IPVanish VPN Review
IPVanish VPN Review
IPVanish a VPN consisting of 110+ servers in 47 countries, thousands of active users, and plans starting at only $10.00 per month. IPVanish is a large VPN network that offers a simple list of features. With no Windows client, IPVanish offers security with no add-on programs. While using IPVanish VPN we utilized the VPN provider on our Flashrouters router.
Packages
IPVanish VPN offers three very simple plans. A one month, three month, and one year VPN subscription. All three plans come with the same features. One flat rate for the same features is what the Freedom Hacker Team personally prefers. One should not be limited or have to pay erroneous prices for extra privacy or security. IPVanish’s three time based plans start at only $10.00.
Features
IPVanish has a very simple set of features that work similar to many VPN’s. IPVanish offers OpenVPN on Windows, Mac OSX, and Routers. Then IPVanish offers PPTP and L2TP for Windows, Mac OSX, iOS, and Android. Ubuntu supports only PPTP and OpenVPN, along with routers strictly supporting OpenVPN. IPVanish offers an exclusive application for Mac, our team did not personally test it as we are based off of Linux and Windows based computers. Here are the list of features they promise
Speed
IPVanish VPN had overall great speeds. With 110+ servers, there is sure to be one close by, or one that fits your desires. IPVanish VPN did have few select servers that I could not peek past 100KB/s on. I did not contact support, but I noticed very few servers did this. Most locations have multiple servers, such as New York. New York may have three different servers one can connect to. If server one gave the 100KB/s speed, New York server 2 would worked just fine. I did not contact support regarding some deathly slow servers, but I did note some servers to be slow even when revisiting the location at a later date. IPVanish VPN did offer great speeds and extreme reliability on the router. Never once did my connection drop, buffer, or give issues. Almost every server across the network gave speeds that were very desirable. Streaming was no issue with the VPN. Sometimes VPN speeds would drop significantly when downloading larger files, but the speeds would be back up and running within a few minutes. The VPN did not cause noticeable speed issues, but some flares did arise. Again, I did not contact support regarding some speed flares, or server issues, but I did notice from time to time some issues arising. Overall IPVanish speeds were great and very desirable for daily use.
Privacy Concerns
While IPVanish VPN claims they do not log what users on the VPN do, there have been reports of IPVanish subscribers receiving valid DMCA requests, and possible account terminations. Threads arise time to time on the IPVanish forum asking the same question, “Why do users receive DMCA requests on a VPN that doesn’t log?”
- http://forum.ipvanish.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=304&sid=0da52f424de36860d388368e6dbcf101
- http://forum.ipvanish.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=280
Since there are so few users marked across the 7,000 IP’s, users can be easily identified and sent a valid DMCA request in real time. Many state VPN’s that don’t log, or refuse to forward DMCA requests to users are in direct violation in the law. This is untrue, and many privacy based companies do comply with DMCA requests but do not forward them to users, as they cannot identify who is infringing on the file. As IPVanish does not log or shape traffic, we do find that forwarding DMCA requests to users is a bit off turning.
Why the rating
As the VPN does have great speeds, we feel it falls short for its price. The VPN does not offer OpenVPN on mobile devices which makes mobile security on the go extremely vulnerable. The VPN also lacks some features and does not offer anything extra with their VPN. This would be fine as other VPN’s offer bland to the point features, but IPVanish VPN can also identify which user is using the VPN at every exact moment. While traffic is not monitored or logged, it can be tied to a user so to say.
Overall
The Freedom Hacker Team as a whole has mixed feelings over IPVanish VPN. Everyone on the team has mixed reviews due to their lack of users on servers, and forwarding DMCA requests to alleged infringers. We do note IPVanish is located in the U.S.A. and has to comply with U.S.A. laws, but feel IPVanish is not offering users the layer of privacy and security they claim. IPVanish isn’t logging, shaping, or selling any traffic or data which we do find notable. We do find for the price and privacy concerns IPVanish to not be one of the best VPN’s we recommend. While IPVanish provides a layer of anonymity, we do feel there are privacy concerns.
Thank you for detailed insights about IPVanish. During my research to get VPN for security I found a review on vpnanalysis that says that IPVanish per month price is $6.49 and you have mentioned that it will cost $10. Whats the diffrence?
Hi Maria,
That is the listing of the yearly price, saying if you buy the more expensive package, you get a discount on how much it costs per month, but you have to pay the full price up front (ex. One month – $10 Three months – $25, the three is cheaper per month, but you have to pay the full $25). Here we listed the as-is monthly price. Hope that helps.
for matter of facts, their vpns does not do really anonymous and i can provide any proof af that, in my experience with their swiss vpn i wasn’t able to connect to that location in the manner meant to be simply because yes, their vpn it was working BUT wasn’t anonymous and the destination service just find out my real location! this is a serious security issue! So, what about the security of all the vpns they got in their service???!
their service is even not reliable, they got issues with that, all of the sudden vpn locations are disappearing as easy as like it’s so normal to shutdown something customers they paid for and keep it down for good with no ETA given.
they simply shut down locations and so, you are SOL
this is my experience with ipvanish
ive been using ipvanish for a while but since their recent update the software has been using 30% of my CPU (intel core i7-4650 @ 1.7GHZ) and just behaving really oddly also my AV (webroot) has been blocking their site whenever i’ve tried to get support or just go on their site. the reason i found your blog was to see what was up with it and i think i’ve found the answer, thanks.