IPVanish claims to be amongst the top ranking VPN services in the industry. In fact, when you check out the official website of the VPN service, you will see the first section of the page boasting plenty of recommendations and endorsements. Plus, the service also claims to be rich in featurez and functionality.
However, the question remains, “Does IPVanish VPN service really deliver on its promises?” And more importantly, “Is IPVanish safe to use?” To know the answers to these questions and more, read on our IPVanish review.
In the following IPVanish VPN review, you will learn about the product’s key features, pros and cons, pricing plan, speed, security level, server locations, privacy, and more. The review will help you make the right decision when purchasing the service to ensure your online security and anonymity.
IPVanish Product Highlights:
- 7-day Money-back Guarantee
- Multi-login
- SOCKS5 Proxy
- Unblocking & P2P Downloading
- 1000+ VPN Servers
Introduction
IPVanish was founded in 1999. The VPN service operates from Orlando, Florida. The service is ranked among the world’s top service providers because of the security, anonymity, and speed it offers (We will talk more about it later on the assessment of these claims).
Regardless, the VPN service comes loaded with a simple user interface, an intuitive user experience, and amazing features. However, what you may find a bit difficult to swallow about this service is that it is expensive.
The VPN also talks about its censorship filters on its website and how it helps internet users with its wide network of anonymous servers to get past geo-restrictions. The VPN service can be accessed through a wide number of platforms due to the app’s almost-universal compatibility. In fact, users can even set up the VPN application on their Operating Systems or devices manually by going through the support resources that are mentioned on the website.
Unlike other VPN services, IPVanish offers the SOCKS5 Proxy to its users (We will talk about it as well later).
Now, before we proceed to the pricing plans, let’s first take a quick look at the pros and cons of the VPN service in this IPVanish review.
IPVanish Pros & Cons
IPVanish has its advantages and drawbacks. Let’s start with the Pros.
IPVanish Pros
- User-friendly user interface
- 1000+ anonymous VPN servers
- 60+ countries
- Multi-platform compatibility
- SOCKS5 proxy
- Kill Switch
- And more.
IPVanish Cons
- No free or paid trial
- Unblock doesn’t work for channels like Netflix
- Expensive VPN services
- Slow customer support service
IPVanish Pricing & Plans
You must have noticed earlier that we mentioned IPVanish is an expensive VPN service in the industry. When it comes to pricing, IPVanish is on the same cost scale as the other top-tier service, ExpressVPN. When you compare the pricing plan of both the service, you will see only a slight difference.
For instance, the 1-month pricing plan of ExpressVPN starts at $12.95/month, whereas the IPVanish 1-month plan costs $10.00/month. Yes, you may be saving $2 on IPVanish, but it is still expensive. It is because when you compare it with another top-ranking service like PureVPN.
Moving on, IPVanish does not offer the traditional 6-month plan, which is quite unlikely of other VPN services. Instead, IPVanish offers a 3-month plan that starts at $8.99/month, which is billed $26.99/3months.
Likewise, the one-year plan of the IPVanish service starts at $6.49/month and is billed $77.99/year. Currently, there is a 46% discount deal which is why the one year plan is billed $77.99/year.
However, before buying the IPVanish service (any deal), it is imperative that you must go through the Refund Policy of the service under the Terms of Service. The service offers its users a 7-day money back guarantee, which means you can ask for a refund within seven days when you purchase the product. Once the period is over, you will not be eligible for the refund even if you find any inconvenience with the service.
Whether the pricing of the service is expensive or not, you can assess it after reading the complete IPVanish review.
IPVanish Trial
When it comes to SaaS products or services, users want to give the product a try, and for that, they always look for free or even paid trials. In fact, a lot of VPN services in the industry come with the trial availability, for instance, PureVPN, Ivacy, etc. However, when we talk about IPVanish, free trials are only available for users using the iOS applications. Apart from that, there’s no such trial for other users.
To check out the IPVanish VPN, you have no other choice but to buy the 1-month plan, which, as mentioned earlier, costs $10.00 per month. Plus, you have to check the product thoroughly within seven days to ensure that it meets your VPN needs or not. After seven days, you would get to use the service for the rest of the month, but you won’t be able to ask for any refund at all.
However, the good part is that all the plans of the VPN service offer all the features the service has to offer. This way you can easily check out all the features and functionality.
IPVanish Setup & User Interface Review
So, before going straight to the discussion of the IPVanish features, let us first talk about and assess VPN service’s setup, download method, and user interface.
IPVanish Signup Process
First and foremost, you need to go to the website of IPVanish to subscribe to the service. For that, you first need to select the pricing plan the fits your need and then you need to select the payment method. The entire process is pretty simple and quick, and there is no unnecessary navigation or something that would distract during the payment process.
IPVanish App Download and Installation
Secondly, you need to download the respective app for your device. Choose the app for your respective device and click the download button.
The download file is quite small in size, and the installation process is also quite fast. Nonetheless, you will be asked the restart your PC to get the application working on your system.
IPVanish User Interface
You will find the user interface of the IPVanish application quite user-friendly with a decent bit of settings or features to play around. However, you won’t be taken in by the aesthetics of the application as it uses a dark background with the green theme on buttons, etc. Regardless, the overall user experience of the app is good.
IPVanish App User Interface
When you run the application for the first time, you will be asked to fill the IPVanish login details. When you are logged in successfully, you will be taken to the dashboard of the application. There, you will find the settings on the left-hand side panel.
IPVanish Settings
Before you connect the VPN to any server, it is suggested that you must check out and ensure that the settings are set as per your needs. For instance, you may want to change the protocols settings as per your need. Or, you may want to make the application open up automatically every time the system is restarted or turned on.
In the main Settings of the application, you will find the General tab for startup, the connection tab for protocol and anti-leak, IP Settings for IPs or DNS settings, and the Logs.
Once you have set all the settings of the application as per your need, check out the Connection menu. Unlike other services that come with an automatic connection feature or a smart connect feature that allows the app to find and connect to the nearest and fastest server, IPVanish has a simple Connection process.
In the bottom right-hand side of the application, you will see three drop-down menus: country, city, and server. You will have to choose the server location manually every time you run the IPVanish application.
You can also check out the servers list from the option on the left-hand side panel of the application.
IPVanish Features
In this section of the IPVanish VPN review, we will talk about the primary features of the application that makes it a top ranking service in the industry.
Kill Switch
The Kill Switch feature has become a norm in the VPN industry. After all, there can be disconnections sometimes no matter how efficient and great the service is. Bad timings or circumstances happen. For those circumstances, we have the Kill Switch feature.
The Kill Switch feature allows you to remain anonymous on the Internet even when you are disconnected during the anonymous surfing. The Kill Switch feature quickly disconnects you from the Internet as soon as you VPN connection is interrupted.
Likewise, IPVanish also offers this powerful feature so that it can provide its users with the assurance of complete online anonymity.
Unlimited Bandwidth
Bandwidth is a precious commodity for every ISP and even VPN service provider. You will find most of the online services putting a limit on their bandwidth usage even though they ask for a hefty cost for their service. Regardless, IPVanish is amongst those top ranking services that don’t hammer their customer’s expectations with a Bandwidth cap. Yes, you got that right! When you use IPVanish, you won’t have to fear of running out of bandwidth at all no matter how excessively you use the VPN service.
Multi-Logins
It is a pretty common offering in the VPN industry that a VPN service provides its users with a multi-login capability. The feature allows users to buy a single VPN account and power up different devices in the home with the same account simultaneously.
Likewise, IPVanish also comes with this great feature. Like many other top-tier services like PureVPN, IPVanish provides its users with the ability to connect up to 5 devices in the home simultaneously with a single account. Even ExpressVPN with all its expensive application is behind this five multi-login feature, and it offers only three simultaneous connections. In this aspect, if you compare the prices of both the VPNs, you will be more attracted to the IPVanish VPN.
Unlimited Torrenting & P2P
Torrenting is amongst those most important and common activities of the Internet users for which they want to buy a VPN. After all, torrenting is not available everywhere, and you have to be anonymous to do torrenting.
For those users, it is great news that IPVanish offers the best torrenting and P2P downloading capability on its VPN servers in the industry. In fact, the VPN service provider is completely open and transparent about the usage of torrenting on its VPN networks. It is quite unlike many other VPN services who although offer torrenting capability but don’t mention blatantly on their website.
Instant Access to Blocked Websites & Applications
Another important fact that no one can deny about the VPN industry and even the users themselves is that they look for a VPN for the primary purpose of getting past the censored websites or applications. There are some websites and applications on the Internet that are behind either ISP or country firewall, disallowing the internet users from accessing those content.
Good news is that the IPVanish VPN is capable of unblocking a significant number of websites and applications on the Internet. For instance, anyone living in China can easily access the facebook by connecting to the US or UK server. The user IP will be masked, and the user will be able to use the social network with anonymity.
However, unlike top-tier services like PureVPN and ExpressVPN, IPVanish can’t offer users the unblock feature against the industry giants like Netflix, BBC iPlayer, etc. Bummer!
If you are a Netflix or BBC iPlayer fan, you will have to look for other options as mentioned above to get access to those streaming channels easily because you can’t access them with IPVanish.
Other IPVanish Features
IPVanish Router VPN
VPNs and routers are a perfect combination of lighting up all the devices in your home or any other place with complete security, encryption, and anonymity. In fact, the biggest advantage of installing a VPN on your router or buying a pre-installed router is that you don’t need to look for the VPN application for different devices.
Regardless, if you are not a fan of manual setups which are indeed quite demanding and sometimes confusing, then opt for the pre-installed VPN routers. IPVanish has partnered with three top-tier routers manufacturers for the pre-installed router namely: Flashrouters, Sabia Technology, and Inviz Box.
Best IPVanish Routers
However, if you don’t want to pay a hefty price for a router when you already have one, go for the manual setup. The manual setup guide is pretty simple and easy even for non-tech savvy users of VPN. When you go to the website of the IPVanish, select the Manual Setup, and you will be automatically scrolled down to the drop-down menu.
In the drop-down menu, you can select the brand that you have and then the model of the router. When you select the fields with the right brand name and model, you will be given further instructions on which firmware to install and how.
IPVanish Free SOCKS5 Proxy
Like any other VPN service provider, when you install the IPVanish VPN you will also get the multiple protocols availability which includes the common VPN protocols (discussed later under Security).
The VPN users use the protocol to set the security, anonymity and speed balance. For instance, some protocols offer the highest level of security but after sacrificing the speed of the VPN. However, to set up the VPN and the protocol, you need to download and install a separate client or an application.
But if you are not a fan of any third-party clients at all, you can opt for the SOCKS5 Proxy, aka Socket Security protocol. First of all, it is one of the exclusive features that you won’t find in any other VPN services generally speaking. But IPVanish provides the feature.
The SOCKS5 proxy is an ideal feature for users who want to circumvent the IP restrictions or country restrictions on websites or applications. Moreover, users who want to access IP restricted content but not at the cost of speed would seriously love it since SOCKS5 offer the best speed.
However, you get to experience the fastest speed at the cost of security. The reason behind why SOCKS5 offer the best speed but not the other protocols of a VPN application is that SOCKS5 doesn’t offer any encryption at all while the other protocols offer different levels of encryption.
But the problem is that when we checked the website and we had to face a problem with setting up the SOCKS5 proxy because there wasn’t any easy guide at all.
Privacy
Like many other VPN users, you must also have this thought somewhere in the back of your mind, “Is IPVanish safe?” Don’t worry; your concerns are genuine. After all, you want to use a VPN service to mask your real IP and location which is why you need a service that maintains a strict privacy policy.
Moreover, you might also be concerned because of the company’s region of operation. The company operates from the United States which is one of the strictest countries that are serious about copyright issues and infringements.
However, you don’t need to worry about privacy leak anymore when you use the IPVanish service. The VPN service provider mentions under its Privacy Policy that the company doesn’t keep any log at all. So, even if the company gets any pressure from the intelligence agencies of the country to show users log, the company won’t be able to comply because it doesn’t keep any. Check the below words quotes from IPVanish Privacy Policy Page:
Aside from VPN’s logs of the users, the company does log other types of personal information of the user. If you read through the Privacy Policy, you will see that the company collects the account information such as name, email address and billing information for payment. In fact, the company even allows the customers to change that information once the account is setup.
Moreover, the company also saves information that is extracted from the website’s cookies. The information collected from that source allows the company to monitor the use of the website and improve the user experience.
Security
Security is also one of the top most important concerns of every VPN user. After all, VPN not only offers anonymity through anonymous IPs but also security in the form of encryption. Like other top-ranking VPN services, IPVanish also offers the strongest 256-bit AES encryption. It is the same encryption algorithms that are not only used by the top industries in the world but, in fact, it is also used by government intelligence agencies.
The encryption algorithm alleviates all your worries about accessing secured websites. Although a major portion of the websites on the Internet use the HTTPS certificate, yet many don’t. Websites that don’t use HTTPS make users feed uneasy when accessing such websites because users fear privacy breach.
However, when you are connected to a VPN that offers the 256-bit encryption, you will get the same security assurance when you access a website with an HTTPS protocol. The encryption algorithm makes your activities as well as your data encrypted.
Secondly, when it comes to protocols, IPVanish offers the PPTP, L2TP, and OpenVPN protocols. The PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) is best suitable for users who want best streaming speed. Since the protocol uses an encryption algorithm lower than 256-bit, it offers fastest VPN speed and performance. L2TP, on the other hand, is more secure than the PPTP protocol, but it offers slow speed than the later.
OpenVPN is another protocol that IPVanish offers. It is by far the best protocol regarding a balanced speed and security need.
IPVanish Servers and Locations
The number of servers installed or set up across the globe is another important concern of every VPN user. Needless to say, it is imperative for a VPN service to have a network of VPN servers that are installed strategically in different regions. A well-thought-out network not only ensures best VPN speed but also the privacy of the users, the security of their data and their internet freedom.
This is why it is important for VPN users to opt for a VPN service that offers not only the highest number of servers in the world but also in the best locations possible, especially in the nearby regions. Upon reviewing the IPVanish VPN service, it is noted that the service offers a good number of stealth servers.
Currently, IPVanish has a vast network of 1000+ VPN servers that are placed in 60+ countries. Although the number of countries where the VPN service has servers may be less than other VPN services like PureVPN or ExpressVPN, the good thing is that it has servers in most demanded countries or regions. For instance, the VPN service has around 402 VPN servers in European countries such as the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, etc.
With a plethora of servers available at your fingertips, you can easily unblock any website or application you have always wanted. Moreover, you will be able to reap a lot of other VPN benefits that are only possible when you can have a good number of countries’ IPs available to you.
IPVanish Speed Test
When it comes to reviewing a VPN service, we can’t afford to ignore the most important assessment which is the speed and performance of the VPN service. We can’t neglect the fact that the VPN service offers a high volume of servers. However, more number of servers don’t mean better speed and performance. For instance, if the servers are not optimized for speed, you won’t be able to enjoy a good VPN service.
Therefore, upon testing the IPVanish VPN service for speed, we found that the service offers the highest speed as compared to lots of other services such as ExpressVPN. In fact, the IPVanish VPN speed rivals that of PureVPN, a top-tier service known for its fastest speed and security.
When testing the server speed of a VPN service, it is imperative to keep in mind that there are some factors involved that can affect a VPN’s speed such as latency or ping, protocol and the distance of the server from the user’s location. Moreover, we also have to check the speed on different websites to make sure that the speed is consistent across the Internet.
We kicked off the VPN speed test by first noting down the actual speed of our Internet (i.e., without a VPN) using a 100 Mbps connection.
Internet Speed Without VPN (Before)
Internet Speed with IPVanish (After)
Secondly, we tested the speed of the IPVanish using the L2TP protocol and connected to a faraway server. You can see that the speed dropped to half of the actual speed and also the latency increased. However, the speed is satisfactory because it is more than enough to stream your favorite content without having to suffer the pain of buffering.
IPVanish Supporting Devices & Operating Systems
It is important that the VPN service you are going to opt for should be able to offer the best compatibility across different devices and Operating Systems. IPVanish offers compatible VPN application for all the popular devices as well as Operating Systems such as Mac, Windows, iOS, Linux, Chromebook, Fire TV, routers and more.
In fact, IPVanish Kodi setup guide can also be found through the support resources on the website.
IPVanish Customer Support
Customer support service is the backbone of a VPN service since it is the where you can best retain your customers from leaving your product. A lot of VPN services claim to offer round-the-clock customer support service. However, not every service is able to live up to the promise and ends up misguiding users with empty, tall claims.
Regardless, IPVanish also claims to provide its users with the available of 24/7 customer support service. Before we discuss our result with the assessment of the customer support, let’s first discuss what other review services have to say.
We are not going to take the name of the review service, but some review websites say that the IPVanish customer support service is relatively fast other others. In other words, IPVanish offers fastest response as compared to others. However, there are also some reviewers who say that the service offers slow customer support.
In our time with the customer support service, we found that the latter is true, i.e., the service doesn’t offer the fastest support service. Moreover, when you go to their websites, you will see that there is no Live Chat feature. Having a Live Chat feature is not only a plus point for the service, but it is also convenient for users to get in touch with the representative for an immediate solution.
IPVanish Payment Methods
Customers want the most convenient payment options to purchase the product they want without going through a lot of steps or unnecessary processes. Moreover, it is important for the service itself that it should provide its customers with different modes of payment.
IPVanish provides different payment options to its customers. Customers can pay the amount via the credit card option, and the service accepts different options like Visa, master card, American Express, etc. Likewise, customers can also opt for the PayPal payment option which is by far the most popular and convenient way to pay for goods and services on the internet.
However, unlike other VPN providers, IPVanish doesn’t offer its users the option to pay with BitCoins. Instead, you can opt for the AliPay payment method, EPS, CashU, and others.
Final Thoughts on IPVanish Review
IPVanish provides it users all the fundamental features and functionalities that users would expect to see in a VPN application or services such as multiple protocols selection, encryption, a huge IP pool, unblocking feature, p2p torrent downloading, vast servers network, and more. In fact, when we talk about the VPN speed, IPVanish offers the fastest VPN speeds you can experience in the VPN industry.
Yet, there are also some cons that may repel some users from purchasing the product such as lack of access to Netflix and such premium streaming channels. Overall, the VPN service is good.
