Astrill VPN has been around since 2009, is registered as a company in the Seychelles and focuses primarily on offering VPN services to people traveling around the world. In threads on Reddit or Facebook groups, it is very often mentioned as a good VPN when traveling to China, where there are the biggest restrictions against VPNs around the world.
Astrill VPN – is it worth it?
Astrill VPN allows you to connect to a VPN with just one click using dedicated apps for Windows, Android or iOS. You can also easily install it on a DD-WRT router. VPN offers servers in more than 100 cities in 60 countries around the world.
The company behind Astrill VPN claims that they do not collect logs of our connections. Payment via bitcoin is possible, 24/7 technical support, and unlimited VPN connectivity is available on up to 5 devices simultaneously (e.g. a computer, laptop, TV, and 2 phones can use the VPN connection at once).
Protocols supported by Astrill are: OpenWeb (their own), StealthVPN, Wireguard (available in the Linux kernel), OpenVPN, SSTP, Cisco IPSec, OpenConnect, IKev2/IPsec and L2TP/IPsec via Skype, email.
Astrill stands out with a useful option called “application filter”, which is also offered by e.g. ExpressVPN, which allows you to choose which programs should connect to the Internet via VPN and which via our regular Internet connection. This is a useful feature in many situations and it is often called as split-tunneling.
Astrill VPN generally offers everything you would expect from a VPN at a decent price. With Onion VPN and a large number of servers in different countries and cities, there is a chance that it will work smoothly on Netflix. Of course, it will also be suitable for e.g. TVN Player, thanks to the servers in Poland.
Does AstrillVPN work in China? (geoblocking)
But the biggest advantage of this VPN, counting 2020, is the fact that it effectively bypasses the great Chinese firewall, that is, it allows you to access Google, Facebook or Youtube while being in China.
More and more VPN servers are blocked in China, due to the law existing there, which prohibits bypassing the government firewall, and popular American services like Google, FB, Instagram or Whatsapp are blocked and it is impossible to access them while being in China (more info). Unless we have an effective VPN, and Astrill has been doing a good job so far. Additionally, Astrill offers a free 7-day trial period and no debit/credit card is needed to verify the account, only an SMS to our phone number.