IPVanish
 |
9/10 |
| Website: | http://www.ipvanish.com/ |
| Contact: | http://www.ipvanish.com/contact-us.php |
| Phone: | N/A |
| Location: | USA |
| Cost: | From $10.00 per month |
| Year Founded: | 2012 |
Review of IPVanish’s Virtual Private Network Services
With a fifteen-year history in network management and content delivery services, IPVanish entered the VPN industry in early 2012. Their stated goal is to deliver the best technical support, the best VPN speeds, the most competitive prices, and the most secure connections on the planet. They are the fastest growing tier-1 VPN in the world. They offer custom VPN software, many global server locations, and a dedicated support staff.
IPVanish has offices in Europe and North America. IPVanish VPN puts the user in control of the IP address they use which secures the connection, provides a virtual firewall, protects your online data, bypasses internet censorship, protects your data, and blocks unwanted marketing.
IPVanish Features
IPVanish only appears to offer one plan from what I can tell. The plan’s price varies based on the level of commitment the user selects. The prices were $10 per month, $26.99 for three months, or $77.99 for a whole year at the time this was published. I did a little research and found that these prices have not changed for at least five months. IPVanish offers a seven-day money back guarantee if unhappy with their services and even encourages those who are using other VPNs to take advantage of the seven-day refund period to test drive IPVanish.
IPVanish did not provide any information on whether they plan to provide services for businesses. For the time being, it looks like they just provide services directly to the consumer. For you and me, this may mean that IPVanish is likely to provide better customer service, since they are not giving priority to the big-spending companies. But, this is just conjecture.
IPVanish creates a secure environment for your web use. They use their VPN connection to send all of your online data – such as online banking, instant messaging, browsing, data transfers, and emails – through an encrypted tunnel. This makes it so no third parties, including your internet service provider, can see your web traffic.
IPVanish gives you control of your IP address. As you use the internet for pretty much any task, your specific location is tracked with all of your actions using your IP address. IPVanish brings this point home by providing a link along the top of their site that takes you to a map of where exactly your server is located. Luckily, I had my VPN service going!
Anyway, IPVanish provides users with an anonymous IP address that third parties cannot use to identify users. IPVanish lets the user control his IP address by providing secure connections to over 14,000 IPs on 110 servers in 47 countries. This ensures the fastest connections speeds no matter your location. Every user has access to every IP and server.
IPVanish has servers in the following areas:
It is worth including this long list because these are all the places where one can claim to be located when using IPVanish. The extent of a VPN’s server network is an important factor to consider when choosing a VPN provider. IPVanish has one of the best on the market.
IPVanish touts that it can help improve online gaming capabilities by providing a strong connection. IPVanish’s transit and routing systems are faster than most used by ISPs, and they do not throttle like ISPs. To make the most of this, they recommend logging on to the server that is closest to your physical location.
If you have used the internet at all in the last five years, you have noticed the trend of creating advertisements that cater to your location and search history. To many, this is an invasion of privacy. IPVanish promises to keep your personal location and search data out of the hands of marketers and advertisers.
One of the coolest features IPVanish offers is their ability to overcome location specific internet restrictions. If you travel to a country that censors its internet, you can simply access one of IPVanish’s many servers in other countries to regain full internet access. This feature is also helpful if you want to access information that is only available in certain locations. For example, if Netflix only has your favorite show available outside of your country, you can use IPVanish to access it.
It is also worth mentioning that IPVanish does not charge for bandwidth for its high speed connection. Also, IPVanish has L2TP, PPTP, and OpenVPN protocols.
IPVanish’s Security
When accessing any type of public Wi-Fi, IPVanish is especially helpful. Your data is easily accessible to anyone nearby when you logon to the internet in a coffee shop or airport. Internet hotspots are a hub for identity theft since cybercriminals can quickly steal passwords and usernames from those who do not have a good VPN like IPVanish.
When hackers or others try to attack a private computer, they aim their attack at the IP address. IPVanish acts as a virtual firewall for these attacks because your actual IP address is hidden behind the IP address you choose on one of IPVanish’s servers.
IPVanish Customer Service
IPVanish offers customer service every day of the year, 24 hours per day, seven days a week. You can contact them in a variety of ways. They have the ever popular live chat. They have an extensive FAQ, documentation, and a very active discussion forum. If those options do not provide one with an answer, there is also a support form.
I took advantage of the support form and the live chat. Typically, I test out the live chat at an unreasonable time at night, but I came to find out that the live chat feature is only available 9 am to 5 pm Eastern Monday through Friday. So, I tried it out on a Friday afternoon instead. I was greeted warmly almost instantly and was given more than enough information on my inquiry. I tested out the support form at a weird hour (three in the morning) and got an answer within the hour. Not bad.
IPVanish appears to have an active social media presence. They also offer email communication. I did not locate a phone number on their site, which is totally understandable since it is kind of hard to share links and screen shots over the phone when trying to fix a problem.
Downsides to IPVanish
I was unable to find any downsides to IPVanish in my use of it. The software ran smoothly on both of the devices I tested it on. There were no appreciable differences in download speeds when the application was running. I procured IP addresses in each of the countries where IPVanish has servers. And, I also tested to make sure I was able to access location restricted websites, and I was.
I took to the internet to scour the VPN discussion boards to see if I could dig up some dirt on IPVanish. Approximately 97 percent of the feedback on the company was positive. The only complaint I found anywhere was that someone had their services terminated because they used IPVanish while committing theft. When contacted, IPVanish stressed that they do not condone the use of their product in committing crimes. That seemed reasonable to me.
The Verdict
IPVanish is a very impressive company. They clearly put a lot of work into making a great product, which is amazing considering they have been around for less than two years. I suppose that is a testament to the talent they have on their team. Everything was tailored with the end user in mind. Their guides are incredibly easy to follow. From payment to first logging on, it took me about ten minutes.
IPVanish’s prices are somewhere in the middle when compared to other VPN providers. This is impressive considering the number of servers they are maintaining and the quality of the product they are putting out.
If you are using a mobile device/smartphone/tablet, I strongly recommend choosing IPVanish for your VPN service. I also give my strongest recommendation to those who play online games and need a fast, strong connection. It also does not hurt that those whom you are playing will not be able to locate you. Additionally, IPVanish is a must for those who want to keep their ISP from logging, controlling, or monitoring what you do online.
If that does not cover everyone, I would also recommend IPVanish to those who have never considered VPN solutions. It is just the way to go to protect against increasingly sophisticated cybercriminals.