{"id":13090,"date":"2021-12-28T14:06:39","date_gmt":"2021-12-28T13:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woocommerce-331985-2347979.cloudwaysapps.com\/ipvanish-vpn-review-pcmag\/"},"modified":"2022-01-18T16:20:36","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T15:20:36","slug":"ipvanish-vpn-review-pcmag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmileco.com\/ipvanish-vpn-review-pcmag\/","title":{"rendered":"IPVanish VPN Review | PCMag","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"
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Using a virtual private network (or VPN) can help improve your privacy by making it harder to track what you do online and keeping your ISP from monitoring your activities. IPVanish VPN provides good value, allowing subscribers to use as many devices as they want at the same time. It also offers a widespread array of servers across the globe, covering some regions ignored by competitors. While its interface gives you fine-grained control of your VPN connection, it's neither modern nor particularly pleasant to use. More concerning is that the service does not offer the depth of privacy features found in Editors' Choice Winners such as ProtonVPN or Mullvad VPN and the fact that it has yet to release a third-party audit to validate its privacy practices.<\/p>\n
(Editors' Note: IPVanish VPN is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company.)<\/em><\/p>\n IPVanish VPN costs $10.99 per month, which is slightly above the average monthly price of $10.14 among the field of VPNs we've tested. Many services charge more than the average, but if they back up that price with valuable features, it's still a good value. Mullvad, an Editors' Choice winner, notably offers more privacy tools than IPVanish\u2014multi-hop connections in particular\u2014and it sticks to its single pricing tier of \u20ac5 per month ($5.64, as of this writing).<\/p>\n Our Experts Have Tested 19<\/span> Products in the VPN Category This Year<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As with most VPNs, IPVanish offers discounted annual subscriptions. Here, too, IPVanish has tweaked its pricing, and not for the better. An annual subscription costs $53.99\u2014significantly less than the average of $70.44 we see across the VPNs we've tested. However, that price jumps to $89.99 for the second year and all years after. IPVanish VPN is up-front about this change, and it's a practice common in other types of subscription services. Still, we're not fans and wonder if some consumers will see the price jump as a nasty surprise. Kaspersky Secure Connection VPN offers the most affordable annual plan we've seen, at just $30.<\/p>\n If price is a major concern, consider a free VPN, instead. TunnelBear offers a free subscription, but limits users to just 500MB per month. ProtonVPN has the best free option, placing no data limits on free subscribers. It also offers flexible pricing, making it very accessible.<\/p>\n You can pay for the service with any major credit card or PayPal. If you're looking to use Bitcoin, prepaid gift cards, or some other anonymous method of payment, you're out of luck with IPVanish. Editors' Choice winners Mullvad VPN and IVPN both let you pay for subscriptions anonymously with cash sent directly to their respective HQs.<\/p>\n IPVanish places no limit on the number of devices you can connect simultaneously, as opposed to most other VPN companies that limit users to just five devices. This makes IPVanish a good value (you can literally protect more devices for your money). In addition, the resources needed to police device limits often come at the cost of customer privacy. Along with IPVanish VPN, only Avira Phantom VPN, Ghostery Midnight, Editors' Choice winner Surfshark VPN, and Windscribe VPN place no limits on simultaneous connections.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nearly all VPNs allow the use of BitTorrent and P2P file sharing on their networks, although some do restrict the activity to specific servers. If you're a heavy downloader, you're sure to appreciate the freedom and flexibility of IPVanish, which doesn't restrict BitTorrent at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some VPNs say they block ads at the network level, but IPVanish makes no such claim. That's no great loss, as we recommend readers use a stand-alone ad- and tracker-blocker such as the EFF's Privacy Badger.<\/p>\n The best VPNs include additional privacy features to make it even harder to track you online, and to ensure your VPN won't get in the way of your day-to-day life. With multi-hop connections, a VPN can bounce your connection through a second server to make it even harder to track and intercept, but IPVanish does not offer multi-hop connections, nor does it provide access to the Tor anonymization network via VPN. Split tunneling lets you designate which apps and websites need to send data through the VPN and which can travel in the clear. IPVanish VPN does offer split tunneling, but only on Android devices.\u00a0<\/p>\n Notably, NordVPN and ProtonVPN are the only two products we've yet tested that offer multi-hop, access to Tor, and<\/em> split tunneling. It's no surprise they're also Editors' Choice winners.<\/p>\n Some VPN companies offer subscription add-ons. These typically come with an additional fee and often include static IP addresses or access to high-performance server hardware. IPVanish does not offer additional services. TorGuard, on the other hand, has a remarkable slate of add-ons for significantly less than the average VPN company charges.<\/p>\n Some VPNs have greatly expanded their offerings to include password managers, like Remembear, and encrypted file lockers, like NordLocker. Hotspot Shield comes with a Pango account that grants access to other privacy-protecting services for free. IPVanish does offer backup space and syncing through SugarSync and LiveDrive. IPVanish also offers anti-virus protection and anti-tracking tools through Vipre antivirus subscription add-ons. <\/p>\n (Editors' Note: SugarSync and Vipre are owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company.)<\/em><\/p>\n While VPNs go a long way toward improving your privacy on the web, they won't protect you from every ill. We strongly recommend installing antivirus on all your devices, enabling multi-factor authentication on all your accounts, and using a password manager to create a unique and complex password for every site and service.<\/p>\n When it comes to creating a VPN connection, we prefer the OpenVPN and WireGuard protocols. Both are open-source, meaning they can be picked over for any potential vulnerabilities. While OpenVPN has become the industry standard, WireGuard is very new technology that's still being adopted by VPN companies. We're happy to see IPVanish supports both options.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n IPVanish VPN supports WireGuard and IKEv2 (another good option) on all platforms. OpenVPN is supported on all platforms except for iOS. IPSec is available only on iOS and macOS. IPVanish VPN also supports older, less secure options as well. Its Windows app supports L2TP, SSTP, and PPTP, and its macOS app supports L2TP.<\/p>\n IPVanish boasts servers spread across 52 countries, which is slightly fewer than last year. Importantly, IPVanish has excellent geographic diversity. The company offers servers in Africa and South America\u2014two continents often completely ignored by VPN companies. IPVanish does not, however, offer servers in regions with more oppressive internet restrictions, such as China, Turkey, or Russia.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The total number of servers a VPN company provides is usually linked to how many subscribers it serves\u2014more subscribers, more servers. It's not necessarily a marker of quality service. Still, IPVanish offers a respectable 1,900 servers. CyberGhost VPN, NordVPN, and PureVPN claim more than 5,000 servers apiece.<\/p>\n A virtual location is a VPN server configured to appear somewhere other than where it is physically located. This isn't necessarily a problem, and in some cases can be used to provide coverage to dangerous regions by housing the servers in safer countries. It's a moot point with IPVanish, as the company says none of its servers are virtual locations. ExpressVPN provides servers in 94 countries with few virtual locations.<\/p>\n Similarly, a virtual server runs on physical server hardware, but it is software-defined, meaning several virtual servers can exist on a single physical server. IPVanish says it does use virtual servers, but only when the company controls the underlying hardware. That's a good policy.<\/p>\n Some VPNs, such as NordVPN and ExpressVPN, have started using diskless or RAM-only servers, which are resistant to physical tampering. Other VPNs have started to purchase more servers outright, in order to own their physical infrastructure. IPVanish VPN says it owns and manages 80% of its infrastructure, and it does not use diskless servers. The company says its servers are fully encrypted to protect their integrity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When you use a VPN, it has as much insight into your internet activity as your ISP. That's why it's important to understand the information any VPN service may collect and how they use it. In general, the best VPN services collect as little as possible, and share even less.<\/p>\n IPVanish VPN's privacy policy<\/a> starts strong with clear language outlining key assurances: It won't monitor or log user activity, it strives to collect as little data as possible, and it does not sell or rent personal information. A company representative told us the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n After that, the policy is a little harder to read. While in plain language, it is extremely detailed. Editors' Choice winner TunnelBear VPN does a better job balancing clarity and readability, but IPVanish VPN's level of detail is refreshing.<\/p>\n
\nHow Much Does IPVanish VPN Cost?<\/h2>\n
\nWhat Do You Get for Your Money?<\/h2>\n
\nWhat VPN Protocols Does IPVanish VPN Offer?<\/h2>\n
\nIPVanish VPN's Servers and Server Locations<\/h2>\n
\nYour Privacy With IPVanish VPN<\/h2>\n