This Ivacy review is based on some of the most common factors, including the speed test, device compatibility, privacy features, and subscription bundles that help in examining whether it’s worth the purchase or not.
One of the oldest VPNs on the market– Ivacy VPN remained underrated over the years for some reasons. While it claims to offer a secure and risk-free service with budget-friendly deals, it’s crucial to determine whether this VPN can compete with today’s top-demanding VPN brands.
So, without further ado, let’s explore Ivacy’s pricing plans.
Ivacy VPN Deals and Price Plans
Here’s a table summarizing Ivacy VPN’s pricing and best deals:
| Package | Price | Billed Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 1-Month Plan | $9.95/month | $9.95 |
| 1-Year Plan | $3.99/month (Save $71.4) | $42 |
| 5-Year Plan | $1.00/month (Save $537) | $60 |
Ivacy VPN is usually categorized as a cheap VPN due to its affordable subscription packages, which of course give it a competitive advantage over expensive VPN services. It offers three different price plans that users can select according to their preferences.
One of the best subscription deals to choose from the available plans is the 5-year plan, which costs around $1.00/month. It won’t be heavy on your pockets as you’ll save 90% by spending only $60 over 5 years.
Likely, the yearly plan is also impressively cost-saving with an estimated price of $3.99/month, whereas the monthly plan is a little bit more expensive than the previously mentioned plans.
Subscribing to the 5-year plan is a great choice and a way to smart savings. Ivacy VPN is a definite buy for users on a tight budget.
The value-added benefit is its 10 simultaneous logins on a single subscription making it a more convenient VPN in contrast to ExpressVPN and NordVPN, which limits users to only 5 and 6 simultaneous device connections.
Ivacy VPN Review and Testing
Now, we’ll review the speed, performance, privacy, and payment methods of the Ivacy VPN service.
Speed and Performance
The speed and performance of Ivacy VPN, like other VPNs, depends on the server location and type of tunneling protocol chosen while establishing a connection. Ivacy VPN offers different protocols, including WireGuard, OpenVPN, L2TP, and IKEv2. WireGuard is an exceptionally fast and reliable protocol amongst the other available protocols.
Our team conducted speed tests on both WireGuard and OpenVPN protocols to find the variations in their upload and download speeds. Here are the speed test outcomes of Ivacy’s WireGuard protocol.
| Speed Mbps | NewYork Server | UK Server | Germany Server | Japan Server |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Download | 75.42 Mbps | 73.86 Mbps | 82.53 Mbps | 62.24 Mbps |
| Upload | 72.38 Mbps | 72.86 Mbps | 77.60 Mbps | 69.06 Mbps |
It disappointed us a little as the server was nearest to our locality and we were expecting superfast and stable connectivity with minimal connection drops. But unfortunately, it dropped our connection speed by 24%.
We tested Ivacy VPN on four different locations on a connection of 100 Mbps, with the New York server being the nearest to our location. We received an average of 75.42 Mbps download speed, and 72.38 Mbps upload speed on the NY server.
In comparison to the New York server, we also tested the UK, Germany, and Japan servers– the servers far away from our current location. Surprisingly, we obtained speedier connections on the long-distance server of Ivacy VPN, with Germany leading the competition by offering 82.53 Mbps download and 77.60 Mbps upload speed.
While the UK and Germany speed servers delivered impressive results, the Japan server was significantly slower. The speed test results could be more impressive on the WireGuard protocol as it’s an incredibly fast protocol that offered us amazing speeds while we tested it on competing VPNs, including NordVPN and Surfshark.
Speed by VPN Protocol
We’ll now concentrate on comparing the download and upload speeds of the Ivacy VPN using the OpenVPN UDP protocol.
| OpenVPN UDP | New York | Germany |
|---|---|---|
| Download speed | 79.20 Mbps | 73.20 Mbps |
| Upload speed | 74.61 Mbps | 75.89 Mbps |
As can be seen from the testing outcomes above, Ivacy provided faster download speeds on the New York speed test, while both servers’ upload speeds when using the OpenVPN UDP protocol were essentially the same.
| OpenVPN TCP | New York | Germany |
|---|---|---|
| Download speed | 64.07 Mbps | 61.42 Mbps |
| Upload speed | 56.68 Mbps | 52.97 Mbps |
The OpenVPN TCP protocol is slower than the OpenVPN UDP protocol because it promotes stability over speed; as a result, you can anticipate slower speeds on both the server location.
Device Compatibility – Including Ivacy for Chrome, Mobile and Desktop
Ivacy in this regard, shows great compatibility with a myriad range of operating systems just like other top-leading VPN providers do. It uniquely caters to the need of users by introducing applications for different operating systems, including Windows, iOS, Android, Mac, Linux, Blackberry, Huwaei, etc.
Additionally, it supports devices that aren’t VPN-compatible, such as gaming consoles, Smart TVs, and routers. The ah-amazingly good news for streamers– Ivacy runs flawlessly on various streaming devices, such as Firestick TV, Kodi, Roku, and Apple TV. However, to elevate your browsing experience, Ivacy also introduced extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
From our testing, we found the Ivacy Chrome extension, the best extension, as it boosts the speed of the server and enhances the security of your daily browsing. You can use the Ivacy VPN download extension for Chrome, Firefox, or Edge to make your browsing experience safe and secure.
Privacy and Security
Ivacy is a Singapore-based VPN provider– the country with mass surveillance and data retention law. The government can obtain sensitive data of its citizens, including email, texts, calls, and web search history without requiring permission or legal notice from the court.
However, Ivacy does claims to follow a strict no-log policy and states in its privacy policy that “your information is your own.” They don’t log connections, browsing activities, IP addresses, outgoing traffic, or any data that could be used to identify specific users.
Not to mention, Ivacy stores the user name, email address, and payment information of its users during the signup process. This isn’t a big deal, as you can stay anonymous by choosing to subscribe to the service with cryptocurrency or either using a pseudo name or email.
Unfortunately, Ivacy VPN’s no-log policy isn’t audited or proven in a court in contrast to other VPN providers that have already audited their policies twice or thrice through industry-leading auditing firms. Thus, Ivacy might need to take a number of steps to protect users’ privacy by auditing their no-log policy.
From a security perspective, Ivacy utilizes 256-bit AES military-grade encryption that is indecipherable. As a result, it is extremely unlikely that someone could read your traffic and discover what and where you are downloading and uploading.
Nonetheless, one of the extra security features missing in Ivacy is RAM-only servers. It simply means that the data on the server is stored permanently and can be accessed anytime by government agencies or other entities who are instructed to seize the server network.
What Can You Do with Ivacy VPN?
Ivacy has the largest network hub with servers distributed across 100+ countries worldwide. Still, it’s really confusing to come across the total servers of Ivacy VPN as the download page titled the server count as 6500+, whereas the server location page displays the server count as 5700+.
Ivacy needs to clarify this confusion, meanwhile, with Ivacy VPN you can achieve a private and safe browsing experience by masking your IP address with the help of its not-so-confirmed server network.
After masking your IP address, your web traffic will reroute through the secure encrypted tunnel of the Ivacy server.
You’ll appear to be in the country of your choice, although digitally, with a safe Ivacy VPN server. Ivacy VPN can be utilized for streaming and gaming purposes.
Streaming enthusiasts can use Ivacy VPN to watch geo-blocked content on popular streaming platforms, such as Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, BBC iPlayer, Disney Plus, etc.
However, we download the Firefox extension to unblock Netflix but unfortunately, we ended up getting buffering issues. Contrary to Firefox, we were able to download and watch Netflix on Chrome effortlessly using the Ivacy Chrome extension.
It was an overall good experience to watch TV shows and movies using Ivacy VPN. It’s recommended to use a nearby server for a fast and lag-free streaming experience.
Moreover, we experience lag and slowdown while torrenting with the Ivacy server as P2P requires high-bandwidth and fast connections, and Ivacy servers aren’t fast enough for P2P. Therefore, it’s crucial to select a VPN alternative that is flexible enough for P2P-related activities.
Payment Methods
Ivacy VPN would be unmatched if the quantity of payment options was used to determine if signing up VPN is worth it or not. For customers to pay for their service, the VPN provider provides a wide range of alternatives, including PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, BitPay, CoinPay, Dotpay, and many other payment options.
For more anonymous, secure, and cash-free payments, Ivacy has integrated the Bitcoin payment method. However, their Bitcoin and PaymentWall choices should be avoided as utilizing them makes you ineligible for a refund.
Ivacy Free VPN
Ivacy is a paid VPN service that requires you to subscribe to either of the three VPN bundles available. However, it does offer a 7-day free trial for $0.99. Once the trial ends, the plan is auto-subscribed to the annual plan for $47.99. You can access premium features for the 7-day time period and enjoy digital internet freedom.
The 30-day money-back guarantee is also available on all three premium plans. This gives you the freedom to cancel your subscription if you’re not satisfied with the service.
Conclusion
From our Ivacy review, we can claim it is a good but not a competitive VPN. It lacks many features that are a staple with top VPNs today. Most importantly, it isn’t a fast VPN, which is, after all, considered one of the essential factors of any VPN.
Moreover, the VPN is not the foremost choice for privacy-conscious users. It independently audited, nor does it incorporates advanced features, such as an ad-blocker, or malware protector. Therefore, it’s ideal to go for a valuable VPN service worth the cost!
