Express VPN Review

Reliability & Speed Tests

ExpressVPN was found to have minimal impact upon speed. As a regular web user you will likely experience no change in how quickly you feel that you’re browsing the web. Here’s the speed of the connection used during testing with no VPN: Here is that same Internet speed when connected to a server in the UK: And a server in the USA, which was further away from the testing location: Testing with random servers across the world were then conducted with no noticeable slowdowns occurring. There will be ping issues and lag the further you connect from home, but this is true of any VPN. Looking at the reliability of the connection, it was found to be adequate. ExpressVPN pride themselves on a 99.9% server uptime. We can not state that this claim is true as we experienced two disconnects during our testing. This was slightly more often than other providers we tested by a very small margin.

Pricing & Payments

ExpressVPN have taken the route of many other VPNs and offered their same service across three price points: Each price gives you access to the exact same service. It’s the length of time which you can access ExpressVPN which changes. Best of all, no matter which package you choose you get a 30-day money-back guarantee! That’s more than enough time to figure out how you feel about their VPN service. To look at their pricing honestly, they are on the high end amongst VPN providers. They do offer a premium product, and quality never comes cheaply. At the end of the day, if you’re not satisfied about value for your money that guarantee is waiting for you during the first 30 days.

Features

The interface that ExpressVPN are presenting to you feels like the last generation of VPN software. Everything is a pop-out menu from the main screen. More VPN providers of late are moving towards a one-window design with tabs guiding you through your options.

ExpressVPN are using pop outs for everything. This makes for a less ‘clean’ interface than other VPNs. You saw above that you can select different server countries. That window was an isolated pop-out window. Here’s what you actually see after clicking ‘Select Another Location’:

Two windows side by side. Next to ‘NOT CONNECTED’ you will see three dots. Clicking that gives you a pop-down menu with more pop out windows. This is not the sleekest of interfaces we’ve seen.

Features

The feature list for ExpressVPN is their only real weakness. It may be a minor problem for some, but it could be a major issue for others.
They offer basic features like auto-connect to last location, and launch on start:

This plays to their strength of being easy to use. Checking both of those boxes will connect you to the last VPN server country that you used automatically when you start your device. This is pretty much their only real feature for ease of use and protection that we can discover.

On the encryption side, they do allow you to select from a wide range of VPN encryption protocols:

Again, they have an ‘automatic’ choice. If it isn’t clear by now that ExpessVPN want to be the VPN that does everything for you... Please, pay more attention!

If you’ve been paying close attention, you’ll have noticed that the first and second features are from the same window, just under different tabs. The last tab says ‘Advanced.’ We expected to find advanced features in there, such as VPN kill switch technology, or IP address changing. All that we found under that tab was the option to send ExpressVPN connection data for service improvement. This was quite disappointing.

Servers & Countries

ExpressVPN currently have servers in 94 countries, and claim over 1500 VPN servers. This, obviously, is quite impressive. In our list of the top 5 VPN providers, they sit at second overall in terms of total countries with a server.

This will help you get the lowest possible ping rate wherever you are in the world, frequent travellers will love this. Better yet, you can unlock content placed behind a geo-block with ease. Expats and travellers can expect to always have a way to connect with home, and to connect securely with a nearby server.

Support

Their customer support has been found to be average. You can get help via:

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  • Live chat: This is good for quick questions. Answers supplied are cut and pasted from a template so you can not expect to get too far into any problem. Our team tried to press them for answers, and the live chat agent simply disconnected.
  
  
  • Email/Contact form: This is the most efficient option for in-depth needs. Response times were found to be adequate, ranging from hours for smaller issues, to up to 24 hours for problems which required multiple people being involved.
  
  
  • Tutorials/Guides: They have built a number of tutorials and guides on how to use their products. Troubleshooting guides can help you solve basic problems without contacting support, as well as educate you about VPNs. The setup guides they have built clearly show that ExpressVPN is for the beginner online privacy enthusiast as they take you through the most basic of steps.
  
  
  
  

Policies & Logging

ExpressVPN is a well known VPN that operates out of the British Virgin Islands. This location is a huge bonus for them as they are exempt from US and EU data retention laws. If that’s not enough to sway you, they also offer a 30 day money back guarantee if you have any issues with their service. They started their VPN in 2009, which has given them plenty of time to work on their product. Disconnect problems are infrequent, speeds are minimally impacted, and they have a good selection of servers worldwide.

ExpressVPN have a no logging policy, and a policy against collecting browsing data from their users. From their Terms of Service:

They then go on to state that they will record when you connect to the service, which server you connect to, and how much data you transmit per day:

The conclusion that we can come to here is that they do not keep any information that is user identifiable, but they will keep information which can track abusers. In their terms of service they also forbid anyone from violating copyright. In reality, they do not block or disallow P2P file sharing. They have stated that when they are sent a DMCA they do not relay this to a customer as there is no data which can track back to them.

In regards to court orders, they will only react to one received from their host country, the British Virgin Islands. At the time of this writing, not a single one had yet been sent to them.

Technical Assessment

Expert Recommendation

ExpressVPN are an above average VPN provider with a software package that will satisfy the new VPN user. Those with more experience may be bothered by the lack of clear direction as to which features their software has.

Use ExpressVPN if you want:

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  • A ‘one button’ approach to connectivity.
  
  
  • A consistent connection speed with few drops.
  
  
  • To be able to download via P2P and torrenting.
  
  
  • A wide range of server host countries to unlock geo-blocked content.