Virtual Private Networks, in short VPNs, are nothing short of a gift from the heavens for users living in the United States, United Kingdom or any other country that is plagued with data retention laws or government surveillance. Apart from the surveillance and data retention, virtual private network services are also important because they offer the best encryption and privacy on the Internet.

IPVanish VPN

When it comes to the virtual private network services or industry, there are only a handful of reliable and trustworthy names that you can find online. Amongst such renowned names, IPVanish ranks as one of the best services out there when it comes to offering universal unblocking, online anonymity, freedom of speech, and security, to name a few.

Introduction

Although IPVanish operates from the United States – a country which is known for surveillance or data retention, the services surely enjoy a great number of sponsorships and endorsements. Consequently, it makes you give some thoughts on considering the service. IPVanish comes with all the important features a VPN service should be offering to its users to ensure their anonymity and security. For instance, the VPN service offers SOCKS5, OpenVPN and other common protocols, 256-bit encryption, 60+ countries and 1000+ servers, to name a few.

Regardless, upon our detailed analysis of the virtual private network service, we have come to understand the potential of the service and we can say that it is a service that you can trust. Although, there are some cons as well that you can’t neglect.

If you are planning to buy the IPVanish premium service, it would be great if you go through the complete guide so that you can get familiar with its ins and outs before making the purchase.

PROS:

  • IPVanish pricing plan starts at $6.49 per month which is not as expensive as other premium services
  • The VPN offers 1000+ advanced VPN servers that are strategically located in over 60 countries
  • The service provides a massive range of 45,000+ anonymous IPs
  • A single IPVanish account can be used in up to 10 devices simultaneously. The feature makes this VPN a must-have tool for families to protect their privacy
  • The service comes with a plethora of smart add-ons that add more functionality to the VPN and cover different needs of the users such as DDoS protection, Dedicated IP, NAT Firewall, etc.
  • It is perhaps the first VPN service that offers advanced cyber security solutions that additional security such as antimalware, intrusion detection and prevention system (IDS/IPS), website filtering, ad blocking, app filtering, and more
  • The VPN offers multi-device compatibility which is just the best thing for users looking for powering up their different devices such as gaming consoles, mobile OS, raspberrypi, etc.
  • The VPN is also completely compatible with a wide range of routers and also offer easy-to-understand tutorials on the setup process
  • The service offers 7-days money back guarantee
  • IPVanish has a massive numbers of servers that are optimized for streaming and P2P downloading/torrenting
  • IPVanish comes with multiple protocols compatibility, i.e., you can use a wide range of protocols on this app including PPTP, IKEv2, SSTP/IPSec, OpenVPN, etc.

CONS:

  • There is no free trial offered by the service. To try out the VPN service, you need to get its 3-day premium account.
  • The refund policy might be a bit strict than other services.
Get IPVanish VPN Now

Pricing Plan & Payment Method

We put the pricing plan details at the top of our list because, after all, we understand that the first thing you would want to see about a product or service is its cost. Regardless, just like any other service provider, IPVanish also offers three different pricing plans that are designed in a way that users’ with different needs and budget can pick their desired deal.

For starters, the first plan includes 1-month plan that costs $10.00. Originally, the one-month plan was sold at $11.99. However, since the website is currently offering discount, you can avail the one-month plan at a reduced price.

The one-month plan is desirable for those who are looking to fulfill a short-term need. For instance, the plan is best for people who want to access a seasonal sport or championship event.

For $8.99 per month, you can also avail IPVanish’s 3-month plan. Let me tell you that the VPN service is amongst the very few premium service providers that are still offering the 3-month plan. Want to assess the service to its fullest and ensure whether it meets all you needs or not, I believe this plan is best.

If you are more into longer commitment, then you should go for a 1-year plan that originally costs around $143.88. However, if you are lucky and if you hurry now, you can get a 44% discount and pay only $77.99 which is billed annually.

The payment process on IPVanish is pretty simple and straightforward. You choose the plan and then you choose the type of payment method you wish to use for subscription. You can either choose to pay with credit card or you can also choose the well-known payment method, PayPal.

Although the service accepted cryptocurrency as well sometimes back, now it doesn’t offer crypto-currency or bitcoin payments.

Buy IPVanish VPN NOW

Privacy

You want a virtual private network service to ensure a secure and anonymous network. Don’t you? Well, how do you propose to do that when the VPN service itself doesn’t offer any privacy protection at all and in fact breach it from the shadows?

Well, that’s true. There are some VPN services that although offer privacy protection but they have some hidden statements in their privacy policy and terms and conditions that breach the privacy as well as the trust of the user. Therefore, it is imperative that you should read the privacy policy as well as terms and conditions of the VPN service thoroughly.

Regardless, when it comes to IPVanish’s privacy policy, we first thought that it would be similar like any other VPN service. However, we were wrong about that. It seems like the privacy policy of the VPN service is as crystal-clear as it comes.

In other words, IPVanish offer a simple privacy policy that clearly states that the VPN service provider doesn’t log any data at all. In fact, the privacy policy states, “We have a strict policy against the collection of both connection and activity logs. We will never store the metadata about your VPN session or information about how you used the service.”

After reading the policy from top to bottom, we can safely say that IPVanish passes the privacy policy and no-log policy test with flying colors and the service does offer the anonymity as it promises.

App Experience & Working

The journey from subscribing to the VPN service, downloading its app and then setting it up on your desired device is pretty straightforward, and simple. The only annoying point with the installation is that just like any other software installation, IPVanish also asks you to reboot your system before you can safely use the application.

The application offers a sleek and intuitive user interface. In other words, you won’t need to scratch your head before playing with the wide range of features the app provides.

If you are in a hurry, you can pick the Quick Connect option to instantly join the most optimal server. The VPN will automatically connect you to a server that best fits the latency, speed and performance.

Apart from that you can also check out the huge server list and select the server of your choice. For instance, for accessing a Canadian website, you can join the Canada VPN server and get the Canadian IP address to surf the website.

You can also play with the added configuration of the application by going to the Settings tab. You can find out about the details of your account by accessing Account Details tab.

All in all, I would give the application 5 out of 5 when it comes to the interface of the application and its usage.

Security

IPVanish uses the same level of encryption algorithm technology that is currently being used by government agencies and military. The VPN services uses the highest 256-bit AES encryption technology that closes all doors that let unwanted eyes pries in on your sensitive traffic.

Encryption is a necessary technology in the current era, especially due to the fact that cyber threats have grown over the years. There are now malware samples that are identified every day than new innovations in the tech industry.

Apart from that the VPN service offers multiple protocols availability. The availability of protocols selection allows the VPN users to set the preferences as per their VPN needs. Currently, you can set the protocol preferences either on PPTP, L2TP/IPSec, OpenVPN or IKEv2.

The PPTP protocol is the best when it comes to low level security but fastest streaming speed. The L2TP is more security focused which means you don’t get to enjoy the same level of streaming speed as you would experience on PPTP connection.

If you want to get a balance of security and streaming speed, I would suggest you to opt for OpenVPN.

Get IPVanish VPN Now

Speed

Regardless of how feature rich a VPN service shows itself in the industry, everything pales to nothing if the speed they offer fails to hold the ground when compared to others. We understand that VPNs are although sold in the name of security but we can’t ignore the fact that there are more streamers than security conscious users. Therefore, when it comes to streaming, speed is the metric that best defines it.

When I tested IPVanish different servers for speed, I found that it holds its ground well as compared to many leading VPN service providers. The VPN service showed great speed test results when connected to its UK as well as European servers, i.e., up to 35mbps on UK servers and 34mbps on European servers.

However, unfortunately the same result couldn’t be achieved when I connected the VPN to the US server and tested it.

Features

The IPVanish VPN service comes equipped with all the right features that a typical VPN user expects from a security and anonymity tool.

Servers

IPVanish has the honor of one of the few VPN servers that owns over 1000+ VPN servers in the industry. It should be noted that you would see a massive server pool only by VPN services that ranks in the top 5. Regardless, the VPN service falls short when it comes to the number of locations where they have the servers. Currently, IPVanish has VPN servers only in 60+ countries so far.

Free Trial

Currently, you can’t find a free long period trial on IPVanish unless you own an iOS device. Yes, the VPN service only offers free trial VPN for its iOS users, at the time of writing this IPVanish review. However, they do offer a 7-day money back guarantee to paid users.

Streaming

Streaming is the primary purpose of every VPN user because they want to access geo-restricted streaming services in their country. For instance, people, who are living in outside the US or UK, want to access Netflix US or BBC iPlayer in their region.

So, we checked how the service fares when it comes to unblocking and streaming services like Netflix US, Hulu US, Youtube US and BBC iPlayer.

To our surprise, we were able to access all these channels on a good number of IPVanish servers. Well, what shall we say? It is indeed an achievement. After all, not many services are able to offer universal unblocking.

Compatibility

IPVanish offers good compatibility with a great number of different devices. The VPN can be used on Windows, Android, Mac, iOS, Linux, Chromebook, Windows Phone, FireTV and routers. In fact, if you look around some web pages or the blog, you can find more tools that are compatible with the application such as Kodi.

Unlimited & Anonymous Torrenting

IPVanish doesn’t loudly promote its torrenting feature. However, it surely does offer torrenting and p2p downloading which you can find on its P2P page. In fact, when we test some of the servers for torrenting and p2p, we found that a great number of servers are p2p enabled. In fact, you can experience speedy torrenting capability on its SOCKS5 web proxy. (Coming ahead)

IKS

Internet Kill Switch is a great feature in any VPN service that keeps its users’ VPN activities from being exposed under unexpected connection drops. Gladly, IPVanish also offers the Kill Switch feature which comes handy to every VPN user every once in a while.

Unlimited Server Switching

Like many other VPN services, IPVanish doesn’t restrict its valued users from hopping from one server to any other. With this great feature, users have the complete control of how they connect to their favorite location and whenever they want.

Multi-logins

One of the best things that we want to make prominent in this IPVanish review is that the VPN service holds a distinct position when it comes to multi-login capability. In fact, it is one of the rare few gems that offer up to 10 simultaneous connections or logins in the industry. So, you only need to buy once to VPN-ize every device in your home.

SOCKS5 Web Proxy

SOCKS5 web proxy is a distinct feature of the IPVanish that makes it standout from the crowd. The feature is great for using anonymous IPs and, in fact, enjoys p2p downloading without compromising on speed. However, it doesn’t offer any good-level of encryption. So, if you don’t need security for the time being but more speed on a VPN, then you should consider this option.

Buy IPVanish VPN NOW

Final Verdict

IPVanish boasts a good pool of servers but it has a shortage of locations that some users might not like. However, the VPN is great for unblocking, streaming and p2p, which is everything a VPN user wishes for in their life.