Kaspersky VPN Secure Connection Review

Kaspersky is a capable security company and the VPN itself is unremarkable in a neutral way: it uses licensed infrastructure with the Hydra protocol, connects quickly, and covers the main platforms with simple apps.

The context overwhelms the product. In 2024 the US Commerce Department prohibited the sale of Kaspersky software in the United States on national security grounds, and existing customers were migrated to another vendor. Several other governments have restricted its use in public institutions.

For a VPN specifically, the jurisdiction question is decisive. Russian law gives authorities broad powers to compel telecommunications providers, and a privacy tool whose parent sits under that regime is the wrong choice for anyone whose threat model includes any state actor.

The free tier gives 300 MB a day, the paid plan is cheap at around $2.50/mo for the first year, and the feature set is thin: no port forwarding, no multi-hop, no ad blocking, no cryptocurrency payment and no audit of the VPN service.

We list it because people search for it. We do not recommend it for privacy use. Proton VPN's free tier is better and carries none of the same questions.