The VPN market is tough with a lot of competition, but ExpressVPN knows exactly how to stand out from the crowd: it includes professional features and offers more than anyone.
Top-tier platform support includes apps for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux, and other operating systems, not to mention custom firmware for many routers, plus manual setup guides for Apple TV, Fire TV, PS, Chromebooks, Kindle Fire and more.
A set of solid core features gives multiple layers of privacy protection. High-end encryption protects your traffic from spies; Secure DNS also prevents your ISP from seeing your traffic; And even if the VPN goes down, a switch is thrown to block your Internet connection and keep you safe.
- ExpressVPN subscription options:
- Fifteen month plan - €6.67 per month (total cost €100.05) (opens in a new tab)
The company offers a huge network of more than three thousand servers spread over one hundred and sixty cities in ninety-four countries. Europe and the US have the best coverage, but ExpressVPN also has many locations in Asia and multiple countries that rarely appear elsewhere. There are twenty-six countries in Asia-Pacific alone, for example: Mozilla Firefox VPN only has about thirty countries on its network.
However, ExpressVPN doesn't just beat the competition on standard features – it has its own unique technologies. Lightway is ExpressVPN's fast and secure VPN protocol, for example. And MediaStreamer's Smart DNS system helps unblock some sites, even on devices that can't run the apps.
A clear and simple privacy policy explains that ExpressVPN does not record any proprietary information, but you should not take the company's word for it. ExpressVPN had its servers audited to confirm that they live up to their promises, while F-Secure finishes auditing (opens in a new tab) its apps for security issues (they passed with flying colors).
The real standout feature might be the support though, where ExpressVPN has free agents XNUMX/XNUMX live chat. It's not the very basic outsourced front-line support you often get with other services: they're specialists who can guide you through just about any technical hiccup. If you run into any issues, you won't be waiting a day (or probably longer) for a support response. In our experience, there is always someone free on ExpressVPN live chat and you can get quality help in a matter of minutes.
It all adds up to a service we really couldn't recommend more highly, which is why Express continually tops our list of the best VPNs on the planet.
ExpressVPN: What's New?
The improvements since our last review start with an essential update to the ExpressVPN network. In June 1, the company announced real progress in moving from XNUMX Gbps servers to at least XNUMX Gbps, with XNUMX% of global bandwidth already supported, with the rest to follow "in the coming months." ", we affirm.
It's not just about network bandwidth: ExpressVPN claims that many older servers have 4 CPU cores (processing units), but newer models have XNUMX to XNUMX cores. Auxiliary processing power means more reliable connections for everyone and ensures that servers can take full advantage of faster network speeds.
Elsewhere, ExpressVPN released Aircove, a powerful Wi-Fi 53 router audited by CureXNUMX with the company's router app built-in. Set it up at home, and your internet-connected devices will be able to use ExpressVPN right out of the box, without installing a single app or worrying about device connection limits.
The Aircove's cost looks good too, at €169,90 at launch (normally €189,90). But if you're on a budget, no problem—you can always install the ExpressVPN router app on your hardware for free (assuming it's compatible). (The router's official setup page (opens in a new tab) has more on this.)
Key additions to the app include Network Protection for iOS (version fourteen or later), a feature that reduces the danger of data leaks by automatically blocking your Internet connection if the VPN goes down. And if that's not your preferred Apple platform, ExpressVPN's Mac apps now run natively on Apple Silicon Macs (M1 and M2), delivering better performance and lower battery consumption.
Even if you're not interested in the app's settings, it's worth seeing how often ExpressVPN releases updates. Many companies leave months between iOS updates, for example, in fact some take over a year, but ExpressVPN releases something every ten days or so (see the iOS Release Notes - opens in a new tab) same). Even if you run into a problem, it is a sign that you may not have to live with it for long, as solutions are never far away.
ExpressVPN Pricing
As explained in our dedicated guide to ExpressVPN costs and deals, the reseller has a very simple cost structure with only 3 plans, and these start with a product billed monthly (opens in a new tab) for €12.95.
It's not affordable, but CyberGhost, Hotspot Shield, and Surfshark charge around $XNUMX for their monthly plans, and that's not far from the $XNUMX-$XNUMX most big-name VPNs charge.
Sign up for ExpressVPN's six-month plan (opens in a new tab) and the cost drops to €9.99 per month. It's a reasonable discount, and it also gives you more flexibility than you'll get with some contenders, who don't offer any six-month plans.
The annual plan (opens in a new tab) further reduces the cost to a monthly equivalent of €8.32, a remarkable 3% discount on the monthly subscription. But that's still more than some of the contenders (Private Internet Access charges $1 on its annual plan, Windscribe costs $5), especially if you're willing to sign up for long periods of time. Private Internet Access has a XNUMX-year plan that costs just $XNUMX per month in its first term, for example, whereas Ivacy today charges just $XNUMX per month on its XNUMX-year plan.
However, when weighing up the major costs, be sure to check the fine print, as ExpressVPN is closer to many contenders than you might think. For example, many distributors have low costs that then increase. IPVanish seems affordable at $50 per month for the first year, but that cost rises to $4.92 upon renewal. And NordVPN starts at €8.29, but renews at €XNUMX.
There are also ways to save money. Signing up for our exclusive offer (opens in a new tab) adds 3 months free to your ExpressVPN annual subscription, giving you fifteen months of service for an effective €67 per month.
If you decide to sign up, you will find a wide range of payment methods, including cards, Paypal, Bitcoin and many other players (Giropay, UnionPay, SOFORT, QIWI Wallet and more).
If you're not completely persuaded, installing the Android or iOS app gives you a seven-day trial. And even after you've handed over your money, ExpressVPN's XNUMX-day money-back guarantee lets you use the service yourself safely.
Privacy
ExpressVPN's privacy protection starts with your choice of highly secure protocols (OpenVPN and its open source Lightway), with industrial-strength encryption to keep your data safe from even the best-armed attackers.
The company doesn't just offer DNS leak protection to prevent data about your online activities from leaking out of the VPN tunnel – ExpressVPN also runs its zero-knowledge XNUMX-bit encrypted DNS on each and every server.
We ran the mobile and desktop apps to multiple test sites, and all confirmed ExpressVPN connections were using their DNS service, and none of them had DNS or filtered DNS traffic.
Many VPNs now seek to prove that they are trustworthy by going through independent audits, where an outside company inspects their applications, servers, and procedures to confirm that they are handling your privacy properly. But while most providers stop with one or two audits, ExpressVPN now has over a dozen, with 6 new reports coming in just in the last few months.
The most recent audits (conducted by cybersecurity specialists Cure53) covered the Keys password manager (opens in a new tab), Android and iOS (opens in a new tab), as well as Mac, Windows and Linux (opens in a new tab). opens in a new tab).
Cure53 examined the applications to ensure that they were secure and could not be exploited by an attacker to steal data or damage the user's system. The results were positive, none of the apps had any major issues, and ExpressVPN immediately fixed any and all minor issues. (If you're interested in the technical details, check out the previously linked ExpressVPN weblog posts for links to the full reports.)
Registration
Check the regular VPN site and you'll usually find "NO LOG!" The claims are prominently displayed in a very large font, but often behind it is a privacy policy that gives you very little detail or reveals that the company is logging some of your information after all.
ExpressVPN does things a bit differently. Out of the frequent boast of "zero logs" without facts, comes a neatly written "Logging Policy (opens in a new tab)" that explains precisely what ExpressVPN does, what it doesn't, and why. and what it means for users.
The page states that the service does not log your IP address when you connect to ExpressVPN, the time you connected, the VPN IP address assigned to you, or any information about the sites or pages you visit (even through DNS queries), or any of your traffic.
There is minimal registration. He...