It is probably no surprise to anyone that our personal information and privacy is never completely and absolutely safe when we use digital devices connected to the internet. No system can ever be made completely impenetrable, but nowadays we have a lot of tools that help us protect our data in many ways. One such tool is a VPN service that encrypts your internet connection, so it will be much safer to use. And thanks to this technology, you can even access content on the internet that is not available in your country. TunnelBear is a VPN service that, besides privacy, also offers a humorous approach to cybersecurity. Read on and learn what it has to offer:
What TunnelBear has to offer
TunnelBear is a Canadian company - being governed by local law, it might be able to offer you a greater level of confidence in terms of privacy than the United States, for example. Besides being located in Canada, TunnelBear offers a nice feature to all of its users: it doesn't log any traffic that goes through their VPN system, which is really important for many users. TunnelBear comes in three different versions, or sizes: the Little bear is completely free, but it has a data limit (only 500MB of data can be transferred each month). This limit can be raised by an additional 1 GB if you tweet about TunnelBear, but just for the current month.
Besides the data limit there is no other difference between the free and paid versions of the service: you get 256-bit AES encryption, no logging, and servers from 20 countries (to connect to an Australian server, you need to have a paid subscription though).
The next level is the Giant bear for 9.99 USD/month: at this tier you get unlimited data and you can connect up to 5 devices simultaneously to TunnelBear. If you need to run the service on more than 5 devices, you can either purchase an additional subscription on a new account, or make use of the TunnelBear for teams offer that is tailored to workgroups and companies, offering priority support and easy to manage teams.
The third subscription type is Grizzly bear, which is essentially the same as Large bear, but it is billed annually at a price of 59.88 USD for 12 months (reducing the monthly cost to 4.99 USD). And the bear shoots lasers from its eyes at fighter planes - how cool is that?
As for supported device types, you can use TunnelBear on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS devices. There is also a browser extension available for Chrome and Opera (this only protects web traffic in your web browser, not the whole device). TunnelBear provides "limited support for Linux systems, but only for paid users" - details ara available in this blog post.
As for global coverage, we have to say that TunnelBear doesn't have VPN servers in many countries, as you can tunnel only to the following places: United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Germany, Japan, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia (paid only), Singapore, Brazil, Hong Kong, Denmark, Norway, Mexico, and India. As you can see, there are barely any servers in Asia, while Africa is completely missing from the list and so is Russia.
Because we are talking about a privacy-related service, it is important to mention that, when you purchase a subscription, TunnelBear includes a Bitcoin option for payment. If you choose to use it, all you have to provide in terms of personal information is an email address. Oh, and you may also pay in jars of honey… you know, for the bear. 🙂
Although it does not add anything to the way it works, we have to note that TunnelBear is the funniest and coolest security app we have ever seen: the whole website and the application are full of bears and references to bears and things related to them.
Download and installation
Downloading and installing TunnelBear on Windows is very simple process: head to the download page, where the application that is right for your operating system is automatically downloaded. On Windows you get a 28.5 MB setup file, named TunnelBear-Installer.exe.
The installation procedure is simple: accept the Terms of Service, choose an installation location and press Install. It is worth mentioning that, in order to be able to install TunnelBear, you need administrative privileges.
Also, in order for it to function properly, TunnelBear might ask you to allow the installation of a set of virtual network drivers - TunnelBear Adapter V9. If asked, choose Yes to allow the installation, otherwise TunnelBear will not be able to work.
Note, that if you have other VPN software installed, the virtual network adapters might conflict, thus making one or both VPN applications unusable. It is recommended to have only a single VPN client installed on your Windows computer at any given time.
Our first impressions of TunnelBear for Windows are mostly positive: you don't get access to a lot of servers, but the installation process is simple and friendly. Also, you can pay in Bitcoins. It is great that there is a free service available, which might not be enough in some cases, but it is surely great for testing how it works before paying for this service.
Using TunnelBear on Windows
A VPN client should be fairly easy to use, and TunnelBear is really simple and user-friendly. Once you launch the application you are greeted with the following screen.
To start a new VPN session and connect to a server (which is referred to as tunnelling by TunnelBear) you can click the big Off button in the top left corner. The application now shows the connection progress by visually drawing the tunnel between your location and the VPN server.
After a few seconds the TunnelBear mascot appears in the location of the VPN server, the map turns green and the button reads On, showing that you are connected to the VPN service. The process is simple, and if you want to disconnect, you need to press the On button.
By default, TunnelBear connects to the VPN server closest to your location, which is the best solution if you just want security, but do not need a server from a specific country.
If you want to connect to a specific VPN server, you can do that in two ways: either choose the server from the drop-down list near the On/Off button before pressing it, or click the image of the tunnel in the country you want to connect to and confirm the connection.
TunnelBear is an easy to use application for Windows. You can quickly connect to a nearby VPN server with a single click. Manually selecting a specific country is just as easy, you don't even have to leave the main application window. TunnelBear doesn't offer a way to sort the available servers, or save your favorites, but there aren't many servers to begin with, so this is not a huge issue.
Go to the second page of this review to learn about the advanced features offered by TunnelBear and the results it obtained in our performance benchmarks. You will also see our final verdict for this product.
Advanced settings and configuration
TunnelBear is designed with simplicity and user-friendliness in mind: it offers automatic and manual VPN connections, and that's about all you can do in its main window. While there are no additional features, you can find some advanced settings that can help you fine-tune the application's behavior.
All settings are accessible by clicking the gear icon in the left bar. On the General tab you can set TunnelBear to automatically launch and connect to its VPN service at system startup and enable TCP override. This latter setting will make the service use only TCP ports: VPN connections will be a bit slower, but more reliable - a good choice if you experience choppiness. Still on this tab you can enable general notifications and also popups when you are connected to networks with weak security.
On the Security tab you can enable two features. The first is called VigilantBear. This works as a network killswitch, meaning that it blocks all network traffic if the VPN connection drops for some reason, and automatically enables it upon reconnection, thus it never leaves you unprotected.
GhostBear adds another layer of security and is intended to be used on restrictive networks, primarily in countries where censorship is an issue. It makes your encrypted data less detectable by scrambling your VPN communications. This setting will make your connection slower, so it should be enabled only if you are having problems with connecting to TunnelBear.
The Trusted networks tab is the third one, and, if enabled, will make TunnelBear automatically activate on any WiFi network, unless the network is marked as trusted. You can easily mark your current network as trusted and, on the bottom, you can see a list of all of your trusted networks.
The last tab, Account, shows your current subscription type, your email address, and links to your account management page and the support website. Here you can also check for updates to the application and send error reports.
TunnelBear is not a complicated application to use. It allows you to fiddle with some advanced settings that can fine-tune the service. All of these settings are in place to further strengthen the protection of your privacy, even at the cost of some speed.
Performance and speed
You should always keep in mind when using any VPN service, TunnelBear included, your internet connection speed will be lower than without a VPN. To check how much TunnelBear affected our internet connection's speed, we ran a couple of tests using the popular Speedtest.net service.
We were using TunnelBear on a reasonably fast Internet connection, advertised as having a speed of 100 Mbps for both download and upload. The screenshot below shows you the speeds measured by Speedtest.net before installing TunnelBear on our test computer. Although the speeds are not exactly what the ISP advertises, they are quite close to 100 Mbps.
Next, we wanted to use TunnelBear to establish a connection to a server that is located in the same country as our real location, Romania, but unfortunately they do not have a server here. We used TunnelBear's automatic server selection feature to connect to the nearest server, which is in Germany, Europe. The speeds and ping reply were all surprisingly good, compared to other VPN services.
In order to get a better picture of the speeds offered by TunnelBear, we tested another, more distant European country as well, Norway. In this case, the speeds dropped more than we would have expected and ping reply was incredibly high, so the Norway server was a bit of a disappointment.
Next, we wanted to know what speed we get if we connect through a server on a different continent, in the United States. In this case, the download and upload speeds were usable, about the same as in the case of other similar services.
Finally, we went all over to the other side of the world, since Japan is one of the furthest possible points from us. The results were not much of a surprise: the ping reply went out the roof, and download and upload speeds have decayed drastically.
It should be no surprise to anyone that when using a VPN service, download and upload speeds decrease, since you are no longer directly connected to the Internet. In the case of TunnelBear it is even more important to connect to a nearby server. Still, if you have a fast broadband connection, you shouldn't suffer huge speed losses unless you are using a VPN server on the other side of the world.
Default settings you might consider adjusting
There are two things you might consider adjusting when using TunnelBear:
- By default, TunnelBear starts automatically with Windows. If you don't always need a VPN service, you might want to disable this behavior.
- VigilantBear is a great tool to make sure that you are never without VPN, so we recommend enabling it.
- By using the Trusted Networks feature, you can have the VPN automatically disabled when you don't need it. We recommend adding your safe and trusted networks to this list.
TunnelBear does not come with lots of settings that can be altered, but there is still room to fine-tune the application. You might consider changing these settings to achieve optimal performance.
Pros and cons
TunnelBear is a solid VPN service and it has a lot of great features:
- Very simple and user-friendly interface
- Useful security settings
- Zero logging of your VPN traffic
- Extra emphasis on functionality on restrictive networks
- Free version with only a data limit
There are some downsides to TunnelBear as well:
- Few VPN servers to choose from
- A lack of extra features and advanced options for power users
- Some servers are slower than expected
Verdict
A VPN service, from the user's point of view, should not be a complicated thing: you only need to get protected, and sometimes you need to use a server from a specific country. These are the basic use cases of a VPN server, and TunnelBear covers them without problems. It does so with a simple and user-friendly user interface, that includes some humorous texts and graphics. Another great feature is that you can try out the service offered by TunnelBear for free, being only limited by the total amount of data you can transfer. This is very convenient, especially for beginners, who have a chance to see what a VPN does. Of course TunnelBear is not a perfect service: there are not many servers available, and some of them can be quite slow, even though they are not far from your physical location. As a final conclusion, TunnelBear is a good VPN solution that we recommend to our users.
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