Overplay is one of the top VPN providers on the market is known especially for their SmartDNS solution. Read our Overplay VPN review.
The public presentation of Overplay’s offer
Let’s start the Overplay VPN review by presenting the offer:
Price: $9.95/month. You can pay via Paypal or Google Checkout.
Countries: Overplay claims to have points of presence in over 60 countries.
Bandwidth: unlimited
The installation part
Overplay provides a very well documented (text or HD video) installation guide for most of the popular platforms that exist nowadays. You can see the screenshot of the documentation here:
For Windows, has an installer. For advanced users, instructions and resources for manual installation are given too- this is a great feature, especially for those who don’t want to install a lot of OpenVPN client on their computer.
I installed the OverPlay VPN client version 2.0.0.63 on my Windows 7 laptop. Be careful as the installation process requires that you have a running internet connection. The good thing is that this installer manages to install TAP drivers as well as other components that are needed to make things work. So installation is just a breeze.
The use of SmartDNS from Overplay
Implementation of SmartDNS: it comes bundled Free with the subscription you have with Overplay. While SmartDNS isn’t a solution for encrypting your internet connection, it can be helpful for overriding some limitations that may be installed on your side of the network.
The good thing is that SmartDNS maintains a whitelist of websites that can be accessed, so if you install OverPlay’s SmartDNS servers on your office’s router, then get all your LAN devices use the router’s DNS- your entire network will benefit from this service.
I didn’t have the chance to test it but Overplay claims that SmartDNS even works with problematic routers like iPads, AppleTVs, Roku or BoxeeBox. If you ever have the chance to test it, feel free to provide some feedback here.
- Overplay states that they “permit legal torrent traffic, but all copyright abuse notifications we receive are investigated and followed up on”
- When it comes to speed of the VPN, Overplay provides a nice tool to test the VPN speed– this comes really handy.
- What is logged? This is a question that is often asked by how-to-hide-ip. Overplay actually affirms that it doesn’t log the websites you are visiting – which is a great feature.
- In terms of protocols, Overplay supports OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP. Some servers also support SSTP.
- Although I haven’t tested it personally, it may be interesting for gamers to know that OverPlay provides a tool (based on DD-WRT capable router) that allows PS3, XBOX360 and other devices that don’t have native VPN support.
Conclusion
To sum-up the Overplay VPN review: as opposed to some other VPN solutions, the good thing with Overplay is that you get access to the whole list of VPN servers (62 countries) with the same subscription of $9.95/month. Moreover, they’ve gone the extra mile to make it work with devices that don’t have built-in VPN client. Finally, the great documentation is definitely a plus for OverPlay.
>> Overplay
Overplay’s speed is good, but how can they investigate abuse claims without logging?
Promising that they don’t log which website you visit does not answer if they log which IP addresses you connect to while using their VPN server.