X-VPN Review

As shown above, X-VPN doesn’t log enough data to identify you. It does collect connection timestamps, but these are deleted within 48 hours. We’d like to see X-VPN reduce this timeframe to 15 minutes, like NordVPN does, or to stop logging them entirely.

X-VPN also collects information about your real-life location, but this is limited to country-level data. This is not enough to de-anonymise you, even combined with connection timestamps.

Previously, X-VPN logged different data types depending on the device in use which was confusing and arbitrary. Thankfully, the service now uses a single logging policy for every platform and device.

X-VPN’s privacy policy clearly outlines its logging practices.

X-VPN has also completely overhauled the design of their website, which now looks professional and polished. While this doesn’t affect its logging practices, it does make the product feel more reputable.

Plus, X-VPN uses diskless servers which means any activity logs are periodically wiped and it offers multiple anonymous payment methods.

Though greatly improved, we’d feel more assured about X-VPN’s logging policy if it was verified by an independent audit or even a warrant canary.

Links to Chinese Ownership

X-VPN is owned by Free Connected Limited, which was incorporated in July 2017 and is based in Hong Kong.

We do not consider Hong Kong a privacy-friendly jurisdiction due to its ties to the Chinese government, a body which actively bans VPNs and engages in digital surveillance of its citizens.

Our free VPN ownership investigation revealed that X-VPN does have links to mainland China, which is a privacy concern for the reasons stated above.

Jin Li, the company’s director, and Chengdu Zhuozhuo Technoloy Co, the sole shareholder, are based in the Sichuan province of China.

For paid subscriptions, X-VPN includes streaming-optimized servers in 12 countries. We used these to unblock every popular streaming service we test, without fail.

While this is excellent, we’d like X-VPN to bake this into its standard servers instead of needlessly separating them out.

You can see a more detailed analysis of our X-VPN streaming tests in the following section.

Unblocks US Netflix

We used X-VPN’s US-Video-N server to successfully unblock US Netflix from overseas.

X-VPN’s dedicated US Netflix server always unblocked the streaming service.

The stream loaded almost immediately and we didn’t notice any video buffering or drops in the resolution.

We also tried several of the standard US server locations and were surprised to see that none of them work with Netflix. We’d like X-VPN to fix this disparity as it wastes time having to open a separate menu and locate the dedicated servers.

Better VPNs, like NordVPN, automatically assign you a server within its normal server list that works with the streaming service.

We also found that X-VPN works with Netflix Australia, but its slow international speeds meant that the stream took over 3 minutes to load.

Works with BBC iPlayer

While connected to GB-Video-B, X-VPN reliably unblocked BBC iPlayer.

We used X-VPN to stream live content on BBC iPlayer.

This worked to stream both live content and on demand without any issues. However, we found that X-VPN’s standard UK servers weren’t as consistent at unblocking BBC iPlayer and often required a second or third attempt.

X-VPN Free Streaming Tests

X-VPN’s Free tier is a bad choice for streaming as it fails to unblock a single platform. This has been the case since testing began and is unlikely to change.

As X-VPN Free automatically assigns you the server closest to your real-life location, it makes it impossible to spoof your location and unblock geo-restricted content.

We even tried using our free US server to unblock localized content, like Hulu or Max, but the VPN was detected every time.

If you want a free VPN for streaming then we suggest using Windscribe Free. It can stream 5 Netflix libraries, more than either version of X-VPN, as well as Max, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video.

To test X-VPN’s speeds, we connected to X-VPN servers in six different continents. We connected to each location using a 100Mbps connection and aggregated the results into an average.

Here’s a table displaying X-VPN’s speed test results:

As the data indicates, X-VPN slowed our download speeds to 65Mbps on a local connection. This is a poor result and means X-VPN is one of the slowest paid VPNs we’ve reviewed. There are currently over 30 VPNs we review that register faster local download speeds than X-VPN.

Its international speeds are also particularly poor for a paid service, with an average download speed of 32Mbps across all locations.

You can expect data-intensive activities such as HD streaming, torrenting, and online video games to be especially slow while using X-VPN. We’d recommend using one of the leading VPNs for speed, instead.

You can use the chart below to see how poorly X-VPN’s speeds compare to top-shelf VPNs over short and long distances:

As shown above, X-VPN’s local speeds are around 33% slower than the leading VPNs on average. Over international connections, its average download speed is exactly 56Mbps slower than IPVanish.

X-VPN Free Speed Test Results

We couldn’t apply our full speed testing methodology to X-VPN Free as our VPN connection was periodically interrupted to encourage an upgrade to the paid version.

After repeated reconnections, we were eventually able to speed test X-VPN Free’s iOS app.

Below are the speed results we recorded using X-VPN’s free version:

As expected, X-VPN Free is even slower than its paid counterpart with an average download speed loss of 46%.

Although this isn’t the worst result for a free VPN, its limited server network and persistent ads means we can’t recommend using X-VPN Free.

Uses Open-Source & Proprietary Protocols

X-VPN uses a self-developed protocol called Everest to encrypt your traffic. As it’s close-sourced, we’re limited to the information provided by the VPN company itself.

X-VPN claims that Everest Protocol is built using obfuscation technology and industry-standard AES-256 encryption. It’s also compatible with several transmission protocols such as UDP, TCP, HTTP, and TLS — all of which are listed within the app.

We used Wireshark, a packet analyzer, to analyze our network traffic while connected with the Everest Protocol.

X-VPN’s proprietary protocol successfully encrypted our traffic.

As shown above, X-VPN encrypted our traffic. While we can’t evaluate Everest Protocol’s strength or reliability, it will successfully conceal your online activity at the very least.

We’re also pleased to see that X-VPN has listened to our feedback by adding OpenVPN and WireGuard to its app. These are secure, open-source protocols which are widely used in the industry and will keep your traffic safe.

Reliable but Paywalled Kill Switch

All of X-VPN’s apps have a kill switch but you have to purchase a subscription to use it on iOS and Android.

This is bad practice and puts your personal data at risk if you unexpectedly disconnect from the internet on mobile.

To test X-VPN’s kill switch, we forced an internet disconnection while running our in-house kill switch testing tool. In each instance, X-VPN blocked our network traffic and no data left the VPN tunnel.

X-VPN’s kill switch never leaked our real IP address.

You can use X-VPN to connect to servers in popular locations such as the US, UK, Canada, and India. These more sought after locations also include city-level servers, so you can connect to a specific city within the country.

X-VPN provides coverage in regions typically less served by VPN services, too. There are servers at both ends of Africa (Egypt and South Africa), multiple servers in the Middle East, and options in South America.

X-VPN’s server network encompasses all six inhabited continents.

While X-VPN doesn’t match the server locations offered by top-shelf VPNs like ExpressVPN or Surfshark, its total server count is one of the largest available. With 8,000+ virtual servers, it’s unlikely you’ll experience any server congestion or issues connecting to a server.

You can see how X-VPN’s server network compares to our highest-rated VPNs in the table below:

X-VPN Free Server Coverage

If you tap or click the power button on X-VPN Free it automatically connects you to the nearest server.

While you don’t get to choose or know the server location beforehand, an X-VPN representative told us that there are 10 free server locations and IP addresses you can be assigned to.

All 64 paid server locations are listed in the free VPN app, but if you click on one X-VPN will prompt you to upgrade. This became quite annoying after we had used the app for a few hours.

To begin using X-VPN, click ‘Get Started’ on its website and create an account. Then download the appropriate VPN app onto your chosen device.

This entire process only took us around 5 minutes to complete and you can speed it up on desktop by selecting the option to log in via mobile.

X-VPN uses a plain white app design across all platforms with a central power button that turns blue when connected. While we found it straightforward to connect to the VPN — just tap or click the button — we discovered several usability issues beyond this basic function. For example, when choosing a server or navigating the app.

Here’s a more detailed overview of our experience using X-VPN on different devices and platforms:

Desktop & Laptop (Windows & macOS)

X-VPN is identical on Windows and Mac, with the same interface and available features. While we appreciate its simplicity, its desktop apps lack the feel of a bespoke VPN app.

Its home screen doesn’t have any graphical elements, like an interactive widget, and the X-VPN logo is tiny, all of which results in a generic, bland, and two-dimensional appearance. For instance, Windscribe’s PC app includes a toggleable widget for its kill switch and its interface changes to the flag of the country you’re currently connected to.

The apps themselves are easy enough to use and only require a single click to connect. However, we’d like to see the speciality servers for gaming, streaming, and torrenting integrated into the standard server list to make navigation quicker.

We’d also appreciate the option to resize the desktop apps, particularly the Windows client. When we tried to watch Hulu with X-VPN we found that the VPN actually obscured most of our screen, resulting in a frustrating viewing experience.

This issue isn’t as pressing on Mac as you can add X-VPN to your menu bar within the app settings.

Mobile (iPhone & Android)

X-VPN’s white-blue color palette and simplistic app design looks much better on a smaller screen, compared to its PC and Mac apps. Though better-designed, we actually found X-VPN much harder to use on mobile than on desktop.

X-VPN’s mobile apps feature a permanent banner ad along the bottom of the screen which we found distracting and annoying. Even worse, the iOS app frequently displays a full screen pop-up ad which redirects you to a webpage if you accidentally click on it.

On the free version, we discovered that you can connect to a further four server locations in the US, UK, Germany, and India, but only if you watch an unskippable ad. We found this an odd design choice and it became annoying after multiple hours of testing.

We did like that both mobile apps included a dark mode and a ‘follow system settings’ option. Moving forward, we’d like to see more mobile-specific features like iOS shortcuts or GPS spoofing for Android.

Streaming Devices (Fire TV, Apple TV & Android TV)

X-VPN’s apps for Fire TV, Apple TV, and Android TV are functional and follow the same loose design as its desktop and mobile apps.

X-VPN’s Amazon Fire TV App doesn’t come with any extra features.

The apps are basic but you do have complete access to the X-VPN server network, including its streaming-optimized servers.

Its newly-released Apple TV app is its most developed, with a functioning kill switch and slick design. We also liked that we could log into its tvOS app using our mobile device. This was far quicker than manually typing in our account credentials with the overly-sensitive Apple TV remote.

We tested X-VPN using qBittorrent and a fixed 10MiB/s connection. We downloaded a 1GB test file in under four minutes with X-VPN’s paid servers. It took us twice as long when we tried to download the same file with X-VPN Free.

We found it much easier to locate X-VPN’s torrenting servers than before.

X-VPN is one of the slowest torrenting VPNs we’ve tested, even on its paid plan. Its average bitrate of 4.1MiB/s compares poorly to top VPNs, like PIA and ExpressVPN, which have a download bitrate of 9.6MiB/s and 9.8MiB/s respectively.

That said, we’re pleased to see that X-VPN has improved its labeling of P2P servers, opting to append ‘BT’ to the end of the server name. Previously, it called them ‘Ultimate Line’ servers and restricted their usage to a specific VPN protocol which was confusing and arbitrary.

X-VPN’s P2P-optimized servers are not available on its free version which partly explains its awful 2.0MiB/s bitrate.

You can also download X-VPN’s dedicated apps for a wide range of streaming devices, including Fire TV, Android TV, and Fire TV.

To improve, we’d like to see X-VPN add a Smart DNS tool for convenient access to geo-restricted content on games consoles and streaming devices.

We’d also welcome the inclusion of a dedicated router app to minimize the difficulty of router setup and enable wider device compatibility.

5 Simultaneous Connections

With a single X-VPN subscription, you can connect up to 5 devices at the same time. If you want to use it on more devices, you’ll need to log out of a different device first.

This is a standard device limit, but competing services like Surfshark and IPVanish offer unlimited simultaneous connections without restriction.

Split Tunneling for Paid Users Only

X-VPN includes split tunneling on all of its apps as long as you sign in with a paid account. It allows you to exclude specific apps from the VPN tunnel, like a weather or banking app.

Restrictive Double VPN Feature

You can enable double VPN within your X-VPN app settings to route your traffic through two VPN servers instead of one. This enhances your online anonymity by adding a second intermediary between your device and the internet.

Sadly, this feature is only available on paid plans and you can’t choose the server locations your connection is routed through. We’d like to see X-VPN implement server choice for its double VPN feature, like NordVPN and Surfshark do.

Static IP Is Limited to Mobile Apps Only

X-VPN provides a static VPN IP feature but only for paid plans on its mobile apps. To access it, go to Advanced Features > Static IP and you’ll be presented with a choice of recent VPN IP addresses you’ve used.

These IP addresses are only stored on your device and are not logged by the VPN service.

We’d like to see X-VPN add the option of a dedicated IP address, too. This is an IP address only you can access which lets you set up IP blocklists, secure remote connections, and more.

Technical Features We’d Like to See Added

X-VPN has substantially improved its available features in recent years, but it’s still missing some advanced options. Here’s a summary of some features we’d like to see added: