Server Activity at IPVanish: Leave Russia, Add in UK, Australia

After the recent news out of Russia in regards to their ‘anti-terror’, or pro-spying and surveillance, legislation, first it was Private Internet Access having their servers seized leading to them leaving their Russian presence.

On July 12, IPVanish stopped offering servers in Russia as well. Never content with giving their customers less, they have since added new servers. Let’s look at what’s happening.

Russian server problem and the law

IPVanish announced on their blog on July 12 that they were ending their Russian server support. Considering the current climate in Russia this was a move to protect their users as they would have been forced to hand over:

Personal user information (name, IP address(es), account information)
User activity (data transfers, browser history, connection timestamps)
Contents of user communications
Data decryption upon request

For a VPN with a strong no-logging policy, complying with that just wouldn’t fit their business. Not only would it have been a poor business decision to stay, but it would be in direct conflict with the core of their business: Protecting the privacy of their customers!

With Russia’s new laws I wouldn’t be surprised if you see more VPNs completely abandoning their servers in Russia. There would be little benefit to anyone in or outside Russia to use them.

New servers keep IPVanish growing

That news was a bit of a negative, but IPVanish has announced to me via email that they are still growing despite this setback in Russia. To their already impressive server numbers they have added:

10 new servers in the UK
10 new server in Australia
3 new servers in New Zealand

These growing markets, especially with how rampant censorship is in the UK, and how bad surveillance is becoming in Australia, need more servers and IPVanish is taking care of their customers.

This brings their current VPN server counts to:

552 total servers
46 servers in the UK
41 servers in Australia
3 servers in New Zealand

Having twice as many servers in New Zealand is going to do wonders for those in that country in terms of fast and available servers.

Despite setback IPVanish keep on growing

With countries like Russia enacting repressive surveillance laws, VPN providers are going to have to continue growing in countries which allow their businesses to run. These businesses protect you and I, ordinary people with heightened online security awareness, from all types of threats and risks.

IPVanish has protected their users by both leaving Russia, and by adding more servers in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Needless to say they remain our #1 ranked VPN overall, and in a number of categories.