Ran Greenberg
(New-Media and online expert, Venture Capitalist and investor)
VPNinja is a VPN provider based in Shanghai. Its location within China puts it in a privileged position to keep up to speed with Chinese internet censorship. VPNinja is therefore able to bypass the 'Great Firewall of China', the blocks and controls used by the Chinese authorities to censor the internet in the country. This makes it ideal for users based in China, or for people who are travelling to and staying temporarily in China. It is also ideal to use in other countries that have strong internet censorship controls in place, as well to bypass corporate firewalls.
VPNinja provides servers in a variety of locations, such as Japan (the best to use in China), the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India and Brazil. Torrenting and peer-to-peer file sharing can be done through the Canadian server. Server switching is entirely free of charge. VPNinja offers really great speeds and unlimited bandwidth. It is ideal to access geographically restricted websites and services such as Netflix, Pandora, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Spotify, and more. VPNinja uses PPTP, L2TP and OpenVPN protocols, with 128-256 bit encryption. The service also uses special 'stealth servers' that use stronger encryption to prevent blocks by the Chinese authorities. VPNinja has strong privacy protection policies in place.
VPNinja supports operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS and Android. This means it is compatible with most desktop and laptop computers, as well as most tablets and smartphones. It can also be used on Smart TVs, router and gaming consoles.
VPNinja is very easy to install, configure and use. The website provides extensive and detailed setup guides. Customer support is very efficient and helpful, and can be contacted either through a help desk or a ticket system.
VPNinja offers three plans: weekly, monthly and annual. The longer subscription periods allow for savings of up to 40%. All of them allow two devices to be connected simultaneously, and include 1-day, 2-day or 3-day money back guaranteed, respectively.
| Features | Details |
|---|---|
| Number of countries with servers | 14 |
| Number of servers | 34 |
| Number of IP addresses | 28 |
| Does VPN keep logs? | Partially |
| Does VPN include a kill switch? | No |
| Number of devices per license | 2 |
1. Download the program from here
2. Click "Run" to start the installation, or double-click the downloaded file
3. If asked if you are sure you want to continue with the installation, click "Yes"
4. Continue through the Set-up Wizard, then click "Finish"
5. Right-click on the Ninja icon in your taskbar (at the bottom right of your screen)
6. Choose which country you would like to connect to, then select which server you would like to connect to (users in China must choose a STEALTH or FAST server for the VPN to be effective)
7. Enter your VPN username and password, click "OK"
8. When your connection has been made, the ninja icon will open its eyes
VPNinja offers a choice of three plans for its one service. The subscriptions are available weekly, monthly and annually, with longer plans offering bigger savings. The plans offer either a 1, 2 or 3 day money back guarantee, depending on the length of the subscription.
Unfortunately, VPNinja only has an email-based ticketing support system. They respond to this in good time – typically less than an hour, but rely heavily on their FAQs and setup instruction section of their website. They do have a good uptime statistics, and pride themselves on being particularly effective for Chinese users.
As VPNinja is actually based in China, they are in a particularly strong position to provide us with a VPN service that you can be assured is tried and tested in China. This should make VPNinja one of your top considerations if looking for a service provider for that purpose. It also means that you can rely on the robustness of getting through tougher than average restrictions on connecting freely to the internet, in whatever circumstance. Although not one of the largest companies, they still offer servers in all the key locations, and with higher encryption levels. However, if you are looking for more choice of location, and are already based in the west, or in an unrestricted country, you may want to look at bigger and cheaper alternatives.
- 24/7 customer support
- Lots of servers
- 2 simultaneous connections
- Unclear in their privacy policy what information they keep on you
- Based in China - so guarantees to bypass 'Great Firewall'
- Get started with VPNinja now
Jake
They even accept payment at their offices in China – how much more secure can you get? As this team is China-based, their whole operation is about getting those of us in China safely on the web, past the censorship and monitoring, and they do a great job. I’ve never had any issues with their service, and they are constantly improving it.
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