I noticed that when I use a Ukraine VPN I opened Google and it is in Arabic. So, they don't have servers everywhere. Just to pretend they have it, but not. Yes, they keep raising the price year after year. I have been using Astrill for 5 years and paid from 75 USD to 120 USD. They don't have a special price for regular customers. THEY'RE NOT INTERESTED IN KEEPING REGULAR CUSTOMERS. Too greedy! I'm done with them too!
I have reached the conclusion that Astrill is probably approved, licensed, and surveilled by the Chinese government. There are several clues. Their website is accessible in China. Astrill has two websites. One is blocked in China, and the other is never blocked. You can buy a VPN service and even pay with Alipay. Why is every other VPN’s website blocked, but not Astrill’s? Their service bypasses China’s internet throttling In September 2019, China began throttling overseas Internet traffic so badly that it was almost impossible to reach overseas websites during the afternoons and evenings (the throttling has eased up recently). ExpressVPN was also very slow as a result. Astrill, however, remained speedy; it seemed to be bypassing the throttling. At the time I was using my company’s VPN at work. It was a government licensed VPN, and it was speedy too; Licensed VPN’s appear to bypass the throttling. Why can Astrill bypass the throttling when other VPN’s cannot? Astrill seldom updates its app Astrill released an update to its desktop app in September 2020. The most recent update before that was in November 2019. Other VPN’s release frequent updates to stay ahead of the blockers. Why does Astrill not need to work hard to stay ahead of the blockers? Overseas websites know you’re in China When I access Bing and some other websites with ExpressVPN through a US server, I always get the American version of their website. When using Astrill, I always get the Chinese version. This happens in a private mode where cookies are hidden, with regional settings set to US settings, and the system locale set to the USA. This is the case for OpenVPN, Stealth, and Wireguard modes. Somehow the location is being transmitted, even though the IP address is American. This is consistent with the Chinese government’s desire for Chinese citizens to only have access to the Chinese versions of websites of foreign companies that operate in China. They require your phone number I have never encountered a VPN provider that requires a phone number. This permits a government to easily identify a user. Conclusion If you do not mind being surveilled, then Astrill provides a fast, reliable service. Most of your data is protected by HTTPS anyway.
They have locked me out of my account for more than 11 days with no communication and no clear updates about what is going on. They are holding my money hostage and providing no service. This is an evil, spiteful, just overall bad company. If you can avoid them, please do.