ibVPN specializes in providing invisible browsing VPN’s – in other words, VPN’s that can connect you to the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, France and several other countries regardless of where you live whilst not keeping any activity logs of your usage. This allows you to access geo-restricted services and websites like the BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Zattoo, Netflix, Pandora and many others, while remaining confident that your privacy is never breached. ibVPN, which is the abbreviation of Invisible Browsing VPN, offers private, secure browsing with no activity tracking, no traffic limitation (read: unlimited bandwidth; limited by your internet connection) and unlimited switches between servers.
Main Features of ibVPN
ibVPN offers private, secure browsing with no activity tracking, no traffic limitation (read: unlimited bandwidth; limited by your internet connection) and unlimited switches between servers. This provider does not currently offer dedicated IP’s, which might limit their customers in a single IP area. In addition, ibVPN is solely compatible with DD-WRT supported routers. All other routers remain unsupported at this time.
ibVPN works with almost every protocol including the premier 3 – PPTP (manual setup or VPN client), L2TP (manual setup) and OpenVPN (VPN client). They, additionally, offer SSTP (accessible from the Middle East, Arab countries and China – only for Windows and Linux OS). Unfortunately, at this time, they do not support the SSL protocol. The encryption type for each protocol is 256-bit for OpenVPN and L2TP, and up to 128-bit for PPTP.
One of the unique aspects of ibVPN is ibDNS feature, which allows its users to access popular media streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu without any loss of speed. It uses your VPN connection to pass the geo-restriction, but then lets you stream the media using your own internet connection. When using ibDNS, your real IP will be shown and not that of your VPN connection. On sites like Netflix, BBC iPlayer and other popular streaming services you probably don’t really want to hide your IP anyway.
Privacy Protection
As you can imagine, the most important aspect of an invisible browsing VPN service would be their ability to keep you, well, invisible. The privacy policy for ibVPN is ironically very visible, which is a good start.
In summary, ibVPN promises to not spy on users nor monitor their internet usage. They do not keep any logs with the activity of their users. They do, however, record and keep some data to be able to charge you correctly for the VPN connections you’ve made through their service. They store things like the duration of your VPN connection, the time and location of where the connection was made and the amount of bandwidth used during the session.
The information ibVPN does record is only used for billing and to thwart criminal activitiesonline. This information enables ibVPN to enforce their Terms of Service and hence, curtail spam, crimes using the service, amongst other things. If there is any grounds for violation they use these trace logs to determine which account is in violation and consequently terminate the service and/or take further action. Moreover, ibVPN promises to not give out any of the usage information to third parties unless necessary for service quality and maintenance needs.
This is a pretty solid, simple privacy policy that hits all the right buttons for a VPN service specializing in shielding your internet usage from prying eyes.
OS, Device Support
ibVPN is compatible with most devices and operating systems. It supports Microsoft’s Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7, while it also runs smoothly on Linux and Mac OS X 10.2 and higher. Gamers will be happy to learn that its VPN services work on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as well, opening up a whole world with new gaming opportunities. ibVPN also runs on iPhone, iPad, Windows Mobile and Android devices.
This list is not exhaustive – hence, any PPTP, L2TP, OpenVPN compatible devices/software is supported as well.
Pricing
One of the best features of ibVPN is the 2-hour FREE trial of the service. I personally attempted to use their 2-hour trial service as research for this article. Note – The trial starts from the moment that you apply for it, not from the moment you start using it. However, setting up your ibVPN connection is simple and should only take you a couple of minutes. Once set-up, you can connect to any of the servers available under the total VPN plan, such as those in the US, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Canada, France and Switzerland. These servers are only a fraction of those available, should you decide to chip in for the Ultimate VPN that includes 100+ servers spread over 39 countries, proxies in 5 and torrents in 6 of them.
They also offer numerous ways to gain hold of free VPNs through random drawings from their pool of subscribers (10 per month) and purchasers (5 per month).
Listed below is a comprehensive index of the prices based on the region you are trying to access and the type of VPN that best suit your needs:
- Premium VPN: Ranging from $10.95 a month to $82.95 for a year.
- Total VPN: Access to a couple of VPN servers in each country, starting from $7.95 a month to $69.95 a year.
- US & Canada VPN: Get access to American and Canadian servers for just $4.95 a month or $36.95 a year.
- UK & Ireland VPN: Get access to Irish and UK servers for $4.95 a month or $36.95 a year.
- EU VPN: Access to servers in France, the Netherlands, Germany etc. for $4.95 a month to $36.95 a year.
- Torrent VPN: Access torrents from Luxembourg and the Netherlands for $4.95 a month to $36.95 a year.
If your VPN needs require more than this, and you would like multiple people to get access to ibVPN at the same time, you might want to look into one of the Multi VPN’s formulas that allow you to connect on the same VPN through one account:
- Family VPN: $19.95 a month to $169.95 for one year.
- Small Business VPN: Per month you pay $27.95 for 5 connections, $49.95 for 10 connections and $99.95 a month for 20 connections. Per year you pay $249.95 for 5 connections, $489.95 for 10 connections and $999.95 for 20 connections.
These different plans are also available in 3 month and 6 month subscriptions.
Payment methods are pretty extensive and secure – hence, they do not accept debit or credit cards on their website. You can also set up recurring payments via 2Checkout for hassle-free continued VPN usage. Accepted payment methods include PayPal, Alertpay, AliPay, Yandex, PaySafeCard, Webmoney, iDEAL via Avangate and Liberty Service.
ibVPN has a severe fraud prevention system – if you are already behind another VPN (oh brother!) or proxy, your account may be flagged as fraudulent. Once the payment is processed and approved a few minutes later, you will receive an email, comprising of pertinent details like your connection information which is also accessible through your account page directly on their website.
Customer Service
The website has a detailed set of FAQ pages, cataloguing installation instructions and exhaustive information of protocols and encryption. Added perk – installation instructions are provided on the website separately for each device, OS and protocol type. Their nine years of experience, put together with the great product they provide, guarantee your satisfaction.
However, for those outliers, ibVPN offers a 15-day money back guarantee; if you are not satisfied with the VPN service provided to you, you can request a full refund within 15 days of your purchase through their user-friendly support ticket system.