ExpressVPN Test (2024)

ExpressVPN

8,32 u
7.7

Speed

9.1/10

Privacy

9.0/10

Features

8.8/10

Support

8.0/10

Price

3.8/10

Positiv

  • Providers from B.V.I and high customer satisfaction
  • Good speeds across all servers
  • Easy installation and handling
  • Stable server connections also well suited for use with router
  • No log files about user activities

Negativ

  • Unfortunately, the customer service is only available in English
  • Devices must be created manually before use, which could be easier!
  • Log files about user login times and IP addresses used
  • High price and too high commissions for "websites" that recommend the service uncritically
  • ExpressVPN belongs to Kape, a company that has also bought VPN comparison platforms like vpnmentor.com. It is therefore difficult to find independent reviews like ours on the net!

ExpressVPN Experience & Review 2024┆Not the fastest VPN in the market

ExpressVPN is a VPN provider based in the British Virgin Islands with offices in Ireland. The VPN service offers a choice of VPN servers in 94 countries worldwide. An over-complete number of access software for all devices. ExpressVPN is available with explanations and websites and thus makes a pretty good impression. Unfortunately, the support as well as the software is only available in English. ExpressVPN was founded in 2009.

New owners and recommended by companies that pretend to be independent!

ExpressVPN was bought by Kape Technologies in September 2021. The official purchase price was a whopping USD 936 million. This Israeli technology investor, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, also owns the VPN providers “CyberGhost”, “PrivateInternetAcess” and “ZenMate”, as well as the “supposedly independent” VPN comparison site “vpnmentor.com”.

In the meantime, these circumstances of affiliation must be viewed very critically, as ExpressVPN not only makes use of very high commissions to website operators to receive good recommendations but also recommends websites belonging to the same group that claims to be independent.

ExpressVPN Test (2024) 1

Our opinion about Express VPN

Our experience with ExpressVPN goes back to 2010, when we were looking for a fast provider. At that time, VPN locations were already available in 28 countries, and the speed was already extremely good. In our ExpressVPN test, we paid special attention to this point based on our experiences back then. Anyone who has dedicated themselves to this discipline in their name should also be measured by it. In terms of price, ExpressVPN proved to be a stable service. The prices have hardly changed at all in the past years, and as before, no “special bait-and-switch campaigns” have been published. This all adds up to a very stable and reliable VPN provider.

Product nameExpressVPN
Recommended areas of application

The service has more than 10 million active and paying users and is therefore certainly a professional provider. Unfortunately, however, the service is still considered to have capabilities that it cannot quite fulfil. ExpressVPN is certainly not the fastest VPN on the market. In terms of price, it is too expensive.

Test: The advantages and disadvantages of ExpressVPN are briefly explained

Advantages of ExpressVPN:

  • ExpressVPN has many servers worldwide which are very well-maintained and stable.
  • The service offers very good support for streaming US TV and video portals and good support for English content when streaming.
  • Can also be used without problems on VPN home routers.
  • A wide range of available worldwide locations.

Disadvantages of ExpressVPN:

  • Only English customer service and applications are available.
  • Many test reports on the internet are simply glossed over on purpose due to high commissions and do not reflect objective reality.
  • In a direct speed comparison with other services, ExpressVPN is only in the good midfield.

Many manipulated ExpressVPN reviews on the net.

The service promises commission payments of 90% of the turnover for websites that recommend the service!

This is why ExpressVPN often appears in the first three places on many comparison sites. While this is true of many websites and services, it is quite obvious with ExpressVPN, as no weaknesses are ever found in the provider. These high commissions for the VPN comparison sites are of course also reflected in the overpriced purchase price. It is about 100USD per year. This circumstance is nothing special in itself, but we would like to point out that the service is really good, but many ratings on the internet are clearly glossed over.

ExpressVPN brief overview

Based on BV.Island, ExpressVPN is relatively well protected from access by authorities. There are practically no requirements there to collect data from users or to pass it on to the authorities. However, Express VPN is of course not really operated from there, the company also has employees in Ireland and the USA and the billing is also not handled by BV.Islands. This raises the question of whether the company is therefore only apparently based there.

However, this practice affects many VPN services. It is therefore unfounded to assume that the provider would now be more or less secure due to its location and operation in the USA or in EU countries.

More than 10 million users worldwide

There is no doubt that Express VPN, with more than 10 million paying customers and its founding before 2009, is one of the older and more stable providers on the market, and the total turnover of more than almost 800 million USD already justifies that the company is naturally very stable.

High commissions for recommendations

Express VPN has grown so quickly worldwide mainly because the websites that praise the service receive high commissions. Affiliate marketing is a common practice and can also make sense, but in the case of ExpressVPN, the amounts paid out were linked to conditions for particularly good results in test reports, which led to particularly successful partners also receiving more than a one-off 120 USD commission for a single customer.

However, since this fact is not disclosed to the users, we strongly criticise these procedures for lack of transparency and manipulation!

Operating site
Clearing location
Local legislation has an impact on customer protection
Server locations0
No log files
Own DNS Server
Virtual server
Dedicated server
RAM-Disk Server
Hardware owner
IP addresses owner

Prices & Tariffs

ExpressVPN users can use up to 6 devices in parallel, so even small families can be protected with only one account. If you want to use several devices, it is recommended to use a VPN router at home, because this only counts as a single connection, no matter how many devices use this router.

However, there are no limits to the service, i.e. the transmission speed is not restricted, you can change all the locations provided as often as you like and use them without time restrictions. The apps and access software are provided free of charge.

Try Express VPN without risk

The service offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can cancel your access at any time within the first 30 days and get back the full amount you paid in advance. No other form of testing Express VPN is offered.

Costs / Tariffs
Free use
Tariff (1 Month )12.95 u
Tariff (6 Months )59.94 u (per month 9.99 u)
Tariff (12 Months )99.95 u (per month 8.33 u)
Number of simultaneous connections per account
Test options

ExpressVPN payment methods

Unfortunately, ExpressVPN does not offer many payment methods, only various credit cards or PayPal are available. No anonymous payment methods are available.


Speed with ExpressVPN

The tests we carried out on the speed and bandwidth of the VPN connections clearly showed us that ExpressVPN does not show any weakness in this respect. Every test was possible and the bandwidths sometimes even exceeded the connections we made directly. That’s how it should be, for which we give it 100 out of 100 possible points in the test! Anyone who values stable conditions and constantly high bandwidths (file sharing/torrent or streaming benefits from this) is well positioned with ExpressVPN.

Maximum speed tested
Download
0
Kbps
Jitter
0
Ms
Ping
0
Ms
Upload
0
Kbps
Germany | 25.12.2023

But it would be much faster!

However, if you look at what other VPN services offer and therefore also rely on other newer VPN protocols such as “Wireguard“, you quickly get the impression that Express VPN is no longer completely up to date. For technical reasons, OpenVPN servers can hardly manage more than 250 MBit/s and with a protocol like Wireguard, gigabit bandwidths can also be realised. That’s why providers like OVPN, with more than 800 MBit/s data transmission, are now clearly ahead.

Links: Test: OVPN – the fastest VPN/ OVPN website

Comparison with other VPN services

Maximum speed tested
VPN service name

ExpressVPN

OVPN

NordVPN

Surfshark VPN

Perfect Privacy VPN

CyberGhost VPN

Download121900 kbps879900 kbps361300 kbps431444 kbps388990 kbps228733 kbps
Upload129230 kbps898222 kbps335444 kbps410980 kbps400080 kbps213870 kbps
Jitter1 ms0 ms2 ms1 ms2 ms5 ms
Ping31 ms25 ms13 ms14 ms19 ms28 ms
Tested with OpenVPN (UDP) on25.12.202307.03.202424.12.202307.03.202407.03.202424.12.2023
Connection withinGermanyGermanyGermanyGermanyGermanyGermany

Lightway technology for improved performance

The new Lightway protocol was developed by the ExpressVPN team to provide a faster, more secure and more reliable experience, especially on mobile devices. Lightway is said to provide seamless connectivity (no more disconnects) and longer battery life thanks to its elegant, lightweight codebase. With Lightway, you stay connected even if your device changes networks or disconnects unexpectedly. As soon as you’re back online, so is your VPN – no need to re-establish the VPN connection.

Lightway is available now as a beta version for the ExpressVPN apps for Android, Windows, Mac, Linux and Router, with iOS to be released soon. To try Lightway simply update your app to the latest version.

We will test the new VPN protocol soon and report on our experiences.


Software and Apps

The ExpressVPN applications are all made from the same mould.

They resemble each other despite different devices and are very easy to understand. Even in Arabic, you would probably find your way around with all the basic functions. This creates confidence is comfortable and of course helps newcomers. In addition, some security features could be built in, which, for example, prevent you from communicating without a VPN in the event of a short-term network failure. The apps all do an excellent job of preventing this.

Pictures of the ExpressVPN apps

ExpressVPN Länderauswahl

ExpressVPN country selection

ExpressVPN Verbindungsfenster

ExpressVPN connection window

ExpressVPN Software Auswahl

ExpressVPN Software Selection

ExpressVPN Einstellungen

ExpressVPN settings

ExpressVPN Browser Erweiterungen

ExpressVPN Browser Extensions

But if you have a lot of experience with VPN providers, as we do, then you often also appreciate quality programmes that are not fabricated by cheap foreign labour in the wage dumping sector. That’s why we highlight this here as well. It is all as it should be, and as we, unfortunately, cannot always expect it to be. The list of available solutions for various devices is also long. This also includes game consoles or even rare mobile phones. VPN for every device!

VPN app on all your devices
VPN app on all your devices

Supported devices of ExpressVPN:

  • Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8
  • Max OSX
  • iOS (iPhone, iPad)
  • Apple TV with SmartDNS
  • Android versions 2, 3, 4, 5
  • Amazon Kindle/Fire
  • Linux and router with OpenVPN
  • PlayStation with SmartDNS
  • Xbox with SmartDNS
  • Manual configuration of other devices with PPTP or L2TP/IPSec protocols

With this, ExpressVPN is really set up quite extensively and the appropriate support should be provided for every user and for all devices used. In addition, an installation guide helps to find the right software version and installation instructions very easily!

ExpressVPN Protection Summary
“Protection Summary” on Android

New since December 2020: “Protection Summary” for Android

The new “Protection Summary” gives you information about how ExpressVPN protects you online. On the start screen of the Android app, the “Protection Summary” shows the time you are connected to the VPN per week and when your IP address data is protected by the VPN. This feature is especially important in the “always-on” world, where your mobile device is likely to be connected to the internet pretty much all the time and a VPN provides an extra layer of protection. The new feature is still in testing and is currently only available for Android.

ExpressVPN plans to implement the “Protection Summary” and other new features such as the “Security Assistant” for more security and privacy for other operating systems in the course of the year.

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Available protocols
Own applications/apps
KillSwitch function
Applications language

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Site selection

ExpressVPN offers access to IP addresses from 94 countries with more than 3000+ VPN servers worldwide via hundreds of VPN servers. In addition, new server locations are added almost monthly; thus, the network is constantly expanded. ExpressVPN also helps users to select the fastest VPN, even on their mobile phones, by offering an automatic ping test, which then suggests the fastest VPN servers for the current connection. It could hardly be more convenient.

At the server locations, there is a choice of different VPN protocols.

OpenVPN UDP, OpenVPN TCP, L2TP/IPsec, IPsec, IEKv2 or PPTP are supported.


Privacy protection/anonymity with ExpressVPN

NO LOG FILES?

Since the main location is in the British Virgin Islands, the provider is NOT subject to EU or even USA record-keeping requirements. In addition, it is ideal that content on the internet such as TV streams or other country-specific blockades can be bypassed or unblocked by obtaining the IP address of an anonymous server in another country.

ExpressVPN also presumably only stores a few log files for this purpose and also the user data of the customers.  But of course, Edward Snowden would use another VPN provider, because in the end you have to trust the provider and there are, of course, providers who will store less of their users, because due to the limitation of the tariffs to a limited number of devices, the login and logout times and IDs of the devices used must of course also be available.

But if you only need privacy for websites or file sharing, or if you only want to unblock content from other countries, you’re in good hands! You can also be fairly safe from being investigated by national authorities.

However, since the provider pretends to be the most secure in the world but can still record device logins, it only scores 65/100 for privacy.

Anonymous on the Internet
Changed virtual location
Protection against requests for information
Prevent general monitoring
Prevent targeted surveillance
No log files
Obfusication (masking)

Download / Torrent with ExpressVPN

The service undoubtedly protects its users from being spied on and also offers very good results when using torrents or downloads. Important functions here are “KillSwitch” but also that the servers can quickly deal with very small data packets such as those used for torrent downloads. Both factors apply to the service and therefore many torrent users still use this service. The sites in the Netherlands and Sweden were particularly fast in our test.

Where the service has weaknesses, however, is when we talk about the maximum achievable speeds, here services that use other protocols have already achieved a clear lead even for the use of torrents.

Download and torrent
Torrent use allowed
Own Torrent Server
Avoid warnings
Port forwarding

Streaming with ExpressVPN

International streaming possible

Those who are also interested in content from other countries and want to use Zoho or BBC Player, for example, are also really well served by the service. The technicians at ExpressVPN learned early on how to circumvent many of the geographic blocks of the video portals and by now the service probably offers more international portals for use than any other VPN service.

In general, the service is really recommendable for most other streaming requirements.

Streaming of TV and video content
Use on home router
Use with KODI
SmartDNS
FireTV App
Avoid warnings
Supported streaming platforms
Supported international streaming platforms

Travelling with ExpressVPN

The service is a good companion when travelling and in hotels and can also convince with really impeccable apps for mobile devices. The speeds are also easily sufficient for streaming geographically blocked content and videos. The very extensive support of video portals for bypassing geographical blocks is also ideal here.

Where we see criticism is that the service is quite restricted in some countries, such as China, and cannot be guaranteed to be ready for use everywhere because of this. For such countries, we recommend VPN providers that offer appropriate protocols such as Wireguard or Shadowsocks.

VPN for travel and abroad
Use in restrictive networks (China, hotels)
Obfusication (masking)
Protection in insecure wifi networks
Shadowsocks or SOCKS5

Online Games with Express VPN

Online gaming also depends on low latency times, and ExpressVPN offers these as well as sufficient support for game consoles and routers. The latency times are actually very low throughout and are certainly also a consequence of the fact that the provider now also uses extremely fast RAM memory on its own servers to process the entire operating system (ram disk).

We can therefore certainly recommend the service to online gamers.

Online Gaming
Low latency
Use on game consoles
DDoS protection

On the router at home!

ExpressVPN even offers its own routers, but these are very expensive and also not really fast, so not at all recommendable. But you can use the service quite easily on normal ASUS routers and many others. This is usually the recommended method and these routers can be integrated into any network without any effort.

The advantages of operating on your own VPN router are:

  • Only one connection is established for all devices connected to the router.
  • 24h protection of all devices at home is realised
  • No apps or applications necessary on the devices
  • Geographical locks are bypassed for all devices, even if they would otherwise not allow VPN connections (Apple TV, TV sets, etc).
  • Additional security through a second router that is not directly accessible from the Internet.
  • Often integrated malware and anti-virus functions reliably replace paid anti-virus software on the end devices.

Operation on VPN client router
Use on routers
Load Balancing
Failure-free operation
Own router application
Compatible with


Customer service

Customer service is not only available by email but also via live chat, although it is only available in English, which can cause some difficulties for some users, especially with technical questions.

The fact that one would expect more from a service for just under 100USD per year tarnishes the otherwise really good impression; users with little knowledge of English will also quickly reach their limits when contacting the customer service.

Customer service
Applications language
Customer service
Language in customer service

Test ExpressVPN for free!

ExpressVPN offers a risk-free purchase and ExpressVPN trial by promising a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Summary of Express VPN

Express VPN is a comprehensive and easy-to-use VPN service that specialises particularly in fast transmission rates. The service impresses with a variety of available installation options for almost all devices and a very very simple operation. Privacy is protected as standard.  The 30-day money-back guarantee should make it easy to test this provider yourself.

However, if you don’t want to spend that much money, you will quickly find services that offer more line and cost significantly less.

The fact that these are often not rated so well on other VPN comparison sites or chip.de or computerbild.de is due to the excessive payment models that ExpressVPN offers here. Up to 120 USD are paid out for a new ExpressVPN customer and change the rating results of many websites to clear recommendations for the service!

LINK to ExpressVPN

Features Overview

Here you will find all the functions that ExpressVPN offers you.

Special functions
IPv4
IPv6 (new)
Static IP
Shared IP
Multi-hop VPN
NeuroRouting
Malware filter
Firewall
Tracking Blocker
Obfuscation (mask)
RAM disk (k.HDD)
AlwaysOn Server
Own DNS
Port forwarding
VPN-to-TOR
No log files
Autom. IP change
LoadBalancing
Virtual server
Dedicated server
Own hardware
Own IP addresses
SmartDNS
Own Torrent Server
KillSwitch

FAQ

Is there an ExpressVPN crack?

ExpressVPN is an online service that you can only use if you have a valid account. Sharing the account with others makes little sense, as you also have a maximum number of connections at the same time. By the way, the software is available free of charge because it can only be used with a valid account.

Does Netflix work with ExpressVPN?

ExpressVPN is not recognised as a proxy and you can also use Netflix USA via it, no matter where you are.

How can I cancel ExpressVPN?

The service offers a money-back guarantee for the first 30 days. This can be claimed by writing to customer service. The direct link to an online form can be found on the provider’s website.

Who test ExpressVPN?

We tested ExpressVPN and do not receive any remuneration for it. We work independently in any case, but we have also noticed that many other VPN sites are influenced by the high commissions ExpressVPN is willing to pay.

How fast is ExpressVPN?

We have tested ExpressVPN ourselves several times but have never been able to transmit more than 150,000 kbit/s with it. It also depends on the device used and the VPN protocol.

How secure is ExpressVPN?

ExpressVPN offers very good privacy for normal use. However, some providers include significantly more security features and are then used by really vulnerable people.

What is ExpressVPN?

ExpressVPN offers its customers access to VPN servers in more than 90 different countries. For this purpose, one can use the free ExpressVPN applications. This allows users to appear as if they were physically in the connected country and thus bypass geographical barriers.

Why is ExpressVPN so expensive?

The provider pays very high commissions for websites that recommend the service. Individual websites receive up to 90 USD in commissions from ExpressVPN for new customers. In our opinion, this is reflected in the price. Objectively, there is no other reason that would justify these high prices.

Is Express VPN free of charge?

No, you cannot use ExpressVPN for free. What is provided free of charge are the apps and applications, but with these, you cannot use the ExpressVPN service without having paid access.

Is Express VPN legal?

There are legal restrictions in using any VPN service. These restrictions only exist in a few countries such as China, Turkey or Saudi Arabia etc. Within the entire EU, there are legal regulations that would prohibit the use of a VPN. If VPNs were banned, then all companies would also give their employees access to their own network via VPN or governments and other organisations would transfer data insecurely on the Internet.

What can you do via a VPN?

There are many possible applications for a VPN service like ExpressVPN!

  • The most important advantages:
  • Anonymity on the Internet
  • Privacy under control
  • Access blocked content on the Internet (bypass geographical blocks)
  • Cheaper shopping on the Internet
  • Speed of access to data on the Internet
  • Avoid throttling by Internet service providers
  • Protection against attacks from the Internet

Erstellt am: 19. October 2022

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