RitaVPN

RitaVPN offers daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly plans. There’s also an option for a free plan, as well as a free trial. But is it worth it? While Hong Kong is working to keep internet and VPN restrictions to a minimum and separate from those imposed in China, right now it still faces some heavy monitoring.

Not really, this Hong Kong-based VPN doesn’t quite cut it when it comes to server availability. Gaming was out of the question on most of the servers because upload and ping speeds were painfully slow. If you want a secure, fast VPN that works for gaming, you’d be better off with one of these.

On the upside, download speeds were fast enough for streaming in HD and even UltraHD in some areas. I was also able to unblock Netflix US.

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Streaming – Can it Unblock Netflix? Only Netflix US

I was able to unblock Netflix US and Hulu, and stream content in HD and even UltraHD/4k in some areas. I was unable to access other global Netflix libraries, BBC iPlayer, 9Now, and more.

Unblocks: Netflix US and Hulu

I was able to unblock Netflix US and stream in HD

Blocked by: Disney+, 9Now, Rakuten TV, other Netflix libraries, and BBC iPlayer

These are just a few of the streaming services RitaVPN can’t unblock

Speeds – Fast Enough to Stream in HD

The download speeds for RitaVPN are pretty decent considering it only has 20+ servers. That’s where the good news ends, the upload and pingback speeds in most places were extremely disappointing.

Download speeds were fast but the upload and pingback speeds were slow

I tested each servers ping, download, and upload speeds to get a good idea of how it would perform with various online services. Download speeds are incredibly important when it comes to torrenting and streaming, the faster your speeds are the less likely you’ll experience buffering or disconnects during these activities. Upload is more important for posting videos to social media or even YouTube, as well as making HD quality video calls. I’ll go into ping in the gaming section.

To provide you with a sense of the speed benchmarks desirable for utilizing streaming platforms, live video chat/meeting applications, and gaming, take a look at the following recommended speeds for various online services:

• HD streaming: A minimum of 5Mbps download speed
• UltraHD/4k: A minimum of 25Mbps download speed
• Live Video Chat (Skype, Zoom, etc.): 1.5Mbps upload speeds for a standard HD call, anywhere from 25-50Mbps for a buffer-free HD conference call
• Gaming: Pingback of 20ms recommended but it can go as high as around 100ms

When I connected to the nearest US server, the download speeds were good enough to stream in UltraHD. Keep in mind that is going to reduce drastically during peak hours, as it’s one of the only available server in the US. That means that while I only experienced a 73% drop in download speeds when connecting to the nearest US server, that could double or even triple during peak hours. What floored me here was the download speed, which decreased by over 90%.

Next I tested a server in the UK and again experienced an over 90% decrease in upload speeds. Not encouraging, my download speeds also continued to dip. This time 90% from my basespeed, just under fast enough for buffer-free UltraHD viewing but still more than fast enough for streaming in HD.

The last two servers I tested were in Germany and the Netherlands, download speeds dropped by around 93% and 94% respectively. That said, download speeds were still fast enough to stream buffer-free in HD. The upload speeds were awful. I was really surprise how upload speeds steadily and drastically decreased after I connected to the VPN.

Is RitaVPN Fast Enough for Gaming? No

No, not on most of the servers I tested. The only server with speeds in the acceptable range for gaming was the nearest server to my location. The upload speeds were miserable but the real clencher for gaming is ping. Ping is the time it takes from data to travel from your device, to the server, and back again. When it’s slow you deal with latency.

Now I’ll explain why pingback matters so much for gaming, as I mentioned 20ms is recommended ping speed for gaming. On the high end, you want no more than a ping speed of 100-105ms if you plan on playing any kind of RPG. With pingback over 400ms on most of the servers, you’ll experience latency that will lead to lag and disconnects. This is clearly not a gaming VPN.

Server Network – Extremely Small

RitaVPN has 20+ servers, in over 20 locations across 15 countries. That means most countries only have one available server.

While it offers unlimited server switching, the limited number available makes it virtually impossible to find another server in the same location if the connection drops or you can’t access a streaming site. A common problem with low server availability is congestion, especially during peak hours, so you could also get caught in an endless buffering loop.

Security & Privacy – Questionable No-Logs Statement

It does have a few nice features for a small VPN including the use of OpenVPN protocol, 256-bit AES encryption, a kill switch, and a strict no-logs policy. When I double-checked the privacy policy, I found that it details all the information the VPN collects. To be honest, every VPN collects some form of data for creating patches and improving the service. VPNs with no-logs policies don’t collect personally identifiable information. While it will cooperate with officials, the fact that it keeps no-logs means RitaVPN won’t have any  information to share.

Is RitaVPN Safe for Torrenting? No

I wouldn’t recommend this VPN for torrenting. There’s no firewall or split tunneling available, and it only offers limited support for P2P applications. While it may be budget-friendly, you can get better server coverage and security with an affordable premium VPN.