ExpressVPN Test (2024)

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• 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

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.

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