Is IPVanish safe?
Based on our knowledge base and the research we did to review IPVanish, we found IPVanish to be a safe and secure option — with a few caveats. Keep reading to find out the beneficial features that IPVanish has, and the few downsides that we found.
Encryption
IPVanish has top-of-the-line military-grade AES 256-bit encryption. This means that if any third party gets its hands on your traffic or information, it will all be totally indecipherable when you are using IPVanish.
DNS & IP leak protection
If your VPN has leaks, some of your DNS requests may accidentally be sent via your ISP‘s unprotected servers instead of your encrypted VPN servers, which could reveal your actual IP address and your actual location. A DNS leak can make you vulnerable to tracking by your ISP, as well as to hackers and cyber attackers.
We ran a leak test to test IPVanish for any DNS or IP leak and were not able to find any. So, IPVanish’s IPV6 leak-protection technology to prevent any DNS leak seems to be working.
Kill switch
A kill switch is another important way of making sure your actual IP address and traffic are not revealed online. In the event that your VPN cuts out unexpectedly, your kill switch will cut your internet until this secure connection is restored.
Surprisingly, there is only an IPVanish kill switch available on the desktop software for MacOS or Windows.
Does IPVanish have an ad-blocker?
IP Vanish doesn’t offer a built-in ad-blocking option, but you can opt to use a third-party ad-blocking app or browser extension if you choose.
Does IPVanish keep logs?
While IPVanish does claim to have a zero logs policy, this wasn’t always the case. In 2016, IPVanish was involved in a scandal where it passed on user information as per request from the Department of Homeland Security, which was looking to prosecute an IPVanish user for child abuse and pornography. Because it was able to comply with this request for user data, IPVanish proved that it did, in fact, keep user logs.
Since we have not heard of any scandals since 2016, though, we assume that its 2017 change in management has strengthened its no-logging policy. IPVanish now guarantees that it doesn‘t keep any user logs of user activity or IP addresses.
Even though IPVanish has a strict no-logs policy, it is still important to note that IPVanish is based in the United States (in the 5/9/14 Eyes Territory), so, it could be asked again to hand over user information, which could potentially cause a repeat of this 2016 scandal.
Here is its current Privacy Policy from their website: