If you’re considering Blockless VPN, or are currently a Blockless customer, you may find that it’s not quite the service for you. This VPN may not effectively live up to its name, especially when faced with geographic content restrictions from sites and services like Netflix or the BBC iPlayer. As such, a few effective Blockless alternatives may be just what you need.
Additionally, if you’re hoping to bypass content blocking in countries like China, Blockless is not an ideal choice. Thankfully, there are a few Blockless alternatives you can try out that get past content restrictions and avoid detection.
When considering an alternative to Blockless, you should look for:
- Ability to avoid detection / get blocked by geographic content blocks and governments
- A large number of servers and VPN options
- Low cost for the features
- Privacy and security guarantees
- Regularly updated site and services
Let’s explore the top 4 options that fit all of those criteria.
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The Best Blockless Alternatives
Compared to Blockless, the following alternatives have a much larger number of VPN servers, better technology, and a proven history of bypassing content restrictions, all while maintaining a high level of data security and privacy. Let’s take a look at the best Blockless alternatives now.
ExpressVPN
The main reason to use a VPN is if you want to remain anonymous and have a service that keeps running and working, regardless of where you are.
ExpressVPN has consistently proven itself to live up to those requirements. It’s one of the largest VPN services in the world that still actually works in China. ExpressVPN maintains a high level of respect and trust among VPN users.
What we like
ExpressVPN surpasses the features of Blockless in pretty much every way.
For starters, ExpressVPN easily gets past content filters. By regularly updating their servers, ExpressVPN lets users watch Netflix from anywhere in the world. Additionally, ExpressVPN works in China for any website you’re trying to access, which is a major benefit.
This VPN service also has a great number of VPN server locations available. Whereas Blockless has only 10 VPN locations, ExpressVPN has 148. And where Blockless has but 10 VPN servers to their name in total, ExpressVPN has over 2,000. That means you’ll always have an open, available server with little to no bandwidth issues through ExpressVPN.
As for its privacy policy and security, ExpressVPN maintains a strict no-logs policy. That policy has been tested against its current operations in places like China, where ExpressVPN has shown its dedication to protecting customer anonymity. The service has yet to be blocked there, and no ExpressVPN customers have had their identity exposed anywhere in the world.
Additionally, ExpressVPN keeps their site and services updated constantly. The service regularly rotates which servers work to unlock American Netflix, for example. Beyond that, you’ll find an active blog, and a slow but steady increase in the number of servers added each year.
All of this comes at a good price. While ExpressVPN is more expensive than some of its competitors, it also offers notable discounts for customers. A year-long subscription is the equivalent of $8.32 per month. While this is more than double the cost of Blockless, you’re paying for a service that actually works to get you what you need, secures your privacy effectively, and keeps working without interruption.
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What we don’t like
That price! ExpressVPN might be worth the price you pay, but it’s a hard pill to swallow for anyone that’s looking for a discounted VPN service. There are cheaper services that easily beat Blockless, of course. ExpressVPN charges among the most of any services out there, but it’s also one of the most used VPN services around, with millions of customers.
Considering they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, trying ExpressVPN out for yourself is a good way to test whether or not the high cost of access is worth it.
NordVPN
NordVPN is one of those services that’s hard to appreciate until you actually give it a spin. But from its unique servers to its high level of security and privacy, NordVPN is a clear winner when matched against Blockless.
What we like
NordVPN lives up to expectations when it comes to all of the areas where Blockless is weak.
With NordVPN, you get an absolutely huge number of servers and server locations. This service has over 4400 servers available in 62 countries. Although the bulk of those servers are in the regions where the VPN is the most popular (US, UK, Canada, Germany), you will typically find more than one server in each country where servers are available.
You’ll also find a large number of very unique server options that are found on no other VPN service. Specialty servers include Anti DDoS, Dedicated IP, Double VPN, Onion Over VPN, and P2P. Those servers provide a unique experience that Blockless simply won’t provide, and are tailor-made for specific user needs, like P2P filesharing.
To help protect users, NordVPN maintains a no-logs policy that, to our knowledge, they have never violated. All servers are secured with military-grade encryption. You can also sign up for the service using secure payment systems like Bitcoin that help you avoid providing your name and information while using the service.
For its part, NordVPN is one of but a few VPN services that easily bypasses almost all geographic content restrictions. It will unblock almost any service you want to access from abroad.
What do they charge for this? Their pricing is similar to, but slightly less than what you’d pay for ExpressVPN.
Nord charges $11.95 for a one-month plan, but more than halves that if you sign up for 1 year, down to $5.75 per month, billed annually.
The real cost savings are if you sign up for 2 years, however. NordVPN offers its service for an impressive $3.29 per month equivalent. That’s even less than what Blockless offers for a premium account, with far more features and safety features to boot.
What we don’t like
As with ExpressVPN, NordVPN is extremely popular and used by a lot of people. They also have a large catalog of servers and server locations, so ultimately, their price is higher. Going month-to-month is likely not a good plan with NordVPN unless you’re planning to use the service short term.
Additionally, NordVPN is very limited in where and how you can use it. While it has apps for the major operating systems, you won’t find apps for any streaming TV devices.
Nevertheless, NordVPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, and lets you use the service on up to 6 devices at once, making it a strong competitor against other VPN services, and Blockless.
StrongVPN
One of our primary concerns with Blockless is the fact that they’re too small to offer an effective VPN subscription to users. StrongVPN is itself small, at least compared to ExpressVPN and NordVPN. But it still dwarfs Blockless in size and exceeds it in all of the other criteria that matter.
What we like
We like the privacy and security features get with this service. Not only does StrongVPN offer a strict no-logs policy, but it also offers a good selection of modern VPN protocols: L2TP, SSTP, OpenVPN, IPSec, and IKEv2. Additionally, you can pay for the service with Bitcoin, alongside other payment options, to help maximize your anonymity.
StrongVPN is small, as stated, but still much larger than Blockless. With StrongVPN, you have access to over 650 servers in 26 countries. StrongVPN has 46 VPN locations, spread across the world, giving users a very good amount of coverage to unblock content and access their favorite websites.
The company regularly adds new servers and cities, but it’s also dedicated to staying somewhat on the small size. This is a good thing. It’s small enough to avoid drawing too much attention but big enough to afford to keep improving. And they do, indeed, keep improving. StrongVPN is current on all areas that matter most, as evidenced by a very active blog and social media presence.
You won’t have to pay too much to get access to StrongVPN, either. The company offers a month-by-month subscription for $10, or an annual subscription for the equivalent of $5.83 per month. For what you’re getting, this is a good deal and may make StrongVPN a good alternative to ExpressVPN and Nord for those looking to avoid a multiple-year VPN contract.
What we don’t like
Size does matter in the VPN game. So while StrongVPN is big enough to be competitive and functional for many VPN users, it’s simply not going to be the right service for everyone.
The limited number of locations may make it less useful for anyone who needs to connect to more obscure content internationally. And while 650 servers is far from a small number, you may experience far more server crowding in popular locations, resulting in an increased risk of bandwidth and responsiveness issues.
You can try StrongVPN for 30 days free, however, to test it out, which may be a good idea before considering the limitations on the service.
VyprVPN
VyprVPN is not as well known as ExpressVPN or NordVPN, but it is a fast-growing VPN option with a strong dedication to user privacy. From a privacy perspective alone, it easily beats out Blockless and some of the other options on our list.
What we like
For VyprVPN, the best place to start is in its focus on security. It hits all of the requisite marks we’re looking for: no-logs policy, military-grade encryption, anonymous account creation. All of that matters for a Blockless alternative.
However, VyprVPN becomes more unique when you start to look at its Chameleon VPN protocol. While the other services on our list utilize the standard protocols to remain undetected by governments and content blockers, VyprVPN created their own protocol. Chameleon is designed to completely evade Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) which is used to root out VPN connections.
Other protocols can work to avoid having their metadata give away their connections, but Chameleon works uniquely and so far has been a huge selling point for VyprVPN.
The service also hits high marks for its features. There are over 700 servers in more than 60 countries. That’s a smaller number of servers than ExpressVPN or NordVPN, but more than StrongVPN. Yet, with over 1 million customers to its name, it’s clear that VyprVPN is definitely catching on as a go-to service.
On their Server Locations page, you can see just how actively updated this service is. New servers are added on a regularly added to the lineup in locations that are also hard-to-find, such as Saudi Arabia.
You can get VyprVPN for a very low cost compared to the other options on our list. A standard subscription service comes in at $5.00 per month for an annual subscription or $9.95 for a month-to-month plan. However, the standard option does not include the must-have Chameleon VPN protocol. For that, you’ll need to sign up for VyprVPN Premium, which is $6.67 per month, billed annually, or $12.95 for a monthly subscription plan.
What we don’t like
It’s unfortunate that VyprVPN locks away their Chameleon VPN protocol behind a higher pay tier. This is a business practice that we’re sure helps them sell their more expensive subscription packages, but it would be better if they simplified the process and rolled everything into a more unified package option.
Beyond that issue, VyprVPN is going to be a bit more complicated to use for many people. The service can work on your desktop or laptop web browser, as well as Android, iOS, and router. However, if you’re hoping to run the service through TV device like the Roku, Amazon Fire TV, or Apple TV, you’re out of luck.
And while you can try VyprVPN for free like the other services, their trial period is extremely short. You can give it a spin for 3 days before you need to either commit or move on. That’s a far cry from the 30 free days the other services offer.
Still, at the low price point and with the unique protection from their proprietary Chameleon protocol, VyprVPN may be taking out for a test drive.
Why Use a Blockless Alternative?
From the look of its website, it’s easy to believe that Blockless is a quality, active service. However, there are a few signs that this service may not be the right one for you.
Outdated copyright, lack of website updates
When choosing a VPN service, it’s important to look at whether their copyright is current. At this time of writing (June 2018), Blockless has an outdated copyright that shows it hasn’t been updated since 2017. By comparison, all of the alternative options we’ve listed above (ExpressVPN, NordVPN, VyprVPN, StrongVPN) all have their copyrights updated to the current year.
Does an outdated copyright mean you can’t trust Blockless? Not at all! However, as Nectafy noted, an outdated copyright date sends the message that a site is not properly maintained. An improperly maintained site might indicate an improperly maintained service as well.
Alongside the outdated copyright, however, there are other indications that the site has not been cared for. The most recent blog post on the site was in 2016. Most active VPN services try to maintain an active blog to let users know they’re still around and still maintaining not just the site, but the servers as well.
Limited servers and server locations
While you may find some use out of a smaller VPN service, size really does matter in the VPN game. A service doesn’t need to have as extensive a server structure as NordVPN or ExpressVPN, but it does need a good number to be useful.
Blockless, unfortunately, is on the “too small” side. Blockless only have VPN servers in Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, France, the UK, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and the US. That’s 10 servers total.
And while most other services have at least several servers available in each location, Blockless has just one in each location. That means that if you do choose to use Blockless VPN, you’ll find a large amount of server load and likely experience bandwidth issue as a result.
The best VPN servers give users multiple options. Blockless may be a good service to turn to sometime in the future. However, due to its limited size, it’s not likely to offer the best service
High cost, limited security
Blockless VPN offers very little for the price. You’ll pay $9.95 per month, or $8.95 per month billed semi-annually. And while the service has a comparatively cheap annual subscription that discounts the service down to $3.32 per month, billed annually, that’s a lot to pay for a service that has so little to offer.
Additionally, Blockless VPN has very few features compared to the larger services, and does not provide the same privacy protection guarantees. The service does not actively advertise its security levels or any aspects of how it protects user privacy.
Blockless states it does not keep user logs in its Service Agreement, but it also qualifies this information by saying it doesn’t maintain “direct” logs. Additionally, the service states they may log user information for various reasons.
Because of these reasons – and quite a few more – It’s unclear whether Blockless would be a safe option to bet on for keeping your privacy intact while browsing the web.
Sam Cook is a full-time content strategist by day, a part-time freelance content writer since 2015. In another life, he was a high school English teacher for nearly a decade. Based in sunny New Orleans, he writes long-form educational content on technology, including Insurtech, Fintech, HRtech, and content streaming. He loves whittling down complex ideas within these areas that make decisions easier for buyers. When he’s not reading books with his son Miles and playing video games with the family, you can find him immersed in his growing collection of Euro-style board games.
