VPN Reviews

BreakWall VPN Review – VPN Service That Works

By Paul Liu
Thursday, July 25th, 2013

BreakWall is a relatively new VPN service that is brought to you by a team of two IT professionals from China. The service is tailor-made for Chinese web users and offers several different ways to beat the Great Firewall of China. In this detailed Breakwall VPN review, we will check the pros and cons of the service and decide if it is worth the monthly subscription price.

Server Locations and Site Access

BreakWall has VPN servers in 5 countries – United States (Atlanta, Fremont, Dallas, Los Angeles, Phoenix), United Kingdom (London), Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. While the choice of server locations is not that exhaustive, the service would help those who wish to unlock premium content from these 5 locations as well as bypass ISP and network based firewalls and censorship. Once you activate your VPN account, you would be able to unlock premium sites like Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Demand 5, iTV Player, Hulu, ABC Player, MyTV, Mio TV, 4OD, ABC Player, CBS, NBC, NFL, MTV, Fox TV, HBO Go, Amazon Prime, Lovefilm, TVJapan, Hulu Japan, Vudu, Xfinity and Dramafever from any location in the world. In addition, the service allows you to circumvent the censorship imposed by local authorities and network administrators and access sites like Facebook, Twitter, gaming sites, Gmail, Skype, Vonage, Google Voice and YouTube from schools, organizations and countries like China, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait. The company does not have any server access restriction in place so you can unlock local content from multiple countries with just one subscription.

VPN Speed and Bandwidth

BreakWall offers fixed bandwidth plans to its customers. Regardless of the bandwidth you choose, you will experience high speeds that support VOIP, downloading, online gaming and streaming HD movies and TV shows. The company doesn’t allow P2P activities through its network so you cannot use the service to anonymize torrenting.

Privacy Settings

BreakWall delivers its service through PPTP, L2TP, Cisco IPSec and Springboard OpenVPN protocols. The Springboard OpenVPN protocol is a slightly modified version of OpenVPN that works from China even after the crackdown on the OpenVPN VPN services there. The service protects your personal data, browsing habits and financial transactions from monitoring and surveillance plus it also thwarts hacking attempts from cyber criminals. The service is robust enough to secure your wireless sessions at unsecure Wi-Fi public hotspots that have mushroomed up at public parks, coffee shops, airports, malls and hotels plus it offers security for all kinds of online activities (including emailing, messaging, FTP, VOIP and browsing). The company respects the privacy of its customers and it will not hand over customer data to third parties or advertisers.

Supported Operating Systems

BreakWall works well with Windows (7, 8 , XP, Vista), iPad, iPhone, Mac OS X, Android devices and DD-WRT based routers. The company offers several different ways of connecting to the service apart from the usual VPN configuration such as Spdyproxy and APNP for iPhone and iPad and Shadowsocks proxy for Google Chrome browser. The wide variety of connection methods ensure that you are able to connect to the service regardless of the strength of firewalls and severity of censorship (especially from China). The company offers a custom VPN client for Windows but other systems require manual configuration. The setup process is extremely easy thanks to the wizard based instructions available on the company’s website.

Customer Support

The company offers support through live chat, email and remote assistance. Since the live chat facility is available only during certain hours, it is much better to rely on emails for support. The team behind the service is ready to offer remote assistance if a customer is unable to configure or use the service for some reason.

Pricing Options

BreakWall’s VPN plans are classified according to the bandwidth available through them with the Small plan offering 10 GB/month bandwidth, the Medium plan allowing 80 GB/month bandwidth and Big plan offering 200 GB/month bandwidth. The small plan is available from $4.5 per month ($18 for 6 months and $31.5 for 1 year), the medium plan starts from $6.5 per month ($26 for 6 months and $45.5 for 1 year) while the Big plan is available for $9.5 per month ($38 for 6 months and $66.5 for 1 year). The company offers a 7 day test account for just $1 and it will refund 80% of your payment if the request is made within 2 days of subscribing.

Final Verdict

Overall, BreakWall delivers a decent VPN service. While the company does not have servers in many geographical areas, the service works well from restrictive environments (especially from China) and delivers good speeds and high level of security. So if you want to subscribe to a VPN service that works from anywhere, check the offers from BreakWall today. For more information, please visit: www.breakwall.net.