IPVanish Review: Disappearing Data and a Magical Transformation

In this age of government surveillance, merciless hackers and corporate nosiness, a VPN is more necessary than ever before. IPVanish has made a name for itself as one of the leading VPN providers, promising military-grade security and top-secret privacy in addition to unrivaled performance and ultra-convenient features.

But then again, every VPN provider claims to be the best; after all, you don’t make any sales by sending people elsewhere. In our IPVanish review, we’ll see how this VPN really stacks up to the rest, analyzing its performance, usability, security, and privacy policies to find out whether its claims hold up or fall flat.

Along the way, we’ll break down all of IPVanish’s features and give you a glimpse into the inner workings of this VPN. By the end, you won’t just know whether or not IPVanish is right for you, you’ll sport some handy new VPN know-how as well!

If You’re In a Rush and Just Want Our Concise Opinion …

Superb speeds and a suite of extras like split tunneling and a SOCKS5 proxy make IPVanish one of the best VPNs for multitaskers, torrenters and anyone else who wants to surf the web without a trace.

About IPVanish

IPVanish doesn’t provide a lot of information about itself on its website – there’s no “About Us” page, and the “About IPVanish” section of the support base simply discusses the services provided and VPNs in general rather than the company itself. When we looked up IPVanish on the WHOIS domain name registry, we found that the URL is registered through an anonymizing middleman rather than the actual owner of the site.

A little more digging revealed that IPVanish has been around since 2012 and was founded by Mudhook Media, a subsidiary of the Florida-based IP services company Highwinds Network Group. In 2017, IPVanish (and Highwinds in its entirety) was acquired by StackPath, a Texas-based content delivery network.

Given the company’s American locale (see the “Jurisdiction” section later in the review for more on this), it’s understandable that IPVanish’s leaders and employees keep their identities mostly under wraps.

IPVanish Usability

Website

IPVanish takes home top marks in the looks department. The site is attractive and cleanly-designed, and we love the fun graphics that are used throughout – much more lively and interesting than stock photos and walls of text!

Unfortunately, these good first impressions wane once you go looking for more substantial content. The “Why VPN” page features short blurbs about topics like censorship, geo-targeting, and encryption; click on the “Learn More” link after one of them and you’re shown a couple of paragraphs that give a very general overview of the topic.

It’s not that brevity is a bad thing – these pages could serve as decent introductions for internet newbies who would be overwhelmed by more technical copy – but when it comes to VPNs, more information tends to inspire more confidence and trust. There’s no reason a website can’t contain both accessible information for average Joes and detailed explanations for computer whizzes, but the latter is in short supply here.

In particular, we’d like to see more in-depth explanations of IPVanish’s encryption and censorship-evading technologies, since these directly impact your safety and security. Anyone can claim that they’ll encrypt your data, but there are so many different types and strengths of encryption that such generic statements aren’t enough to inspire a feeling of security.

With that said, some of the content available through IPVanish’s support base is more in-depth than that found on the rest of the site. These articles mostly pertain to configuration and troubleshooting, covering topics like the differences between VPN protocols and the ins and outs of DNS leaks.

Supported Devices

For the most part, you can use VPNs on any device if you’re up for the task of manual configuration, but it’s always nice to have an app that handles all the logistical legwork for you. IPVanish provides apps for five platforms: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and the Amazon Fire TV Stick.

While other providers supply apps for more devices, such as gaming consoles and streaming boxes, all too often, it becomes a matter of quality versus quantity. With developers stretched thin creating and maintaining so many apps, reliability and usability can take a hit; IPVanish’s apps cover the most popular mobile and desktop OSes and should be enough for the vast majority of users.

IPVanish does provide additional manual configuration guides for Linux, Windows Phone, Chromebooks and routers running the Tomato or DD-WRT custom firmwares.

The Linux guides are particularly nice, with separate visual tutorials for Ubuntu, Fedora, Kali Linux, and Linux Mint. Though most providers do offer Linux configuration guides, they’re often generically written and only applicable to a single distro, usually Ubuntu.

Apps

Some VPN apps go for style over substance, emphasizing sleek graphics and fancy effects over accessible controls and intuitive organization. IPVanish’s apps prioritize the latter but don’t skimp on the former, either – they’re full-featured and user-friendly with a black and green minimalist style that, while understated, supports the apps’ functionality rather than overtaking it.

When you open the app, you’re greeted with a Quick Connect page that displays your connection status and lets you connect to your nearest server with one click. If the app’s default choice isn’t to your liking, drop-down menus allow you to configure the Quick Connect function to use a server from a different city or country; you can even select a specific server if you’ve got one in mind.

IPVanish’s server selection options are more abundant and functional than most – you can browse a traditional alphabetical list, zoom into your desired region on a map or use a search function to filter servers by country, latency or protocol.

The map is particularly well-done, without overlapping pins that make it impossible to click the one you want accurately. Instead, the map is labeled with numbered markers denoting the number of servers in the region; as you zoom in, the regions split into subregions and then into individual pins when there’s enough screen real estate to display them all.

The latency filter is also a welcome addition, especially for users who don’t care about server location so much as performance. Latency generally corresponds with speed and responsiveness, so this feature essentially provides you with a list of the strongest servers available to you.

Once you’ve used the desktop app a bit, you’ll no doubt have found a server or two that you favor above the others. IPVanish allows you to save these servers as Favorites, which will always appear at the top of the server list for easy access; unfortunately, this feature isn’t available on the mobile apps.

When you’re connected, the app displays a screen with several useful statistics: the server you’re connected to, your new IP address, the protocol you’re using, the bandwidth you’ve used and your connection time. There’s also a real-time graph of your upload and download speeds, a neat feature for those who appreciate data visualization.

In the Settings tab, you’re able to fine-tune your VPN experience by changing protocols, switching ports, toggling IPv6, and DNS leak protection, enabling metadata scrambling for obfuscation purposes and customizing startup behavior. The desktop apps also allow you to enable the kill switch (which we’ll cover later in the review), view client logs for troubleshooting purposes and update your OpenVPN driver.

IPVanish’s Amazon Fire TV Stick app is a lot like its mobile and desktop brethren, but it’s designed to be controllable with a remote rather than a cursor or a touchscreen. It’s a thoughtful inclusion to the app suite and fills in a niche that’s lacking with other VPN providers, whose apps don’t usually work well with remote controls.

Usability Score: 4 / 5

IPVanish may not have the most apps of any VPN provider, but the ones it does have cover all the necessary OSes and then some. More importantly, they aren’t just there to look pretty; they provide a host of useful features that enhance rather than inhibit the VPN experience.

We’re big fans of IPVanish’s server selection options – so many VPN apps require you to scroll through clunky lists or navigate unwieldy maps just to locate a server. It’s refreshing to have multiple options for server selection, and even more refreshing to see that they all work smoothly.

Even though IPVanish doesn’t offer Linux apps (very few providers do), we still appreciate the multi-distro setup guides available on the company’s website. Linux users are often left to figure out VPNs for themselves due to unhelpful or nonexistent configuration tutorials, so the multiple guides provided by IPVanish are a nice touch.

IPVanish would receive a near-perfect usability score were it not for its website. Though it’s attractive and easy to navigate, it lacks in the information department; we’d like to see more in-depth articles about the VPN’s features, particularly ones about privacy and security.

IPVanish Performance

Servers and Locations

When it comes to VPN servers, more isn’t always better. Many providers boost their server numbers by renting space on servers owned by third parties and by creating virtual servers, which are simply divisions of a single physical server formatted to appear as if they stand alone (and sometimes even as if they’re in a different country than they actually are).

IPVanish does neither of these things. As a “top-tier” provider, they own and operate all their own servers and equipment; this means that nobody else has any access to the servers either physically or virtually, which in turn means increased security and plentiful bandwidth.

Additionally, the lack of virtual servers means that all servers are located where they claim to be and that they’re all able to run at full capacity rather than having to divide their resources between multiple virtual servers.

At the time of writing (May 2019), IPVanish offers over 1,300 servers in 50 countries. The vast majority of these are located in North America, Oceania, and Europe, with the USA, the UK, the Netherlands, Australia, and Germany hosting the highest quantities.

Asia is a bit underrepresented here compared to other providers, but the servers it does have are distributed pretty evenly between the east and the southeast. India is curiously lacking here, with only two servers, but Hong Kong is home to 19, which should be good news for anyone trying to circumvent the Great Firewall of China.

Africa, the Middle East, and South America host a handful of servers apiece but don’t expect a lot of choices if you need a server in these regions: Africa’s seven servers are all located in Johannesburg, South Africa, while the Middle East is serviced by two servers in Israel and one in the UAE.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a decent offering considering that many providers simply skip over these regions altogether. Taking into account the fact that IPVanish owns all of its infrastructure, it’s a pretty impressive repertoire that should be perfectly adequate for most users.

Speeds

VPN speeds are a touchy topic, and we don’t recommend that you select one based on others’ speed test results. So many factors go into determining a VPN’s speed: proximity to the server, both parties’ hardware, network congestion and environmental variables like time of day and weather, to name a few.

With that said, there are a few rules of thumb that we use to analyze whether or not a VPN’s speeds are up to par.

Generally, a nearby server at an off-peak time should return speeds within 10% of your baseline speeds. In comparison, distant servers in developed countries may reduce speeds by around 50% but still perform well enough to handle tasks like streaming video and torrenting. We give more leeway to servers in less-developed regions like Southeast Asia and Africa since infrastructures in those areas are not as robust as those in North America and Europe, but ideally, they’ll still deliver speeds of around 5-10Mbps – far from speedy but sufficient for web browsing and downloading small files.

IPVanish meets these standards with ease. If you’re in western Europe or North America and choose a nearby server, you’re not likely to see much of a drop, if any, and you may even see a speed increase if your ISP engages in throttling; with a base connection speed of 80Mbps, you can expect speeds of 75Mbps or more with IPVanish.

The speediest servers seem to be those in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and France – no surprise, given the abundance of servers in these countries that allows for an even distribution of connections to avoid congestion. It also helps that internet in these countries tends to be ultra-fast in general, especially on dedicated lines like those used by IPVanish’s servers.

Europeans connecting to North American servers (and vice versa) will see their speeds drop, but not by much. Connection speeds between Europe and the East Coast of the USA decrease by 10-30%, while Europe-West Coast connections deliver a respectable 20-50% drop – given a hypothetical 80Mbps base connection, these intercontinental speeds should be more than capable of streaming HD video or downloading large files.

Even long-distance connections, such as those between the UK and Australia or the eastern USA to Singapore, are surprisingly strong, with speeds of around 30Mbps on an 80Mbps base connection.

A few servers do lag behind the rest: Hong Kong’s speeds approach (but don’t reach) 10Mbps, while Malaysia’s hover around 1-2Mbps. VPN servers in these countries are usually slow regardless of provider, so IPVanish isn’t unusual in this regard.

Streaming

Streaming sites have gotten wise to users changing their locations with VPNs to access international content and have responded by blocking VPN IPs en masse and using deep packet inspection (DPI) to detect new VPN IPs. Because of this, some VPN providers use their streaming capabilities as the main selling point, proudly proclaiming that they’re able to evade the sophisticated VPN detection technologies used by Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer and other sites.

IPVanish isn’t one of these providers; streaming isn’t mentioned anywhere on the site except for in a few support base articles about how to use split-tunneling to watch your local Netflix without disconnecting from the VPN (see the next section for more on this). Unfortunately, this information shortage mirrors its streaming capabilities, which are quite limited.

US Netflix is occasionally accessible, but you’ll need to try a few different servers before finding one that isn’t blocked. None of Netflix’s international sites are accessible from their respective countries’ servers, so if you’re American, IPVanish won’t get you any additional Netflix content.

Other sites fare slightly better, but are still quite hit-or-miss; BBC iPlayer in particular is often available one day and blocked the next. On the other hand, Amazon Prime Video and SlingTV are consistently accessible with IPVanish.

Split Tunneling

Most of the time, you should be able to channel all of your internet traffic through your VPN without experiencing any issues. Sometimes, though, you’ll encounter a program or a website that doesn’t function properly through a VPN; if you try to use it, you’ll get error messages or failed connections.

At other times, you may want a certain program to utilize your full internet connection while still securing others with your VPN – online games and HD streaming, for example, need low latency and high speeds to perform well. But even though you experience issues with these tasks when using a VPN, you still want your web browser to be fully protected at the same time.

IPVanish allows you to have the best of both worlds with its split tunneling feature. With it, you can select specific apps, programs, and websites to exclude from your VPN connection; these tasks will use your base internet connection for maximum performance while leaving the rest of your traffic behind the shield of your VPN.

Split tunneling is an option in every IPVanish app except the one for iOS – Apple’s developer restrictions limit the features that VPN providers can include in their apps, including split tunneling. Still, it’s impressive that four out of five IPVanish apps allow you to use split tunneling, as many providers omit this feature from their mobile apps or simply don’t offer it at all.

Performance Score: 4.25 / 5

It’s not every day you encounter a VPN that’s completely top-tier. Hardware is expensive and requires ongoing maintenance, leaving most providers unable to own and operate their entire global network.

IPVanish really goes the extra mile here. Its servers, though not the most abundant, are evenly-distributed and ultra-reliable thanks to the total control IPVanish has over its infrastructure.

This also results in some of the best speeds we’ve seen from any VPN – they consistently approach or meet baseline speeds in the most popular regions. Even across oceans and in far-off lands, speeds range from usable to excellent; kudos to IPVanish for not neglecting its servers outside of Europe and North America.

Even though speeds shouldn’t be an issue with IPVanish, we appreciate the split tunneling feature as it provides users with the ability to customize their VPN experience. If you’re a gamer, you’ll no doubt be utilizing this feature a lot, as will those who use streaming apps on Android or the Amazon Fire TV Stick.

Were it not for IPVanish’s unreliable streaming performance, we’d have no complaints in this department. While the provider doesn’t tout itself as a streaming enabler, it’s simply a fact that many VPN users see international streaming as a priority.

If your primary reason for using a VPN is to circumvent geo-restrictions on streaming sites, you may get frustrated with IPVanish. Successful Netflix connections are few and far between, and it doesn’t appear that any attempts made from a non-US server go unblocked.

On the other hand, if you don’t need reliable access to foreign films and TV shows and simply want a speedy, dependable VPN that’s capable of doing just about everything else, IPVanish should tick all your boxes.

IPVanish Security

VPN Protocols

Your VPN protocol dictates the exact method by which your traffic is encrypted and transmitted. IPVanish supports four different protocols, though their availability will vary based on your device and the server you’re connected to.

OpenVPN

The gold standard of VPN protocols, OpenVPN provides the best blend of security and speed. It uses AES-256 encryption, which would take billions of years to crack by brute force, and runs over your choice of UDP (for better speeds) or TCP (for better stability).

The downside of OpenVPN is that it’s not available on IPVanish’s iOS app. As it does with split tunneling, Apple places heavy restrictions on the use of OpenVPN, so most VPN apps for iOS don’t support it; IPVanish isn’t unusual in this regard, but we hope that someday OpenVPN will be available on iOS one way or another.

IKEv2/IPsec

This is considered the second-best protocol choice – if you can’t use OpenVPN, IKEv2/IPsec is the way to go. It provides a similar level of security and is often a little bit faster, but it’s easier for network administrators to detect and block as it uses a conspicuous port for its transmissions.

IKEv2/IPsec is the default protocol in IPVanish’s iOS app. It’s also an available option in the Android, Windows and MacOS apps.

L2TP/IPsec

Older computers and mobile devices may not support OpenVPN or IKEv2/IPsec; on these devices, L2TP/IPsec is your best option. It isn’t as speedy as the two modern protocols we previously discussed, nor is it as secure (whistleblower Edward Snowden claims to have evidence that the NSA can break L2TP/IPsec’s encryption), but it’s better than nothing and compatible with just about every device.

PPTP

The oldest of the VPN protocols, PPTP is also the least secure: it’s been cracked numerous times and should not be used for transmitting any sensitive data. On the other hand, its poor security uses fewer resources, which in turn means higher speeds, so you may find it useful for streaming HD videos or downloading huge files.

IPVanish recommends using PPTP only as a last resort if your device doesn’t support any other protocol, and even then only for non-sensitive data. It isn’t available on iOS or MacOS.

SOCKS5 Proxy

There may come a time when you wish you had the location-masking ability of a VPN without the encryption or the associated speed loss. Perhaps you want to access a region-locked website but don’t care if your ISP knows about it, or maybe you need maxed-out speeds while torrenting but still want to hide your identity from any copyright enforcers snooping in the peer list.

For these scenarios, IPVanish offers more than 60 Socket Secure (SOCKS5) proxy servers in locations around the world. These servers allow you to change your IP address and your location at will without encrypting your data or slowing down your connection, making them great for low-security, high-speed applications.

SOCKS5 proxies are generally configured within your web browser or torrent client so all you need to do is enter the server’s hostname and your SOCKS5 username and password provided to you by IPVanish (these are completely separate from your normal IPVanish credentials and can be regenerated whenever you want). It’s a nice bonus feature that’s worth trying out if you’re big on torrenting.

Leak Protection

VPNs provide a rock-solid wall of protection, but sometimes a few types of data slip through the cracks, potentially revealing your identity and allowing you to be tracked by websites, network administrators, ISPs and governments. The most common occurrences are DNS leaks and IPv6 leaks.

DNS acts like a phone book, converting the URLs you type into IP addresses that your computer can decipher; it’s usually handled by your ISP or by a company like Google. Sometimes DNS requests aren’t routed through your VPN like the rest of your traffic, which means that your DNS provider can see (and log, and potentially share) all the websites you try to visit.

IPVanish solves this problem by using its own DNS as well as enabling its proprietary DNS leak protection by default. Advanced users can configure their own DNS if they wish, but most people won’t want or need to change these settings.

As we begin to run out of IPv4 addresses (the typical four-section IP addresses we’re all familiar with), IPv6 addresses are becoming more and more common. These, too though, are often unknowingly transmitted outside of your VPN connection and can be used to identify you. IPVanish blocks IPv6, protecting you from these leaks.

Tor Over VPN

Tor is best known as the most popular way to access the dark web, but it’s also an invaluable tool for journalists, activists, those living under authoritarian regimes, and others whose internet privacy is actively violated. It encrypts all your traffic and reroutes it through the Onion network, where it passes through several “layers” of volunteer-run servers throughout the world before sending it to its final destination; by doing so, it masks your IP address several times and prevents prying eyes from knowing where you go on the web.

Combining Tor with a VPN provides you with virtually impenetrable security, but some VPN providers don’t permit Tor usage on their servers, while others allow it only on a select few servers.

IPVanish places no restrictions on Tor. You can use it freely on any server, as long as you’re OK with the long loading times and occasional connection hiccups that are unavoidable when using this combo.

Kill Switch

When your VPN connection drops unexpectedly, you don’t get a “no internet” error like you do when your normal connection drops – pages keep loading and data keeps transferring, which means that you might not realize you’re not secured until you’ve already sent sensitive data out unprotected.

To prevent this, IPVanish includes a kill switch in its desktop apps. When enabled, the kill switch blocks all internet traffic when the VPN is disconnected; there’s no way for any data to be accidentally sent or received over your unsecured base connection.

IPVanish’s Android and iOS apps don’t have a kill switch option. On Android 8 and above, a VPN kill switch is built into the OS and can be enabled in the system settings, but on older versions of Android and iOS, there simply isn’t one; users of those mobile OSes will need to keep an eye on their connection status to avoid unintentional data transmissions.

Security Score: 4.5 / 5

IPVanish covers all the basic security features we’ve come to expect from VPNs and then some. It uses secure protocols whenever possible and takes active measures to prevent DNS and IPv6 leaks, so no special configuration is needed on your part to be fully protected.

The SOCKS5 proxy is a thoughtful touch for torrenters and others seeking a balance between privacy and speed. It’s particularly nice to see so many server options; while it’s doubtful that anyone user will need all of them, it’s never a bad thing to have more server choices.

On the other end of the security spectrum, the unrestricted ability to use Tor over VPN is something that will hold a lot of appeal for those who regularly engage in sensitive communications. The kill switch is also handy for such users, though we wish it were available to more mobile users (OS developers are more to blame for these restrictions than anyone else).

One feature that’s notably absent is a malware/ad blocker – these are becoming increasingly common in VPNs and provide a helpful supplement to your own blockers, especially on mobile devices that often don’t have their own standalone blockers. We’d like to see IPVanish implement a feature like this in the future.

IPVanish Privacy and Policies

Jurisdiction

IPVanish is based in the USA, a country that’s not exactly known for its privacy-friendliness. In addition to carrying out its own extensive surveillance activities on citizens and non-citizens alike, it’s also a member of the Five Eyes alliance, whose other members (the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) have free access to its surveillance data.

In 2016, IPVanish came under fire for turning over a user’s data to the Department of Homeland Security; the data contained IP addresses, connection timestamps and other information that helped convict the user of child abuse and pornography charges. While the crime was heinous, many people were upset that IPVanish, which claimed to keep no logs, clearly stored enough information to be useful in a criminal investigation – and complied with law enforcement requests without a fight.

Things appear to have changed since then: IPVanish is under new ownership and management as of 2017. The new owners were not involved in the DHS incident in any way and have made public statements attesting to their new, strictly-enforced no-logs policy (see the next section for details).

Under American law, IPVanish does need to comply with lawful government requests for any user data it possesses, but it can’t turn over what it doesn’t have. Currently, the law does not require IPVanish to store any type of user data for any length of time, so under company policy, even the long arm of the American government can’t reach your data.

Logging Policy

Following the 2016 DHS incident, IPVanish’s new owners doubled down on the no-logging policy that was supposedly already in place. They issued public statements confirming that they do not log user activity, IP addresses, timestamps or any other personal or session information.

The only user data that IPVanish stores are your email address (for registration, login and contact purposes) and your payment information (for billing and refund purposes). It is not associated with your VPN activity in any way, and you can modify it at any time.

Some of IPVanish’s competitors have gone through third-party audits, wherein their systems are scrutinized to confirm that their no-logging policies are legitimate. IPVanish has not undergone this process, though we hope that it does in the future – audits go a long way towards establishing trust in a VPN provider.

Torrent Policy

Whether you use the SOCKS5 proxy or the full VPN for torrenting, IPVanish has no problem with it. The company’s terms of use contain the standard “no copyright violations or piracy” clause that’s found in every VPN TOS for liability purposes, but the reality is that there’s no way for them – or anybody else – to know who you are or what you’re downloading.

Torrenting is treated like any other traffic with IPVanish; there are no server restrictions or bandwidth caps, and P2P speeds aren’t throttled in any way. You’re free to download whatever you want without fear of receiving a copyright warning.

Privacy and Policies Score: 3.5 / 5

Despite the DHS controversy and the disturbing surveillance practices of its home nation, IPVanish appears to take user privacy seriously. The change of ownership seems to have turned over a new leaf for this VPN provider, and the public statements that have been issued regarding its no-logs policy inspire confidence and trust.

With no logs to hand over, your data won’t be at risk even if it’s demanded by authorities from the USA or any other country. This renders the law enforcement cooperation laws that IPVanish is subjected to moot; it also prevents copyright enforcement agencies from instructing IPVanish to forward warning letters and legal threats to you for torrenting.

There’s no reason to believe that IPVanish is currently violating its no-logs policy, but we’d still like to see the proof in the form of an independent audit. It’s time for all VPN providers, not just IPVanish, to step up their games and prove that they adhere to their promises.

IPVanish Service and Value

Customer Support

IPVanish offers two ways to contact their support team: 24/7 live chat and email. Interestingly, the “Pricing” and “Signup” pages include a customer support phone number at the bottom, which claims to be live Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM CT; this phone number is not mentioned on any of the contact-related support base pages.

The live chat is best used for simple questions about your account and basic troubleshooting; responses take just a few minutes to roll in. More technical questions can be sent via email and are generally replied to within 12 hours, though IPVanish says that responses could take up to 48 hours in extreme circumstances.

Pricing and Payment

There’s only one tier of service available from IPVanish: unlimited bandwidth and a whopping 10 simultaneous connections for $10 a month. The three-month payment plan drops the cost to $8.99 a month, while the one-year plan cuts it down to $6.49 a month.

IPVanish regularly offers sales and coupons that decrease the cost even further. At the time of writing, the three-month plan cost less per month than the one-year plan – just $4.50 a month, with that price locked in for life.

Sadly, IPVanish does not accept any anonymous payment methods such as cryptocurrency or retailer gift cards. Payments can be made with Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, JCB, Visa Electron, Delta and PayPal; PayPal users must select an immediate payment method.

Service and Value Score: 3.75 / 5

IPVanish’s customer support options are pretty much standard for VPN providers, with average response times to match. The phone number given on the payment-related pages is a little confusing since it’s not offered as an option on the actual contact pages, but it’s a nice inclusion anyway.

Prices are average at worst, with the $10 month-to-month plan beating that of many other big VPN providers – and with ten simultaneous connections rather than the standard three or five! With coupons, the deal becomes even sweeter, and we appreciate that IPVanish locks in sale prices for life, unlike other providers which only offer one-time discounts.

The lack of cryptocurrency support is disappointing but understandable – Bitcoin and its brethren are volatile, and companies don’t want to gamble with their payments. But those seeking extra privacy are likely to be turned away by the lack of an anonymous payment option; we hope that a solution to this problem is found soon.

Final Score: 4 / 5

IPVanish doesn’t offer the most servers or the flashiest features, but it doesn’t need to. It’s the ideal VPN for those who value quality over quantity, providing you with reliable servers, highly-functional apps, fantastic speeds and affordable pricing.

Its streaming capabilities may be lacking, but IPVanish’s torrenting capabilities make up for this deficit. We’re also impressed with its high simultaneous connection cap and its excellent overseas performance.

Though its reputation has been marred by controversy in the past, IPVanish has made the most of its second chance. Its actions since changing ownership have shown that it’s serious about privacy, and we hope that, with time, we’ll see even more proof of this.

Related Questions

There’s so much more to learn about VPNs. Let’s get in-depth about some of the topics we’ve started scratching the surface of!

Which VPNs Have Been Audited?

Independent audits are performed by an unbiased third party who carefully examines every nook and cranny of a VPN provider to confirm that its stated policies are legitimate. It’s a welcome trend that’s starting to catch on; NordVPN and VyprVPN are just two of the providers that have undergone an audit.

What are the Different Types of VPN Leaks?

VPN leaks come in all sorts of varieties, from DNS leaks to IPv6 leaks to WebRTC leaks. All the abbreviations and terminologies can get a bit confusing; thankfully, these leaks are easy to test for, and many VPNs use proprietary technologies to prevent them.