Ivacy is a Singapore-based VPN that, according to its website, is an award-winning 'best VPN' that offers almost all the features you could need for almost no money. Is it true or just a marketing spin? As usual, there is a bit of both. The Servers page of the website claims to offer 3500+ servers in 100+ locations in 50+ countries, for example. But the Buy page has a heading of 2,000+ servers, then references 1,000+, and a location table only lists 766 servers at the time of writing, so we're not entirely sure of the numbers. However, there really are a decent number of locations and there should be plenty of options for most users. A wide range of apps has you covered on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux, there are extensions for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, and the support site has instructions for manually configuring the service on routers, Kodi, consoles, and more. Ivacy is torrent-friendly (we tried P2P on three sample servers and it works great), there's malware blocking, there's no logging, the service supports up to ten simultaneous connections, and the apps include a kill switch to protect your privacy if the connection drops. Protocol support covers L2TP, OpenVPN, and IKEv2 (not WireGuard yet), split tunneling lets you choose which traffic to route through the VPN tunnel, and the list of features grows. If the service isn't working as it should, 24/7 email, ticket and live chat support is available to point you in the right direction. The prices are generally low. Monthly billing is reasonable at €9.95, but drops to €2.45 for the two-year plan (no annual option at the moment) and the five-year subscription (not on the normal pricing page, but you'll find it here). it's ridiculously cheap €1.33 per month. To put this in perspective, sign up for a one year HideMyAss program! plan and you'll pay €60 immediately, another €60 per year and a day later: €120. Spend €80 on Ivacy and that's it for five years. Even if you only use Ivacy for a few years, you'll get more than your money's worth. Optional extras include dedicated IP addresses (US, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore) for a very reasonable €1.99 per month (NordVPN asks for an additional €5.83, or €70 per year) , and port forwarding support for €1 per month.
Ivacy supports several different payment methods (Image Credit: Ivacy) Several payment methods are supported, including card, PayPal, Alipay, Paymentwall, PerfectMoney, and Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies via BitPay or CoinGate. As of this writing, Ivacy is also pulling 2TB of Internxt's encrypted cloud storage space at no extra cost (a big surprise, as it starts at just $10 per month on Internxt's site). limited supply, so it's probably gone by the time you read this, but if there's a big holiday or some other occasion coming up (Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, Easter), take a look at the site, maybe ( or something like that) will return. There are several testing options. You can get one day free or get a week's coverage for €0.99. Be warned, though: the 7-day trial automatically renews like an annual plan, unless you cancel. Fortunately, even if you sign up and regret it, you're even more protected with a 30-day money-back guarantee (or 7 days for monthly accounts).
Ivacy clearly states all the data it collects in its privacy policy (Image credit: Ivacy)
Confidentiality and registration
Ivacy has an excellent privacy policy that outlines everything it logs and everything it doesn't, in clear and refreshing detail. Here is a key paragraph: `` We do not strictly log or monitor online browsing activity, connection logs, assigned VPN IP addresses, source IP addresses, browsing history, outgoing traffic, connection, the data you accessed and/or the DNS queries generated by your terminal. We do not have information that can associate specific activities with specific users. If you've ever spent an eternity sifting through a VPN's fine print and support site for a clue to its privacy policy, you'll appreciate how rare it is to get so much information in just a few sentences. . The policy then details the personal data collected by Ivacy (name, email address, payment methods) and other collection methods (bug reports and app diagnostics via Firebase and Crashlytics, Google Analytics on the website) . This isn't ideal, especially since Ivacy apps don't give you the option to choose whether to send this blocking information. This isn't unusual, though: IPVanish also uses crash reports without asking you first, and at least Ivacy allows you to request removal of your personal data via its website's member area. Unfortunately, there is no way to verify Ivacy's privacy promises. Other VPNs are increasingly undergoing privacy and public safety audits – TunnelBear now conducts annual audits of its apps, infrastructure, website, and more – but Ivacy hasn't yet. I hope it changes soon.
Ivacy not only offers a Windows app, but also clients for Mac, Android, and iOS, as well as browser extensions (Image credit: Ivacy)
applications
Signing up with Ivacy worked just like any other VPN we've used. We chose a plan and payment method, handed over our money, Ivacy sent us a welcome email with a link to set our password, and the website had links to Ivacy's many apps. We downloaded and installed the Windows client, and it was up and running in seconds. The client interface looks like many other VPN apps. The opening screen has a large button that automatically connects you to the nearest server, or you can choose your location from a list.
It is possible to choose your location from a list of countries or cities (Image credit: Ivacy) This list can be displayed as countries or cities. It sounds like a good idea, but even if you choose the City option, the app still shows them in country order. Sequences like Perth (Australia), Vienna (Austria), Brussels (Belgium), Sao Paolo (Brazil) make it difficult to get directly to where you need to be.
There are no ping times or server load figures, no filters or sorting options to help you make the best decision. However, the app does have a search box (typing LON cuts the list to Thessaloniki and London), and a favorites system can group the most used options together.
A left toolbar helps you select servers for particular tasks. Click Streaming, for example, and you'll be able to choose which platforms you want to unblock and watch (Amazon Prime Video, BBC, Hulu, Netflix, and many more). This is really useful and a big improvement on the ``connect to all US servers'' strategy. UU. Until you find one that works ''you'll need with many VPNs.
Other options are more questionable. An "Unblock" page gives you another list of locations, for example, ostensibly to help you access geo-blocked sites. Isn't that what we expect from regular areas and broadcast areas? Why do we need a third party?
A "safe download" feature "ostensibly scans downloaded data for viruses or malware and removes them at the server level." The feature's website page states that it "scans for and removes these viruses and malicious files before they reach your devices."
This gives the impression that the service is verifying the content of the files you download, which doesn't like the best privacy measure. If you were accessing a zip file of Office documents, for example, would you really want the system to extract and inspect each one? Fortunately, it seems that Ivacy is overestimating its capabilities a bit, and our safe download tests probably use a simple DNS blacklist to block dangerous URLs.
The settings allow you to choose your preferred launch mode, for example, open with the Streaming page. There's an option to switch protocols (OpenVPN UDP or TCP, L2TP or IKEv2, but not WireGuard yet), split tunneling (unusual for desktop), a kill switch, and a multiport setting that can scan for open ports to help. bypass vpn blocking.
Desktop clients typically offer many more features than their mobile counterparts, but Ivacy's Android app is surprisingly capable, with the same connection modes (streaming, downloading, unlocking), a connection list displayed by country or city , a kill switch, split tunneling, and multiport mode.
Ivacy's iOS app looks similar to its desktop counterparts (Image credit: Ivacy) It's a similar story with the iOS app, which in addition to using IKEv2 instead of OpenVPN, closely matches other Ivacy offerings. If there's a problem here, it's the seemingly slow pace of software development. The Ivacy apps haven't added any significant new features in some time, and if you're expecting some big improvements, like WireGuard support, that suggests you might be waiting a while.
Ivacy's fractional tunnel feature (Image credit: Ivacy)
Windows test
We have reported several usability issues in previous releases of the Ivacy Windows client. Several have been fixed and there are still many minor annoyances and irritations. There is the list of cities ordered by country, for example. OpenVPN connections can sometimes take a long time to establish (30 seconds or more). Notifications let you know when the VPN connects, but not when it disconnects. And changing your location is more complicated than it should be, because you can't choose another server, or even browse the list of locations, until you close the current connection. In the last review, we noted that choosing L2TP only gave us IKEv2 connections. The good news is that this time it didn't happen. The bad news is that when we chose L2TP, the client never connected.
Normally there shouldn't be ads like this when using a paid VPN (Image credit: ...