VPN comparison: NordVPN VS CyberGhost, choose the best?
It has become an almost trivial thing. While VPNs were reserved for a sort of “elite” of bearded Linux geeks, professionals and businesses, this type of service has become more democratic in recent years. Not a week goes by without an ad popping up on the web praising the merits of a VPN solution, and we can even see it on television now.
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A waterproof and encrypted barrier
VPNs are a valuable barrier at a time when most commercial sites seek to collect data from their visitors to resell it to the world. To guard against this practice, the use of a VPN is then obvious since it allows both to secure and anonymize an Internet connection, both via the box at home and from an access point. public or a 4G or 5G connection. A VPN is an intermediary between a device and Internet sites or services anywhere in the world. It is responsible for swapping the IP address. So rather than connecting directly to sites, a device (computer, smartphone or tablet) using a VPN goes through a server acting as a relay. This is not a requirement, but in current business models everything that passes between the device and the server is encrypted so that it cannot be intercepted by hackers, intruders, HADOPI or even your ISP (Free , Orange, SFR, etc.)
Ok, but what is a VPN for?
Anonymity
Once the VPN is active, no site or online service will be able to know where you are actually connecting from or who you are by trying to identify your IP address. As all the exchanges are carried out via the VPN server, it is the IP of this server which appears in the requests and the downloads, which allows you to remain “hidden”. Your real IP address is never revealed and no one can know your activity on the Net except the owner of the “relay server”. The business argument of practically all the VPNs around is of course on this: they don’t keep any connection logs. We will see that it is even more true with NordVPN and CyberGhost.
Your traffic is encrypted
Everything that goes through your VPN and the outside world is encrypted (or encrypted as our Canadian friends say). Impossible to know on which site you go, but also what you do there. All VPNs use AES 256 encryption, but most use OpenVPN and IKEv2 while NordVPN and CyberGhost also offer the new WireGuard: a newer and more efficient protocol.
Bypassing geolocations
With a VPN, your real public IP address remains hidden at all times. You can endorse any other public IP address as you wish and make it look like you are in Moscow, Osaka, Buenos Aires or Marseille with just one click. A function that provides a certain advantage to break the geographic blocks imposed by sites or web services. This allows you to access content that is not normally available in your home country. This is, for example, the case of Netflix, which does not offer the same catalog of films and series depending on where you connect from or certain foreign television channels that are inaccessible in France.
In addition, by virtually changing the country, you can also deceive Google’s search engine, since it bans illegal streaming platforms from its search results. By connecting from another country, this restriction drops and the results returned by Google.
Avoid GAFAM trackers
Since all the data that you exchange with a website goes through a VPN server, it becomes very difficult for advertising companies to know you, to track you, to collect and to resell the data that you would have to sow during your navigation. It is impossible to locate you to offer you great deals near you, to know if you have been through this or that other website before, etc. Please note, this protection is only valid if you do not identify yourself. As soon as you enter any data to access an account you have on a site or service (Gmail, Amazon, etc.) your anonymity is lost.
The 5 criteria for choosing a VPN
1> The flow
You know it: to ensure confidentiality and security, all exchanges between your device and the VPN publisher’s relay server are encrypted. A process that can take some time to process. It is therefore impossible to take full advantage of the maximum speeds allowed by your Internet connection. So don’t be surprised at a loss of speed as soon as the VPN is activated. Note that NordVPN and CyberGhost indicate in the interface of their connection tool the rate of use in real time of their servers (the load). So you can choose a server that registers less traffic. Connecting to a server in Sri Lanka will not help improve your speeds, which is why VPNs always offer the fastest server available, usually in France.
2> The quality of the servers
To function, a VPN relies on relay servers distributed around the world. These are the ones that act as the gateway between your machine and the website or web service you are trying to reach. And the more servers the publisher has, the greater the chances of benefiting from smooth traffic. Otherwise, there is a risk of a traffic jam and of having a weak connection. NordVPN and CyberGhost also provide servers specializing in streaming or downloading Torrent. Advantage to CyberGhost here since the latter offers servers for a particular channel.
3> Compatible devices
You’re probably not just using your computer to connect to the Internet. Also, VPN editors offer in their subscription to provide several devices with protection: Android or iOS smartphones, tablets, PCs, Macs and even routers or connected TVs. The number of devices that can be used with a single account can vary from five to an unlimited number. Small advantage for those who offer a router module: once it is equipped, all devices that connect to it benefit from the VPN. This is of course the case with NordVPN and CyberGhost. If you don’t want to use the VPN on your router, know that the first offers up to 6 devices simultaneously and the second offers 7.
4> The price
- All VPN services adopt the principle of a subscription for one, two or three years. The principle is the same each time: you are not engaged, but you pay all of what is due at the beginning (this avoids accidental renewals)
- The cheapest offer from NordVPN to take the service for 2 years which makes you pay 79.20 €. So it comes down to € 2.93 / month. You have 30 days to think about it and right now you have 3 months free.
- At CyberGhost, the usual 3-year offer amounts to paying € 2 / month (€ 78 all at once), but you get 3 months free and therefore 39 months of protection. The withdrawal period is 45 days.
- Right now CyberGhost is offering an even lower price for a lesser period. If you don’t want to pay for 3 years, you can pay € 1.99 / month for 1 year with 3 months free which makes you pay € 29.85 for 15 months. Well here, the advantage is very clearly on the side of CyberGhost and its little black ghost on a yellow background.
5> Respect for your data
To be completely neutral, a VPN publisher must apply a “no log” policy. In other words, it should not keep any trace of your passage stored in a connection log. The most serious publishers put forward a certification issued after the audit of an independent consulting firm. While many say they keep nothing, few can claim and present a reliable audit. However, this is the case for our two champions since NordVPN can boast of having been dubbed by PricewaterhouseCoopers AG while CyberGhost has been audited by Qscert. Either way, you can be sure that these two VPNs are not keeping anything. CyberGhost reminds you on a dedicated page.
So, CyberGhost or NordVPN?
NordVPN, the popular …
NordVPN is the # 1 VPN and the one people know the most. It is a safe bet with solid servers, good speeds, a user-friendly interface and very interesting features such as DNS leak protection, the Kill Switch to cut the network in the event of a relay failure, dedicated servers. for P2P exchanges or to directly use the Tor protocol. It is even possible to double the VPN (the connection will go through two different countries) or to hide from the network that you are using a VPN (obfuscated server). In short, it’s solid. It is however a little more expensive than its competitor.
… Or CyberGhost the challenger?
What we particularly appreciate about CyberGhost is its clear interface whether on PC or mobile. It also offers the Kill Switch and a whitelist mode to switch programs or apps out of the VPN, but it also adds the Leak Monitor which allows you to verify that your e-mail ends up in a potentially hacked database. and the Password Checker allows you to check that your passwords are strong enough. From the outset, you can select dedicated servers for surfing the Web or streaming. CyberGhost is also the VPN that offers the most servers (7,200 machines in 91 countries), but also dedicated servers for online gaming, streaming and Torrenting. It is also the cheapest since by choosing CyberGhost you actually have a free year if we compare the two best offers (78 € for 3 years at CyberGhost against € 79.20 for 2 years with NordVPN). For us it is the winner of this comparison.
