TorGuard VPN Review: Only for Torrenting?

TorGuard is one of the top contenders in the market due to its strong focus on torrenting and high customizability. However, if you’re looking for a VPN solution that can do it all, there are better, more user-friendly options.

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TorGuard VPN, an abbreviation for Torrenting Guard, is a robust torrenting VPN many users laud for its P2P capabilities. However, this VPN service aims to be much more than just a secure and private channel for torrenters. The question is – does it succeed?

While TorGuard boasts high customizability, incredible speeds due to WireGuard, and the capability to bypass the Great Firewall of China, it does come with noticeable downsides. It’s often overwhelming to VPN novices, the apps are clunky and lag constantly, and streaming isn’t even an option with the standard plan.

In this TorGuard review, I’ll examine this VPN’s functionality, speed, security, versatility, pricing, and more. And a little heads up for those with no time to read – TorGuard has many aspects it needs to improve upon. Because of this, we recommend the well-rounded and reliable NordVPN as an alternative. It’s a top pick among movie connoisseurs, anonymity enthusiasts, and P2P fans.

TorGuard overview

TorGuard is worth it’s salt when it comes to torrenting and customizability, but it’s not as versatile as the service claims. The fact that streaming is locked behind a premium plan or a dedicated IP add-on is abysmal, especially when other VPNs include that option as is. Plus, it’s not the cheapest option out there, either, with competitors like NordVPN and Surfshark offering better bang for your buck.

Best TorGuard alternatives

Need greater versatility and better prices? That’s attainable with our top TorGuard alternatives, NordVPN and Surfshark. They provide excellent connection speeds, airtight security, and tight-lipped privacy without costing a fortune.

TorGuard plans and pricing

TorGuard VPN price highly depends on your subscription length and chosen plan – Standard or Pro. Bear with us, as there are quite a few of them.

Billing cycle	1 month	3 months	6 months	12 months	24 months	36 months
Anonymous VPN	$9.99/month	$19.99 or $6.66/month	$29.99 or $4.99/month	$59.99 or $4.99/month	$99.99 or $4.17/month	$139.99 or $3.89/month
Anonymous VPN Pro	$12.99/month	$34.99 or $11.66/month	$69.99 or $11.66/month	$119.00 or $9.92/month	$178.98 or $7.50/month	$249.99 or $6.94/month

With the standard TorGuard plan named “Anonymous VPN,” you get 8 simultaneous connections. That should be enough for a whole household. You can also pick the “Anonymous VPN Pro” plan that extends the device limit to twelve and gives a free dedicated IP in one of the 48+ countries.

If that wasn’t enough, TorGuard offers several add-ons:

Dedicated Regular IP. For $7.99/month, users can purchase a dedicated IP in one of 31 countries.
Dedicated Streaming IP. For $7.99/month, there’s also an option to get a streaming IP meant specifically for bypassing geo-blocks in a particular country. It covers 12 countries, including the US, the UK, Japan, Canada, etc.
Dedicated Residential IP. For $13.99/month, For $13.99/month, these are special IP addresses whitelisted with major US streaming services and ISP services. The available options are Los Angeles, Dallas, Illinois, and Tampa.
Additional Addons. Those interested can purchase Wi-Fi adapters, routers, and dedicated VPN instances.

Subscribers can complete the purchase using several payment options, including anonymous ones, if they want the transaction to be untraceable back to them. Currently, TorGuard accepts the following:

Credit and debit cards
Visa
Amex
Mastercard
Amazon Pay
Discover
Bitcoin
CoinPayments
BTC and LTC
Paypal
Gift cards

Furthermore, all plans come with a 7-day no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. On one hand, I like that unsatisfied users can get a refund without having to come up with flimsy explanations why they want their money back. But are 7 days enough to test the full capabilities of a VPN? Not likely, especially when TorGuard is so customizable.

Overall, this VPN offers good value for your money and is worth considering. However, the purchase procedure is not user-friendly, and subscription plans can be confusing to beginners.

TorGuard free trial and Fresh Start

TorGuard offers a free 7-day trial, but getting it is pretty convoluted (and not worth it if you’re already subscribed to one of our best VPNs). You’re eligible for the trial version only if you’re using another VPN service. Once you send the latest bill to TorGuard, the customer support team might approve it and give you access to the unlimited version for one week.

Those who decide to stick with TorGuard after the trial period can email them proof of canceling their current VPN subscription. Called Fresh Start, this grants you one month free of TorGuard. However, after that, you’ll start paying regularly, depending on the pricing plan. And there’s no money-back guarantee once it ends, so it’s your last chance to make up your mind about this service.

Moreover, you’ll get credit to buy a pre-flashed VPN router. This offer is especially great for those that currently have a long-term contract with their provider and want to recoup their loss.

Speed and performance

Routing your internet connection through a secure tunnel naturally slows it down due to encryption. It usually ranges from barely noticeable to detrimental, depending on the tunneling protocol and its implementation. A good VPN should mitigate this speed loss as much as possible.

TorGuard 14-Day Speed Average

USA server
Download Speed	776 Mbps
Upload Speed	971 Mbps
UK server
Download Speed	921 Mbps
Upload Speed	751 Mbps
Germany server
Download Speed	1,127 Mbps
Upload Speed	1,154 Mbps

*The baseline is 1ms/300 Mbps for downloads and 1 ms/300 Mbps for uploads

When it comes to TorGuard’s speeds, the service certainly doesn’t disappoint. Since implementing the WireGuard protocol, it’s been among the fastest VPN providers, facilitating minimal connection speed loss. And when compared with the speeds of OpenVPN or IKEv2, the difference is purely staggering.

If you’re looking purely for a well-performing VPN, TorGuard should be among the candidates.

TorGuard servers

TorGuard has over 3000+ servers at its disposal based in 48+ countries. Some of them are virtual, but those are located in smaller markets, such as Israel or Taiwan. Some of the US, UK, and Canada servers support 10 Gbps but cost extra unless you take the Pro plan.

Below is the table that shows TorGuard’s server dispersion across the globe. The country coverage could be better – there’s a noticeable lack of choice across the Americas and Africa especially.

Location	Countries
The Americas	Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, US
Europe	Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Polan, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, UK
Africa	South Africa
Asia	Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UAE
Oceania	Australia, New Zealand

Furthermore, TorGuard provides no information on how many servers are in a particular location. It just states how many server locations there are and in which countries they’re situated. When I asked their customer support team if they could specify further, they said: “We have 1000s in each location.”

The quoted claim is obviously unfeasible, and other responses from the support team on platforms such as Reddit refer to each “server” by its location name. It certainly doesn’t increase our trust in TorGuard.

Subscribers can also connect to specialty servers:

Dedicated IP. For those who have purchased dedicated IPs in certain countries.
Stealth. These use Shadowsocks to bypass firewalls.
ObsTCP. Obfuscates VPN traffic, letting you use the VPN in internet-restrictive countries like China, Iran, and such.
Port 443. Provides extra security as traffic transmitted through this port is encrypted.

Security and privacy

TorGuard VPN is one of the more secure VPN options in the market. The service comes equipped with such features as:

AES-256 encryption
Secure tunneling protocols
Kill switch
DNS and IPv6 leak protection
No-logs policy

So, is TorGuard safe? Jurisdiction aside, yes, TorGuard is safe to use. It offers premium security and privacy features that will appeal to more than just BitTorrent users. If not for TorGuard’s privacy-unfriendly location (the US), such a feature arsenal would put most other VPNs to shame.

Encryption

TorGuard boasts AES-256 encryption, which is utilized by banks, top-notch cybersecurity tools, and militaries worldwide. It’s the industry-standard encryption used by all upper-echelon VPNs today, so it’s not surprising TorGuard also employs it.

If you pick the OpenVPN tunneling protocol, the default encryption is set to AES-128, but you can change it. It’s the predecessor of 256, but it’s just as strong and consumes less computing power.

Finally, TorGuard utilizes the SHA-512 authentication algorithm, while most other services still use SHA-256. It’s more complex and, thus, harder to crack.

Tunneling protocols

When it comes to tunneling protocols, TorGuard offers the following:

WireGuard (Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android)
OpenConnect (Windows and macOS)
OpenVPN (TCP & UDP) (Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android)
IKEv2/IPsec (iOS)
L2TP/IPsec (iOS)

This is quite a variety of available tunneling protocols, with solid choices (including the cutting-edge WireGuard protocol) for all VPN userbase segments.

WireGuard is the latest tunneling protocol that many VPNs implement. It’s open-source, fast, and secure, so WireGuard is a great choice for those who want speed without compromising security.

OpenConnect is an SSL VPN protocol used to connect to Cisco, Pulse/Juniper, and Palo Alto VPN products.

OpenVPN is a popular tunneling protocol that comes in TCP and UDP transmission protocols. TCP is oriented toward security, so it’s a bit slower, while UDP is geared toward performance, netting better speeds.

IKEv2 and L2TP are a bit outdated in terms of security, so many VPNs have stopped supporting them. While they are great to have if your internet connection is weaker, you should only use them if the other tunneling protocols don’t work as intended.

TorGuard kill switch

TorGuard offers a reliable kill switch. This feature will make sure that no sensitive information leaks by disconnecting you from your network in case your VPN connection drops. You can also use it on app level and select which ones should be terminated.

I tested the TorGuard kill switch on the Windows app, and it did not disappoint – the feature immediately killed my network connection each time I disconnected TorGuard.

IP, DNS, and WebRTC leak protection

TorGuard offers effective IP, DNS, and WebRTC leak protection. I tested the service several times using the ipleak.net and dnsleaktest.com tools, and it found no leaks whatsoever.

As you can see, my test clearly shows that TorGuard is a leak-free VPN service.

Privacy-unfriendly location: the USA

TorGuard is based in the privacy-unfriendly United States, one of the founders of the Five Eyes global surveillance alliance. This is a red flag for anyone using VPNs for situations that demand an extremely high online privacy level, such as political activism and investigative journalism.

Suppose you’re an activist or tagged as an “enemy of the state” and currently using TorGuard. In that case, it becomes very easy for law enforcement agencies to mandate the VPN provider to provide data or logs regarding your online activity.

TorGuard claims that it’s as serious about your anonymity as it is about its online security features. And it does adhere to a strict no-logs policy, albeit an unaudited one.

That said, if you’re a journalist, activist, or whistleblower, going with a VPN based outside any intelligence alliances would be your best bet. TorGuard has stated that it will provide any information it has on its users if required by law.

Does TorGuard keep logs?

TorGuard has a strict no-logs policy, as stated in its concise and straight-to-the-point Privacy Policy:

Regardless of the guarantees provided, you should cautiously monitor the type of personal information you disclose online when using a US-based VPN like TorGuard. The simple reason is that law enforcement can be compelled to monitor your online activity or disclose information about you. According to TorGuard VPN’s privacy policy:

“No data is ever provided to a third party unless required to do so by law.”

As you can see, you should think twice before doing anything too illegal when using TorGuard. And I’m not talking torrenting here.

While TorGuard’s no-logs policy will protect you from having your communications logs handed over to the authorities, you don’t want to find yourself in a situation where government agencies are checking your TorGuard account details for your real name and address. So, I’d recommend you withhold as much personal information as possible.

Furthermore, TorGuard collects some information, but as they state, it is purely for standard business operations.

Fortunately, subscribers can request all their data to be scrubbed from TorGuard’s databases by contacting support or the official TorGuard.net data controller.

Still, who knows what’s happening behind the scenes. The service claims one thing, but what’s stopping them from collecting more data than what’s indicated in the privacy policy? TorGuard’s no-logs policy needs to be audited by a third party to quench such fears.

Can you purchase TorGuard anonymously?

TorGuard allows you to sign up for any of their subscription plans using cryptocurrencies or gift cards. It’s great as it allows you to limit further the amount of personal information you disclose while registering with the VPN provider.

When subscribing to TorGuard using crypto, no billing name or address is required. However, you’ll still need to enter your email address, which is the minimum information VPN providers are required to collect. Also, don’t forget that you won’t be getting a 7-day money-back guarantee when paying anonymously.

Does TorGuard work in China?

Yes, TorGuard likely works in China. This VPN used to have servers in mainland China to help local users access blocked content. However, they had to remove these local servers earlier as maintaining user privacy was becoming ever more challenging.

Nonetheless, this does not mean they have let their Chinese users down (even though the official website is also blocked in China). In fact, these users can still use the Stealth VPN feature via Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand servers.

If you’re planning to travel to China or are located there, their website provides useful information about connecting to TorGuard VPN in China.

Other technical features

Of course, TorGuard VPN comes with plenty of other features. Namely, these are:

Scripts
Ad Blocking
DNS options
OpenVPN Proxy
Split tunneling
Port forwarding

Scripts, in essence, lets you customize your VPN connection. Users can write their own, and a few are available on TorGuard’s website. The app will run the scripts before connecting to a VPN server, after doing so, or when you disconnect from the VPN altogether.

Ad Blocking DNS is only available on Windows, macOS, and iOS. It lets you disable pesky adware by utilizing DNS filtering. On iPhones, there’s a button to toggle it on in the settings. On PC, you’ll have to navigate to the Network tab in settings and enable “Use Ad Blocking DNS when connected” under the DNS options.

With DNS options, subscribers can change which DNS servers are used. Currently, the available options are: Pushed DNS, VPN DNS, Ad Blocking DNS, Level3, Google, OpenDNS, Cloudflare, Quad9, and China DNS.

The OpenVPN Proxy lets you set up a proxy in a specific location. The default Direct connection means you’re not connected to any proxy. But you can change it to a Stealth Proxy or even specify which customer proxy server you want to use.

Split tunneling allows you to select which apps to include or exclude from the secure VPN connection. But it’s only available on the iOS app, which is a bit disappointing.

Port forwarding is useful for boosting your connections and allowing remote access to software hosted on your network. You have to manually configure it yourself, which might be a bit difficult for users doing it for the first time.

Another aspect I didn’t like is that certain major features are missing from TorGuard. Many other competitors, such as NordVPN or Surfshark, also include MultiHop, Smart DNS, malware blockers, and such.

Other TorGuard products

The company behind TorGuard also offers other cybersecurity services you can buy separately. Some can be bundled with the VPN, but most come as standalone services.

Business VPN. A company-wide VPN solution that incorporates the VPN suite, encrypted email, a dedicated user management portal, dedicated VPN IP addresses, and proxies. Furthermore, it’s HIPAA compliant.

Anonymous proxy. The proxy service covers 22+ regions with 300+ servers, and you can connect up to 15 devices to it. It includes SSL, SOCKS5, Stealth Vmess v2ray support, and an ad-blocking feature. These proxies can be used for torrenting and unblocking online content in general.

Private cloud. Powered by WireGuard, the private VPN cloud lets users remotely share and access files across multiple devices. You can configure default VPN gateways through a unified control panel, deploy IP firewalls, forward VPN ports, and manage VPN controls. It even works with certain routers.

Private mail. A secure email option that encrypts all electronic mail communications. But it also includes such useful features as cloud storage, calendars, notes, advanced search, aliases, tasks, etc.

Routers. There’s also an option to buy routers with built-in TorGuard VPN. In a sense, you get total security and privacy from the get-go.

Is TorGuard good for streaming?

Streaming service	Status
Netflix US	Yes
Other Netflix libraries	No
Disney+	No
Hulu	No
HBO Max	No
BBC iPlayer	No
Amazon Prime Video	No

TorGuard is notoriously bad for streaming, and my failed attempts to access all kinds of streaming services across the globe just further proved this point. I’ve found that TorGuard’s US Atlanta server managed to bypass Netflix’s detection, but that’s mostly it. I couldn’t access any other US-only streaming services, such as HBO Max and Hulu. We had no luck unblocking services across the pond, either.

Reportedly, you have a higher chance of success by getting a dedicated streaming IP address. There’s even a Streaming Bundle that includes two streaming IPs you can select either in the US, the UK, Germany, France, Japan, and Spain. Which isn’t much to choose from, in all honesty.

Honestly, I think it’s a terrible business decision. TorGuard itself has a notice that they can’t guarantee the streaming IP will work with streaming services. And you’ll have to buy a separate dedicated IP with every different country you need, each costing $7.99/month a pop.

Most premium VPNs include the ability to bypass streaming platform geo-blocks in their core packages. The fact that TorGuard has the audacity to charge extra for it, especially when it might not even work, and with such a poor country selection, too, makes them look greedy. You’ll have a better time with a proper streaming-oriented VPN.

Is TorGuard good for torrenting?

TorGuard is one of the best VPNs for torrenting, and it was actually built for this purpose. P2P file-sharing is enabled on all servers, so you won’t have trouble downloading and uploading files no matter which country you connect to.

I’ve mostly tried P2P on WireGuard, and the connection speeds were great, with very minimal slowdowns. Furthermore, torrenters can utilize the SOCKS5 proxy or port forwarding to boost their download/upload speeds further. And naturally, TorGuard is compatible with many popular torrent clients, uTorrent and Vuze included.

Since this client has enough speed and security features to rival the big boys in the industry (such as NordVPN), it’s easy to recommend TorGuard VPN for torrenting. If I were hard-pressed to name why you shouldn’t choose this VPN for this task, it would be its location – the US.

TorGuard device support

TorGuard VPN’s device support is a bit limited compared to other high-grade VPNs. Currently, there are applications for these platforms:

Windows
macOS
Linux
Android
iOS
Routers

Moreover, you can get a browser add-on for Chrome, Chromium-based browsers, and Firefox. Just keep in mind that it’s a mere proxy service, meaning your activities won’t be encrypted, and it just works on the browser level. And while the standard plan includes only 8 simultaneous connections, you can install the VPN on your router for full household coverage.

Desktop apps: Windows

Installing TorGuard is very simple, but using it might take some getting used to. The main screen and the whole VPN app are not the epitomes of user-friendliness. For example, there is no visual map you can pick a server from; instead, you’ll have to scroll down a list.

But at least there’s an option to list the servers by: custom first, alphabetically, reverse alph., usage, and proximity.

On the other hand, TorGuard can be the best for advanced VPN users since it offers loads of settings and options to tweak.

There are six tabs that cover different aspects of TorGuard you can tinker with:

General. Covers such things as auto start on boot, auto logins, kill switches, and appearance. Notably, the Windows app is set to use the Classic theme as default, which lowkey looks terrible compared to the Modern theme.
Utilities. Here you can enable the app-level kill switch and scripts.
Network. It lets you toggle leak protection, the seamless reconnect function, the system-level kill switch, and disable the interface default route. You can also change your DNS server options and enable DNS Ad Blocking.
VPN. Includes the settings for OpenVPN, OpenVPN Proxy, and WireGuard.
Servers. A tab for those who bought dedicated IPs or personal remote VPNs. It lets you customize the IPs by selecting flags and countries and adding comments.
Account. Includes details about your account’s status and a debugging option.

The Windows app includes OpenVPN, OpenConnect, and WireGuard tunneling protocols, but only OpenVPN can be customized. The options are: protocol (UDP or TCP), port/auth, and cipher (AES-128 or AES-256).

Overall, the client is clunky, and it constantly lagged, making using TorGuard somewhat of a nuisance. Plus, while having all these customization options is nice, their presentation isn’t the best, either. Everything looks haphazard, and some settings would benefit from proper explanations of their purpose.

Desktop apps: macOS

TorGuard’s Mac app is just as secure as the Windows version. That’s actually not that common in the VPN industry, as many VPN providers release clients on macOS that are less secure than their PC counterparts in more ways than one. I’ve noticed only a few very minor differences from the Windows counterpart.

The macOS client is more visually appealing, thanks to the Modern theme, which is set as default. Well, at least the main screen does, as the Settings screen is identical on both themes, thus, clunky.

Desktop apps: Linux

TorGuard VPN also has an app for Linux, which is a real rarity. While it has to be set up manually, you get a GUI with full-fledged functionality and the OpenVPN and WireGuard protocols.

The installation process was easy and simple. Currently, you can get the app for Ubuntu 14+, Mint, Debian, REDHAT, Fedora 26+, CentOS 7+, ARCH Linux, and ARM Arch.

Mobile apps: Android and iOS

The Android app for TorGuard utilizes the same interface as the macOS version, just adapted to mobile. What’s notable is that it has fewer features when you compare it to desktop clients.

There’s split tunneling, IPv6 leak protection, LAN bypass, and dedicated IPs, among others. But you can’t tweak most of them down to a T. As for the iOS version, things seem a bit more dire.

Unfortunately, the iPhone app is simply lackluster. While it gives you the broadest range of tunneling protocols of all clients, it barely has any features. The only settings you can tweak are Ad Blocking DNS and Dedicated IP addresses, provided you already bought one. Needless to say, iOS users are very neglected by TorGuard.

You can get the TorGuard Android app from Google Play or download it directly as an APK package file from TorGuard.net, while the iOS app is available on the App Store.

Browser extensions: Chrome and Firefox

TorGuard offers browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. These are by no means full-ledged apps and are just simple SSL proxy extensions. However, they do have some helpful features.

First of all, TorGuard browser add-ons let you select from a number of ports and all 48+ countries available for desktop and mobile clients. Also, they can help against geo-blocking but don’t expect access to Netflix’s regional libraries.

Most importantly, TorGuard browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome block WebRTC requests, trackers, and ads.

TorGuard customer support

TorGuard VPN offers the following customer support options:

24/7 toll-free phone line (US only)
Email
Community forum
FAQ
Knowledgebase

The options are plenty, but the issue is catching them during their working hours. The only 24/7 support option is the phone line, but it’s unavailable outside the US. Furthermore, live chat isn’t offered anymore, so if you have problems, contacting specialists via email is the only method.

If you have an account, you can also submit a support ticket. For this, you’ll have to click the Submit Ticket link in the Support/Help section of the footer. Although they state a general 24-hour response time, TorGuard support may surprise you and send you an answer within the hour.

At least there’s an extensive knowledgebase and FAQ to help with the most common questions and issues. Still, you might be left struggling for a while if the issue is more complex. And this is a no-no in my books.

Conclusion: should you get TorGuard?

I’d only recommend TorGuard for those who primarily need a VPN for secure torrenting. Or advanced users who are looking for high customizability and particular features.

Unfortunately, TorGuard VPN has quite a few drawbacks. It’s based in the US, and the provider has stated that they will share any info they have with law authorities if they get a request. And if you like streaming, that option isn’t on the table, even with dedicated streaming IPs that might not work (as the VPN service itself admits).

While TorGuard has dedicated apps for major OS, they’re limited to PCs, phones, and routers. The clients aren’t user-friendly, and the mobile apps lack a lot of customizability options available to their desktop counterparts. The worst of all is the iOS app, which barely comes with any features at all. Even getting help when needed can be tricky, as there is no live chat support, only email and a ticketing system for subscribers.

To sum up, TorGuard is a good VPN for torrenting. And it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg when picking long-term plans. If you can live with its shortcomings, it will serve you well for the foreseeable future. But if you want a VPN that can do it all, there are better alternatives.