Ongaro Stephen

Overall Rating → 9.5/10 Highlights Absolute Zero Logs Super fast VPN servers Strong Encryption Many native Apps Great self-owned server network Hassle-Free Money-Back Guarantee Best For? IPVanish is a super VPN if you are looking for a combination of speed, performance, reliability and top-notch security and privacy. The VPN suits torrent lovers since it keeps zero logs and whatever you access through the network can’t be linked back to you. Finally, IPVanish is also widely regarded, and it actually is, the best VPN for Kodi. Introduction What we like Zero logs Excellent speeds Five simultaneous connections Super apps OpenVPN, L2TP, and PPTP Killswitch 7-day money-back guarantee What can be improved No Bitcoin Payment Doesn’t work with major streaming services. IPVanish started way back in 1999 and is now one of the top 5 VPNs in the industry. Actually, they claim that they are the ‘World’s best VPN Service.’ The VPN is also said to be the ‘Only Tier 1 VPN Provider’ because they completely own and control their own server network. Though based in the US, they make up for this by observing a strict Zero logs policy. In this IPVanish review, we will explore all aspects of the VPN and help you determine whether it’s the best VPN for you. Security & Privacy Privacy Being based in the US in one of the worst scenarios of a VPN. US is the home of NSA and other tough law enforcement agencies. Organizations and their lawyers in the country are also very active in the protection of their copyrights. Government surveillance and the recent repeal of net neutrality rules in the US only makes the situation worse. Though we haven’t seen many VPNs able to do it, IPVanish somehow manages to keep absolutely no logs. We have seen most VPNs based in the US (and even others based in friendly countries) keep personally identifiable data. This information can then be used against you when an organization comes with a court order. The VPN clearly states that, “IPVanish does not collect or log any traffic or use of its Virtual Private Network service.” Further, they tell you that “You do not have to give us any personally identifiable ("personal") information to browse our Site, but to subscribe to our Services you must create an account and register with us. In general, we collect the following limited information from users and only use it in order to process payments: Account information Site visitors However, we do not track user activities outside of our Site, nor do we track the browsing activities of users who are logged into our VPN service.” This is one of the best logging policies that you can find with any VPN, despite the fact that IPVanish is based in the US. However, we were disappointed to find that IPVanish no longer supports Bitcoin, a payment method that allows anonymity. This used to work superbly with the fact that the website allows you not to use actual details during registration. Nevertheless, the fact that IPVanish also owns and operates their entire network greatly improves your privacy and security. Other tools used to enhance your privacy include DNS Leak protection, Shared IPs, IP randomizer and an Automatic Kill Switch. The lack of any data logs means that even when presented with a court order, IPVanish can’t produce your details. After all, they can’t give what they don’t have. Security IPVanish is quite serious about security, and they offer military grade AES-256 bit encryption with an RSA-2048 bit key authentication. For Data Authentication, IPVanish HMAC SHA1 is used, while HMAC SHA-256 is used for control authorization. The Diffie-Hellman Key (DHE) helps implement Perfect Forward Secrecy. Generally, this is quality security that can’t be breached. IPVanish can therefore be termed as one of the most Private and Secure VPNs. The VPN also offers flexibility to users with a number of protocols made available for use. Different platforms employ various protocols, and they are listed below. Windows- OpenVPN 256-bit, OpenVPN Scramble, PPTP macOS- OpenVPN 256-bit, IPSec, L2TP iOS- IKEv2, IPSec Android/ Fire TV- OpenVPN UDP/ TCP Router- OpenVPN, PPTP Linux- OpenVPN, PPTP Chromebook- L2TP (128 bit), IPSec This wide range of protocols is suitable especially for users who would like to use their VPN for different purposes. A highlight of all is OpenVPN Scramble. This is a form of the secure OpenVPN protocol that has been modified to evade VPN blocking imposed by governments in highly censored countries. L2TP is not a recommended VPN, but IKEv2 is a protocol with good-enough security and super speeds. Pricing & Payment IPVanish offers 3 pricing plans. These plans only vary in terms of the billing periods and not the features offered within each. Below are the plans; 1 Month Subscription: This plan costs $10 a month. 3 Month Subscription: This plan costs $26.99 billed every 3 months. Translates to $8.99 per month. 1 Year Subscription: Costs $77.99 billed every 12 months. Translates to $6.49 a month. Source: Screenshot Considering the quality of service and the wide array of features offered by IPVanish, this is great pricing compared to other VPNs. Payment Methods Unfortunately, IPVanish doesn’t offer many payment methods. I was disappointed to find that IPvanish has eliminated Bitcoin payment from their Payment options. Currently, they only have credit card payment and PayPal. Source: Screenshot 7-Day Money Back Guarantee IPVanish offers a no-questions-asked 7 day money back guarantee. Though it is only 7-day unlike other services that offer 30 days, IPVanish doesn’t include any tricky clauses like many other VPNs. Further, it is the most hassle-free money back guarantee process that I have seen. You do not have to send any mail if you wish to get your money back. All you need to do is log in to the control panel. At the bottom of the subscription page, click on the link "I wish to cancel my subscription." After completing the cancellation process, you will receive a confirmation email. You will be told that your payments will be processed within 10 business days. Free Trial IPVanish doesn’t really offer a free trial. The only free trial is for iOS customers, and its only made available by Apple not IPVanish. Nevertheless, the 7-day money back guarantee works just like a free trial, and I haven’t seen any issues with their refunds. You may not be eligible for the 7-day money back guarantee if you have already used the free trial for iOS. Performance Generally, IPVanish is a reliable VPN service. However, their windows client is not. The app can semetimes take a very long time to connect, or even fail to connect. This can be quite frustrating and whenever it happenes, you need to kill the app and start it again. Further, it can sometimes tell you that a certain driver isn’t functioning well, and therefore can’t connect. In case that happens, they will give you an option to reinstall the driver, and your client should continue working. I noticed these problems only with the windows client, and the smartphone functioned exceptionally. Speed test I did a few speed tests in order to test IPVanish status as one of the fastest VPNs around. The first screenshot shows my connection with no VPN turned on. This is meant to give us a benchmark for the rest of the tests. All IPVanish speed tests were done using the OpenVPN (UDP) protocol, which is the standard protocol. Source: Screenshot The second test was done when connected to a server near me, and below are the results. Source: Screenshot You can see that the speeds offered are quite high. I then connected to a server far away. Source: Screenshot The speeds are still high and there’s just a minimal drop in speed. Generally, IPVanish is one of the fastest VPNs in the market. However, I noticed that some servers are not as fast as others. You may need to lay with the servers a little if your current one isn’t fast. Servers & Location Source: Screenshot Server Network is one of the strongest points of IPVanish. This is especially because of the fact that they own their entire server network. This helps them have control over how user data is treated, and consequently enhancing security and privacy. In total, IPVanish has 1,000+ servers in 60+ countries. These servers use 40,000+ IPs which are all shared. You can set up the VPN to use different IP addresses during the same session, which is enabled by IPVanish IP rotator. IPVanish servers are distributed across; North America South America Asia Oceania Europe Africa Central/South America The most widely covered area is Europe, with 409 servers in 34 countries. US, the home of IPVanish, has a whooping 469 servers in 17 cities. Amsterdam is the city with most servers, boasting a total of 97 servers! The total number of IP addresses used is 40,000+. Server switching in IPVanish is unlimited, as is bandwidth. P2P is also supported across all servers which is good news for torrent lovers. Special Features IPVanish offers quite a number of features. Kill Switch Among the features that a VPN offers, a Kill Switch should be one. IPVanish does that and offers an automatic Kill Switch which immediately blocks any network activities till your VPN connection is restored. This is ensures that during that period when you don’t have your privacy jacket on, you do not get exposed to the ISP and other third parties. IPVanish Kill Switch comes in handy especially when you are downloading torrents and want to leave your device unattended. Obfuscation Technology Highly censored countries like China and Iran know how to block VPN traffic. This is where IPVanish obfuscation comes in. With this feature, IPVanish is able to break down OpenVPN traffic and makes it appear like regular HTTPS traffic. This way, the Great Firewall of China will be fooled to think that this is regular traffic, and therefore allow access. IP Rotator IPVanish has a feature that allows you to change your IP address at intervals of 45 minutes, 60 minutes and 90 minutes. This is a useful feature that helps you stay anonymous by changing your online identity. Whatever you do online can’t be traced to a single IP address. The fact that IPVanish uses a single IP for many users also helps in user anonymity. P2P IPVanish allows you to use torrents on any of its servers. However, IPVanish notes that you may experience slow speeds when using BitTorrent. To boost filesharing, the VPN now has SOCKS5 proxy. This proxy greatly helps P2P, Bittorrent, and Tor traffic not only be super fast but also anonymous. IPVanish SOCKS5 Proxy Server This is a dedicated Socket Secure (SOCKS) server offered by IPVanish to support web (HTTP) traffic and P2P BitTorrent clients, such as uTorrent, Vuze, and Deluge. It is meant to help users who don’t prefer advanced security and the resulting decrease in speed due to encryption. The IPVanish SOCKS5 proxy server therefore only provides the flexibility and privacy of masking their IP addresses to offer maximum connection speed. To use it, you need to generate custom SOCKS5 Proxy credentials from your registered IPVanish account and then set them up within your BitTorrent client. IPv6 & DNS Leak Protection IPVanish forces all of your Internet traffic over IPv4 to keep any IPv6 addresses from leaking. This prevents you from exposure to third parties. DNS Leak protection on the other hand protects your DNS requests from being send back to the ISP, something that can expose whatever sites you are visiting online. Superb Compatibility Source: Screenshot IPVanish is highly compatible, and offers a large selection of clients. The suported clients include; Windows Mac OS X Android iOS Linux Windows Phone Fire TV Chromebook Routers Source: Screenshot You can install IPVanish on as many devices as you like and you can connect up to 5 of them simultaneously. That means that with just one subscription you can protect all your devices and your entire family. User Feedback and Reviews / Testimonials IPVanish Review Reddit I didn’t find many complaints about IPVanish on Reddit, except from users who didn’t know that IPVanish only offers a 7-day money back guarantee. Other users however shared their experiences. Source: Screenshot IPVanish Review Play Store On Play Store, IPvanish has a very poor rating of 3.4. There are so many users who complained about connection issues and huge speed drops. Source: Screenshot This made me focus on the two areas when testing the Android app. In my case, I didn’t experience any of those. Actually, IPVanish Android app is super fast and only results in a minor speed drop. The only connection issues I saw were in the desktop client. IPVanish Review App Store/ iTunes Unlike on Play Store, IPVanish iOS app has a very good rating of 4.6. Most users here love the app, and here is a review from one subscriber. Source: Screenshot One user however had a few troubles but was sorted out by the customer support team. Source: Screenshot Customer Support IPVanish is a bit tricky when it comes to their Live Chat customer support. All along while doing this review, I though that the VPN eliminated their Live Chat Support. I also saw other users on different platforms express frustration with this. It was only during sign up that I found out Live Chat is still supported, 24/7. I therefore decided to test it. Source: Screenshot It however took long to connect to an agent (up to 2 minutes) and the agent was also slow to respond as you can see above. The other way you can get to the customer support agents is through the dreaded ticket system. Source: Screenshot However, I was surprised that the support team was able to reply my ticket in just 2 Minutes! Source: Screenshot This is something I haven’t experienced with the ticket system of any other VPN. We can say that this is in a bid to complement the lack of a live chat system. I tried to confirm this, and I got a response in just 6 minutes. Other VPNs can even take 10 hours to reply a ticket. IPVanish support is therefore reliable. You can also get assistance through FAQs and Set-up guides that IPVanish provides. Source: Screenshot Does this VPN work with/in; For this IPVanish review, we decided to test if IPVanish works with various streaming sites. Netflix Unfortunately, IPVanish doesn’t work with Netflix. Netflix has a way of detecting IPVanish traffic and so when you try streaming, you only get an error! Source: Screenshot BBC iPlayer The VPN also doesn’t work with BBC iPlayer. The website can read that your IP is in London, but can still block IPVanish traffic. Source: Screenshot This blockage also applies with Hulu. The support team also confirmed that IPVanish can no longer offer these services. However, I later found out that obfuscating your OpenVPN traffic and connecting to the IPVanish New York server can help you overcome Netflix restrictions. China Though they have obfuscation technology, IPVanish states that, ”Our automated IPVanish apps will not work if you are attempting to connect to our VPN from inside of China because our domain is being blocked within the region. For our VPN to successfully operate in China, you will need to manually configure and connect to our servers' IP addresses instead of our server names.” They have a guide that helps you connect manually while inside China. Setup & User Interface The Website Source: Screenshot IPVanish has one of the best looking VPN websites. It is also well organized, and you won’t have trouble navigating within the website. Information is well organized, and the footer side of the website provides links to even much more info. Source: Screenshot Getting Started with IPVanish There’s no workaround for getting a free trial with IPVanish, and so you can just click ‘Start Now.’ You will be presented with the different pricing plans so that you can make a choice. To continue with the sign-up, you will be required to enter your email address, password, and then pay using your preferred method. Your account will be created, and confirmation sent via email. You can then download your preferred client from the ‘Apps’ section. Installation takes less than 2 minutes. IPVanish Desktop Client On the first run, you will be required to enter your login credentials. The app remembers your logins, and so you won’t need to enter them again. After log in, you will be presented with the IPVanish desktop which is not really simple, but quite straightforward. The ipvanish desktop client gives you much flexibility in deciding where to connect. You can connect to a VPN server by selecting the country you want, the city, and even the server. If not sure, you can just use ‘Best City’ and ‘Best Server.’ The connection can however take long with IPVanish. On average, the VPN takes 20 seconds to connect. Using the ‘Server list,’ you can also access a more detailed list of servers, and even a map of servers near you. Source: Screenshot Source: Screenshot You can also filter them by country or latency. Customization Options IPVanish does quite a nice job at letting users design their own VPN experience. This is through the many customization options that they provide under ‘Settings.’ Under ‘General,’ you can determine how your IPVanish client behaves. E.g., starting when windows starts. Its however under ‘Connection’ that you get to shape up your connection. Source: Screenshot You can select your protocol between OpenVPN UDP, OpenVPN TCP, L2TP, and PPTP. OpenVPN UDP is the most recommended protocol if you want to have a good balance of security and speeds. Here, you can also enable the Kill Switch as well as activate IPV6 and DNS Leak protection. Under ‘IP Settings,’ you can customize your IP rotation as well as choose to use 3rd party DNS. Source: Screenshot IPVanish Smartphone Client IPVanish Android app doesn’t look anything like the Windows client, but its quite easy to use. Once you open it, you will get a conspicuous ‘Connect’ button that tries to connect you to the best country, best city, and best server. Source: Screenshot You can also choose the country, city and server from the homepage, which makes connection quite easier. If you want to access the full server list, you can do so by clicking the Menu icon on the top left corner and then selecting ‘server list.’ Source: Screenshot You can also customize your connection under Settings> Connection. Source: Screenshot Conclusion From our IPVanish review, the service comes out as one of the complete VPN services we’ve tested. The VPN leaves up to its name and makes your IP vanish completely because of their zero logs and the degree with which they value your privacy. We can’t highlight a major flaw of this giant VPN provider, except the fact that the VPN isn’t suited for those that love streaming from geo-restricted services like Netflix, BBC iPlayer, and Hulu. However, its fantastic speeds, as well as superb security and privacy, make it one of the top VPNs in the market. IPVanish is definitely worth a try!