I have been using Astrill VPN in China Shanghai for over half years now. At the beginning, it was amazing, the speed was top at all time. Every since 2 months ago, the speed has been slower and slower everyday. The speed is consider alright in the morning time but get worst and worst in the afternoon to night period. I guess more people are starting to use Astrill VPN and the clog the server?
I was frustrated with the slow connection but since the speed was amazing before, I wanted to give them a try and pay the extra for VIP server. Since I already paid for a year, there wasn’t a option to try the VIP for a month. I had to pay the VIP server for the remaining of my services which cost about $80ish. I don’t really mind paying for extra but what disappoint me was that the VIP server are complete dogshit. I am currently still using normal server as to the VIP server that I paid for. (Complete waste of money) I guess that was the reason why they wouldn’t let me test it before buying or just for a month.
I contacted their tech support and they were completed useless and ask me to e-mail their support. Feel like I’m just wasting my time as I am sure the server is just bad right now. I am located in Shanghai but have also tested it in other cities when i travel. I have to say, Astrill VPN has been really disappointing in China lately. I would be caution for buying them right now and DO NOT BUY their VIP services!!!
I’m also in Shanghai and I’ve been using Astrill for almost eleven years. Recently I’ve seen download speeds easily exceed 100mbps through the service. That doesn’t happen every day, but I do regularly watch 1440p video from YouTube without buffering interruptions.
Obviously, you are having performance issues, but, are you sure that Astrill is the cause? Also, there are many, many servers to choose from. Sometimes, the servers closest to China (e.g. Taiwan, Japan and Korea) work out faster than more distant servers.
I’ve also had speed issues the last two months in China and had similar support issues. I’d recommend using speeder.im as an alternative. It has many HK servers which works well for me in Shenzhen, but still has a decent amount of Taiwan and Japan servers for those further north. Also much cheaper, though you can’t get a dedicated IP address and the combination of VMess + Proxy isn’t quite as secure as StealthVPN. But still better than Astrill not working!
Oh man you are still better off than I am. I can only connect to 3 servers, croatia/India and USA LA 1. All other servers return 0mbps/0mpbs on openweb, and if I change protocol to stealth/openvpn/wireguard I cannot even connect. I get stuck at connecting. I talked to customer support they said they cannot help me only a level 3 support can help me. I have had a ticket raised for 5 days now with no action from the level 3 support. And the speeds on these servers is really shitty.
Still super fast for me in Shenzhen. But it noticeably slows down a bit as it gets later in the day. Either way, always able to stream high quality on YouTube/Netflix.
Please be informed that VIP add-on not only provides some VIP servers, it also provides you prioritized traffic on regular servers as well. Moreover, it also gives you access to a feature called “multi-hop”. Please read about multi-hop in detail on following link: https://www.astrill.com/network/multi-hop-vpn
And if you still think that VIP add-on is not good enough for you, please contact our sales support by sending them email at "[email protected]", they can offer you a refund for VIP add-on.
Not sure about their VIP servers, their regular servers are good enough for me. I’m in Beijing, downloading speed can reach up to 200Mbps. Perhaps try servers other than your regulars?
on https://fast.com/ , boslife gives me a speed of 180 mbps and astrill (USA 3 in china- the fastest one today according to the speed test) gives me 4 mbps…
The Astrill support simply refused to refund the month left of my yearly subscription, … I guess they know their product is bad…
This article is spot on. I’ve noticed the exact same issues lately. Terrible VPN performance and connection issues. Stealth VPN is not reliable. Made me switch to open web / and TCP over UDP. They’re having massive problems. The OP explained the situation very well. I’ve tried their so called VIP service 2 years ago and there was no difference in speed. Don’t bother. I’m considering trying Express VPN. Apparently they have more servers. Maybe they’re better snow a days.
hm astrill is just working all the time that’s true, but it is not working efficiently at all. And yes for this Vip price people are expecting server good performance. …
Every time I see these “VPN x is a scam” posts, I assume they are just paid posts made by other VPN companies to muddy the waters. Astrill has never been anything other than super fast and reliable in the 10+ years i’ve used it.
That’s the point. The VIP service didn’t add any noticeable performance improvement on regular servers either. If it did, which it doesn’t, it is a money grab and you are alienating your loyal customers who spend $100 per year.
If you actually think about it, that is A LOT of money for the general consumer, particularly when there are much cheaper options out there. User Experience is clearly overlooked within Astrill’s business strategy.
I too have been in China for “10+ years” and nobody has ever said what you just did. If you truly have been here that long and have a decent number of foreigners you talk to, you’d know that you are a clear anomaly. I have a VPN WC group, it’s full of complaints about their service.
Other companies muddy the waters? Come on - it’s obvious their quality has gone downhill rapidly and a crapload of people who depend on them and remained customers for a while because of the quality of service are now justifiably upset - it’s SO much worse than usual: speeds, stability, and the support department are seriously incompetent.
They won’t actually give a refund - despite this reply from their ‘official’ social media rep - their billing department is about as useless as their technical support department.
what at least is working fast most of the time I would say… may be you prefer having an infinite limit and a vpn not working at all like astrill !! I personally don’t reach 200gb by month, unless you are downloading a lot of movies…