- 2-Year Plan – billed at $2.99 per month, pay $71.76 every 2 years, 77% SAVINGS
- 3-Year Plan (Autumn Deal) – billed at $2.75 per month, pay $99 every 3 years, 79% SAVINGS
Comparing the three-year plan to the 1-month plan, many people would want and choose this, especially if they’re already certain about Goose VPN. The price deficit is at a huge spread, and I mean, who doesn’t want to save money?
If you’re decided that you would go with GooseVPN, you can pay and settle your payments via major banks and credit cards, iDeal (a Dutch bank debit card, only for participating banks), and Paypal.
Unlike other providers, Goose VPN doesn’t allow payments via cryptocurrency as of the moment. However, the team is currently cooking up other payment options for their clients to be able to accommodate everyone.
Final Verdict: Is It Recommendable?
We rate it 4.5/5 overall. This rating is high, considering the fact that they’re not very good when it comes to connection. But, the fact that Netflix can be unblocked; and that all other services can be unblocked is one of the best things about it.
You wouldn’t have to worry about selecting the right server to unblock Netflix, it’s all going to be available! While torrenting is only for a few select servers, it’s still possible!
The only drawback is with the speed; it was something that was not what we were expecting. There are a lot of other providers that offer tremendous speed capabilities and connections, but Goose VPN failed on that.
Nevertheless, the overall capabilities, features, protection, and the transparency they have are still winners in our books. So, if you’re looking for a VPN service provider that wouldn’t give you troubles and problems in unblocking websites and webpages, Goose VPN is the perfect source for you!
For a decent and an inexpensive amount, you can binge-watch all your favorite shows, movies, and even access websites that aren’t available in your region!