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Goose VPN Review 2023

09 August 2023

You may have heard of Goose VPN as a Dutch service with a great 30-day trial period. We wrote about it in the article about unblocking Netflix and in the rating of free trial VPNs.

But recently everything has changed ...

The provider got rid of the trial version.

Now there is no way to use this service for free.

Well, let's see if Goose VPN is worth the money it wants for a subscription, compare it to the best VPNs like ExpressVPN, and see if it has exceptional advantages or serious disadvantages.

To do this, I did a thorough research of its features and analyzed the test results on all major platforms such as Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.

What can Goose VPN do?

A preliminary analysis of the announced features doesn’t promise anything related to the latest developments in the field of privacy protection, such as NordVPN does.

The service offers:

masking the IP address;
increased safety;
access to the best prices in stores;
streaming.

Of all that has been described, only support for video streaming is worthy of attention. A detailed overview of this feature will be in one of the following sections of the Goose VPN review.

The rest of the functions are inherent in absolutely all VPNs, including free ones.

The official website of the service has information about 25 countries in which it has servers. This is less than the average of modern VPNs. For example, ExpressVPN offers access to 160 locations in 91 countries (read more).

The provider claims to support all platforms except Firefox. The apps are quite simple, intuitive, with a minimum of additional options.

Among the useful settings, there is a choice of VPN protocol. True, only standard protocols are supported. There is no support for the progressive WireGuard protocol, which can provide better performance.

Brief summary based on the testing results

The conducted research on the operation of Goose VPN apps confirmed the declared characteristics, but revealed some features in its operation, some of which are related to disadvantages:

Speed problems.
Ambiguous logging policy.
Not entirely safe jurisdiction.
Limited torrenting.
Not beneficial when paying in Euros and Pounds Sterling.

The biggest of all are my complaints about the data transfer rate. It is unstable on most servers.

During the day, the speed dropped to 4 Mbps and then increased to 20-30 Mbps.

In my experience, this is most likely due to the small number of servers that simply cannot provide good bandwidth at peak loads.

Goose VPN has a high level of protection thanks to the support of the Kill Switch.

A big plus of the provider is the absence of restrictions on the number of simultaneously connected devices. Such conditions are rare. I know of only one VPN service from the Top 10 that has no connection limit - Surfshark.

Streaming support

Perhaps the main advantage of Goose VPN in 2022 is its support for streaming and Netflix in particular.

Moreover, there is no need to pay additional money for this, like there is with some other services.

Unfortunately, free access to geo-restricted content was removed after the provider removed their 30-day free trial. Unblocking Netflix for free just got more problematic.

Locations that support streaming are marked with a special symbol for easier search in apps and on the service website.

The following is information on the video quality available with Goose VPN:

	SD	HD	Ultra HD
Broadcast stability	Stable	Stable	Buffered

Disadvantages:

Goose VPN doesn't work well for Hulu, HBO services, and iPlayer. Testing revealed great difficulty and, often, the impossibility of unblocking them.

Conclusion: The provider stably supports Netflix, but poorly supports many other video streaming services. I will also note a higher price for services than some of the more powerful competitors.

Also, read the review of the best VPNs for Netflix

Safety

I can rate the general level of security of the service apps as “above average”. I compared the privacy features, the encryption standard used, and the options for fine-tuning the connection with the best VPNs of 2023 and came to the unequivocal conclusion that the provider meets all modern requirements for the level of protection of the user's Internet activity.

It is worth noting that there are services with even more powerful data protection. For example, NordVPN, which also supports VPN protocol masking technology for VPN banned countries.

GOOSE VPN supports a variety of VPN protocols including:

PPTP, which works on almost all devices but doesn’t provide a high level of security;
L2TP / IPSec is supported by many devices and guarantees average security and average connection speed;
IKEv2, compatible with all new devices, ensures high connection security and maximum speed;
OpenVPN, known as the most flexible and secure protocol, can slow down your connection speed.

The provider doesn’t support the new progressive and efficient WireGuard protocol. It is believed that with this protocol, the data transfer rate increases and the load on the processor decreases. This is especially valuable for smartphones with a VPN. NordVPN and PIA support WireGuard.

I also analyzed the privacy policy of the service, which says that they don’t collect or store data about user activity when using VPN:

Goose doesn’t save any data concerning the servers or the IP-address on the server network of Goose when a user is connected on a certain time or in general, in a cache memory nor does it collect it or store it;

Goose doesn’t save any registrations of internet activities of users (for example, websites visited, DNS-search results, e-mails sent and received, usernames or entered passwords, etc.) in a cache memory nor does it collect this, or save this, or aggregates this, or use this through the network servers of GOOSE VPN.

Conclusion: Goose VPN has all the standard security protection features plus Kill Switch. This allows you to effectively block data leaks on an unstable Internet connection.

Torrenting support

The provider is great for torrenting. It is so thanks to the technology of blocking traffic outside the VPN channel (Kill Switch) described above.

The main problem of using VPN for P2P networks, based on which torrent trackers operate, is vulnerability to disruption of connection with the server. Downloading files or watching free videos through apps like Popcorn Time or some Kodi plugins is a continuous stream. If the VPN disconnects unexpectedly, traffic continues unprotected.

Also, the apps indicate locations that are 100% safe for P2P traffic.

Goose VPN blocks insecure data and the ISP won’t be able to find out about the use of the bittorent client.

Conclusion: Goose VPN can be used for torrenting.

Servers

Goose VPN has a small server network. It declares support of 25 countries. This is 2-3 times fewer than the best services offer.

I tested 5 popular locations. While testing, the speed and stability of maintaining a connection were measured.

Speed measurement results:

	US	GB	CA	NL	JP
Average speed, Mbps	20	15	20	25	10
Stability, out of 10	9	9	9	10	8

The values shown in the table are average or below average. Today, some VPNs exceed 100Mbps on a standard plan. For example, ExpressVPN does.

What is Goose VPN speed good for?

Protected web surfing with text or video content.
Torrenting.
Viewing video in any quality other than UHD (at 4K, the broadcast stops too often for buffering).

As I wrote above, some servers are marked with special symbols for convenience to make them easier to find for torrenting or watching Netflix.

Conclusion: The provider cannot boast a super-powerful server network and high speed, but it is suitable for normal Internet use. If you need a wider selection of countries and you are used to speeds of a different order, then it is better to choose another service.

Pricing

Goose VPN has a classic pricing scheme - the price depends only on the length of the subscription. The provider doesn’t offer any additional functions with a surcharge.

But there is one caveat. The price in terms of US dollars is highly dependent on what currency you pay in.

So, the 1-month subscription costs 12.99 in any currency. This isn’t beneficial if you buy a subscription in Euros or Pounds Sterling. It turns out to be a significant overpayment. Most other VPNs convert prices at current exchange rates.

Goose VPN Pricing Plans:

	1-Month	1-Year	2-Years	3-Years
Monthly cost (in any currency)	12.99	4.99	2.99	2.75

The provider guarantees a refund in the event of a reasonable unsubscribing within 30 days.

Conclusion: The price of Goose VPN strongly depends on the length of the subscription and the currency used. I recommend paying in US dollars - this is the most profitable option. But for this, you need to sign up with a US VPN (you can use a free one).

User reviews

There are few actual reviews about this provider. Most of the latest posts on Reddit contain ads, and only old ones were found. For example, there is a good opinion about privacy:

If you are looking for a good VPN service based on user reviews, I recommend reading the VPNs review by Redditors.

Conclusion

As a result of a comprehensive study, the stated capabilities were confirmed. The privacy and security level is above average, there is support for Netflix and dedicated servers for safe torrenting.

The provider's parameters are generally good, but there are also disadvantages: low speeds and a small selection of countries.

One disadvantage for Goose VPN was its discontinuation of the free trial version, which was 30 days and was one of the best on the market.

When can I install this VPN?