Ivacy VPN Review | PCMag

A VPN passes all your internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel, blinding your ISP to your activities and making it harder for anyone else to track you online. Ivacy offers VPN protection at an affordable price and boasts servers in far-flung corners of the world. It's a strong offering on paper, but we had some hiccups in testing and object to some of its in-app advertising. The company should also release a third-party audit to build trust with potential clients. You don't have to wait, however, since many other VPN products have already solved these problems.

How Much Does Ivacy VPN Cost?

An account with Ivacy VPN costs $9.95 per month, which is just a smidge lower than the $10.11 average we've seen across the services we've tested. Many excellent products manage to undercut Ivacy VPN, however. Editors' Choice winner Mullvad VPN, for instance, costs just €5 ($5.65 USD at time of writing) per month and is one of our favorite affordable VPNs.

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As with other VPN services, Ivacy VPN offers long-term subscriptions at a significant discount. A one-year plan with Ivacy costs $29.99, and a two-year plan costs $42.00. That's much less than the $68.69 per year average we've seen. In fact, it ties with Kaspersky Secure Connection VPN for having the lowest annual subscription fee. However, we recommend you buy a shorter subscription of any VPN so you can test it in your day-to-day use, and sign up long-term only after you're sure it's a good fit.

Ivacy VPN accepts all major credit cards, PayPal, and numerous other lesser-known payment systems. You can also buy a subscription with cryptocurrency via Bitpay or Coingate. This last option is important if you want to pay for your VPN anonymously. Editors' Choice winners IVPN and Mullvad VPN go one step further and will accept cash payments sent to their respective HQs.

If cost is a major hurdle, fear not, as there are many excellent free VPNs on the market. Our favorite is Editors' Choice winner ProtonVPN, the only VPN we've reviewed that does not limit the amount of data free subscribers can use. Ivacy does not offer a free subscription tier as part of its pricing, but you can download and use its client apps with “limited functionality” for free and without providing any account information. A company representative tells us this access remains free for life, but it is limited to only the server the Ivacy app determines is fastest and locks all other app features.

What Do You Get for Your Money?

An Ivacy account lets you connect from up to ten devices simultaneously. That's twice the industry average, and certainly enough for the average user or even a family. We've noticed, however, that some VPN companies are abandoning this limitation altogether. Avira Phantom VPN, Ghostery Midnight, IPVanish VPN, Editors' Choice winner Surfshark VPN, and Windscribe VPN place no limit on the number of simultaneous connections.

(Editors' Note: IPVanish VPN is owned by PCMag's publisher, Ziff Davis.)

Notably, Ivacy includes a split tunneling feature. This lets you decide which apps should send their traffic through Ivacy's encrypted tunnel and which should not. That's particularly handy for gaming with a VPN, since you can avoid the detrimental speed and latency effects of a VPN on your game while remaining otherwise protected.

Unfortunately, that's the end of Ivacy VPN's advanced features. It does not provide access to the Tor anonymization network via VPN, nor does it provide multi-hop connections for additional security. Editors' Choice winners NordVPN and ProtonVPN are, notably, the only VPNs we've reviewed that provide split tunneling, multi-hop connections, and access to Tor.

You can spice things up with port forwarding for an additional $1 per month. That's a rarely seen feature, but it’s probably useful only for experienced users. Ivacy also has dedicated IP addresses for $1.99 per month in Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, and Singapore, as well as the UK and the US. If you opt for a dedicated IP, Ivacy VPN includes port forwarding for free. This is an extremely affordable price compared to other VPNs—NordVPN charges $70 a year for dedicated IP addresses. What Ivacy VPN offers is a real bargain but, again, most users won't need this feature either.

While a VPN will help protect your privacy online, it cannot protect against every threat. We highly recommend that readers use standalone antivirus software, enable multi-factor authentication wherever it's available, and create unique and complex passwords for each and every account with a password manager.

What VPN Protocols Does Ivacy VPN Offer?

VPNs aren't new technology so there's an entire rainbow of options for creating a VPN connection. We prefer OpenVPN and WireGuard, both of which are open-source, so they can be picked over for any potential vulnerabilities.

The Windows app supports OpenVPN (shown in the interface as TCP and UDP), as well as the older L2TP, and the also excellent IKEv2. The lack of WireGuard is excusable as it is still very new technology—at least, for now.

Ivacy VPN's Servers and Server Locations

When comparing VPN companies, it's useful to see where each offers VPN servers. More locations means more choices for spoofing your location, and increases the likelihood you'll find a nearby server no matter where you travel.

Ivacy's website boasts servers in over 100 countries, but I counted just 62 on the server list webpage and 60 in the app itself. That's still a bit higher than the average for VPNs. The bulk of Ivacy VPN's options are in the US and UK, but Ivacy VPN should be commended for its surprisingly diverse collection of server locations. It has servers in South American countries and African nations—two regions frequently ignored by other VPN companies. It also provides VPN servers in regions known for having repressive internet policies, such as Russia, Turkey, and Vietnam, as well as Hong Kong.

Ivacy offers 3,500 servers, which is well above the 1,500-server average we've seen across the industry. However, total server count is often a function of the service's popularity, not an indicator of quality. Notably, CyberGhost VPN, NordVPN, and PureVPN all boast at least 5,000 servers.

Some companies make use of virtual locations. These are VPN servers configured to appear somewhere other than where they are physically located. We're fine with the use of virtual locations, provided they are clearly marked by the company. In the Ivacy app, several locations are marked as virtual, which we appreciate. A company representative says that it uses virtual locations for “high censorship regions.”

Along with virtual locations there are also virtual servers. These are software defined servers, where a single hardware machine plays host to several virtual servers. The company did not comment on its use of virtual servers but noted that most of its servers are owned directly by Ivacy VPN.

Ivacy VPN outlined some of the steps it takes to ensure its servers are secure. NordVPN and ExpressVPN are two companies that have taken the additional precaution of using tamper-resistant RAM-only servers (also called “diskless”). Ivacy VPN does not use this technique. Notably, Ivacy's privacy policy deliberately sidesteps questions about encryption technology. The company should address this issue directly and transparently.

Your Privacy With Ivacy

VPNs potentially have access to all the information that passes through them, so it's important they protect your privacy and don't monetize your data. When reviewing VPNs, we read through the company's privacy policies and send out a questionnaire to get a sense of what privacy protections each company has in place. 

Ivacy's privacy policy is clear and to the point. While it has some unusually coy, legalistic moments, it follows a trend in easily-to-read policies and deserves credit for the effort.

In its policy, Ivacy says that it does not “log or monitor, online browsing activities, connection logs, VPN IPs assigned, original IP addresses, browsing history, outgoing traffic, connection times, data you have accessed and/or DNS queries generated by your end. We have no information that could associate specific activities to specific users.” That's exactly what you want to hear from a VPN company.

It goes on to say “Ivacy does not, under any circumstances, share, sell or rent users' personal information provided during the registration process.” This is also excellent, since a VPN company should ideally be making its money without monetizing its users. The company also does not inject ads into customer's web traffic.

The policy goes on to itemize the only information that Ivacy does collect and why it needs this information. For the most part, the company only retains the email address, name, and payment method to carry out billing and other site functions. We appreciate that the company indicates all the third parties it employs for analytics and customer engagement. Notably, the policy says that data regarding “inactive customers” is removed every 12 months.

Ivacy's privacy policy acknowledges that the company knows the country of origin for VPN connections. Like many VPNs, Ivacy also receives user diagnostics that include aggregate bandwidth usage and a more ambiguous “application usage.” A company representative explained to use that this does not include personally identifiable information, but does include the device, OS, and crash information. The company should endeavor to explain this category and consider making diagnostics or crash logs optional or only stored locally as other VPNs have done.

Interestingly, Ivacy's privacy policy acknowledges the use of cookies and provides links for information on how to disable cookies. These links, however, are broken. The company should address this.

Ivacy VPN is owned by PMG Pte. Ltd and is located in Singapore, operating under that legal jurisdiction. We do not believe that the quality of any company can be determined solely on its location, but it is still an important consideration. We encourage everyone to make their own decisions in this regard and use the service they feel comfortable with.

As with the best VPN services, Ivacy's policy says that it strives to retain as little usable information as possible to protect customers even when presented with a legal subpoena. “By design, Ivacy VPN has no sensitive data to share, even when legally bound to do so,” reads the policy.

We prefer VPN companies that issue transparency reports disclosing their interaction with law enforcement, and ones that offer third-party audits to verify their security and privacy policies. Ivacy currently does not have a transparency report on its website. It also has not undergone a third-party audit that evaluates its infrastructure and privacy policy, much like what Editors' Choice winner TunnelBear VPN and others have done. Ivacy VPN has been evaluated and certified by the trade group ioXt, but this testing appears to focus on its Android app only. It's a good start, but we'd like to see Ivacy VPN do more in the name of transparency.

Hands On With Ivacy VPN for Windows

Ivacy VPN has apps for Android, iOS/iPadOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. It also offers plug-ins for the Firefox and Chrome browsers. There's even support for Raspberry Pi devices and an app specifically for Kodi. We had no trouble installing Ivacy VPN on an Intel NUC Kit NUC8i7BEH (Bean Canyon) desktop running the latest version of Windows 10.

We were lukewarm on Ivacy's design when we last reviewed it in 2018 and, unfortunately, little has changed since then. The app is a single deep-blue window with a rail of icons running down the left side. The main screen is built around a large connect button, with a location switcher just above. We appreciate the simplicity of this design and that it directs customers on how to get online quickly. Still, we think Editors' Choice winner TunnelBear VPN is leading the way with simple, friendly design.

By default, Ivacy VPN uses its Automatic setting, which chooses a server for you—usually, the closest geographically. We were surprised, however, that Ivacy VPN was unable to successfully connect. Once we manually selected a New York based server, it worked fine. That's disappointing and might stop new users in their tracks. More distressing is that Ivacy VPN had similar connection issues when we last tested it three years ago. It is exceptionally rare to see problems like this among VPN services, and especially to see them repeatedly over several years. This problem, unfortunately, was not limited to Ivacy's Windows app.

Also odd was that Google switched to a Russian language version of its site while we were connected to Ivacy VPN's New York server. We can't pin this one directly on Ivacy, but it's very unusual.

Ivacy had one more shock in store for us. Once it finally connected to a server an ad popped up encouraging us to use Startpage.com. We strongly dislike the idea of seeing ads in software, but especially not in privacy software, and especially not when we're already paying for the service. Granted, Ivacy VPN included an option to never see this ad again, but the fact that it tried to wring a little more monetization out of us is egregious. Ivacy VPN should drop this tactic entirely.

Ivacy VPN seems to understand that most people are going to use a VPN to access region-locked content and has an entire Streaming section for them. Here you can select “Channel” to unlock specific services. There's a button for HBO Max, Hulu, The BBC, and others. Some are location-specific, like Netflix US. Even without selecting one of these options, we were easily able to stream Netflix content while connected to a US-based Ivacy VPN server. Your mileage, however, may vary.

In addition to the Streaming section, Ivacy VPN has settings for Secure Download and Unblocking. The Unblocking section is straightforward, these are servers to use if you're attempting to circumvent local censorship or restriction—note that this may carry its own risks, however.

The company explained to us that the Secure Download option routes downloaded files through Ivacy's real-time threat detection service that should catch malware mid-flight. In general, we prefer dedicated malware solutions, and are skeptical of any VPN's antivirus capabilities. That philosophical concern was rendered moot since Ivacy VPN's implementation did not work as expected. 

In all our testing at PCMag, we use the AMTSO tests to verify that antivirus software is functioning properly. These tests use a safe file that most antivirus vendors have agreed to flag as malicious. When we ran these tests, Ivacy VPN failed to stop the download every time. This doesn't necessarily mean that Ivacy's antivirus protection doesn't work, since it may not be configured to detect the test file. But it isn't a vote of confidence, either. Moreover, we ran into more connection issues and crashes when testing this feature on macOS.

From the Settings tab, you can access Ivacy VPN's other features, such as split tunneling. We confirmed that this did, indeed, allow us to send some app traffic outside the VPN connection. The interface is straightforward but requires you to select all the apps you want to send data through the VPN rather than selecting the apps you wish to exclude. We think this is backwards and a bit tedious.

The Settings tab also is where you can enable Ivacy VPN's Kill Switch, which blocks web traffic from your machine if the VPN becomes disconnected. We couldn't recreate the conditions necessary to test this feature. There's also an option for IP/DNS leak protection that's off by default. We switched it on and were surprised to find later that it had switched itself off again.

Fortunately, Ivacy VPN does not seem to leak your information. In our testing, we verified that it successfully changed our public IP address. Using the DNS Leak Test tool, we also confirmed that it did not leak our DNS information. Keep in mind, however, that we only tested one VPN server.

Hands On With Ivacy VPN for MacOS

We downloaded Ivacy's macOS VPN app from the vendor's website and installed it on a MacBook Pro running Big Sur 11.6.1. The app has a dark blue background with orange highlights. A large white connection button is in the middle of the dashboard screen, and above that, a server switcher. When connecting to a server, a big pop-up ad for a private search engine appears. As we noted earlier, we really don’t like this.

The app is light on features. It doesn't have a Kill Switch or split tunneling. On macOS, the Ivacy VPN app can merely launch on startup, auto-connect at launch, reconnect automatically if the connection drops, or disconnect from the VPN when the user exits the app. It's basic stuff; no website blocking or multi-hop functions on offer here.

Perhaps you don't need a lot of features with your VPN. You just need privacy. That's why we test to make sure they are doing the job of hiding your IP address and DNS requests. We went to DNSLeakTest.com and ran an extended test while connected to a server in Vienna, Austria. Our actual IP address remained hidden during the test and our DNS information secure.

We tested our Ivacy VPN connection's streaming prowess by navigating to Twitch.tv and watching a live-streamer play Grand Theft Auto V. The stream took about 2 seconds to load and played without incident. While still connected to the server in Vienna, we then went to YouTube to watch video highlights from BTS' recent concerts in Los Angeles. Each video loaded instantly and played without any stuttering or buffering.

Hands On With Ivacy VPN for Android

We installed Ivacy's Android VPN app on a Samsung A71 5G running Android 11. First, the app requested permission to make VPN connections. We then tapped the hamburger menu in the top left corner of the dashboard to get to the login screen.

After logging in, we noted that the appearance of the Android app is very similar to the iOS version of Ivacy. It’s a blue app with the world map embossed on the dashboard background and white and gold highlights. When you try to connect to a VPN server using the large white button in the middle of the screen, a popup window for Startpage.com, a private search engine company, appears. We still don’t like that this ad is included in the paid version of the ad and are dismayed to see it across so many platforms.

The Ivacy Android app features a Kill Switch and split tunneling. There’s also a feature called Multiport that selects the best port for connectivity.

We test VPNs for IP address and DNS request leaks. We connected to a server in Quebec, Canada; visited DNSLeakTest.com; and ran an extended test on the connection. Our actual IP address remained hidden throughout the test, as did our DNS information.

While still connected to the server in Quebec, we watched a couple of YouTube videos. Each one loaded instantly and played without buffering. We then navigated to Twitch.tv to watch a live streamer play Minecraft. The stream took about three seconds to load and played without any stopping or stuttering.

Speed and Performance

Using a VPN almost certainly means slower upload and download speeds, as well as higher latency. When we review VPNs, we run a series of tests with the Ookla Speedtest tool with and without the VPN, and then find a percent change between the two. You can read more about how we test VPNs in our story, How We Test VPNs.

(Editors' Note: Ookla is owned by PCMag's publisher, Ziff Davis.)

We were not especially impressed with Ivacy VPN's Speedtest performance. Our testing found that Ivacy VPN reduced download and upload Speedtest results by 71.7% and 69% respectively, which is a significantly larger impact than the median we've seen across more than 20 products. Ivacy's streak of mediocrity continued into the latency tests, as it increased latency by a whopping 475%.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has limited our access to the PCMag Labs, and so we have moved to a rolling testing model with testing throughout the year. The latest results are in the table below.

While VPN performance is always a concern, we do not believe that it is the best criteria for selecting a service. Your experience will likely change depending on where, when, and how you use a VPN. Instead, we recommend focusing on value and privacy protections when shopping for a VPN.

An Uninspiring Experience

Ivacy VPN deserves credit for offering an excellent selection of server locations, covering regions often ignored by other companies. We also appreciate that its product can be used for free without providing any billing information to Ivacy VPN, although this mode is limited. However, its Speedtest results are lackluster, and its Windows app is loaded with unlikable and worrisome foibles—not to mention unwanted advertisements.

There seems to be a real disconnect between the product Ivacy VPN wants to be and what is being delivered to customers. It boasts smart features and good technology, but it struggles to bring them all together and make them work. Looking back on our last review, in 2018, we ran into many of the same problems, which means Ivacy VPN has had at least three years to address them. We've lowered Ivacy's score by half a star and recommend readers look elsewhere for a VPN.