Atlas VPN is a very interesting provider. It’s affordable, yet, it manages to bring premium features to the table that many VPNs don’t have. As a subsidiary of Nord Security, the company takes pride in having rock-solid security and a notable focus on user privacy. In addition, it’s pretty simple to use and comes with unlimited simultaneous connections. But is Atlas VPN safe and secure as it claims to be? Is it legit or just another scam? Well, while it surely isn’t a scam and is 100% legit, we still need to see if it’s safe to use.
If you want a detailed analysis of this service, we wholeheartedly recommend reading our review of Atlas VPN. But if you’re lazy and you just want to find out if Atlas VPN is safe and secure, this article is for you. Let’s focus on its security and privacy and see if this provider is worth your money.
Is Atlas VPN Safe to Use? Security Features Examined
Is Atlas VPN safe and secure when talking about its in-app features? Well, let’s try to answer this question by going through all of its features and seeing what the VPN has to offer.
Bank-Grade Encryption
For the start, we need to talk about encryption. As a premium service, Atlas VPN must offer bank-grade encryption, which is also known as 256-bit. 256-bit encryption is the best in the business and is offered even by more expensive services like ExpressVPN and NordVPN.
Needless to say, it won’t get better than this. While some providers will degrade the level of encryption based on the protocol in place, Atlas VPN sticks to this encryption with all protocols. This ensures the highest level of security at any given moment, no matter the protocol you intend to use.
Automatic Kill Switch
Atlas VPN has almost no connection issues, which is excellent in terms of reliability. This VPN is indeed legit and safe as it has an automatic kill switch that will prevent IP leaks if these rare connection issues appear. When you’re disconnected, your IP is immediately exposed to the public eye.
However, a kill switch acts at the same moment, blocking internet access to prevent this from happening. As a result, your IP won’t leak and you’ll remain anonymous, albeit, with no internet. The kill switch works in conjunction with built-in IP and DNS leak protection.
These two features do the obvious – protect you from unwanted leaks, which we’ll show a bit later. DNS leak protection is especially important, as Atlas VPN uses its own DNS servers to handle your DNS requests, preventing the ISP from tracking your activities.
Various Security Protocols
Security protocols in Atlas VPN are great. Aside from IKEv2/IPSec, the provider has WireGuard in place. IKEv2 is great for a balance of speeds and security, and in some cases, it can be better than OpenVPN. For example, in a school VPN where you need to get over the firewall.
However, WireGuard is much more reliable in 2024. It’s lightweight, with fewer lines of code, allowing for easier maintenance and upgrade. Not only that, but it’s an open-source protocol, giving companies a chance of tailoring it to their needs.
Is Atlas VPN safe to use then? Well, with these cutting-edge protocols, we can say YES. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – we have more features to check out.
SafeSwap & MultiHop+ Servers
Atlas VPN isn’t a scam like Hola VPN or Betternet. That’s why it’s more feature-rich with features like SafeSwap and MultiHop+. SafeSwap servers are very interesting. They will rotate your IP periodically to make sure you can’t be tracked online.
If you connect to a US server, for example, you’ll get a new US IP periodically. This way, even the most skilled hacker won’t be able to track your online footsteps, as you’ll appear as a different person every few minutes. A similar feature called MultiHop+ is here too.
We’ve seen MultiHop in Surfshark and here, it does the same. The feature routes your traffic through two different servers in different locations, which gives you additional privacy. Similarly to SafeSwap, it’ll assign you two IP addresses. As a result, you’ll also get two layers of encryption.
This makes you 100% anonymous online at the cost of performance and battery life on iOS/Android due to the added encryption.
Tracker Blocker
Tracker Blocker in Atlas VPN works really well. It’s a neat security feature that’ll fend off trackers present on most sites. In addition, this feature will block malicious advertisers that will track your online activities to bombard you with more targeted ads.
Once you enable Tracker Blocker, you can go online knowing you’re browsing the web freely, with no snoopers behind your back.
Data Breach Monitor
Data Breach Monitor is a feature present in NordVPN under the name of Dark Web Monitor. Essentially, it’ll notify you if your email/passwords are compromised and on which sites. This, in turn, allows you to change your password and prevent your data from getting stolen.
Interestingly, we found two potential password compromises when testing the feature. For that reason, we changed our credentials on two sites and avoided potential data breaches.
Split Tunneling
Okay, so to answer whether Atlas VPN is safe and secure, we need to talk about one more feature – split tunneling. This one allows you to select apps that will or won’t be routed through the VPN tunnel. Atlas VPN has this feature on Android but not on iOS and Windows.
That’s why we included it last. Either way, the feature works well and you’ll find it useful for online shopping on local sites or using your bank account. These sites/platforms require an accurate location to work, where split tunneling can help by omitting them from being routed through the VPN server.
Does Atlas VPN Store Logs? Analysis of Its Privacy Policy & Jurisdiction
As you learned, Atlas VPN is very reliable, safe, and secure. As a legit provider under the Nord Security banner, you can be sure it’ll keep you anonymous online. But what about its logging practices and jurisdiction? Let’s see…
Where Is the Company Based?
Compared to NordVPN, which is in Panama, Atlas VPN is based in the US. Oh-oh! Before you disregard it as being unsafe and insecure, let us tell you that the US jurisdiction, in this case, isn’t bad. Sure, we reviewed IPVanish and talked about its data leaks in the past.
However, this US-based provider is different. Despite being under direct 5 Eyes jurisdiction, the service had NO data leaks or scandals in the past. After all, it’s owned by Nord Security known for NordVPN, a service with the highest possible level of privacy and stringent no-logging policy.
Is Atlas VPN Safe in Terms of Logging Practices?
That said, is Atlas VPN safe to use when we talk about its logging practices? If you check its privacy policy, you will indeed see that the provider is very transparent.
The privacy policy explains everything you need to know at the start. As you can see, it won’t store logs of your IP address or browsing history. The provider simply CANNOT see what you’re doing online under any circumstances, as it doesn’t log this information.
Another thing to mention is that it doesn’t store your DNS requests, geolocation, timestamps, and connection logs. All of this is important to ensure a really private internet experience. Of course, if you’re wondering about the info the provider stores, know that it revolves around mandatory data.
We can see information like payment data, email addresses, and some anonymized technical data for troubleshooting purposes. This information is completely benign and won’t be associated with your true identity or online activities.
After all, Atlas VPN has RAM-only servers, which further add to your privacy. Servers based on RAM are wiped clean with each restart, which ensures every bit of data is deleted. As a result, no data on the server remains, giving the provider or even skilled hackers no chance of accessing it.
Third-Party Audits
Third-party audits are extremely important in the VPN industry. Is AtlasVPN legit when talking about audits and independent analyses? Well, if you do a quick Google search, you’ll see that it is. The first audit that the company received was from VerSprite.
VerSprite is a well-known auditor that tested its iOS app thoroughly and concluded that no relevant vulnerabilities have been found. VerSprite also concluded that Atlas VPN adheres to its no-logging policy and fully secures user data when using the VPN.
Another, newer audit comes from MDSec. This company audited its Windows VPN application. Once again, MDSec concluded the same, which is that no crucial vulnerabilities have been found. You can find more about both audits on Atlas VPN’s site, so check them out if you’re interested.
IP & DNS Leak Tests: Let’s See if There’re Any Leaks
Finally, to answer whether is Atlas VPN safe and secure, we need to perform a quick IP/DNS leak test. In our Atlas VPN vs NordVPN duel, we were impressed by how well this provider held its ground against its much stronger foe.
It showed no IP or DNS leaks no matter which server and server location we used. To prove that to you, we will show you our native IP/DNS leak test results.
At the time of writing this analysis, we were in Belgrade. We blurred our IP and DNS addresses for obvious reasons. We then connected to the US server and tested Atlas VPN on ipleak.net and browserleaks.com – the two websites we always use.
The first test showed impressive results. You can see only the US IP address from Atlas VPN, which implies our original IP is hidden. The same could be said about the new DNS, which wasn’t from Switzerland as before.
On browserlaks.com, the results are, once again, sublime. Both IP and DNS are now from the US, with no leaks whatsoever. That said, this provider proved its quality in every aspect of our analysis, which brings us to the very end of this article.
So, Is Atlas VPN Safe to Use?
After our thorough examination, we can conclude the following: Atlas VPN is safe and secure. It’s definitely not a scam, as it’s a legit and reliable provider that will take utmost care of your online security and privacy. As a whole, it’s not the absolute best VPN out there.
However, it’s worth noting that, for this price, finding a better provider is impossible. You can try CyberGhost, which is a tad more expensive but also a lot better. And if you’re willing to pay more, trying ExpressVPN or NordVPN is also a good choice.
Keep in mind that Atlas VPN offers unlimited connections per account, which only Surfshark can provide. In the end, you wondered if Atlas VPN is safe to use and the answer is YES. Feel free to get it risk-free through our site and enjoy a big discount on the longest plan.
