what is vpn and pricing of vpn

 

What Is a VPN?

When you connect with a VPN, it encrypts all internet activity from your PC and routes it to a server controlled by the VPN company. Anyone on the same network as you won't be able to spy on your activity, and out on the web your true IP address and physical location are masked. This is especially useful if you find yourself using that sketchy, unsecured Wi-Fi at the local coffee shop. It's also useful at home, where your ISP is eager to sell your anonymized data.

It's important to know what a VPN can and can't do, however. To really disguise yourself online, you should route your traffic through the labyrinthine Tor network. You should also protect your machine with standalone antivirus, protect your accounts by activating two-factor authentication wherever it's available, and use a password manager to create unique, complex passwords for every site and service.

Top 3 best vpn for android and pc*

VPN Protocols

VPNs are a mature technology and as such there are a lot of different ways to create a VPN connection. I prefer OpenVPN, which is an open-source project. That means its code has been picked over for vulnerabilities. ExpressVPN, happily, supports OpenVPN UDP/TCP on Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. It also supports configuring routers to use OpenVPN.

ExpressVPN also supports the older L2TP protocol on macOS and Windows, and the much less secure PPTP on Windows only. I don't recommend using either, unless you absolutely have to for some obscure legacy reason.

It's notable that ExpressVPN supports OpenVPN in its iOS app. Apple makes app developers that wish to use OpenVPN jump through additional hoops, so some developers don't bother. ExpressVPN also supports the IKEv1/2 protocols on iOS, which is my next-best choice of VPN protocol after OpenVPN.

Recently, ExpressVPN has begun a public beta of its own Lightway VPN protocol. This custom protocol uses the open-source wolfSSL cryptography library, which is smart because trying to make your own crypto from scratch can be a dangerous endeavor. We haven't tested the new protocol yet but plan to do so in the future.

The Wireguard protocol is the heir-apparent to the OpenVPN throne. This open-source project has been long in development and just recently left its experimental phase, leading some VPN companies to adopt it. In my limited testing, I have found this new technology to be extremely fast. I hope ExpressVPN follows suit, but it's not a major issue for the moment.

Pricing and Features

ExpressVPN has three subscription options: $12.95 billed each month, $59.95 billed every six months, and $99.95 billed annually. Like most services, the only difference is for how long you commit. The company accepts payment by all major credit cards, PayPal, and other services such as Alipay and WebMoney. ExpressVPN subscriptions can also be purchased with Bitcoin. 

The current monthly price of a VPN service averages around $10.21, which is quite a bit below ExpressVPN's $12.95 asking price. Many VPNs come in well below the average. Mullvad, for example, costs just €5 per month ($5.92 at time of writing), making it one of the cheapest VPNs available. 

You'll save money with ExpressVPN's annual plan, but $99.95 is well above the $71.87 average we see across the industry. Kaspersky Secure Connection is notable for having the lowest annual fee of any VPN I've yet reviewed, at just $29.99 per year. Generally, we advise against starting with an annual VPN subscription. Instead, use a free or short-term subscription so you can test out the VPN with all the sites and services you need.

The only thing cheaper than cheap is free, and ExpressVPN does not offer a free VPN subscription tier. That's unfortunate, because the best way to tell if a VPN will work for you is to try it out at home. TunnelBear VPN does offer a free trial, but limits you to 500MB of data per month, while HotSpot Shield's free subscription cuts you off at 500MB per day. ProtonVPN, on the other hand, places no data restrictions on its free subscription and has a flexible pricing structure that can get you started for $5.00 per month.

Previously, ExpressVPN limited you to just three simultaneous connections from different devices. I'm happy to say that the company has improved its offering to match the industry average of five simultaneous connections. That welcome change comes a little late as several VPNs challenge that expectation by offering less restrictive plans. NordVPN offers six connections, and CyberGhost seven, while TorGuard VPN lets you choose how many connections you'd like with a simple slider that goes from five to 205. Avira Phantom VPN, Encrypt.me VPN, Ghostery Midnight, IPVanish VPN, Surfshark VPN, and Windscribe VPN don't even bother to limit the number of simultaneous connections.