IPVanish VPN Test

The mother-company of the US VPN Service IP Vanish can look back to over 15 years of network experience, usenet hosting and IP services. With offices in North America and Europe, it is possible for the company to work globally and to exercise a significant influence on the two largest markets. The stated goal of IP Vanish is to offer the best possible quality in maximum speed and a secure, anonyous connection without logfiles at the best prices.

IPVanish guarantees 100% security for your online identity and data protection through military strength encryption. They say they offer the fastest VPN network that’s currently available, with unlimited server switching. It’s also possible to operate two VPN connections at the same time, for example on a tablet and a personal computer. Or you share the account with a family member. IPVanish is is recommended as ideal for online gaming because of its low ping times.

IPVanish does not monitor or log user activity, so your web usage is totally anonymous. The support staff is available to answer email queries at any time of the day and the company also offers a live chat from Monday to Friday each week. Users wanting to try out the IPVanish service try the service for 7 days – and get their money back if they arent satisfied.

IPVanish price packages are available for one month/three months/one year at different rates and the service was voted the best VPN service for 2013 by bestvpnproviders.net. It offers unlimited bandwidth for videostreaming from Netflix, Hulu or HBO and filesharing. As they do not keep logfiles, filesharing is not a problem. They dont know what you did while using their connection – so they dont blame anyone for anything. They just deliver the bits. The software is free to download and installation is simple following the easy step by step instructions.

IPVanish Speed Review

We have tested IPVanish´s speed with a 50 megabits VDSL line as well as with a dedicated server with 1 Gbit connection in the datacenter. We tested with the websites Speedtest.net and Speedof.me.. As a testserver, we have selected the one with the lowest ping time in Germany, in this case of a server from Frankfurt with 27ms ping time according to the IPVanish tool. Without a VPN connection, the VDSL line delivers exactly 40.62 megabits downstream and 8.61 Mbit upstream, according to Speedtest.net. The ping time is 28 milliseconds.

 

With the OpenVPN connection (TCP) IP Vanish we had still a whopping 8.90 megabits come through the line, the upload speed was 2.35 megabits. The ping time increased to 41 milliseconds. With L2TP has the connection did not work, so we were able to test anything. Very interresting though is that the connection to the same server via PPTP is much faster – all 16.33 Mb / s download speed and 6.44 Mb / s upload rate. These are very decent VPN connection speeds, compared to other VPN Services like HidemyAss, PureVPN or VyprVPN.

In reality, for example when a you download a Ubuntu ISO (or your favorite movie from Piratebay) via Bittorrent, the following values ​​have been reached:

With VDSL we had about 5.4 MB / s maximum download speed and 400 kB / s upload. With OpenVPN we got a maximum of 1.1 MB / s download speed and about 300 kB / s upload rate. Again with PPTP the speed increased and we had a solid 1.8 MB / s download trate which is enough for most purposes but could be a little more for videostreaming through Netflix, Hulu, HBO or others.

 

Downloading Torrents with IPVanish VPN

In which countries does IPVanish host its servers?

At the moment, IPVanish.com currently operates over 325 servers in more than 60 countries. So the company can provide its customers with more than 40,000 different IP addresses. That should be enough for everyone – but IPVanish is constantly growing its network. There is almost no week where they dont announce new servers and server locations in datacenters around the world. When you subscribe to their service, its good to know that the value of their service is always increasing – but the prices stay the same.

Especially in Europe, the company is already well equipped. The server of IPVanish.com are currently already to be found in the following countries: USA, UK, Canada, Germany, Sweden, France, Austria, Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, Switzerland, Portugal, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Spain, Belgium, Malaysia, South Korea, South Africa, Romania, Russia, Hungary, Singapore, Czech Republic, Egypt, Australia, Finland, New Zealand, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Iceland, Panama, Argentina, Norway, Latvia, Moldova, Ireland , Estonia, Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand and Brazil. More to come.

What logfiles does IPVanish keep?

Recently IPVanish decided to surprise its users with its Zero-Log Policy. You have read it right – IPVanish DOESNT SAVE ANY LOGFILES!!! That really sets them apart from the other big VPN services like HidemyAss, VyprVPN or PureVPN. All of them are keeping logs, no traffic logs but at least which user had which IP address at a certain moment is stored.

Like many other VPN providers IPVanish.com also kept provider logs since a few months ago. But after the judgment of the European Court of Justice was published, in which dataretention was declared inlawful, IP Vanish has decided to keep no more log files at all!

 

Is filesharing / p2p allowed with IPVanish?

That also sets IPVanish apart from other VPN services – they allow filesharing / p2p, torrenting, video- and porn streaming and everything else you want to do with your internet connection. When we asked them about filesharing, their answer was “we just deliver the bits, you can do whatever you want”. Thats an awesome statement and it really shows their dedication for the users privacy and anonymity on the internet. Awesome job, IPVanish!

Payment Options

To be an IPVanish VPN customer, you can choose from a big variety of payment methods. New ones are constantly added – and there are rumours that bitcoin is supported in the near future as well.

The payment options of IPVanish are:

PaySafeCard, Giropay, IDEAL, Alipay, CashU, Mister Cash, Poli, SOFORT Banking, Boleto Bancario, DineroMail 7eleven, DineroMail Oxxo, DineroMail Bank Transfer, DineroMail ServiPag, Przelewy24, ELV, EPS

 

Which personal infomation do they want?

When you sign up – the following information is required: Name, phone number, address, email address, username, password, and payment information will be documented and stored by the company. IPvanish always offers special promotions and giveaways for short terms usage, for example when you are on vacation and you want to access a server in the US or the UK to watch your favorite show on Netflix, Hulu, HBO or BBC.

If you are looking for a free trial, check out the site www.vpntrial.org .

 

Is there a download limit??

The company strives to provide particularly fast connections, but the speed depends largely on the bandwidth of your Internet connection as well as the proximity to the selected server. Vanish IP VPN customers can relax while downloading and streaming – there is no data volume limit. Also Filesharing / P2P is allowed on IP Vanish VPN servers.

Gentlemen, start your download-engines 🙂

 

Which encryption and protocols does IPVanish.com offer?

The IP Vanish VPN users can choose from three different protocols to encrypt their connection. Encrypted connections are especially handy if you are surfing on a public hotspot where it is easy for attackers to grab your personal information “over the air”.

IPVanish proviees OpenVPN, encrypted with the OpenSSL library (3DES, AES, RC5, Blowfish), PPTP with MPPE, and L2TP with RFC 4835 (3DES or AES).

Which operating systems are supported by their VPN Software Client?

So far, the company offers clients for Windows and Mac; Linux users have to proceed manually but there are detailled tutorials on how to set it up.

Vanish IP VPN also is available on all mobile devices that support PPTP or OpenVPN (including all iPads, iPhones, iPods and Android devices).

 

The IP Vanish Software Client

Compared with the software of other commercial or free VPN services, for example HideMyAss – IPVanish provides a very simple, clean and easy to use VPN Client.

At first you have to select a server and a coutnry with which you want to connect. The list is sorted by city name server and ping time. If the connection is lost during the VPN sessions, there is an auto-reconnect function.

One must not necessarily connect manually when your computer is starting up – an “auto-connect at startup” function is available in the settings.

In the lower part of the IPVanish clients screen, the different connection types are available to choose from: OpenVPN (TCP), OpenVPN (UDP), L2TP and PPTP. Just click the protocol before you connect to the server you want to connect to – and you are good to go.

 

The settings are also kept very simple. You can select whether the login data should stored for the programs next startup and whether the IPVanish VPN Client should start with Windows.

In addition, you can configure that the IPVanish VPN client automatically connects to the last used server when the program is started – or to a server which has the lowest latency (ping time). Thats especially useful for gaming purposes or real time videochats or Voice over IP connections (VoIP).

As a third option you can select a specific server location where the IPVanish client always should connect to. In addition, you can set the desired protocol. [OpenVPN (TCP), OpenVPN (UDP), L2TP, and PPTP] for this automatic connection.

How to set up an IPVanish VPN?

Here are some very helpful Videos on how to set up a VPN connection with IPVanish on different operating systems and protocols:

Setting Up an OpenVPN Connection on Windows 7

Setting up a PPTP Connection on Windows 7

Setting Up an L2TP VPN Connection on Windows 7

Setting Up an OpenVPN Connection for Windows 8

Setting Up a PPTP VPN Connection on Windows 8

Setting up an L2TP VPN Connection on Windows 8

Setting Up an L2TP Connection on Windows XP

Setting Up a PPTP VPN Connection on Windows XP

Customer Service & Support:

The support of IP VPN Vanish can be obtained via email, support ticket or live chat. However, knowledge of english is a prerequisite for this, as the support of IPVanish is done exclusively in English at the moment – as well as the website.