Established in 2012, VPN.ac is a Romanian provider that offers a solid privacy policy. The service is backed up by the knowledge of IT security experts who have been working in the industry for over 14 years. Even though it is not as well known as other providers, there are many aspects of VPN.ac that are sure to attract customers whose main concern is privacy.
The fact that it accepts Bitcoin as a method of payment is a reason you might want to consider it. Another reason is it’s also a quite affordable service. Let’s take a look at what else you can enjoy when you choose VPN.ac.
Features
VPN.ac has a client for Windows and OSX and supports PPTP, L2TP/IPsec and OpenVPN, which are the most commonly used protocols. They recently also introduced support for Elliptic Curve Cryptography which is extremely rare among VPN service providers.
PPTP is widely available and it is the default protocol for mobile devices, but it is not the strongest in terms of security. L2TP/IPSec offers security and speed while OpenVPN is generally regarded as the most secure and reliable option. VPN.ac offers L2TP/IPsec encryptions of 256-bit AES and 128-bit MPPE with PPTP. OpenVPN has a 128-bit BF-CBC and 256-bit AES with PFS for both.
The highlight in terms of security is their 4096 bit key size, which is almost unbreakable.
Using a VPN tends to slowdown your connection , but that depends on the server you’re connect to, as well as the protocol used. VPN.ac offers a consistently good speed across its servers and with L2TP/IPsec, you can enjoy the fastest experience. However, if privacy is your main concern, you should stick to OpenVPN. While the speeds of VPN.ac are considerably slower with OpenVPN, your connection is more secure.
Speed can be improved with the private DNS resolution. Your DNS queries are protected against wiretapping and MiTM hijacking. After testing VPN.ac for DNS leaks, we confirmed that they perform well.
When you use VPN.ac, you can ensure that your privacy is protected due to the fact that they do not keep any logs. None of your online browsing, nor any data transfers. This means that your activity on internet, including your emails, websites visited, files transferred or IM messages are not monitored. Only the connection history is logged in some occasions, in order to offer effective support and troubleshooting. Thankfully though, these connections logs are deleted on a daily basis.
Costs
Prices for their plans start at $9 USD per month. For 3 months, you pay $24, which brings the monthly cost to $8. If you subscribe to their service for 6 months, you save 33% as you only pay $36, reducing the monthly price to $6. You can save more money if you choose their 12-month plan, which costs $58 so you would end up paying just $4.80 per month.
It is important to note that VPN.ac does not offer unlimited traffic. All of their plans provide up to 1TB data transfer per month. This should be more than enough for most customers but may not suit those who use P2P or video streaming. That’s especially true if multiple users in a household are accessing the service.
VPN.ac states that their decision to impose a monthly limit is due to the fact that they want to make sure that their customers use the service responsibly. If one user transfers a sizeable amount of data per day, the overall performance and speed of a VPN server would be impacted. This would lead to other users not being able to enjoy an optimal experience.
Furthermore VPN.ac points out that providers that claim to offer unlimited bandwidth, are aware that the majority of their customers only use a limited amount of GBs per month. As such, they can safely advertise their service as unlimited, knowing that in reality, this will not be the case. The average user should be ok with 1TB. But if you happen to go over that limit, VPN.ac will charge you an additional fee in cases where the limit has been exceeded by over 25% or when the extra traffic cannot be justified.
However, they are willing to allow minor, justifiable increases in traffic. You won’t be charged extra.
Location and Performance
VPN.ac is proud of the dedication and expertise applied to the implementation and maintenance of its infrastructure. They have servers in 20+ countries. These are: Canada, United States, United Kingdom, France, Luxembourg, Sweden, Romania, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore. You can switch between locations whenever you want, which means that you can always enjoy a versatile internet experience.
P2P is allowed everywhere but they have optimized locations for such traffic. The list is: Netherlands, Luxembourg, Romania, Sweden, France, Singapore, Hong Kong. VPN.ac’s website offers detailed information about its network status, allowing you to find out which servers are working more efficiently. You can also get updates on any issues.
VPN.ac uses shared IP addresses, which means that the same IP address is assigned to multiple users. This enhances security, as it makes it practically impossible to identify individuals.
Customer Support
VPN.ac’s website stands out for its clarity and straight to the point approach. You will find useful tutorials and information about VPNs and related technology. Their FAQ sections offers important details about their service in an honest, clear manner. Their efficient customer supports really impresses.
Thanks to their knowledge and technical skill you will enjoy a satisfactory experience when you contact them. You can get in touch with them through email, ticketing system or live chat. Existing customers can also use Skype.
Conclusion
VPN.ac offers a great selection of features and a strong privacy policy that will gain them the attention of many customers. One thing we particularly liked about VPN.ac was the transparency and clarity of their website. While their great speed and network of servers is relatively excellent, what makes them stand out is excellent customer support.
Hopefully, they will continue improving their service keeping vpn.ac at the top of our list as a reliable VPN provider.