- My take in a nutshell, the IPVanish software
is in need of a redesign, but it works extremely well.
It has some great add-ons and they have some
of the best customer support in the industry.
(electronic dings)
Hey there, thanks again for joining me here at
All Things Secured.
My name is Josh and today we're doing a comprehensive review
of IPVanish, which is a virtual private network
that's been around since 2012.
I'm gonna start by giving you a look at the IPVanish desktop
and mobile apps, that you can get a feel for how they work.
We're next gonna transition into the different features
that IPVanish offers, including those that are unique
to the IPVanish service.
And then finally, we're gonna talk about who runs IPVanish
and why that should or maybe shouldn't matter to you.
Now to start, we're gonna walk over to my computer
and take a look at the desktop app.
When you first open the IPVanish software on your desktop,
this is what you're gonna be met with.
It looks a little more complicated than I think
it really needs to be, but the basics are
that you've got your connection button here on the top right
as well as one here on the bottom right.
The ability to choose which country you want to connect to.
Which city within that country or the best available
and then, even which specific server in that city
you wanna connect or again, the best available.
And one of the things I like about this software
is that it does give you the option to choose the best,
fastest server in that specific city or in that country,
so that you don't have to fish for whichever one
has the lowest load or is the fastest at that moment.
Now, when you do connect to that server, let's say I wanted
to connect to Seattle, what's gonna happen is,
once that connection is made,
you're gonna notice there's a visual that happens here.
You're gonna see the time connected, the protocol,
the server and then the data up and data down.
Honestly, these are the only numbers
that I really care about.
This whole data visualization part,
to me it just seems unnecessary.
I don't understand what this even means
or why I should care about it and I wish it wasn't there.
That is my only complaint about this software
is just that design element seems completely unnecessary.
So, when I'm disconnecting from this
and the reason I'm doing that is that you can see a couple
of the other features that aren't available
whenever you're connected to a server.
But let's say I wanna look at the different server lists
that are available.
I can do that and filt sort by either the city,
country or servers and I can favorite those servers,
which is great.
I can choose a map and physically look at the map,
even though I don't think this one is nearly as good
as the one on Nord VPN.
And then, you can filter based on their speed or latency
and then exactly which region they're in and again,
you can star and favorite those servers
that you really like.
I end up just never really going
on this server's tab, honestly.
I just generally choose the country that I want
or the city that I want and connect from there.
Now, if you're looking at the preferences,
what you have is the ability to choose when or
how it starts up, whether you connect immediately
to a server, whether you launch it login,
hide the IPVanish on startup or even hide it
from the dock.
Within the connections, you have a choice of protocols here,
which I think is great, that's what you should have.
You can choose to have a kill switch on or off,
which means well, if you've got a question about that,
you can see my video on kill switches.
And then, scramble here,
which is basically obfuscated server,
which means that's a technology used
to make your VPN connection seem like it's normal traffic.
If you have a problem with certain websites or certain ISPs
that will take and block VPN traffic, using this scramble
will make it seem like your VPN traffic is normal traffic.
You always wanna have this IPv6 leak protection on.
You've got an IP settings, which you can configure
to a third-party DNS.
I mean, this is an advanced setting
that I don't even really care to use.
This diagnostics tab is interesting to me
because what happens is that most VPNs
actually keep this diagnostic stuff, this diagnostic data
on their own servers.
Despite the fact that they are a zero log policy.
The way that IPVanish gets around this, which I like,
is that they actually store it locally on your computer,
so that if you need to talk to customer support
and they need to see exactly what's happening
with your connection, you can literally
just archive this file and send it to them
and then they can look at it,
but they don't have it on their servers,
it's stored locally.
And that's something that I like.
So that's a general initial look
at the desktop software for IPVanish.
So that's the desktop experience,
but as you'll see on my iPad, the mobile app experience
is not that much different.
So as you would expect, the design looks very similar
to that of the desktop.
You've got the connect button on the bottom right.
I can choose a country here on the right
or I can choose a specific city
within each individual country or I can even go down
and choose a specific server in every city.
Although, I don't really know why you'd want to do that.
Usually choosing the best available within a country
is gonna find you the fastest server
with the least amount of load.
And of course, you've got all the data here
on the left side, including your IP, the server
that you're connecting to and your location
and time connected and as I mentioned already,
but I don't wanna just shoot at that horse too much,
we've got this visualization of my upload
and download speeds, which I just don't really understand
why that's there.
In the upper left hand corner, I can go in
and really look in detail that what servers are available.
I can choose specific servers, favorite them if I want to
or I can filter based on city, country or speed.
I don't know why I would use that too much
because I've got everything that I need here
on the bottom right.
And finally, if we look at the settings,
as with most apps, VPN apps,
there's not a whole lot of settings.
You can turn that you can connect automatically
to IPVanish if you wanted to.
You can change to two different protocols.
There isn't an open VPN option here for iOS,
but it's different for Android.
You can have an alternate alternative connection mode.
So what that means is that
if you have a hard time connecting to the IKEv2
in a country like say, China where there's a lot of just...
They don't allow for VPN connections very easily.
You could turn that on and then
that would do an alternative connection that would hopefully
be able to connect easier.
And then of course, you can view your diagnostics
if you were to have to speak with IPVanish support.
That's really all there is to it.
There's not that much.
Normally, I wouldn't even have this open.
I would just connect and then close the app
and then go about doing my normal business.
So as you just saw, the software works great,
but there are some design features
that I think are a little dated and frankly, unnecessary.
But thankfully, there are a few behind-the-scenes features.
We're gonna walk through right now that make up for that.
Now, as with any VPN that I review here on
All Things Secured, I'm not gonna make a big deal out
of the standard features that you should find
in every single virtual private network service out there.
So the very fact that IPVanish offers things like,
256-bit encryption, 1,400 server spread across 50 countries,
a VPN kill switch, a zero-log policy, stand alone apps
for all the major platforms.
These are things that should be expected with any VPN.
In my experience, the IPVanish service speeds
have been great,
but I generally don't include speed comparisons
with my VPN reviews just because there are
so many different variables when it comes to your connection
to the internet, even before it reaches the VPN server.
But in either case, it's good to know that IPVanish
does offer the standard 30-day money-back guarantee,
so that if you do try them and you decide
that their speeds aren't great
or you don't like their software or anything,
you should be able to get your money back within 30 days.
Now let's move into features that make IPVanish unique
from the competition.
The ones that I found include simultaneous connections.
The industry average is between four and six,
but IPVanish offers you 10 simultaneous connections,
which means, 10 different devices on the same account,
connecting to one of the IPVanish servers at the same time.
They also have great customer support.
That includes email support, live chat support
and even phone support
and that's something I've seen nowhere else
in the a VPN Industries.
The ability to call up somebody and ask questions
about setup or ask questions about your account
and get a live person on the phone.
One free add-on that you get with IPVanish,
at least at the time that I'm recording
this video right now, is a free SugarSync account,
which is very similar to Dropbox.
And that it's a cloud storage platform.
Except Dropbox only gives you one gigabyte of free space.
Whereas the SugarSync account will give you 250 gigabytes
of cloud storage space and finally,
they offer a relatively transparent ownership model,
at least for a VPN.
These are the unique features that I've discovered
with IPVanish, but I wanna take a moment to hone in on
that last one.
Who is it that really owns IPVanish?
Well, first things first, IPVanish is owned by Net Protect,
which is a company that owns a number
of other VPN properties including Strong VPN, SaferVPN
and Encrypt.me.
This is an ownership strategy
that's becoming increasingly popular as companies buy up
these VPN brand since it's such a growing segment
of the technology market.
What makes IPVanish and Net Protect interesting is that
in 2019 they were acquired by J2 Global,
a publicly traded technology company based in the US.
Now this kind of US based ownership for a VPN
can be considered both good or bad.
So, let's start by looking at the bad.
You see, most tech reviewers are quick to point out
whether a VPN is located in a country that's part
of an intelligence sharing alliance.
You might have heard of these before, it's the five eyes,
the nine eyes, the 14 eyes, referring to the number
of countries that share intelligence together.
Technically, if a VPN claims to be a zero-log VPN
and they all claim to be zero-log VPNs,
then it shouldn't matter where they're located, right?
But as I've said many times before,
you should take these claims of the grain of salt.
Everybody logs at least something.
So if you don't trust your VPN and you're worried
because you're using a VPN for illegal purposes,
which I don't condone or to protect extremely sensitive data
than maybe it matters where your VPN is located.
But consider this, the same companies that locate themselves
in the British Virgin Islands or in Switzerland,
are also extremely coy about who owns
and runs those companies.
So it's a catch-22
because now you're entrusting your most sensitive data
to an unknown entity.
That's part of why I'm fine with this idea that IPVanish
is located in the U.S. because J2 Global
is a publicly traded technology company.
I can be reasonably confident in my data security,
knowing that any breach whatsoever
would have extreme adverse effects on their revenues.
In this case, being based in the U.S. is not a liability
in my opinion.
The fact that they have to be transparent
about their corporate governance, disclose their financials
and comply with very strict laws and regulations
allows us as consumers to make a more informed decision
and that's something I can't say for many other VPNs.
Oh and one more thing, you know what else J2 Global owns,
they also own the online websites PCMag and Mashable,
among many others, but these are two that have editorials
on the best VPN.
Now, because they are based in the U.S.,
they have to disclose the relationship between them
and the VPN and they do that.
But before you cry foul,
consider that the VPNs located outside
of the U.S. don't have to do this and they don't.
And you better believe in this cutthroat VPN industry
that they are buying up VPN review websites
or they're creating their own
and they're putting their service at the top
as the number one recommendation and this is one
of the many reasons I think the whole VPN review industry
is corrupt and extremely shady.
And yes, I recognize the irony of me saying that
while giving a VPN review, but I wasn't paid
to give this review and while my links are affiliate links,
that's how I make money and my hope is that by being honest
and transparent with you, I can earn your trust.
So what is my final verdict on IPVanish?
They have all the standard features that I expected a VPN.
Plus they offer a very generous 10 simultaneous connections,
250 gigabytes of free cloud storage through SugarSync
and they have one
of the best customer support programs I've seen
of any VPN service out there.
I think the fact that they're based in the U.S.
and owned by a publicly traded company is a good thing.
But if I don't use VPNs for illegal purposes,
so that's a decision that you're gonna have
to make on your own.
My only complaint is the software itself.
Now, it works great, it's very user-friendly,
but as I said earlier, it just feels like it needs a refresh
and maybe by the time you're watching this review,
it already has been refreshed, we'll see.
I hope this IPVanish review has been useful to you
as you're making your decision.
If so, give the video a thumbs up or use the affiliate links
in the description.
I welcome any questions in the comments and I encourage you
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where I publish weekly videos
about personal online security.