There have been talks about reducing people’s privacy on the internet through the collection of usage data, in exchange for increasing performance in other areas.
While some people were not concerned about this, the majority of the online community became outraged.
And in timing with widespread and increasing concerns regarding online privacy, the usage of VPNs has been on incline ever since.
Overview
ExpressVPN is the leading VPN service provider on the market. While the service offers more server locations and more servers per specific location, the quality of maintenance of each individual server is top-notch, making ExpressVPN one of the fastest and most stable services around.
ExpressVPN was founded in 2009 with its headquarters located on the British Virgin Islands. The company’s location means that it does not operate under the jurisdiction of the U.S. or E.U.’s laws for privacy protection. As such, neither can force the company to surrender its users’ usage data.
Unfortunately, Express VPN does not have a zero-logs policy, meaning that there is some data being collected while one uses the service. On the other hand, ExpressVPN tries to be as transparent as possible about data collection—they have disclosed what type of data is and isn’t being collected quite clearly.
While this data is supposedly used to measure and organize future enhancements of the service and it cannot be used to identify an individual, some users might find this to be a deal-breaker.
ExpressVPN also offers an automatically-set mix of protocols depending on the user’s location and the type of block they are trying to bypass. With all these security features in place, it can almost be considered a miracle that ExpressVPN’s speed is the #1 in the market, and its uptime is a whopping 99.9 percent.
ExpressVPN has three different payment plans for users to choose from. All three payment plans come with the same set of privileges and services, the only difference being the length of the use per payment.
As with most other VPN services, if the user decides to pay for longer periods of use at once, the price will be lower. The shortest amount of use time and the most expensive payment plan ExpressVPN offers is a one-month plan priced at $12.95. The second-most expensive option is the six-month plan, and that will set the user back $59.95 or $9.99 per month.
The cheapest option,which will acquire the user the longest amount of use time, is the one-year plan priced at $99.95 or $8.32 per month.
It is clear that ExpressVPN offers its services at a slightly higher price than its competitors, but taking into account the amount of protection, the number of server locations and the sheer speed of internet connection that is offered, the higher price is well worth it.
Privacy
While it is held at a very commendable level, privacy is one of the weaker aspects of ExpressVPN. This does not in any way mean that ExpressVPN provides sub-par privacy; on the contrary, it has most of the privacy features that other services offer and more. The location of ExpressVPN company’s headquarters is also ideal, making the service almost 100 percent privacy-oriented.
However, one thing that cannot be overlooked and will probably deter some prospective users from signing on with ExpressVPN is the fact that it does not have a zero-logs policy in place. This means the provider will keep some data regarding the usage of their service.
While ExpressVPN claims that the data they gather is used strictly for improving the quality of the program and can in no way be used to de-anonymize users, it is still troubling to know that there are logs of one’s VPN usage stored.
As it stands, the data that is being collected is:
- Date of VPN use (not the exact time, just the day and month).
- Server of choice.
- Amount of data being transferred.
As with its competitors, ExpressVPN can also be installed directly onto a router in order to protect any device connecting through it.
ExpressVPN also has a built-in kill switch, which will disable the internet connection if the user happens to disconnect from the servers for any reason. This feature protects users from accidental DNS/IP leaks, but the function can be turned off if the user doesn’t want to have their internet connection disabled withoutwarning.
Speed
When it comes to internet speed, ExpressVPN is an undisputed top player on the market. By providing more than 1,500 servers worldwide, there is virtually no place on the surface of Earth where ExpressVPN users will not have a close proximity to one of the servers. Coupling this with incredible speed on every single server, ExpressVPN is the best choice for users looking for sheer speed.
ExpressVPN’s most populated servers, which are located in the U.S., can achieve download speeds of up to 57 Mbps and an upload speed of over 25 Mbps for users connecting from U.K. If that same user were to connect to the server located in the U.K., they would have a 77 Mbps download and 70 Mbps upload speed readily available to them.
Other servers, including many in major E.U. countries like Germany and the Netherlands, provide similar speeds.
It is for this reason that many enthusiast-level users are opting for ExpressVPN’s service. Thanks to the blazing speed that it provides,the service is sought after by both gamers and movie streamers alike, since both groups require constant and high-speed internet connection.
It’s also important to note that ExpressVPN can unblock Netflix from any part of the world, something that many of its competitors can no longer do after Netflix’s recent ban on VPN services.
Location
The headquarters of ExpressVPN is located on the British Virgin Islands. Its servers are, however, spread out over 145 locations throughout the globe.
ExpressVPN has recently had a big server expansion, which brought another 500 servers to users. This expansion has increased the service’s coverage in Africa and the Middle East, regions that have poor coverage (or none) by other VPN services.
With the new upgrade, ExpressVPN now has over 1,500 servers located on 145 locations around the world.
The best coverage is provided in the U.S., the U.K. and major E.U. countries like Germany and the Netherlands. In these countries, there is an option to choose city-specific servers, a feature that should be especially alluring to users located near or in said countries.
While there are no servers located in China, there are other options located in nearby countries such as Macau, Nepal, Laos, Myanmar, Hong Kong and Singapore.
ExpressVPN has numerous different server options in every continent (except Antarctica), meaning that there will always be multiple servers to connect to, regardless of the user’s location.
Usability
The ease of use is one of the primary attractive attributes of ExpressVPN, aside from the sheer speed it provides.
First and foremost, the user interface of the desktop application is probably the simplest on the VPN market. On startup, the user will be presented with an on/off button and the menu for selecting the server they wish to connect to. There are some additional features located in the menu as well, which can be accessed through the icon located in the top left-hand side of the application.
While the simple interface makes the application incredibly easy to use, there will be more advanced users who will probably take the lack of additional customizable features as a detriment.
The setup is also very simple; all one has to do is follow the instructions in the installation wizard. This takes five minutes at the most. There is also an option to download and install a Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browser extension. The whole process from purchasing the ExpressVPN service to logging into one of the servers will take no more than 15 minutes.
Despite the user interface being incredibly simple to use, ExpressVPN provides detailed user manuals and customer support over email and live chat in case a user is not able to install or use their service.
Customer Support
As with other VPN service companies, ExpressVPN provides customer support for users—both via email communication and over live chat in real-time.
Given the fact that ExpressVPN’s headquarters is based in the British Virgin Islands, the best time to contact customer support would be during their working hours.
The customer support team is very friendly, helpful and quick, both over live chat and through email. The email response time is around 12 hours, which is much faster than that of many of ExpressVPN’s competitors.
There are no automated responses that could be expected from large companies serving many clients, and each support call is answered by a support staff member who is ready to help the user in any way regarding the service.
ExpressVPN’s website also offers a host of tutorials and troubleshooting guides if users need immediate assistance.
Conclusion
Being one of the VPN services with the largest number of servers and server locations on the market does not mean that ExpressVPN neglects maintenance of its service in any way.
Each server offers the best speed on the market, achieving unparalleled reliability. The service itself automatically provides the use of location-appropriate protocols, making it much easier to use for casual users.
And by having a very simple and intuitive application user interface on all devices, it makes sense that most people looking for a VPN will first turn to ExpressVPN.
Despite its price being higher than that of its competitors, ExpressVPN still manages to attract more and more clients each day.
