My Expat Network Review

My Expat Network is a well-established VPN that mainly caters to expats looking to stream media content from their home countries.

We can’t deny that it’s a great option for streaming fans, unblocking Netflix and BBC iPlayer with absolutely no problems, but consistently below-average performance is a real letdown and could lead to buffering issues.

In terms of privacy it’s a mixed bag, but the lack of information on the website is a real concern. Strong encryption and no DNS leaks is a bonus, although it’s very apparent that this VPN is focused on unblocking content above all else.

There’s also an all-inclusive package that allows you to use the VPN on up to five devices at once and gives you access to all of My Expat Network’s global servers. This is the most expensive option, coming in at a pricey $12.00 per month, but you can save yourself 20% by opting for the annual plan, bringing the monthly cost down to $9.60.

All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee that’s totally no questions asked – you can cancel at any time in your account area.

Uploads were a different story, coming in at almost 60Mbps on some connections. Inconsistency was a major issue here though, as results varied massively from one test to the next. Torrenting is banned on all servers anyway due to “copyright issues”, so it’s no good for P2P users regardless.

Latency was absolutely appalling, most likely due to the fact that no matter which European country we connected to, the nearest server was always in Bulgaria, which really pushed up ping times. The lowest we found was in France, but even then this was a whopping 56ms, which is no good for latency-sensitive tasks such as gaming.

To read about our speed testing methodologies, please read How We Review VPNs.

My Expat Network caters to a very limited amount of people with servers in just 12 different countries. Those living in the US, Australia or Western Europe won’t have any problems connecting to a nearby server, but users elsewhere in the world will be left wanting.

There’s no way of drilling down to specific cities, which is a useful tool for those in larger countries – if that applies to you, you’re looking in the wrong place.

Those after more comprehensive worldwide coverage should consider HideMyAss!, which offers servers in over 190 countries.

The My Expat Network custom app is available for Microsoft Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android and Linux devices. If you want to install the VPN at router level, you have two options – either buy a pre-configured device through My Expat Network’s partnership with Sabai Technology, or install it on your existing router (as long as it supports DD-WRT).

There are comprehensive setup guides for all supported platforms on the My Expat Network website.

There are no browser extensions available for My Expat Network users, but considering how unintrusive the desktop app is, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

If this does happen to be a dealbreaker for you, be sure to check out ExpressVPN, which offers full-featured extensions for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Safari browsers.

Considering it’s marketed purely as a solution to unblock streaming sites, it came as no surprise that My Expat Network is currently working with both Netflix and BBC iPlayer. It’s also a great choice for other popular services such as Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Now TV and Sky Go, among others.

It’s bad news for torrenters, though, as P2P activity is prohibited on all servers for copyright reasons. If you need a VPN for this purpose, we would recommend you look into IPVanish.

My Expat Network is oddly secretive on its website about encryption and VPN protocols, which is strange as, if what customer support told us is true, it should have absolutely nothing to hide.

The software operates on OpenVPN and uses AES-256 encryption, providing users with an almost unbreakable level of privacy without compromising too much on performance. We also didn’t experience any DNS, IPv6 or WebRTC leaks while connected to the VPN, a further reassurance that your personal information will be protected from prying eyes.

My Expat Network falls down when it comes to advanced features, not even offering a VPN kill switch, meaning your online activity could be exposed if the connection dropped without you realizing. It also rents DNS servers from third parties rather than maintaining its own, which comes with inherent security risks.

In theory, My Expat Network should be well-suited for use in high censorship countries thanks to its proprietary stealth protocol. However, when we discussed the matter with customer support the response was not entirely convincing.

We were told that they “can’t guarantee” it will work “since it depends on the Internet Service Provider”, but reassured us we’d get a refund if we couldn’t use the VPN in countries such as Iran or Egypt. They seemed confident it should work in China, though try this at your own risk. For a more reliable solution, we’d advise going with a provider such as Astrill.

While My Expat Network discloses in great detail the information it collects when you visit its website, we couldn’t find anything related to when you’re actually using the VPN. We were informed by customer support that they don’t collect any logs whatsoever, but this seems far too good to be true.

If a provider truly is zero-logs, we’d expect to see this advertised in multiple places across the website, but a lack of this on My Expat Network’s site prompts us to think that this may not be the case after all.

As is the case with its logging policy, My Expat Network doesn’t reveal its jurisdiction on the website, but another quick email to customer support provided us with the answer.

The company is based in Hong Kong, which is good news for privacy as no data retention laws exist, but it looks like it also has links to China, which isn’t so great.

If it truly is a zero-logs VPN you have nothing to worry about, but we have serious doubts about that.

My Expat Network couldn’t really be much easier to use, although we don’t love that the desktop app is little more than a system tray icon.

Clicking on it brings up the server list. There is a settings option at the bottom of the menu which opens in a separate window, however this only lets you configure the proxy settings.

The mobile apps are certainly better from an aesthetic viewpoint but lack any manual settings whatsoever.

My Expat Network’s customer support is surprisingly good, even if it doesn’t include live chat. You can contact the support team via email and responses are very quick and helpful, if a little blunt.

Online resources are a little less impressive, limited to some basic FAQs and installation guides, but should do the job in most cases. My Expat Network also runs its own blog and has a very active social media presence, meaning you have the option to get in touch via its Facebook and Twitter pages.

If you’re willing to pay way above the mark for a VPN that’s only really good for streaming Netflix and BBC iPlayer, My Expat Network could be the one for you. It’s marketed mainly as a solution to overcome content blocks and it does this very well, but is let down by slow and inconsistent performance on all servers.

Solid encryption and no DNS leaks are privacy pluses, but the vague logging policy and lack of advanced security features are downsides, as is the fact that torrenting is totally prohibited. The software is simple enough but could do with a makeover to bring it into the 21st century. It’s not going to be bothering top-tier providers anytime soon, that’s for sure.