Pros
Cons
Technical Features
What is IPVanish?
It is a US-based VPN ensuring secure connections from a device to the Internet.
We thoroughly analyzed its features and tested the speed, vulnerability to leaks and viruses, ease of use, access to torrents, and streaming services. Read our IPVanish review to see a detailed dive-in into one of the top VPN services.
An exciting choice of IPVanish plans and pricing is that they do not modify the available functionality depending on a tiered package. The purchases differ strictly by the billing period:
Regardless of your payment plan, you will receive the same service, instead of commonly used ‘diluted’ projects. The only difference between programs is the discounted price and when you are charged.
The payment methods include most major channels, such as credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express JCB, and Delta) and PayPal. Unfortunately, IPVanish does not support digital currencies as payment options, although they used to accept Bitcoin.
IPVanish does not offer a free trial, but every plan comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee. So, if you cancel your plan within this period, you are not charged.
No VPN
In our case, the local servers were located in Europe. Right from the start, IPVanish showed a decent performance – the connections were always instant. However, the speed was affected significantly when browsing via locations like the United States and Australia.
London
While servers in London, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam experienced very slight drops in speed, switching to far-off locations made it go down by more than a half.
Download speeds from nearby IPVanish servers were excellent. EU Servers (Frankfurt and Amsterdam) and the UK Server (London) have consistently exceeded 90 Mbps for downloads and 9 Mbps for uploads. It is only fractionally lower (less than 10%) than the speed with the VPN turned off.
Greece
Further European distances, such as Spain and Greece, have shown lower performance results.
New York
The speed tests for Northern America delivered quality results across the board. For example, New York, Dallas, and Toronto server connections reached beyond 70 Mbps. The Los Angeles speed was decent but not as impressive.
Sydney
Unsurprisingly, very long-distance servers such as in Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney did not perform the best – less than 10 Mbps.
There were no abrupt disconnects, and the overall experience was very smooth. Some locations offer excellent performance and some – not so much.
IPVanish uses 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption. If AES could be compromised, everything would come to a standstill. Therefore, you can be sure that your data will remain secure. Even if someone employs an advanced traffic-interception mechanism, the data will look like a series of random letters and numbers.
Also, IPVanish makes sure no one, not even your ISP, can read your online connection with the help of IKEv2, PPTP, L2TP with IPSec, as well as OpenVPN TCP and UDP connection protocols.
However, this is not its full extent. Namely, the service offers functionality for more extensive control over a running OpenVPN process. You can opt for the port 1194 or 443 by following the steps on the setup guide.
Sometimes it’s better to obfuscate the fact that an OpenVPN generates your traffic. This way, it helps overcome deep packet inspection and reduces the chance of your VPN tunnel being blocked.
IPVanish uses SOCKS5 Proxy Server that generates an arbitrary IP address before you reach your destination. It ensures the protocol hides your real IP address.
IPVanish provides you with an IPv4 address and disables IPv6 at the same time. It guarantees that your real IPv6 address does not leak outside the secure VPN tunnel.
The service uses DNS leak prevention technology. Otherwise, your DNS requests could be routed to your ISP’s DNS servers. In that case, the user is at risk of having your real IP location revealed and your entire online activity exposed.
Automatic kill switches have become standard in the industry, and IPVanish is no exception. So, in case the connection with the VPN server gets dropped, the IP address will not be exposed. Unfortunately, the kill switch feature on IPVanish is only available for Windows and Mac OS.
During the WebRTC leak test, IPVanish did not have any WebRTC leak. Therefore, communication channels from the browser will not bypass your encrypted system.
The VirusTotal test yielded no viruses.
IPVanish maintains a zero-log policy, which means they don’t track, collect, or share where you go or what you do online.
However, a document emerged, in 2018, revealing that IPVanish handed over user information to the US Department of Homeland Security. They effectively shared details of user activity, including connection and disconnection times. Since then, the company was sold to StackPath. The current owner claimed to not know of this. Now, IPVanish explicitly says that they do not log or store user logs. It slightly shook users’ trust, but independent audits confirm that they abide by the ‘no log’ policy.
You do not need to reveal your real name or physical address. When creating a new account, you will only need to provide your email address and payment method.
The company uses cookies and third-party pixels to monitor trends and website usage and to offer content relevant to users. Anyone can disable cookies by adjusting their browser settings.
In terms of IPVanish customer support, there are numerous ways to contact the service and to solve your queries promptly: 24/7 chat and email support, ‘contact us’ forms and the app. We did not encounter any technical problems during the test, so our chat with support was about generalities.
Also, our help section may provide the assistance you need. It includes FAQs, updates, troubleshooting, billing questions, and guides.
IPVanish offers multi-platform compatibility. The app is compatible with: macOS, iOS, Android, Windows, Windows Phone, Chromebook, Linux, and Fire TV.
Additionally, it is not only limited to major operating systems. A beneficial functionality comes with router compatibility. Once installed, this secures all devices connected to the router are secure, i.e., network-wide protection.
IPVanish also offers TOR compatibility. It is an additional layer of security that relays your traffic information across several servers. Even though it may be excessive for most users, those living in China or North Korea could genuinely benefit from the iron-clad guarantee that it will be practically impossible to track their real-time location.
Interestingly, IPVanish is very open and supportive about their users using torrents. They even mention that users can “torrent freely and privately”. This attitude is not very common among VPN providers.
Regardless of where you are browsing from, you should have steady access to torrenting websites, which is also an advantage over other competitors. The service does not put limitations in terms of the amount you can download – not by data-transfer allowances nor by enforcing their bandwidth caps.
Our tests showed only a slightly slower speed compared to a local ISP connection. The SOCKS5 Proxy Server fully supports P2P traffic, which allows you to download torrents at the higher speeds.
There is no specific explanation on the website about IPVanish and Netflix. We found that it works but inconsistently. For example, if you connect to a U.S. server in Chicago, you will successfully bypass detection on the website.
As for Netflix in other countries, IPVanish is of no help. We tried servers in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. While trying to connect, we received an error message stating that we were using an unblocker or proxy.
The availability of other catalogs may change at any time so you can contact the IPVanish staff to determine which servers currently support Netflix, at a given time.
Similarly, we have had mixed results with Hulu, which is not available outside of the US. Overall, IPVanish is not the best in the category of passing geo-restrictions.
With a single account, you can make ten simultaneous connections on multiple devices. This feature can be beneficial for small businesses and prominent families. In comparison to other premium VPNs, ten links push the service ahead of its competition. Typically, standard packages will allow three to six devices for an account.
Whether or not IPVanish is for you depends on what you are looking for. It is suitable for gaming and torrents but bad for streaming. It also proves its usefulness for small businesses thanks to multiple connections.
IPVanish offers several features, including the SOCKS5 protocol, that appeals to a specific demographic of VPN users. It performed well on every test so that you can count on this service for excellent performance, speed, and reliability. Secure encryption and security features are worth a special mention.
The app is easy to install and easy to use. Regular people with limited technical knowledge will have no issues learning how to use IPVanish.
However, it does not necessarily satisfy all of the requirements. IPVanish does not offer groundbreaking or genuinely exceptional service. And the logging policy incident is not to be dismissed entirely.
It’s a shame that IPVanish is not doing its best to keep Netflix available. The quality of their competition is stable. For example, other VPNs have shown high download speeds while providing Netflix compatibility at a similar cost.
Overall, the service offers excellent quality for its price. We think that IP Vanish VPN is worth checking out, not least because the 7-day money-back guarantee makes it risk-free. The advanced security features and decent downloading speed are likely to win you over.
Comments