Based on its outstanding performance in our updated independent testing, ExpressVPN, one of the biggest commercial virtual private networks, keeps its spot as our Editors’ Choice for VPNs in 2022. The VPN had features for secure torrenting, streaming, and gaming and lost less than 2% of the average internet speed in privacy tests conducted in June. You can anticipate routine updates to the price information and test results in this review of ExpressVPN’s version 10.17.0. The bottom of this article will include a note if there are any editorial changes. We first released our assessment of the VPN’s previous iteration on December 16, 2019. Read more also here Best Android IPVanish VPN for 2022
Since I last wrote about ExpressVPN, its narrative had become ridiculous.
Even though the industry giant made undeniable advancements in speed and cost-value, set new standards for transparency, and relentlessly pursued higher levels of security, its reputation took a brutal two-punch combo in 2021. The company was first acquired by Kape Technologies, a former provider of ad-tech with a dubious past. The DOJ announced the following day that its CIO was assisting the FBI with a separate DOJ investigation. NSA leaker Edward Snowden voiced his disapproval of the latter circumstance.
Should those of us with important privacy needs trust ExpressVPN? was the only question on everyone’s mind when the bell rang.
I’ve spent the better part of six months studying every aspect of ExpressVPN’s operation, squinting through perspiration under bright lights, interrogating engineers while compiling test results. The thing seems clean to me even after I’ve done everything short of handling its bare-metal RAM.
That surprises me because I believed that ExpressVPN’s previous consumer-friendly terms of service and privacy-focused British Virgin Islands jurisdiction would be destroyed following the Kape acquisition. After the company ate up that VPN (and several others) in the previous decade, I assumed they would experience the same interference that CyberGhost did from Kape. In fact, I was prepared to warn customers away from ExpressVPN in advance because I believed that unfavourable changes were imminent. But in the end, I made the decision to hold off until the business formalised its post-Kape terms of service, using the opportunity to retest ExpressVPN’s speed and security in 2022. Meanwhile, new terms of service for ExpressVPN have surfaced, and they’re probably better than they were.
After knowing all of this, can I trust ExpressVPN? I do not trust VPNs, and I risk my career doing so. But even for users who value their privacy above all else in the current climate, ExpressVPN remains the best bet I’ve seen.
ExpressVPN is deserving of maintaining its position as our Editor’s Choice due to its unmatched performance and zealous transparency in the face of our increased scrutiny. And as a result, I currently advise it to users who have privacy-critical needs. I’ll demonstrate what I mean.
Speed: Once more setting the pace.
- Speed loss in April 2022 tests was 2% on average.
- Over 3,000 servers are present.
- 160 server locations across 94 nations (two in Hong Kong)
- Over 30,000 IP addresses are present.
Using the VPN’s clients for Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS over the course of three days in April, I conducted my customary speed tests for ExpressVPN. States and providers in the US have vastly different internet speeds. Additionally, the results of any speed test will depend on your local infrastructure, with hyperfast internet service producing faster test results. That’s one of the reasons why we’re more concerned with the typical speed loss, which for the majority of VPNs is usually 50% or higher.
ExpressVPN should continue doing whatever it is that they are doing. I dreaded having to write about the industry’s former speed leader slipping to the middle of the pack with a 52% overall speed loss after watching it surge ahead in 2019 and 2020 with an astounding 2% speed loss when I totaled the results of my 2021 manual speed tests. Even with the boost provided by ExpressVPN’s new Lightway protocol, I never expected to see it drop to a 2% speed loss. However, here we are. You can call it the Return of the King, but I was in awe.
Without a VPN, the average speed for all tested nations is 162.01 Mbps. 159.62 Mbps when using ExpressVPN and the OpenVPN UDP protocol. Wow.
There were some difficult periods, but they never significantly decreased the average. Despite being a frequently busy area of any VPN, New York servers nonetheless displayed an average speed drop of less than 12%. Without using a VPN, I was able to connect from my office in Kentucky at an average speed of 124.31 Mbps to a single server in the city. On ExpressVPN, the average speed with the OpenVPN UDP protocol enabled was 141.21 Mbps.
The average speed loss was even more little in regions of Europe where we often see the fastest VPN speeds. The average OpenVPN UDP speed loss when connecting to a single server in Paris was a stunning 0.59%. Without a VPN, the average speed was 124.2 Mbps; with OpenVPN UDP, it was 123.57 Mbps. I kept 99.49% of my non-VPN speeds.
With the same server, across the same testing rounds, at the same time of day, Lightway UDP managed to improve on the already astounding Paris scores. I was able to maintain an average data rate of 123.9 Mbps in comparison to my non-VPN average of 124.2 Mbps.
Whether using UDP or TCP, OpenVPN protocol speeds are virtually never as quick as what you can obtain with more flexible UDP protocols like those based on Wireguard or the lightweight IKEv2 you typically see with iOS VPN apps. However, ExpressVPN is threatening to destroy that notion.
Cost: Expensive, but with a generous reward
- Five connections can be made simultaneously for $13 per month, $60 for six months, or $100 for a year (bonus: get an extra three months free)
- Most trustworthy for Netflix, live chat support 24 hours a day, 30-day refund
- Low ping, Smart DNS, and a multi-console router app for gaming
- Torrenting: No bandwidth limits, split tunnelling, and P2P support on all servers
- Mac, Windows, Android, iOS, Linux, and a plethora of more platforms
Yes, paying $100 for a VPN subscription for 15 months is a lot. And that includes the three more months at a discounted price. Normally, ExpressVPN costs $100 for a full year. In contrast, a NordVPN subscription costs $60 for the first year and $100 every year after that. Despite the fact that Surfshark and NordVPN now share a corporate parent, at $48 for a year, Surfshark’s package is the most affordable among the evaluated providers. The price also increases every year after that, reaching $96. In both instances, ExpressVPN’s promo price is more expensive than NordVPN’s and Surfshark’s promo prices, but you get three months of additional service, and after the promo period is over, ExpressVPN costs around the same as the other two. The monthly package for ExpressVPN costs $13, which is comparable to NordVPN’s $12 and Surfshark’s $13 prices.
With their two-year plans, all three VPNs provide a better value for the money, but I can no longer suggest two-year plans for any VPN. We don’t advise signing a two-year contract with any VPN at this time due to risks of firm consolidation, changes to VPN laws around the world, and broader changes to encryption technology.
However, ExpressVPN gives high-quality products that integrate seamlessly with your other services and equipment for its expensive pricing.
Its live chat 24/7 customer assistance makes the 30-day money-back promise simple to use. The representatives are helpful, efficient, and don’t leave you waiting. The VPN’s knowledge base is extensive, and its in-site search performs better than others, swiftly giving answers with clear instructions. If you want to investigate any peculiarities or try something new with ExpressVPN, you won’t have to sift through random forum postings and Google’s ad-filled result pages.
games, streaming, and torrenting
ExpressVPN readily integrates with streaming services like Netflix and enables sports lovers to get around jerky viewing area boundaries on a variety of streaming consoles and smart TVs thanks to its reliable traffic obfuscation and vast war chest of IP addresses. Its MediaStreamer Smart DNS function improves stream stability for same-country and non-disguised streaming and makes setting up an Xbox VPN simple. While this is going on, its ping rates consistently produce some of the lowest results I’ve ever seen in any of my tests. Additionally, you can still protect the majority of contemporary consoles by installing ExpressVPN straight on your router even though it lacks PlayStation-specific software.
This is the best option if you’re seeking for a reliable VPN for torrenting. ExpressVPN does not impose bandwidth limits, does not throttle peer-to-peer or downstream traffic, and all 3,000+ of its servers are P2P friendly. Its leak-protection add-on and rock-solid encryption can be split-tunneled for less lag when torrenting. And its killswitch has never let me down thus far.
However, keep in mind that while a VPN prevents your ISP from viewing the content of your data, it does not prevent them from viewing (and objecting to) the volume of data you are transporting. Yes, there are port forwarding controls if you want to customise your seeding connections, but they are currently only available on the ExpressVPN router app.
Privacy and security: unbreakable encryption despite public concerns
United Kingdom Virgin Islands (BVI)
- AES-256 cryptography, RSA-4096 key, SHA-512 HMAC authentication, and Perfect Forward Secrecy are used in the OpenVPN and IKEv2 protocols.
- AES-256-GCM and Poly1305/ChaCha20 cyphers, D/TLS1.2, with elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman authentication, and perfect forward secrecy are all part of the Lightway protocol.
- No leaks were found.
- Features include split-tunneling, a kill switch, browser plug-ins for HTML5 and WebRTC, IPv6 coverage, and leak protection and threat management (not available on MacOS Monterey)
- Advantages: Free password manager
Even though ExpressVPN has often suffered blows to its reputation, its security and transparency measures have raised the bar for the industry since my previous evaluation. After a separate DOJ probe of ExpressVPN’s CIO Daniel Gericke, NSA leaker Edward Snowden tweeted last year that consumers should stop using the service. Following the DOJ announcement, a $936 million acquisition transferred ExpressVPN’s ownership to a parent firm based in London that once sold ad-tech and is funded by a billionaire who has been convicted of bribery.
The service has since been under my scrutiny for months, but I’m still persuaded that ExpressVPN’s fleet of RAM-only servers, rigorously audited zero-trust deployment process, and aggressive transparency initiatives make it — for the time being — the VPN I’d most strongly recommend to users who value their privacy. This closer look at the technology itself gives us a measure of cautious confidence, given that the build’s above-average transparency (or at least the parts that are visible to us) would likely make it difficult for Kape to collect valuable, marketable data from the traffic of ExpressVPN users, even if they wanted to. I no longer have that belief. More here Three Best Mac VPN for 2022
As I go into great detail in the commentary that goes along with this review, it is abundantly clear from an examination of Kape’s public company filings from the previous two years that the company’s business model has significantly changed from that of CrossRider, which was Kape’s previous incarnation and depended on shady ad-tech revenue. However, with a brand-new executive team, Kape’s year-over revenue estimates now seem to depend solely on the success of its entry into the expanding privacy tech sector, where VPNs are defined by their public image and where rivals constantly look for and highlight one another’s flaws. ExpressVPN is the jewel in Kape’s portfolio and undoubtedly has the biggest bullseye on its back as the largest VPN provider. Kape’s revenues increased 89% after it acquired ExpressVPN, and the business forecasts that they will more than quadruple by the end of 2022.
Additional assurance that Kape’s activities toward ExpressVPN won’t entail jeopardising the VPN’s reputation (and income) by undermining its ongoing technological integrity comes from a look at the company’s debts. The acquisition of ExpressVPN by Kape opened the door to the company’s increased loan facility, which is now substantial enough and dispersed among a wide enough range of banks to act as a buffer against the excessive financial dominance of any one Kape c-suite member.Peter Burchhardt and Dan Pomerantz, co-founders of ExpressVPN, received $237 million worth of shares in the $936 million transaction, giving them a combined 13.6% share of Kape with a required waiting period before they can cash out. This is in addition to the new influence of more lenders. Both continue to work at Kape, overseeing ExpressVPN’s operations. A non-voting board member may be appointed by Burchhardt for the foreseeable future, or for as long as ExpressVPN generates at least 5% of Kape’s revenue.
Peter Burchhardt and Dan Pomerantz, co-founders of ExpressVPN, received $237 million worth of shares in the $936 million transaction, giving them a combined 13.6% share of Kape with a required waiting period before they can cash out. This is in addition to the new influence of more lenders. Both continue to work at Kape, overseeing ExpressVPN’s operations. A non-voting board member may be appointed by Burchhardt for the foreseeable future, or for as long as ExpressVPN generates at least 5% of Kape’s revenue.
ExpressVPN’s privacy policy and terms of service have also undergone a facelift to emphasise readability and plainspoken language following the Kape acquisition, although not much has substantively changed. If anything, ExpressVPN’s privacy policy now sets it apart from its new sibling VPNs’ privacy policies, which otherwise state they may share client data with Kape and subsidiaries across many jurisdictions.
A crucial passage uses direct language:
“Customer data is managed and retained by ExpressVPN, not Kape Technologies PLC (UK), its ultimate holding company, or other affiliated companies. Express Technologies Ltd. acts in conformity with BVI laws and is subject to BVI jurisdiction. Therefore, any legal request for ExpressVPN customer data is subject to BVI jurisdiction and regulations; if a move is made to circumvent the BVI’s privacy protections, we fight vehemently to defend our rights (and those of our users). A parent, subsidiary, or connected organisation cannot be forced to provide data maintained by Express Technologies Ltd., nor would it do so freely.”
In addition, Beat ExpressVPN 2022 stated that it will not be sharing its hardware infrastructure with Kape’s other VPN services, so obviating yet another potential data mixing route.
The information ExpressVPN collects from you to process your payments and the basic data it needs to enforce its simultaneous connection limit are both disclosed in the privacy policy. So that you can use their website and be charged for the service, they will retain it on file. You can pay with bitcoin to further reduce the amount of information that is collected. Contrary to many VPNs, ExpressVPN’s policy states that it does not keep track of your originating IP address, your outgoing VPN IP address, your connection timestamp, or the length of your session.
Beat ExpressVPN 2022 has remained impenetrable from my initial leak testing in 2019 to my most recent battery in 2022. Its killswitch, leak protection mechanisms, and privacy-enhancing plug-in continue to operate with the same level of dependability. During my routine checks using programmes like the DNS Leak Test from Perfect Privacy, IPLeak, and IPv6 Test, no IP address, DNS, or other potentially user-identifying information was disclosed. However, I didn’t end there.
I put ExpressVPN through a series of multi-round tests using VPN leak testing tools from its rivals and independent research firms on both mobile and Wi-Fi, including both my personal home network and TECHJAZZUP’s sandbox testing network, isolating variables in each round to account for browser and OS configurations.
Null leakage.
Will its front-facing website have a few trackers on it? Yes. However, after Alfred Ng of The Markup called them out on it, they were reduced from a total of 11 to only two from Google (if you’re logged in) and are petty security issues that can be easily squashed by ExpressVPN’s own Threat Manager or by default if you’re using the Brave Browser.
a view of ExpressVPN’s servers up close.
Since ExpressVPN owns its own fleet of bare-metal, RAM-only VPN servers, you shouldn’t ostensibly be concerned about shared or leased hardware vulnerabilities. ExpressVPN claims that its TrustedServer process, a rigorously tested zero-trust deployment architecture, distinguishes its RAM-only protection by not granting any special admin access to engineers or even executives.
Every TrustedServer version, according to the business, is also created twice separately using two different build processes on two separate machines, after which it is checked against a checksum.
To execute the same assault on the same code, any attacker—internal or external—would have to simultaneously compromise two different environments, according to ExpressVPN.
There are many locations where illegal logging may take place. ExpressVPN’s engineers explained how to snoop-proof seven potentially weak points in an interview with TECHJAZZUP, and they claim that the general architecture of their system makes logging physically impossible through mechanisms that recognise, block, and divert any logging efforts.
ExpressVPN’s go-to defence tactic has been to shut down hardware operations while launching virtual servers so users may continue connecting through its apps in locations where VPNs are prohibited or its hardware is in danger. Most recently, it did this in India to disobey instructions from the government requiring VPN providers to keep user traffic logs. ExpressVPN’s boasts of logless servers were put to the test when the Turkish ambassador to Russia was killed, and investigators who had seized one of the company’s servers throughout the case came up empty-handed.
Introduction Power of encryption
The standard encryption algorithms that ExpressVPN employs are a little more secure than some of its closest rivals. ExpressVPN has OpenVPN and IKEv2 protocol options with an AES-256 cypher, similar to rivals Surfshark, NordVPN, and TunnelBear (the same basic security level you expect from HTTPS websites). In contrast to Surfshark’s RSA-2048 and TunnelBear’s mixed key types, Beat ExpressVPN 2022 uses a more dense (and better future-proofed) RSA-4096 key with its SHA-512 HMAC authentication.
During the protocol competitions of 2020, when some businesses rushed out the faster but less-tested Wireguard protocol in an effort to be the fastest VPN, ExpressVPN’s open-source Lightway protocol was a particularly noteworthy moment of industry bar-raising.
Lightway, like Wireguard, is made up of smaller, harder-to-hack primitives that are created out of much faster building blocks. It uses AES-256-GCM as well as ChaCha20/Poly1305 cyphers to encrypt traffic as a backup. Lightway includes flexible TCP and UDP versions, but Wireguard is UDP-only, allowing for greater connection reliability (and more security in many cases). Lightway employs D/TLS 1.3 for authentication on UDP connections.For TCP, it’s TLS 1.2 (though it plans to move to 1.3 once that supports UDP).
Lightway resembled a challenge that had been thrown. Even though it isn’t as quick as the Wireguard mile for mile, it comes in a very close second and is unquestionably quicker off the starting line in connection time. And it’s more stable. The fact that ExpressVPN’s Lightway deployment and subsequent success have disproved the idea that VPN customers must pick between protocols that give speed and those that deliver privacy is, however, even more amazing.
Features for leak-plugging and featured plug-ins
Even the strongest encryption and VPN protocols cannot totally shield you from the effects of your own software and operating system configurations. There are three extra measures you should do to avoid more geolocation privacy hazards on your desktop or laptop, regardless of the operating system you’re using with Beat ExpressVPN 2022.
Prior to installing the main ExpressVPN client on your device, be sure to install the browser extension, which integrates the HTTPS Everywhere feature from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Most HTML5 leaks will be stopped by doing this. Currently, Chrome, Firefox, and Edge all support the extension. Second, activate ExpressVPN’s IPv6 Leak Protection function by selecting the Advanced tab under Preferences in the main desktop interface.
On MacOS and Windows computers, you can also quickly disable IPv6 manually if you have any other software that interferes with any VPN’s IPv6 protection.
Third, use the open source leak testing tools provided by Beat ExpressVPN 2022 to ensure your changes have been successful. Alternatively, if you’d want verification without the fuss of GitHub, use trustworthy leak testing software like that offered by independent research firm Top10VPN.
Track record of transparency
A recent addition to Beat ExpressVPN 2022 privacy toolbox is the ad-blocking component of Threat Manager, which was made available in January. And Keys, its newest user benefit, a password manager that was introduced in April.
ExpressVPN has previously received criticism from reviews for failing to produce enough impartial, third-party audits, which are the industry standard for evaluating VPN security. That grievance is now out of date. Along with the 2019 server audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the extensive 2018 assessment of its previously open-source browser extension, ExpressVPN also made available a 2021 examination of Lightway by Cure 53 and a March audit of its Windows client by F-Secure. The complete audit history of ExpressVPN up to this most recent slate is still accessible to the public on its website.
But the business isn’t just stopping there. Beat ExpressVPN 2022 informed TECHJAZZUP that it will be releasing two new audits this month, one of which would be a new Cure53 audit of its TrustedServer.
