ExpressVPN Review: Is It Really ‘Fastest VPN’ in the World?

ExpressVPN is a VPN service based in the British Virgin Islands. Operational since 2009, it is one of the most reputed and best VPN services in the market. Its privacy-protecting and anonymizing capabilities are praiseworthy, but the thing that catches everyone’s attention the moment you enter ExpressVPN’s website is the speed claim. The words “the fastest VPN on Earth” are prominent and emphasized. While many VPNs make similar claims, we investigated with our ExpressVPN review whether it is the fastest VPN.

ExpressVPN Review

In this in-depth ExpressVPN review, we will cover every detail of ExpressVPN, including its servers, pricing, speed, supported platforms, pricing, and more. Let’s start with the Pros and Cons.

ExpressVPN Servers

ExpressVPN has over 3000 servers in 105 countries and 160+ locations worldwide. While there are a few VPNs that offer these many servers, it’s kind of an exclusive club. These servers offer shared static IPs and are located in all the major locations worldwide. There’s always an ExpressVPN server near you. This helps improve the already fast connection speeds and ensures that there is never server congestion, resulting in fewer connection drops. It also provides Stealth servers for countries like China and UAE which use practices like deep packet inspection to identify and block VPN users. VPN usage is banned in the UAE now, so having a VPN that hides the fact that you are using a VPN is important.

There were no DNS, IPv4, or WebRTC leaks with ExpressVPN. It keeps you protected at all times, and the DNS, IPv4, and WebRTC results gave a good idea about how well the VPN works toward protecting your privacy and identity.

ExpressVPN for Netflix

Netflix is hitting VPN users hard as it tries to keep its service geo-restricted and prevent outsiders from accessing Netflix USA. That version has the best content, so it is understandable that you would want to unblock Netflix USA. But where most VPNs fail, ExpressVPN succeeds.

It can help you unblock Netflix USA through a few servers. These servers are all obviously in the US, but there’s no indication as to which one can help you out. This is rather smart because publicizing that information will result in Netflix blocking those servers.

To access Netflix USA with ExpressVPN, just ask their customer support about which servers can help you. You can also use their SmartDNS service (more on this later). You can also check ExpressVPN’s Netflix page.

ExpressVPN for Kodi

Kodi allows you to watch your favorite movies and TV shows for free. Although it is a great media streaming device, it cannot vouch for some of the free streaming links it gives you.

There’s no telling who might be running those links, and the operator might spy on you. Therefore, it’s best to use ExpressVPN for Kodi as well. Setting up ExpressVPN on Kodi is simple, and you can follow the setup guide on their website.

ExpressVPN for Torrents

Torrent websites are an important part of everyone’s internet usage these days. They provide you with all the files and data you might want, like movies, TV shows, games, software, music, etc. It is quite easy to download torrents through a client, but anyone can see your torrent activity when you download torrents without a VPN.

Any malicious user in the pool can spy on you, or any curious person connected to the same public network can see your activity. Moreover, ISPs often throttle the bandwidth when you download torrents.

To keep yourself away from all prying eyes and download torrents freely, use ExpressVPN. It will hide your torrent activity from everyone, and its high-speed servers ensure that your download speed does not suffer. Not all ExpressVPN servers support P2P, but you can always ask customer support for help.

ExpressVPN Pricing

If you are looking for a pocket-friendly VPN service, then ExpressVPN is not your cup of tea. It’s not for people running on a strict budget with its $12.95 monthly package. The annual package offers a considerable discount ($6.67/month) due to the longer subscription, and there are discounts every now and then, but it remains one of the most expensive VPN services.

But you can use their no-questions-asked 30-day money-back guarantee to good effect. If you find that ExpressVPN is not what you expected and the service is lacking in some areas, you can request a full refund within a month. While most other VPNs offer a 7-day money-back guarantee, ExpressVPN offers a 30-day guarantee.

Desktop users do not have the option of a free trial. However, a 7-day and one-day free trial are available for iOS and Android users, respectively. Although one day isn’t time enough to test the service, it’s in compliance with Google Play regulations, so there’s not much that can be done.

You can pay using credit cards, PayPal, Bitcoin, and various third-party merchants.

ExpressVPN Speed

VPNs tend to decrease your browsing speed slightly because of the encryption overhead that is added to your connection. But what separates the best is how steep the speed reduction is.

The better VPNs ensure minimal speed reduction, while the best VPNs ensure that the reduction is unnoticeable. ExpressVPN is one of the best VPNs, so it’s no surprise that you don’t find any noticeable drop in the connection speed.

Testing through different servers during different times gives a reasonable estimate of a VPN’s speed, and ExpressVPN returned promising results.

ExpressVPN provides one of the fastest download speeds among all VPNs. Streaming videos in 1080p resolution and playing online multiplayer games are no problem when using ExpressVPN.

When you download torrents or regular files, you will notice that connection speeds are similar to those without the VPN. Sometimes, you might even find that the speeds are better based on your chosen server. The only issue you might face is a connection drop or two every other day.

Protocols and Encryption

Although one might use a VPN service for many reasons, privacy and encryption are on everyone’s list of requirements. ExpressVPN gives you as many options as you want from within the client. You can choose from PPTP, L2TP, OpenVPN, and SSTP.

The encryption is the modern standard AES 256-bit, and authentication is an impressive SHA-512. Both provide a service that keeps out all nosy parties and ensures that your online activity is your business alone.

It also helps you share sensitive information over the web without worrying about getting intercepted through a man-in-the-middle attack.

Clients and compatibility

ExpressVPN offers dedicated clients for Windows, Mac, and Linux and an Android, iOS, and Amazon Fire TV Stick app. You can also use the website’s setup guides to set ExpressVPN up on your Smart TV, Roku, gaming console, Chromebook, and Routers. You can also order a pre-configured router to protect your entire home network with ExpressVPN.

The best part about doing this is that your router is only counted as one device, and you can extend that protection to as many devices you want to connect to that router as you want. Before setting up ExpressVPN on your router, check if they are compatible. If that’s not the case, but you want a VPN on your router anyway, go for their pre-configured routers.

The VPN clients are the most intuitive and feature-rich you will see. While you cannot change the encryption type from within the VPN for security reasons, you can change VPN protocols and servers freely. By default, it is set to OpenVPN over UDP, which is a good choice.

The client will automatically choose the best server based on location and usage, but you can override that and choose your own. When setting up for the first time, you must enter an activation code for any device you connect. This lets you connect to the VPN when you start the client later.

The UI is attractive, and you can use all features, like ‘Network Lock,’ which works similarly to an auto-kill switch. Network lock protects you from DNS and IP leaks and keeps you safe in case of connection drops. This is especially useful when downloading anything with a VPN, especially torrent files.

Downloading torrents without VPN protection is not advised because anyone can see your torrent activity from the pool, and you can face legal action and experience bandwidth throttling from your ISP. Since ExpressVPN allows P2P, you can use ExpressVPN torrent downloads and be free to leave your system because you have Network Lock’s assurance.

The Mac client differs from others in that it also has the Split Tunnelling feature, which allows you to choose which apps’ traffic passes through the VPN servers. Before you do this, always know what you are doing. Otherwise, you will end up making a hole in your own defense.

You can use ExpressVPN on up to eight devices simultaneously. Previously, you could only use one device. But ExpressVPN has modified that feature, allowing you to choose the devices that best suit your requirements.

You can use it on two laptops and one phone or any combination you want. The only issue you can have is that before you want to connect the sixth device, you have to disconnect one of the eight devices using the connection manually. Simply shutting off the device does not help your cause. A slight inconvenience, but something you’d expect ExpressVPN to take care of.

ExpressVPN Logs Policy

A VPN that hides you from everyone but records everything you do is more dangerous and damaging than using the internet without a VPN. This is why using a VPN with a no-logs policy is important. ExpressVPN falls into this category.

Moreover, since it is based out of the British Virgin Islands, it does not face legal pressure from the NSA or GCHQ to disclose user logs. A no-logs policy and no data retention laws to worry about are what you should look for in any VPN.

The only things that ExpressVPN records are connection timestamps, the server you connected to, and the bandwidth used during the connection. Your personal IP address is not recorded, and this information is never shared with anyone. Although some people find an issue with this, there’s a workaround.

If you subscribe to ExpressVPN using their newly established .onion extension or a Tor proxy or someone else’s system and pay through Bitcoin, ExpressVPN will have no way of identifying you.

Customer support

ExpressVPN offers 24/7 customer support through live chat, email, and ticket system. All three systems work like a charm. You don’t have to wait even a minute to hear from a support executive through the live chat, and the responses are not just cordial but informative and helpful.

The same may be expected from their email and ticket systems. The knowledge base is good enough to handle most of the general queries. ExpressVPN’s customer support service is arguably the best we have seen.  

Extra Features in ExpressVPN

Stealth Servers

ExpressVPN has dedicated stealth servers to help people in China. The country has strict censorship laws, and while people have been using VPNs for online freedom for years, the government is making things harder. They are now hunting down VPN users and enforcing severe legal penalties on VPN users.

The Chinese government uses techniques like deep packet inspection to identify VPN traffic and locate VPN users. But ExpressVPN offers a way out. It has dedicated servers in Hong Kong to combat the Chinese government’s internet censorship.

Little is known about how these servers work and help you stay under the radar, but the only thing that matters is that they do help you circumvent government censorship if you live in or travel to the Chinese mainland.

Smart DNS

While VPNs help you unblock geo-restricted content, there’s another way, especially for streaming services. SmartDNS services allow you to unblock geo-restricted streaming services. While they work in a similar fashion to VPNs, there are a few differences.

For starters, SmartDNS changes your DNS settings and ensures that its dedicated servers handle DNS requests for geo-restricted services. This enables you to overcome geo-restriction. Since there is no encryption involved, you enjoy much higher speeds than VPNs, although you should understand that this comes at the cost of not having the protection that VPNs offer.

ExpressVPN offers a SmartDNS service that is simple to use and can help you unblock popular streaming services like Netflix USA and the BBC iPlayer. Setting it up is pretty simple. You can visit the website to get it up and running.

Browser Extensions

ExpressVPN offers browser extensions for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox users. It is a little different from other VPN browser extensions in that it is no good without the VPN client on the system. The browser extension gives you more control over the VPN client on your system. It doesn’t add anything to the experience but only improves the comfort of using the service on your system.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a VPN service that gives you everything you want, there’s no better choice than ExpressVPN. It has more than 3000+ servers across 160 cities in 105 countries worldwide. These servers provide you with some of the best connection speeds. Although we’re unsure whether it is the fastest VPN on Earth, as the website claims, it’s not too far off the mark.

As for privacy and security, you don’t have to worry about them when using ExpressVPN since it uses OpenVPN over UDP by default in the clients and uses strong encryption and authentication algorithms.

With 8 simultaneous connections, a great Smart DNS service to unblock geo-restricted content, P2P support, features like Network Lock and Stealth Servers, and arguably the best customer support service in the entire industry, it’s no surprise that ExpressVPN is one of the top-ranked VPNs.

The only downside is that ExpressVPN is a bit pricey. But with the 30-day money-back guarantee and a 7-day free trial for iOS users, you have ample time to try the service fully.

Legal Disclaimer - FireStickTricks.com does not verify the legality or security of any add-ons, apps or services mentioned on this site. Also, we do not promote, host or link to copyright-protected streams. We highly discourage piracy and strictly advise our readers to avoid it at all costs. Any mention of free streaming on our site is purely meant for copyright-free content that is available in the Public domain. Read our full disclaimer.

Disclosure - FireStickTricks.com is reader-supported blog. When you buy a product through links on our site, we may earn commission. Learn More