IPVanish Review: Quick Expert Summary
IPVanish is secure, easy to use, and allows unlimited simultaneous connections, which makes it an ideal option for large households and people who use a lot of devices. IPVanish is also one of the top VPNs for torrenting.
It also has pretty fast speds — in my tests, my speeds only decreased by 33% on average. While it doesn’t have a big server network (1,900+ servers in 50+ countries), its servers are evenly spread out in most parts of the world, so it’s easy for most users to find a nearby server for the fastest speeds.
IPVanish also offers:
- Perfect forward secrecy.
- Split-tunneling.
- Tor support.
- Antivirus (yearly plan only).
- And more…
IPVanish is a good VPN, but it has some drawbacks. For example, it isn’t good for streaming — while it works with Netflix, IPVanish can’t access Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer, Disney+, and many other popular streaming services. IPVanish is also unable to bypass internet firewalls in censor-heavy countries like China. And its split-tunneling is only available on Android, DNS leak protection is only available on Windows, and there’s no WebRTC protection.
IPVanish has 1-month, 3-month, and 1-year subscription plans that are competitively priced — and the yearly plan includes a free subscription to VIPRE antivirus (for Windows and Mac users only). IPVanish includes a 7-day free trial for all mobile devices when you sign up for a yearly plan through your respective app store. IPVanish backs the 1-year plans with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
| 🏅 Overall Rank | #11 out of 99 VPNs |
| 🌍 Servers | 1,900+ |
| 📱 Number of Devices | Unlimited |
| 💸 Starting Price | $2.99 / month |
| 🎁 Free Plan | ✅ (iOS and Android only) |
| 💰 Money-Back Guarantee | 30 days |
IPVanish Full Review
IPVanish has a reputation for being one of the best VPNs for torrenting — it allows P2P traffic on all of its 1,900+ servers, has fast download speeds, works with all of the major torrent clients, and provides 25+ SOCKS5 proxy servers that offer faster speeds than IPVanish’s regular servers.
It’s also very secure. It doesn’t keep records of the files that you download or the sites that you visit, and it protects your data with 256-bit AES encryption and a kill switch.
IPVanish has other strenghts that make it one of the top VPNs in 2023. It has user-friendly apps, cheap prices for its annual plans, and allows unlimited simultaneous connections with one account.
IPVanish Features
IPVanish has the following industry-standard VPN security features:
- 256-bit AES encryption. IPVanish uses end-to-end bank-grade encryption to protect your data.
- No-logs policy. IPVanish doesn’t log personal information like your IP address, the files that you download, and the websites that you visit.
- Kill switch. This feature automatically disconnects you from the internet if your VPN connection drops. The kill switch is available on Android, macOS, and Windows, but not on iOS.
IPVanish has 7 protocols, including WireGuard, OpenVPN (UDP and TCP), SSTP, PPTP, L2TP/IPSec, IKEv2/IPSec, and IPSec. I like the variety of protocols available, and I’m really happy that IPVanish offers WireGuard, which has faster speeds than all of the other protocols mentioned above. Competitors like TunnelBear and PrivateVPN don’t offer WireGuard.
I like that IPVanish includes perfect forward secrecy with OpenVPN and IPSec. Perfect forward secrecy is an excellent security feature that changes the encryption keys that encrypt and decrypt your traffic after each online session, preventing a hacker from accessing your data on any previous or future encryption keys.
IPVanish has IPv6 leak protection for all of its apps, but it only offers DNS leak protection on Windows and there’s no WebRTC leak protection — you have to manually disable WebRTC on your device. Many of IPVanish’s competitors like ExpressVPN and TunnelBear have built-in leak protection for IPv6, DNS, and WebRTC.
IPVanish supports The Onion Router (Tor) over VPN on all of its servers to provide an extra layer of protection against leaks on the Tor network. In my tests, I was able to seamlessly surf the Tor browser while connected to a local IPVanish server, but websites took 15-20 seconds to load (keep in mind that this speed decrease is normal due to the extra layer of encryption on the Tor network). While IPVanish has good Tor support, ProtonVPN offers more convenience — it lets you browse .onion sites in regular browsers like Chrome and Firefox instead of with the Tor browser.
IPVanish also offers split-tunneling, obfuscation, and a password generator.
Split-Tunneling
The split-tunneling feature works a lot like ExpressVPN and CyberGhost VPN’s split-tunneling, which both also allow you to redirect apps. However, there are better split-tunneling options out there — for example, ProtonVPN lets you split-tunnel IP addresses, web browsers, and apps. By excluding IP addresses, this allows you to basically exclude specific websites from the VPN tunnel instead of your whole web browser.
Also, I wish IPVanish offered split-tunneling on more apps, like Private Internet Access, which also includes split-tunneling on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Overall, IPVanish’s split-tunneling feature is easy to use, free of bugs, and works well for excluding apps from the VPN tunnel on Android and FireOS. But I hope to see IPVanish add the tool to more platforms.
Password Generator
I like this feature because it’s really useful if you need help coming up with a strong password on the spot. But VPNs like ExpressVPN, PureVPN, and hide.me have better free password generators that help you create much stronger passwords that also are longer and use special characters.
Overall, IPVanish has a decent free password generator. It’s not as customizable as other VPN password generators, but it’s user-friendly and good enough for people to quickly create a secure password.
Obfuscation
Scramble does a good job of hiding your VPN traffic from your internet service provider (ISP), but make note that Scramble slows down your speeds due to the extra layers of encryption — my connection speeds were 41% slower with Scramble than with a normal OpenVPN connection so I don’t recommend it for streaming or torrenting.
Overall, Scramble obfuscates your traffic, but it doesn’t work in restrictive countries and it significantly slows down your speeds.
Antivirus Protection
IPVanish includes a free subscription to VIPRE antivirus with the purchase of the yearly VPN plan. However, the bundled subscription only comes with apps for PCs and Macs. The VIPRE subscription includes the Advanced Security and Privacy Shield apps.
The Advanced Security app has the following features:
- Malware scanning — VIPRE offers up to 7 different malware scans (including full, quick, and rootkit scans) that scan all of the files and applications on your device for malware. In our tests, VIPRE’s malware scanner found and erased 95% of the sample malware files, which is very good, but not as good as top antiviruses like Norton or Bitdefender.
- Advanced real-time protection — VIPRE is able to identify new cyber threats with its machine learning technology.
- Cloud-based security — Its threat listings are constantly updated via an online virus database.
- Web protection — VIPRE prevents you from visiting websites or downloading files that may contain malware.
- Email protection — Blocks malicious emails, stops phishing attacks, and helps detect and prevent spam to keep your inbox less cluttered.
- Firewall — Protects you from experiencing network attacks.
- And much more…
The Privacy Shield app offers:
- Login credential removal — Detects and erases any of your unsecured login credentials.
- Ad blocking & anti-tracking — Blocks ads and tracking links to stop targeted advertising and identity theft profiling.
- Dark web scanner — Monitors your emails and passwords to ensure that they haven’t been involved in a data breach or listed on the dark web.
- Webcam & microphone blocker — Prevents hackers from accessing your webcam and microphone.
I’m a big fan of VIPRE’s web protection tool. In my tests, it prevented me from accessing all of the fake malware sites I tried to visit — this really put my mind at ease, as I knew anyone in my household could browse the web without accidentally landing on a malicious domain.
Overall, VIPRE is a good antivirus for someone looking for strong malware protection and really good privacy tools. It’s feature-rich, has an intuitive dashboard, and is a great free bonus that is included in IPVanish’s yearly plan.
IPVanish Privacy & Security
IPVanish is a no-logs VPN. Its privacy policy clearly says IPVanish doesn’t log your IP address, what sites you visit, or what files you download. IPVanish only records your email address (to communicate with you) and payment method (for processing payments and refunds). I really like that IPVanish’s privacy policy is well-formatted, not full of complicated legal terms, and easy to understand.
But in 2016, IPVanish shared a user’s email address, full name, and IP address with US authorities. Even though IPVanish helped catch a child pornography trafficker by sharing user data, IPVanish went against its no-logs policy, which stated at the time that it didn’t store user IP addresses.
In 2017, IPVanish’s parent company was acquired by StackPath, which performed an independent audit to prove that IPVanish was a strict no-logs VPN. In 2022, IPVanish had its no-logs policy reviewed by Leviathon Security Group — the results are available in customers’ account portal.
IPVanish is headquartered in the US, which is part of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share surveillance data). If the US government requested user data from IPVanish, I know IPVanish wouldn’t actually have any to hand over.
While IPVanish violated its no-logs policy in the past, it’s now under new ownership and has a strict no-logs policy.
IPVanish Speed & Performance
I ran speed tests by connecting to a server in all 50+ countries where IPvanish has a server, and I experienced an 83% average decrease in speed, which is obviously not good. But I live in Romania, which has some of the fastest internet speeds in the world, and it’s not fair to compare my speeds with someone from a country that has average speeds.
So, I asked my colleague in the US to conduct speed tests, and IPVanish reduced his speed by an average of 33%, which is pretty good. We both used WireGuard for our speed tests because it was the fastest protocol.
As expected, I had the fastest speeds while connected to servers in my country. But my speeds were also good while connected to distant servers in the US and Japan. Even though I experienced minor buffering when I streamed on the US server, I still had fast speeds for torrenting, browsing, and Voice over IP (VoIP) calls. But my biggest complaint is that it took me 20-30 seconds to connect to a server regardless of the location — my colleague in the US reported it took him 10 seconds.
I first ran a speed test without being connected to a IPVanish server to get a baseline for my speeds:
Next, I used IPVanish’s Quick Connect feature (which connects you to the fastest server for your location), and I was connected to a server in Romania. My download speeds slowed down by 75%, but my online experience was hardly affected — websites and 4K videos loaded instantly, and I was able to download large files very fast.
When I connected to a US server, I had a 91% decrease in speed — websites took 5 seconds to load and 4K videos took 10 seconds to start. What’s more, I experienced buffering while watching and skipping through 4K videos, but my 1080p videos worked just fine. My torrenting speeds were also good (it took 15-20 minutes to download 10-15 GB files), and I didn’t experience any freezing or disconnections during a VoIP call.
Finally, I connected to a VPN server in Japan. The speeds were 85% slower and my online experience was similar to when I was connected to a US server. Websites and 4K videos took 5 seconds to load, but I didn’t experience buffering while watching content.
But I wanted to see what type of speeds my colleague in the US had with IPVanish. First, he connected to his local network to get the baseline of his internet speed.
Then, Quick Connect connected him to a server in New York City. His download speed was reduced by 14%, and he had extremely fast speeds for browsing, streaming, and torrenting.
Next, my colleague connected to a server in Germany, where he experienced a 21% loss. He experienced minimal speed loss — websites loaded in 2-3 seconds, it took 25 minutes to download a 20 GB file (which is pretty fast), and he didn’t report any freezing or call drops during a VoIP call with a friend in the UK.
Overall, IPVanish offers very fast speeds on local servers and decent speeds on distant servers, but it took up to 30 seconds to connect to a server. On distant servers in the US and Japan, my streaming speeds slowed down noticeably while watching 4K videos and there was a delay for websites to load. But I had fast speeds for torrenting, gaming, and VoIP calls across all servers.
IPVanish Servers & IP Addresses
IPVanish has 1,900+ servers in 50+ countries and 75+ locations. Many top VPNs have a larger server network — ExpressVPN has 3,000+ servers in 90+ countries and CyberGhost VPN has 7,400+ servers in 90+ countries, but IPVanish’s servers are spread throughout most of the world, allowing most users to find nearby servers to get good speeds.
I love that IPVanish is one of the few VPNs that displays both the ping (how long an internet signal takes to travel from your device to the VPN server) and the server load percentage (how many active users are connected to the VPN server) to help users find fast servers.
I’m also a big fan of IPVanish’s P2P support — it permits torrenting on every server, so you can always find a nearby server. Some VPNs (like ProtonVPN and CactusVPN) only let you torrent on dedicated P2P servers.
IPVanish claims that it has 40,000 IP addresses, which should make it easier to access streaming sites and avoid reCAPTCHAs (a test websites use to determine if a visitor is a real user or a bot). But in my tests, I was unable to access popular streaming sites, and I often encountered reCAPTCHAs.
And IPVanish doesn’t offer dedicated IPs, which are IP addresses that are only assigned to you. Private Internet Access and CyberGhost VPN charge a small additional price for dedicated IPs, but PrivateVPN offers them for free.
Overall, IPVanish has a decent server network that covers most parts of the world, displays the ping and server load to make it easier to find the fastest servers, allows P2P traffic on every server, and has 40,000 IP addresses.
IPVanish Streaming & Torrenting
IPvanish is pretty weak for accessing streaming services. In my tests, IPVanish worked with Netflix, but it was unable to access Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO, and many other streaming sites. My colleagues in the UK and US were unable to watch BBC iPlayer and Hulu, but my colleagues in the US and Canada were able to watch lesser-known US and Canadian streaming sites like Crackle, VRV, and CBC.
IPVanish’s support reps admitted that popular streaming sites block its service, and the reps suggested that I purchase StrongDNS (IPVanish’s sister company) to access streaming content. But that’s not ideal, because it would require paying for another service.
If you’re looking for a VPN that consistently unblocks all streaming services, I recommend ExpressVPN. You can also take a look at our curated list of the best VPNs for streaming here.
IPVanish is really good for torrenting. IPVanish allows P2P traffic on all of its 1,900+ servers, and IPVanish works with all major torrent clients like qBittorrent, Deluge, Vuze, and uTorrent. IPVanish doesn’t offer port forwarding (which connects you to more peers to get faster speeds). Before I began torrenting, I ran IPv6, DNS, and WebRTC leak tests on servers in 10 different countries. Thankfully, each test showed 0 leaks.
One thing that I’m a fan of is how IPVanish has 25+ SOCKS5 proxy servers — these servers replace your IP address with an IP address from the country you are connected to and they provide faster downloads. But keep in mind that SOCKS5 proxies don’t use encryption. In my tests, the SOCKS5 proxy servers increased my speeds by about 10%.
Overall, IPVanish is great for torrenting but not streaming. It works with streaming sites like Netflix, but it doesn’t work with other popular streaming services like Amazon Prime and BBC iPlayer. However, IPVanish is P2P-friendly, works with all of the top torrent clients, and includes SOCKS5 proxy servers that offer faster speeds.
IPVanish Government Bypassing
IPVanish doesn’t work in restrictive countries. IPVanish’s support reps told me many restrictive countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt successfully block its service.
If you’re in a country that restricts access to the internet, I recommend ExpressVPN because it consistently bypasses internet restrictions, is very secure, and has fast speeds.
IPVanish Plans & Pricing
IPVanish has monthly and yearly subscriptions. It offers a 1-month, a 3-month, and a 1-year plan. The 1-year plan includes a free subscription for VIPRE antivirus for Windows and macOS. The bundled plan is a really good deal for protecting your devices from malware and other cyber attacks.
IPVanish has good pricing for the first year of the 1-year plan, which costs $3.49 / month, but its price doubles after the first year. It accepts PayPal and 6 different credit cards, but I wish there was an option to pay with cryptocurrency, which provides more privacy. If you’re looking for a cheap VPN that accepts crypto payments, check out Private Internet Access and CyberGhost VPN.
IPVanish has a 30-day money-back guarantee for the yearly plans only (most VPNs offer a money-back guarantee on all of their plans). There’s also a 7-day free trial for iOS and Android devices when you sign up for the 1-year plan — but you must purchase the app through the Google Play Store or Apple App store. That being said, I think it’s better to buy the 1-year plan through the IPVanish site because you get the 30-day money-back guarantee and a longer time period to test out the VPN.
IPVanish Ease of Use: Mobile & Desktop Apps
IPVanish has apps for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, and Fire TV. I easily installed the Android and iOS apps on my smartphones in 1 minute, and the desktop apps on my Windows 10 PC and MacBook Pro in 1-2 minutes.
Android
Plus, the Android app has descriptions for each of the connection settings — for example, the short sentence under Reduce MTU size for mobile networks (which solves connectivity issues over mobile data) helped me understand when to enable the feature. The Android app comes with WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2/IPSec, and it has split-tunneling.
IPVanish’s Android app lacks IPv6 and DNS leak protection, and it doesn’t have a built-in kill switch — but you can easily enable the Android OS kill switch. If you prefer an Android VPN with a built-in kill switch, I really like CyberGhost VPN and ExpressVPN.
Overall, I like IPVanish’s Android app. It doesn’t have a built-in kill switch and leak protection, but it offers secure protocols, good split-tunneling, and has a user-friendly design.
iOS
However, the iOS app is missing a kill switch, IPv6 and DNS leak protection, split-tunneling (although most VPNs don’t support split-tunneling on iOS), and there’s no in-app explanations for its settings — I had to do my own research to figure out that I should use Alternative Connection Mode when I was unable to connect to a server with IKEv2.
To be honest, there are better iOS apps out there. For example, ExpressVPN’s iOS app has some of the fastest speeds on the market, robust security features, and unblocks tons of streaming services. And Private Internet Access’s iOS app has a built-in kill switch.
Windows/Mac (Desktop)
Both the Windows and macOS apps provide an excellent variety of protocols, allowing you to choose different ones for different functions. The Windows app comes with WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, L2TP, PPTP, and SSTP. The macOS app also includes WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2/IPSec, and L2TP, but it adds IPSec.
I like that you can use the kill switch on both desktop apps, but only the Windows app has IPv6 and DNS leak protection — the macOS app is missing DNS leak protection.
Overall, IPVanish’s desktop apps have an intuitive interface, good security features, and a huge menu of protocols. But the Windows app is better than the macOS because the Windows app comes with DNS leak protection.
IPVanish’s Apps: Is IPVanish Easy to Use?
Yes, IPVanish has easy-to-use apps for iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, and Fire TV. The mobile apps and desktop apps have a different interface, but both the mobile and desktop apps have an intuitive design.
The Android app has split-tunneling and includes explanations for features but is missing DNS leak protection and a native kill-switch. The iOS app is user-friendly but lacks a lot of key features. And IPVanish’s desktop apps are secure and have a great selection of protocols
IPVanish Customer Support
IPVanish has a good range of customer support options:
- Support guides.
- 24/7 live chat.
- Email support.
- Phone support.
I like how all of the support articles are split into well-organized categories, including billing questions, setup guides, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and troubleshooting guides. And the support articles are very informative — they resolved most of my issues, and I didn’t need to contact customer support that often. I also like that IPVanish has really helpful video tutorials (like ExpressVPN).
IPVanish stands out as one of the rare VPNs offering phone support. It caters to 7 countries, including the US, Mexico, UK, Germany, Spain, Australia, and Brazil, and operates from 7am–7pm CT (UTC -6) from Monday to Saturday.
When I tested IPVanish’s live chat, I was usually connected to someone in under 10 seconds. Most of the support reps were polite, helpful, and responsive, but some of them weren’t knowledgeable and one rep took 10 minutes to respond to a question. IPVanish offers support in English, but the reps can use a translation tool for other languages.
IPVanish took between 7 and 8 hours to respond via email. Although longer than the industry average for VPNs, each reply was thorough and resolved my queries.
Overall, IPVanish has really good customer support. It offers multiple support guides and helpful videos, has friendly and mostly knowledgeable 24/7 live chat representatives, and it’s one of the few VPNs that offer phone support.
Is IPVanish One of the Best VPNs in 2023?
IPVanish has good security features, is good for torrenting, and provides unlimited simultaneous connections. It offers industry-standard security features like 256-bit AES encryption, a kill switch, a no-logs policy, and secure protocols, and extra features like perfect forward secrecy. It also has 1,900+ servers in 50+ countries, allows P2P traffic on every server, and has intuitive apps for iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, and Fire TV.
In my tests, I had really fast speeds on local (Romania) servers and pretty fast speeds on distant servers (US and Japan). I experienced some slowdowns while streaming on the US and Japan servers, but my gaming, torrenting, and VoIP call speeds were fast and stable on all servers. I downloaded large 10+ GB torrents in 15-20 minutes using popular torrent clients like qBittorrent, Deluge, uTorrent, and more. And IPVanish has 25+ SOCKS5 proxies that provide even faster download speeds.
While there are a lot of things I like about IPVanish, it has a handful of flaws. It doesn’t work with top streaming services like Amazon Prime and BBC iPlayer, it offers split-tunneling only on Android, and it doesn’t bypass internet firewalls in countries like China. Also, DNS leak protection is only included on Windows, and there’s no WebRTC protection.
IPVanish has several payment plans to choose from, and it backs each 1-year plan with a 30-day money-back guarantee. There’s also a 7-day free trial for mobile devices when you sign up through your app store.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can IPVanish access Netflix?
Yes, IPVanish works with Netflix. However, IPVanish is not a good VPN for streaming — I was unable to access other popular sites like Disney+ and Amazon Prime, and my colleagues in the US and UK couldn’t watch Hulu or BBC iPlayer. IPVanish support reps told me streaming sites easily block its service.
If you’re looking for a VPN that works with Netflix and other top streaming services, I recommend ExpressVPN.
Will IPVanish slow down my internet connection speeds?
Yes, IPVanish will slow down your internet connection speeds, but all VPNs reduce your speeds because of the added layer of encryption. My colleague in the US ran speed tests, and IPVanish only slowed down his internet speeds by an average of 38%, which is above average. While IPVanish reduced my speeds by 83%, I am from a country (Romania) that has very fast speeds, so even with this reduction in speed I had fast speeds for browsing, torrenting, and gaming across most of IPVanish’s servers.
IPVanish makes it easy to connect to a fast server — it has 1,900+ servers that are located in most parts of the world, so it’s easy to find a server close to your location to get fast speeds. Also, IPVanish displays the server load (how many active users are connected to a server) and ping (how long it takes the internet signal to travel from your device to the server) to help you find the fastest server. Plus, it has 25+ SOCKS5 proxy servers that provide faster speeds than IPVanish’s normal servers.
Does IPVanish keep logs?
No, IPVanish doesn’t keep logs and has a strict no-logs policy. It passed two independent audits to prove it doesn’t store logs, but only IPVanish users have access to the latest report.
Is IPVanish free?
No, IPVanish doesn’t have a free plan. But IPVanish has a 30-day money-back guarantee for its 1-year plans, allowing you to test out the product before making a longer commitment, and it has a 7-day free trial for iOS and Android devices when you download the app via the App Store or Google Play Store.
There are free VPNs available, but I don’t recommend using them. They often have very slow speeds, set a limit on your data, are missing essential security features, log your internet traffic, have buggy apps, and offer poor customer support.
Instead, I recommend sticking with a low-cost premium VPN like IPVanish. The price of IPVanish’s 1-year plan is $3.49 / month.
