IVPN Review

IVPN is a small but transparent VPN company, operated by Privatus Limited, which is incorporated in Gibraltar. Gibraltar is technically a ‘British Overseas Territory’, but in reality is not subordinate to the UK, which is a good thing.

According to IVPN’s website, the company’s team consists of 11 individuals from seven countries around the world. For example, its CEO, Nick Pestell, is based in Berlin, Germany. IVPN’s employees are easy to find on LinkedIn, which even shows where they are based.

IVPN’s manifesto can be found on its website and advocates for “a future free from surveillance.”

“For a human-centred internet, for the thriving of democracy, and for a future free from surveillance.”

After analyzing its privacy and logging policy, we are confident that IVPN is a true no logs VPN.

You can read the entirety of IVPN’s privacy policy here. Below are the most important takeaways.

As you can see, there’s no personal usage data collected.

IVPN does specify that it will comply with authorities if requested. But, even if its servers were seized by authorities, nothing would be found on them.

The integrity of this logging policy was even verified in March 2022 by Cure53, a respected security auditing firm.

IVPN’s connections are fast and stable enough for high-quality streaming, torrenting, and gaming. We recorded an average 6% drop when connected to a nearby IVPN server in the UK, from our location in London.

Here are the results we recorded when connecting to nearby IVPN servers:

There are faster VPNs available than IVPN, such as Private Internet Access. However, this doesn’t mean that IVPN is slow.

As we mentioned above, IVPN is incredibly fast on short-distance connections. Only a 6% speed loss is amazing.

Long-Distance Speed Test Results

We tested IVPN’s connection speeds from our location in London, UK, by connecting to servers in the US, Germany, and Australia.

IVPN’s results are very impressive. Download speeds in the US (18% slower) and Germany (5% slower) surpassed our expectations.

We saw the worst speeds when connecting to Australia (83% drop). So, we don’t recommend using IVPN if you want to connect to a server on the opposite end of the globe.

But, if you’re in the US and want to connect to a server in the UK, IVPN is great for browsing, streaming, and gaming.

Although it occasionally works with US Netflix, IVPN has stated its service is focused on privacy and not bypassing geo-blocks.

In our tests, the only two servers that worked to unblock US Netflix were Ashburn, VA and Chicago, IL.

IVPN has never worked with BBC iPlayer, Disney+, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video.

Despite working with US Netflix, we can’t recommend IVPN for streaming and there are better streaming VPNs available.

In our P2P tests, we saw minimal drops in speed when torrenting connected to a local server. With no VPN, we downloaded a test file at a rate of 11MiB/s. Connected to a nearby IVPN in the UK, we downloaded the test file at a rate of 10MiB/s.

IVPN is much better for torrenting than it is for streaming. You can torrent privately and freely, with only one exception. The VPN service does not allow P2P traffic on its US servers.

The reason for this is that IVPN says it was receiving a high number of DMCA notices.

As a result, it asks its users to refrain from torrenting files on its US servers. This includes double-hop VPN connections, which use a US exit node.

If you’re based in the United States, you can connect to Canadian servers, but your torrent speeds will be slower.

In our latest tests, IVPN did not work in China. It failed to even connect to servers in Hong Kong, Japan, and the US. Here’s a video of us testing IVPN in China:

However, its obfsproxy tool would still be able to bypass censorship in countries like Russia and Turkey.

To activate IVPN’s obfuscation mode, click on Connection > Use obfsproxy in Settings.

This tool masks your VPN traffic, making it look ‘normal’ to web censors. Sadly, it is not available on iOS or Android.

All the VPN apps provide a choice of four protocols: OpenVPN, WireGuard, IPSec, and IKEv2. The latter two require some manual configuration, but you’ll be fine just using OpenVPN or WireGuard.

In addition, all VPN connections are secured using the ‘unbreakable’ AES-256 cipher.

Reliable Kill Switch

IVPN’s ‘firewall’ (VPN kill switch) feature is a must-have tool. It blocks all your web traffic in the event of a VPN connection drop. This avoids your true IP address from being exposed. It’s available on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.

Tracker Blocker Tool

As well as first-party DNS servers, which prevent your IP address from being exposed to third parties, IVPN also provides protection against DNS and IPv6 leaks. As a bonus, it has built-in ad- and tracker-blocking.

Multi-hop Servers

Here’s a video showing you how to use IVPN’s double VPN servers:

IVPN’s Multi-hop feature offers an extra layer of security by rerouting your connection through multiple servers in different countries. This means that even if the exit server were to be compromised, your online activity remains private.

Split Tunneling

IVPN’s desktop apps and Android app allows split tunneling, so you can route privacy-sensitive apps through the VPN, and others through your general internet connection.

Two-Factor Authentication and QR Code Mobile Login

We’re pleasantly surprised to see IVPN has implemented two extremely rare login features to improve account security and ease of use on mobile.

As you can see in the image above, from the client area on IVPN’s website, you can turn on two-factor authentication to protect your VPN account.

In VPN Accounts, IVPN has generated a login QR code, which you can scan on your mobile to quickly login to the mobile app without needing to type in your details.

Third-Party Security Audit

IVPN’s security credentials are verified by a yearly scheduled third-party security audit by Cure53. Much to our delight, IVPN has made the full report accessible by publishing it online.

A security audit allows a VPN service to verify its security claims with hard, indisputable facts. For example, just how ‘unbreakable’ is IVPN’s implementation of the AES-256 cipher? A security audit tests that.

To ensure the validity of the audit, it’s key that a reputable third party carries out the audit. It’s also important that the results of the audit are made public.

IVPN’s most recent security audit was completed in March 2022 by renowned German cybersecurity company Cure53. The security company spent a total of 13 days conducting penetration tests and source code audits against IVPN’s iOS app, Android app, Electron app and Daemon.

A total of eight vulnerabilities (one high risk, six medium, and one low) were discovered. Seven of these have already been resolved. The last one remaining is complex and IVPN has stated it is “committed to finding a solution.”

Another 12 miscellaneous issues were found, of which nine have been resolved and three have been deemed low risk and accepted.

Open-Source VPN Apps

As part of its re-energized commitment to privacy, security, and transparency, IVPN has published its code onto GitHub — becoming one of very few VPNs whose apps are open-source.

Simply, this just means that IVPN is opening itself to a development model where anyone can contribute to its software and apps.

Last but not least, IVPN’s apps are open-source. This allows the larger security community to forensically inspect the various apps. By giving access to the code base, IVPN is being very transparent to how its VPN clients work, and how they safeguard privacy and security.

This is a great move from IVPN, and more VPN providers should follow its lead.

The only way IVPN could make its support any better would be if its live chat were available 24/7. As it stands, live chat support is only available at random times of the day. Other than that we have no serious complaints.

We submitted a ticket and received a response an hour later. support agents respond promptly and pleasantly, volunteering useful information where they can – so long as the service is online when you need it.

In the event that support doesn’t have the answers, you can find a wealth of useful and well-presented information on the IVPN knowledge base.

You can also talk with other users or directly with customer support on IVPN’s reddit community. If you want complete privacy when contacting customer support, you can also use a PGP key to get into contact with IVPN.