Summary Review

 

Strong encryption to protect data, zero-logging policy, a large number of servers to ensure high performance, the basic components of a reliable foundation for a secure VPN service that will be trusted by its users, this is what guided IPVanish in creating its virtual private network, with an emphasis on these components. In IPVanish you will not find a large selection of additional features, but the security features that the service offers and so provides you

For someone, the obvious disadvantage will be the fact that the company is based in the United States, which as we know is part of the Five Eyes alliance, but we will return to this in the Jurisdiction section.

IPVanish does provide a secure encrypted connection when you go online using military-grade encryption that no one can break today. And it's all supported by a wide variety of protocols such as OpenVPN, IKEv2 / IPsec, L2TP, and PPTP. What makes IPVanish stand out is, of course, the unlimited number of connected devices, which is a great advantage over other services.

To understand whether IPVanish VPN is suitable for you or not, we will test its speed of streaming information, find out how the service copes with bypassing geographical blocking to open access to content, and much more.

Cheapest price	Logging policy	Torrenting policy	Servers count	Customer support	Money back guarantee	Local speed (Avg.)
4.50$	No logs	Permitted	1900	24/7 Live chat	30 days	71 Mbps

Privacy & Security

 

In terms of security and privacy of your digital identity on the Internet, IPVanish can be classified as the highest category of VPN providers, let's see why?

IPVanish uses the strongest AES 256 encryption algorithm available today; it is used by high-security institutions, banks, governments, and the NSA to protect their "Top Secret" documents.

It also uses one of the strongest SHA 256 hashing algorithms for authentication and on top of that 2048 bit RSA encryption, thus providing secure data transfer between the server and the mobile application.

The online traffic of IPVanish VPN users is routed through remote servers, thereby hiding your IP address, and with the help of an encrypted tunnel, no one can access your data.

IPVanish has recently started using a new gold standard protocol called Wireguard. Wireguard is an open-source protocol featuring high performance, strong data protection, and aims to outshine all other protocols. But we should not forget about other protocols used by IPVanish, this list includes protocol, which has already earned worldwide recognition and is the most popular among OpenVPN users, for data transmission OpenVPN uses UDP (User Datagram Protocol) or TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). In addition to Wireguard and OpenVPN, IPVanish uses L2TP together with IPSec, which also provides a decent level of security, it is fairly easy to configure and is available on many Windows platforms, macOS and works on many other devices and operating systems, and also uses IKEv2 / IPsec and PPTP protocols.

Logging policy & Jurisdiction

 

IPVanish is registered in the USA, a country where freedom of speech is valued and free access to the Internet is properly protected, but we should not forget that during the Cold War, the US and Britain began to actively cooperate in the exchange of intelligence to increase the effectiveness of the fight against Soviet intelligence, later this alliance was joined by New Zealand, Canada and Australia and the Five Eyes Alliance was created. It seemed to be only about intelligence sharing, but it is not so simple, we all know Edward Snowden, a former CIA, and National Security Agency employee released data that confirm the total surveillance of citizens of the country, covering it up as the fight against terrorism, so let's not forget about this fact that the US is not the best choice for the jurisdiction of the WUP service.

Let's talk about the exceptional advantage of IPVanish, it is of course the zero-logging policy, which does not track, record, and store data about your online traffic, your connection history, and from which IP address you connect to the server, so even if NSA or other important agencies need your data for investigations or other reasons. Here IPVanish cannot help them, because the service does not keep logs.

 

Performance (speed & reliability)

 

What about the speed for streaming? First of all the speed depends on your Internet provider, with VPN, in any case, you will notice a speed decrease, unless your Internet provider specifically limits your bandwidth, in this case, the VPN provider on the contrary can improve your speed performance because it hides the destination of your traffic. What you should pay attention to when assessing the speed of VPN service, for starters the number of servers around the world, because the further away is the VPN server you choose to connect, the lower will be its speed. Also affects the load on the server to which you are connected and the encryption power of the chosen VPN protocol.

IPVanish is not characterized by superfast speeds from the premium services, but this speed at the proper level is enough to view a video without buffering and download torrents, this speed is achieved by a large server network. IPVanish is represented in 75 server locations with the number of servers 1900+ and the number of IP addresses 40000+. As usual, we tested the speed with Speedtest, first, we measured the speed without connecting to the VPN, then when connecting to the nearest server and in the end to the most remote, in our case the American server. On average the speed when using a VPN service dropped by 60 percent, but this is all considered normal speed when using a VPN service.

 

Features & Usability

 

Admittedly, IPVanish does not have extra features, compensating it all with a strong encryption of your data without loss of speed for normal performance, which is the main purpose of VPN, but not everyone would agree with this point, as some need in addition to strong encryption, no dialog policy, an important function of separate tunneling other important that was a built-in ad blocker, as they want to get rid of annoying ads, compatibility with TOR and other additional features, unfortunately here service is not useless. But in IPVanish offers a very necessary for today function Kill Switch, which protects from leakage of your data if suddenly interrupted connection to the VPN, it is kind of an emergency switch, which immediately cuts off the Internet connection in case of faults in the VPN.

It is also worth noting that during the testing of VPN was not found leakage, and you can bypass online censorship and excessive restrictions, but found the use of a VPN host IPVanish, particularly affects those users who use it in countries with strict censorship, such as the UAE, where there is a strict ban on the use of WAP with the punishment up to imprisonment.

Let's move on to usability. The installation of the application is not difficult even for a beginner, but if you suddenly have difficulties, there is a guide on installation or in a pinch you can contact technical support. The application is intuitively understandable, with a pleasant user interface. Function Kill Switch by default does not enable, but you can easily enable it, just go to the settings section and enable it yourself, there is a quick connection, which is carried out with one click, there is also a section of IP settings.

 

 

Server Location

 

A very important factor also when choosing a VPN is how many servers the service can provide and the number of countries so that there is no overload to provide an acceptable speed of its user. IPVanish coped with this point decently, the service has 1900+ servers in 75+ locations.

There are 83 servers in Asia, 1227 in North America, and 537 in Europe. I also want to note that IPVanish does not use virtual servers, which is rare among VPN services, I'm not saying that the virtual servers are a disadvantage of VPN providers, they just exist on one physical server, they are good, but only when used transparently, but it does not apply to IPVanish, because they have no virtual servers.

IPVanish's server network is considered large, capable of providing you with a solution to your problem for various needs, such as bypassing geographical blocking for access to popular streaming platforms, broadcasting fake GPS signals, and so on.

List of countries:

Canada, Mexico, Germany, Norway, Bulgaria, Denmark, Poland, Ukraine, France, USA, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Romania, Netherlands, Slovakia, Serbia, Hungary, Malaysia, Guatemala, Philippines, Greece, India, Thailand, Ireland, Brazil, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Spain, Argentina, Singapore, Nigeria, South Africa, Luxemburg, Albania, Iceland, Cyprus, Latvia, Estonia, Great Britain, Belgium, Italy, Australia, Portugal, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, Israel, Taiwan, UAE, Colombia, Chile.

Streaming &Torrenting

 

Now we will talk about how the service copes with bypassing geo-blocking streaming platforms, as well as what speed IPVanish can provide for downloading torrents. IPVanish provides a very good streaming speed for torrents, torrenting is allowed on all servers of this VPN provider, as well you will not meet with the limitation of P2P traffic, game lovers who are constantly annoyed by the extremely high ping, this service is definitely for you, as perfectly copes with providing good speed for online games. You should only choose the nearest server to connect to minimize ping time.

Unfortunately checking with the opening of access to the most popular streaming platform Netflix, IPVanish managed, but with great difficulty. To my disappointment, I could not connect to BBC iPlayer, Disney+, Hulu at all. This is a disadvantage for users who care about providing access to streaming platforms, IPVanish works only fine with opening access to popular services like Kodi and Facebook. Overall, I would not consider this service in terms of purchasing for streaming.

Platforms & Devices

 

A great advantage of the service and what makes it stand out is that the number of devices connected to IPVanish reaches 10 at the same time!

IPVanish is compatible with many operating systems and platforms such as Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Fire TV, Linux, Chrome OS. IPVanish is one of the best VPN services for Stream Sports as well as Amazon Fire TV Stick.

The site has a section with the installation of apps for different operating systems and devices, and if you have difficulties, you are offered a solution in the form of installation guides.

 

Pricing

 

There are currently 2 plans available for IPVanish subscription

1 Month - 10.99 USD per month

12 Months - 4.50 USD per month

Unfortunately, like most services, there is no 7-day free trial, but there is a 30-day money-back guarantee, which is a great alternative, if for whatever reason you do not like the service, you just make a request for a refund and you will easily approve it.

You can pay for your subscription with a variety of credit cards and PayPal.

Support

 

IPVanish support is available 24/7 via online chat, you can also send an email or use a chat bot to find a solution for your question, but what surprised me is that the website has phone numbers for contacting support, and in addition to US contacts, you also have contact information for Spain, Brazil, Mexico, UK, Germany and New Zealand.

In addition to the advisor's help, the site is filled with useful information, and there's also a section with frequently asked questions and application installation guides. Support is an important factor in choosing a VPN, and IPVanish takes this seriously and provides a high standard of customer service.

Pros & Cons

 

Pros

✓ High encryption standards, including the Wireguard protocol
✓ Ability to connect up to 10 devices simultaneously
✓ Handy apps for all platforms
✓ No logging
✓ Large server network

 

Cons

✘ Doesn't work in China
✘ Does not handle opening access to Netflix and other streaming platforms well
✘ Few additional privacy features

 

Last edited on Aug 3, 2022