Spotflux VPN (for Android) - Review 2022
- Pros
Uncomplicated design. Ad and tracker blocking. Adept performance in testing.
- Cons
Sluggish, unreliable interface. Too few available servers. Costless trial edition failed to connect in testing.
- Bottom Line
The Spotflux VPN Android app delivers decent speeds and privacy protection, but its Android experience is hampered by few servers, and a sluggish and unreliable interface.
Editors' Note: Every bit of August 2022, Spotflux is no longer bachelor for auction.
It's easy to go on your desktop computer consistently connected to a safe and secure wireless network. Information technology's much harder to do the aforementioned for a laptop, and nearly impossible for a mobile device. Wi-Fi is an essential role of the mobile experience, however, so when yous're not on a trusted network, y'all should exist sure your wireless mobile traffic is protected with a virtual private network (or VPN) like Spotflux. This affordable service not only secures data, simply also guards against trackers and tin can cake advertisements. Simply it makes as well few servers available for mobile connections, and it's plagued by a sluggish, unreliable interface.
What Is a VPN?
When you connect to a public Wi-Fi network at, say, a coffee shop, there's no manner to know if your connection is actually secure. Someone on the aforementioned network could exist snooping on your traffic. Worse, the Wi-Fi network could have been ready by an attacker looking to scoop upwards all your data. If y'all think it sounds far-fetched, Pwnie Limited saw exactly this kind of assault at the Blackness Chapeau 2022 security conference, and it successfully fooled some 35,000 devices.
With a VPN, all of your information is sent through an encrypted tunnel that connects your phone or tablet to the VPN service's remote server. From there, it heads out onto the wilds of the Internet, unmolested while in transit. Exiting through the VPN server has another reward, too. It successfully misdirects advertisers and nosy Website trackers. That'south considering, to the rest of the world, your device appears to have the IP address of the VPN server to which it is connected.
That'south over Wi-Fi, but what well-nigh cellular? While certainly safer than Wi-Fi, there are still risks associated with cellular networks. The faster and more than modernistic wireless standards like LTE are safely encrypted, but the lawmaking protecting information sent over 2G has long been broken. Clever criminals can gear up a phony cellphone belfry called a Femtocell, jam the LTE and 3G bands, and force phones to connect via the less secure 2G. Just like when an attacker controls a Wi-Fi access point, a bad guy (or a spy) can utilize this setup to vacuum up your wireless traffic without your realizing it. This is a much more exotic attack than Wi-Fi snooping, but does happen. Fortunately, VPN protection works over cellular connections, too, and most are smart enough to handle the manus-off between cell towers and when you movement from cellular to Wi-Fi.
Corporatons and inviduals utilize VPN services every 24-hour interval to secure data, and the engineering is also used in countries that have strict control over Internet admission. With a VPN, it's possible to circumvent some of these controls.
Closer to dwelling, VPN services are sometimes used to circumvent another kind of restriction. The power to stream some content is tied to your location. Free streams of BBC TV shows for U.k. citizens are i example. And some paid streaming content, such as Netflix, tin can merely be viewed in the region in which you paid for information technology. With a VPN, you tin can spoof your locations and watch to your heart'south content. Just some streaming media organizations, including Netflix, are starting to get wise and block VPN connections.
Pricing and Features
Spotflux is amid the very few VPN companies that also offering a free VPN service on the desktop. While it is one of the better free services, it's non available for mobile devices. If you lot want to use Spotflux on your Android, yous theoretically get a iii-day free trial when you install information technology, then yous accept to purchase a plan. Unfortunately, I had trouble using the free programme, as you'll run into.
Paid Spotflux subscriptions start at $iv.99 per month or $37.99 for a twelvemonth. Alternatively, you lot tin spring for the mobile-only account, which costs $29.99 per year. I'm disappointed that a limited complimentary account isn't available for mobile, but I exercise like that the visitor offers a discounted rate for people who only opt for mobile protection. That said, it would be improve if the service had more than flexible pricing tiers for mobile devices.
Almost other VPN services accuse in excess of $x per month, making Spotflux among the most affordable. Only it has a lot of competition in the lower end of the cost spectrum. Editors' Choice Winner NordVPN, for example, costs $8.00 per calendar month. KeepSolid VPN Unlimited offers a mobile VPN service for $4.99, likewise, but information technology includes more features than Spotflux for the same fee.
The mobile version of Spotflux also blocks ads and trackers, preventing you from having to encounter ads or having advertisers track your movements online. Unlike Apple's and its iOS ecosystem, Google has resisted allowing ad-blockers like 1Blocker into the Google Play store. Spotflux also uses a data-compression organisation to lessen the information load on your device, which might finish upwardly saving you money if yous're using a prepaid service.
KeepSolid and Editors' Choice winner Individual Internet Access likewise offer advert blocking. I'k still surprised, later on having reviewed so many VPN services, how few offer this feature.
On the desktop, Spotflux lets you cull from amongst 10 servers—three in the US and vii in other countries. The mobile version I tested has fewer servers available, offering only two United states servers, one on each coast, likewise as one in London and another in Frankfurt. If you were hoping to utilise Spotflux to spotter region-locked content, or connect to a specific region, you should probably await elsewhere.
Private Internet Access has over 3,000 available servers, which is by far the nearly of any VPN service I've tested. Information technology too boasts many more countries and locations than Spotflux. No affair where yous go, Private Net Access volition likely take a nearby server, and that ways a faster, better VPN experience. NordVPN has several hundred servers spread beyond the world, plus specialty servers that let you connect to the Tor anonymization network, stream video over super-fast connections, and download files using P2P services. Spotflux just doesn't compare.
Easily On With Spotflux
The Spotflux app took only a few seconds to install on my Google Nexus 5x. The app uses a gradient blue color scheme that is charming but dated. The app consists of vii hexagonal buttons arrayed in a bloom-like configuration. The heart button toggles your VPN connectedness on and off.
Around the center button are buttons for location information, VPN server locations, settings, the days left in your subscription (or gratuitous trial), statistics well-nigh ads blocked, and a link to rate the app at Google Play. It's a adept-looking interface, just I adopt KeepSolid's minimalist approach. Hide My Ass VPN, besides, has a bold colour scheme and easy tools for selecting a server that puts the Spotflux UI to shame.
Spotflux isn't a very informative app. Tapping the Info button, for instance, merely displays the server's location and current IP address, just nothing else. NordVPN and others display the current load or latency on servers to assistance you choose the best one.
When y'all tap the center button, it takes quite some fourth dimension to connect. So does opening the Server Information, Location Information, and Stats sections. Sometimes, these sections wouldn't load at all in my testing. The entire experience is sluggish and does not inspire conviction, peculiarly since every other VPN service I've tested has been snappy and responsive. Performance is important for these apps; if an app's interface itself is unreliable and unresponsive before yous fifty-fifty connect to the VPN, it'southward already far behind the eight ball.
By default, Spotflux automatically reconnects if it loses contact with the VPN server for any reason. It also offers the option to force a TCP connexion, thought most people probably won't employ that feature. KeepSolid VPN Unlimited provides more—and more useful—options, such as merely reconnecting when you're on a Wi-Fi network or only reconnecting when you're on an unsecured Wi-Fi network. I prefer this kind of granularity, though it's worth noting that Spotflux is meant to be left on all the time to provide continuous protection.
Spotflux indicates your connection status exterior the app with a tiny icon in the top left corner. When you're connected, it's blue. When you lot're disconnected or connecting, it's red. There'due south a notification in your pull-down tray, too. KeepSolid also has a notification tray entry, but that one lets you connect and disconnect without having to open the app. I much prefer KeepSolid'south approach.
Speed Test
Regardless of the VPN service y'all determine to employ, y'all're going to see some kind of touch on on your Internet connection. From my testing desktop VPN apps, I found that in rare cases a VPN can really better your download and upload speeds. PureVPN, for example, boosted performance by 166 percentage! But that'due south the exception, and you're far more than likely to encounter a drag on upload and download speeds.
When I test mobile VPN apps, I aim for a best-case scenario. In my tests, I conciliate mobile data and then connect to our super-fast FiOS Wi-Fi network. That's because a Wi-Fi network offers more repeatable test results than a cellular network, and because insecure or malicious Wi-Fi networks are much more than prevalent threat than complex cellular attacks. Nigh people use a VPN to protect their Wi-Fi traffic.
I and then compare the average results with the VPN enabled to the average results without the VPN, and work out the pct change. The speed exam results are gathered using the Ookla Speedtest.internet app. (Note that Ookla is owned past Ziff Davis, which also owns PCMag.)
When I began testing Spotflux, I tried to take advantage of the 3-day gratuitous trial. In two attempted tests, performed weeks apart, I plant the free version of the app to be completely nonfunctional. Activating the VPN cut off all Cyberspace communications. I relayed this information to my contacts at Spotflux, who told me they programme to address the issue. In the meantime, I continued testing with a Premium account, which worked fine. I'm glad I was finally able to test the app, but I'm disappointed that the costless version doesn't work.
In my testing, I found that Spotflux increased latency by i,125 percent, going from 8ms without the VPN to 98ms when the VPN was active. That's a pregnant increase, but one that still might get unnoticed past most users. Milliseconds are small things, afterward all. NordVPN, on the other mitt, increased latency by merely 32 percent.
My testing also found that using Spotflux reduced download performance past 70.iii percent, dropping download speeds from 32.4Mbps to 9.6Mbps. Private Cyberspace Admission performed far meliorate in this exam, reducing download speeds by only 10 pct. That said, Spotflux's functioning on this test is average among Android VPNs I've evaluated.
But VPN apps don't always negatively touch on performance. I was surprised to find that, in testing, Spotflux's mobile app actually improved upload speeds past 6.5 percent, going from 18.4Mbps to 19.6Mbps. I've yet to find another mobile app that improves upload speeds in testing. Of course, while this is an impressive outcome, the boilerplate user is far more likely to care nigh (and, indeed, observe) changes in download speeds.
Pay the Toll
Spotflux deserves a lot of credit for its speed-test scores, which evidence that it really improved upload speeds when activated. It also includes advert and tracker blocking, which are both rare features I would similar to see more of in Android. But those good attributes don't remainder out the trouble Spotflux acquired in testing. The free version was nonfunctional and the interface was sluggish and even unresponsive. The fact Spotflux merely offers a few servers to cull from profoundly reduces its appeal for some VPN use cases.
If you're looking for a VPN on Android, consider PCMag's Editors' Option winners, Private Internet Access and NordVPN. Both offer meliorate Android clients, more servers, and a wider array of features.
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