Let us begin our ExpressVPN review by observing that they have always had one goal and that is to enable users worldwide to browse the Internet safely, securely, and anonymously. To this end they have been providing VPN services since 2009 and are located in the British Virgin Islands where they are not influenced by the NSA, GCHQ, or the data retention directives found in other countries. Over the past six years, ExpressVPN has steadily grown into one of the largest premium VPN networks available. Their zero-logging network currently consists of 1000+ servers in over 100 cities spread among 78 countries across the world.
ExpressVPN supports most VPN protocols including OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec, SSTP, and PPTP. What is more, they have custom apps for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android. This makes it easy to connect to their network of servers from a variety of platforms and devices from almost anywhere in the world. They also employ some of the most secure ciphers using 256 bit strength encryption with client-server security settings to ensure that you are always protected while using their service.
Pricing and Special Offers
The ExpressVPN service is sold using three plans (shown below) whose prices are discounted according to the term length. These terms include one month, six months, and 12 months. Their basic rate is $12.95 per month. Signing up for a six month plan will bring the cost down to $9.99 and save you about 23% off the monthly price. The best deal is the 12 month plan at just $8.32 per month which will save you about 35% off the monthly price which is like getting four months of their VPN for free.
ExpressVPN offers their service in one package which includes the following benefits:
All of their plans include a 30-day money back guarantee.
You will have full access to the entire network of servers in 78 countries.
This includes unlimited speed, bandwidth, and server switches.
You can simultaneously connect one computer, and one handheld device, one wireless router, and a streaming media console with DNS from a single account.
You will have access to their MediaStreamer Smart DNS service but you must first register the IP address of your device on your account page of their website before streaming from your favorite providers.
You have access to their 24/7, round-the-clock online chat and email support services.
You will have access to the full suite of ExpressVPN’s easy-to-use software for all of your Operating Systems: Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, and Linux.
You can use any of the protocols they support including OpenVPN(UDP/TCP), L2TP/IPSec, SSTP, and PPTP.
As you can see above, ExpressVPN offers a generous number of ways to pay for their service. You can pay by credit cards which include VISA, Mastercard, American Express, Discovery, JCB, and Diners Club International. They also accept VISA debit cards, Electron and Delta. You can pay using PayPal and Bitcoin which will only require you to enter an email address. Finally, you can pay using Paymentwall which includes WebMoney, Alipay, UnionPay, Yandex Money, Giropay, iDEAL, SOFORT, Carte Bleue, Maestro, Interac Online, MINT, FanaPay, and OneCard.
Risk Free Trial Period
Although they do not have a free trial, ExpressVPN is so confident that you will enjoy the speed and reliability of their VPN network that they offer all new users a full 30-day money back guarantee. This is more than enough time to test out their VPN for yourself. If for any reason, you are not completely satisfied with their service, they will refund the full purchase price of your chosen plan. This reimbursement will be in US dollars and therefore the refund amount could differ from the amount originally paid in local currency or Bitcoin. You must request a refund within 30 days of initial purchase. Refunds after this period are at the sole discretion of ExpressVPN.
ExpressVPN Network and Server Locations
ExpressVPN has built a large network by providing a premium VPN that will keep you secure and anonymous while surfing the Internet. They have multiple locations in popular countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands. The ExpressVPN network offers a good balance of server availability and fast, reliable performance.
Countries
Locations
Servers
Protocols
78
100
1000
OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP, SSTP
Their network is comprised of over 1000 servers in 100 cities spread cross 78 countries worldwide. Let us review their full list of server locations:
Americas
United States: Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Las Vegas, NV; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; New Jersey; New York; San Francisco, CA; San Jose, CA; Santa Clara, CA; Seattle, WA; Tampa, FL; Washington DC
Canada: Montreal, QB; Toronto, ON
Argentina; Bahamas; Brazil; Chile; Columbia; Costa Rica; Ecuador; Guatemala; Mexico; Panama; Peru; Uraguay; Venezuela
Asia Pacific
Australia: Sydney, Melbourne;
Singapore: CBC, Marina Bay, Jurong;
Cambodia; Hong Kong; Indonesia; Japan, Tokyo; Macau; Malaysia; Mongolia; New Zealand; Philippines; South Korea; Taiwan; Thailand; Vietnam
Europe
United Kingdom: London, Berkshire, Chessington, Kent, Maidenhead;
Germany: Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Dusseldorf
Netherlands: Rotterdam, Amsterdam
Albania; Austria; Azerbaijan; Belgium; Bosnia & Herzegovina; Bulgaria; Croatia; Cyprus; Czech Republic; Denmark; Estonia; Finland; France, Paris; Georgia; Greece; Hungary; Iceland; Ireland; Isle of Man; Italy, Milan; Latvia; Liechtenstein; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Malta; Moldova
Africa, Middle East, and India
India: Mumbai, Chennai;
Algeria; Egypt; Israel; Kazakhstan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; South Africa; Turkey; Uzbekistan
Their network supports the OpenVPN (TCP, UDP), L2TP-IPsec, SSTP, and PPTP protocols. ExpressVPN has custom apps for a variety of OS including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android to make it easy to connect to their network from almost any device.
Privacy and Security
ExpressVPN has a strict no-logging policy with regard to your activity while using their service. They do track some information to help them maintain the performance of their network. Put in their own words taken from the privacy policy section of their TOS:
We are committed to your privacy and do not collect or log traffic data or browsing activity from individual users connected to our VPN.
… , we may collect the following information: times when connected to our service, choice of server location, and the total amount of data transferred per day. We store this to be able to deliver the best possible network experience to you. We analyze this information generically and keep the data secure.
The information collected is generic in nature and does not contain personally identifying information.
ExpressVPN protects your anonymity while using there service as well. They provide more anonymous ways to pay for their VPN such as Bitcoin. They share IP addresses between subscribers to help make your traffic more homogeneous. In addition, they mask your true IP, and assign you a virtual one which makes it harder for advertisers, governments, or anyone else to track your movements while surfing the Internet.
Their entire site is SSL secured using a 4096 bit CA and all of your data while connected to their VPN is securely encrypted using some of the best encryption protocols and ciphers in the industry like AES 256 bit CBC. They support a variety of protocols including OpenVPN which is their default protocol in all of their custom apps except iOS which defaults to the L2TP/IPSec protocol suite.
ExpressVPN Support
ExpresVPN provides 24/7 email ticket support for any problems you may have with most support tickets answered in just a few hours but they say no more that a day. They also have interactive chat support on their website which can help you with many questions. Their website has an excellent support area where you can see common questions and support issues. The support area also has well written manual installation and configuration guides for all the protocols that they support if you decide not to use their easy to use custom apps.
Hands-On Testing
You must first subscribe to ExpressVPN to be able to download their latest custom apps for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS and Android. Once you sign up for an account, they will send you a welcoming email with a password so that you can log into your account page on their website. From there you can choose your OS and download the appropriate app.
Connecting with the Windows VPN Client
As we said before, you must first sign up for an ExpressVPN account before you can get access to their custom apps. Once you have an account the support staff will send you a welcoming email with a link to the licenses and the email address and password that you will need to login to your account. Once you log into your account page you will see the subscription tab which will look similar to the image below.
This is where you can manage all of your account settings including turning off automatic renewal. Pressing the set up ExpressVPN button will take you to the download page where you can find the activation code that you will need for to activate their Windows app on your machine. The image below illustrates where to find this. It is recommended that you copy it to the clipboard for later. You can do this by highlighting the code and pressing Ctrl + C. Don’t worry as you are not limited to the number of computers you can install the client on.
Clicking on the green download now button will download the installation setup file to your computer. Once the file is on your machine, you will need to run it as an administrator so that it can install and configure the ExpressVPN Windows client on you computer. The image below shows the first and last screen in this process. There are a number of steps in the process but they are self explanatory. Just keep hitting next and install where appropriate to accept the defaults and you should not have any problems with the install. Near the end there will be a checkbox to allow ExpressVPN to collect generic usage information to improve their service. This is checked by default. You can also review and change this setting in the client later.
Once the installation is complete, you will see an ExpressVPN icon like that shown on the left below added to your desktop. Clicking on this will start up the Windows application. The first time you start up their client you will need to paste in the activation code that we copied to the clipboard earlier as is shown on the image to the right.
You can choose to launch the client on startup. It is selected by default but can be changed later. Once you have copied in the code, clicking on the ok button will complete the activation of the client software. Now that the client has been activated, you will be taken to the main connection screen as is shown in the screenshot on the left below. From here you can accept the recommended server and click the green connect button to begin the connection process or you can choose another server to connect to by clicking on the select another location link.
This will open the location picker window. Optionally, you could select the ellipsis button “…” and select location picker from the resultant drop list to access this window. This screen will be brought up with the tab you last used selected. There are four tabs on the location picker window. The one displayed above shows you ExpressVPN’s top server picks for you to connect to. The other options are the “star” or favorites list, regional list, and name list. These are shown from left to right in the image below.
The first image above shows the connection on the favorites tab. This tab shows a list of the three most recent connections with the most recent connection shown first. This is followed by a list of favorite destinations in alphabetical order. Favorites are selected or deselected by clicking on the star to the right of a location. Favorites can be selected as countries (Netherlands) or more locally as specific locations within a country (Netherlands – Amsterdam). If you select a favorite country, the app will try to connect you to the best performing server in that country based on your current location.
The second image above shows the connection ordered by region with the regions being Americas, Europe, Africa, Middle East & India, and Asia Pacific. The last list shows all the locations in alphabetical order. If a country has more than one location in it, its list can be expanded or contracted by clicking on the triangles next to it. Alternately, the complete list can be expanded or contracted by clicking the expand/contract icon in the upper right of the recommended, regional, or name list of locations.
Let’s go back to the drop down menu which we accessed by clicking on the ellipsis “…” button on the the connection window and shown on the right for reference. Selecting help from this list will offer the option to submit a support ticket or visit the support area of the ExpressVPN website. Selecting diagnostics will allow you to view or save the VPN commands for troubleshooting connection issues. The final option, quit ExpressVPN will close the Windows client.
The other two menu options, speed test and options will be discussed in greater detail below. The first of these is the speed test which is shown in the image below. To speed test will take about five minutes to run but is well worth it. We recommend that you run this test periodically. You can save your results to compare with future runs.
The speed test measures two metrics to try and help you choose the best performing VPN server in their network for your purpose. These metrics are as follows:
Latency – The amount of time it takes for data to move from your computer to the VPN server location (milliseconds).
Lower latency is best.
As a general rule the farther away a server location is, the higher the latency.
Download speed – A measure of the data transferred per second (kb/s)
Higher download speed is better.
The speed index combines these metrics (latency and download speed) into a quantifiable number that represents the overall performance you can expect when you connect to a server there from your current location. Note this table can be ordered by any column by selecting the column heading. For example, if you are outside the United States and want to connect to a server in the US, click on the location column heading to order the list alphabetically and then scroll to the US location which has the highest speed index.
As a general rule, a higher speed index location should provide you with the fastest connection to their VPN network for your current purpose. For general surfing, you will want to try a few higher index locations to see which will give you the best performance. This is a test of metrics between your actual location and a VPN server on their network so you cannot be connected to their network while running this test. Clicking on the “?” at the bottom of the test can offer hints to help you find the best performing server for your purpose.
The last menu that we want to examine is the options menu which has three tabs: general, protocols, and advanced. The first two of these are shown in the image below. The one on the left shows the general options tab. Its options include the following sections:
Startup (toggle checkbox)
Launch ExpressVPN client on Windows startup.
You should set this if you have the network lock (kill switch) set and you want to ensure that you are always connected to the service while using Windows.
Connect to last used location on launch.
This is useful if you always connect to a particular location for general surfing.
Network lock – This is ExpressVPN’s implementation of a VPN kill switch.
It defaults to being enabled.
While connected – It prevents Internet traffic from flowing outside the VPN tunnel.
When disconnected – It prevents your computer from accessing the Internet.
Once you reconnect – It restores Internet traffic automatically.
Network lock remains active unless you are disconnected from the service (not actively trying to reconnect), select cancel when connecting to a location, or select disconnect to stop the current connection.
You can also enter a new activation code to change subscriptions for new users, purchase a new subscription, and refer friends to get a free month of ExpressVPN service from the general options tab.
The protocols tab is shown in the image on the right above. By default, it is set to choose the protocol automatically which tries to connect using the OpenVPN (UDP) protocol which is fine for most purposes. You can also force OpenVPN (UDP) connections. It for some reason you cannot connect using the default setting or you want to verify that no packets are dropped, you can select to use OpenVPN (TCP). Be aware that this verification comes at the price of a slower connection. You can also connect using L2TP/IPSec with a preshared key and PPTP which is less secure and only useful for select purposes like streaming. Finally, you can use SSTP to make your connection. Be aware that using any type of connection other than OpenVPN may limit the number of locations on the ExpressVPN network that you can connect to.
The advanced tab (shown below) only has a couple of settings available. The first option ensures that there are no DNS leaks while using their service and is enabled by default. I suggest you leave this setting checked. The second provides anonymous data to the ExpressVPN staff to help them improve the performance of their VPN network.
Now that we have looked at all of the screens of the ExpressVPN Windows client and their settings, let us look at how easy it is to establish a connection to their service. Recall that there are two different ways that you can connect to a server on their network. You can click the green connect button on the “not connected” screen to connect to the location shown there (United States – the client will choose the a high performing server in the US for you) or select choose another location. You can also double-click a location to initiate a connection to it. In the second screenshot below we have double clicked on the USA – Atlanta location.
This results in the series of screens shown in the below image illustrating the connection process. The first image shows the unconnected state. The second image shows the connection progress as a green line at the top of the image just below “connecting…”, along with the location we are connecting to, and a grey button to cancel the connection. Notice that in both cases the the padlock is unlocked and red. Once the connection has been made (last image below), “connected” is now shown at the top, the lock is now locked and green, the location of the connection is shown, and a red disconnect button is present. Clicking on the disconnect button will return us to an unconnected screen with USA – Atlanta now shown on it as our most recent connection. USA -Atlanta will also now be displayed at the top of our most recent connections list. Remembers that selecting the cancel button while connecting or the disconnect button in the images below will cause the kill switch to be inactive.
As you can see, the staff at ExpressVPN have designed an easy to use Windows client to connect to servers on their VPN network. They have added some nice features such as DNS leak protection and a kill switch but have made it easy for anyone to use no matter their technical expertise. Connecting to a server is as simple as double-clicking on a location. They have defaulted the client to the best encryption protocol, OpenVPN (UDP) to ensure that you are always secure while connected to their service.
Connecting with the Mac OS X VPN Client
Those whose operating system of choice is Mac OS X have not been left out by the technical staff at ExpressVPN. They have created a client to make it easy for you to connect to VPN servers in their network as well. Similar to the Windows client, you must first sign up for service and then login to your account page on the ExpressVPN website to download the setup installation file. You will want to go to the subscription tab of your account and click on the green “set up ExpressVPN” button. This will take you to the licenses page where you can download the setup file for the latest client for Mac OS X 10.9 and above (Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan) as shown below. Clicking on the green “download now” button will download the setup file for the Mac client to your computer. Before doing this, select the activation code in the yellow box and use Command + C to copy it so that you can paste it in to the client in a moment to activate its license for your account. You can use the registration code on multiple computers. Just make sure to have the code handy as you will need to enter it the first time you launch the client on each Mac device.
Once the setup file is on your computer, you will need to run it to install the Mac client. This will install an icon to launch the ExpressVPN app on your Launchpad like that shown in the image on the left below. When you launch the Mac client for the first time, you will have to activate it by pasting in the activation code that we previously copied. The second image below shows this activation screen. Select the box above “launch ExpressVPN on startup” and hit Command + V to paste in the code. Once the code has been pasted in, click on the grey ok button to activate the client. The last screen shows that we have successfully activated the software license and can now start using the app.
Pressing the “start using app” button will bring up a screen like the one on the left below. This is the not connected state for the client. It is easily recognized by the big red unlocked lock. It also shows the last location that we connected to which makes it easy to reconnect there. Pressing the green “connect” button will connect us to USA – New York in our case. The connected screen in the middle image shows this connection. In addition to displaying “connected”, it has an image of a green lock in its locked state. This indicates that our connection is now secure and that we are connected to a VPN server in New York. Pressing the red ‘disconnect” button will close our connection. The last image shows the location picker screen which can be accessed by clicking on the “select another location” link from the screen on the left below. Alternately you can click on the ellipsis button “…” in the upper right of either of the first two screens and select the location picker from list the list that appears.
The location picker screen shown on the right above has four menu items for creating and ordering the locations that you can choose from:
Favorites or “star” – This shows two different list.
Recent Connected – This is a list of the three most recent connections ordered from newest to oldest.
Favorites – This is a list of your favorite connections in alphabetical order.
Favorites are selected by clicking on the grey star to the right of the location on any menu list. (The star will turn yellow indicating that it is a favorite location)
Favorites can be selected at either the country or city level. Favoring a city will always connect you to that city while a country will connect you to the best server location in that country at the current time.
Favorites can be deselected by clicking on the yellow star of the location you want to remove.
Recommended – List of ExpressVPN’s top picks for you.
By region – Tihs displays regional lists that you can choose from including the Americas, Europe, Africa, Middle East & India, and Asia Pacific.
By Name – This shows a list of all of the locations in alphabetical order.
Individual countries or regions can be expanded or contracted by clicking on the triangle shapes to the left of them. A full list can be extracted/compacted by clicking on the expand/contract icon (downward triangle with horizontal lines) in the upper right of the location picker screen.
As the screenshot below shows, the dropdown list obtained by clicking on the ellipsis has other options available besides the location picker. The second one is the speed test. The speed test screen is shown on the right below. This screen will help you determine the fastest connection for your current purpose. It measures a couple of different variables:
Latency – The amount of time it takes for data to move from your computer to the VPN server location (milliseconds).
Lower latency is best and as a general rule the farther away a server location is, the higher the latency.
Download speed – A measure of the data transferred per second (kb/s)
Higher download speed is better.
Using these measurements and some “black-box” calculations, ExpressVPN determines a Speed index which is a number which represents how fast your connection to that location will be right now. Higher speed indexes represent faster connections. The table can be sorted by any column heading by clicking on it. For example, clicking on the location column heading will order it alphabetically. This is useful to easily find the fastest server in a particular country. You can run a speed test and save the results for future comparisons. Clicking on the “?” at the bottom of the test will give you hints on how to find the fastest sever for your purpose. The help option will allow you to send a support ticket or provide a link to the ExpressVPN support page. The diagnostics option will allow you to view or save connection commands to help solve connection problems.
The final option that we want to examine is the preferences which opens a preferences screen with three tabs: general, protocols, and advanced. The general tab is shown in the image below on the left. This will let you choose to auto-launch the ExpressVPN client on startup and connect to the last location when the client is started. You can also buy new subscriptions and switch between them by entering a different activation code (this is equivalent to changing the user). Finally, you can refer friends to earn a free month of service from ExpressVPN.
The second tab of the preferences screen is the protocols tab and as shown in the image above. The protocols that you can choose from include the following:
Choose protocol automatically – This will let ExpressVPN choose the best protocol for your connection
This will usually be the OpenVPN (UDP) protocol.
UDP-OpenVPN – This provides the best speed and security but may not always work.
TCP-OpenVPN – This often work if OpenVPN (UDP) does not but it is slower.
L2TP-IPsec – Another available option that uses a pre-shared key.
PPTP – The least secure of all the protocols and only good for streaming.
Protocols other than OpenVPN may have a subset of network locations to connect to. Choose protocol automatically is the default and this is the best option for most users and should not be changed unless you have a connection problem.
The last tab of the preferences screen is the advanced tab which is shown below and currently only has one option. This option is whether you wish to share anonymous speed-test data and info about connections to help them make a faster, more reliable network.
The ExpressVPN client for Mac OS X has the same look and fell of their Windows client. It allows Mac users to connect and disconnect from their network with just a couple of mouse clicks. It does not have a kill switch like the Windows client or more advanced options. However, like the Windows client, it does make it easy for Mac users to choose a VPN server, connect to it, disconnect from it, and then reconnect to a new one. It helps ensures your privacy by securing your connection while using the Internet.
Connecting with the Android App
ExpressVPN has created an app to make it easy for Android users to connect to their service. Once you create an account and login to your account page, you will see a green “set up ExpressVPN” button. Click on this and it will take you to your licenses page where you can find the link to download the latest Android app for ExpressVPN. Expand the Android tab and click the green “download from Google Play” button as shown in the image below. Leave this window open, copy, or write this username and password down as you will need them to login to and activate the Android app once it has been installed on your device.
From the Google Play Store, click to install the app. The ExpressVPN app is compatible with Android 4.0 and above. Once installation starts, you will see a screen like the one shown below left. During the install, the app will ask you for some privileges which you must approve for the installation to continue.
Once the installation completes you will see a screen like the one shown on the left below. This is the welcoming screen. Swiping to the right will show you the middle and right screens. Pressing the “login” button from any of these screens which will result in the login screen shown in the middle above. Now is the time to enter the username and password that you recorded previously from your account page. The last image above tells you where to get your app login password if you failed to do this. Now that you have entered your login credentials, click on the red login button to complete the app activation.
This will bring up the screen shown on the left in the image below. Your ExpressVPN account has been activated on your device and you can start using the service. Clicking on the red “next” button will bring up the recommended locations that you can connect to. From here you can simply accept the top recommendation or one of the other ones by tapping on it to begin the connection process or you can click help me choose a server location as we have done. This will bring up a well written help screen on what a ping test is, how it can help you choose the fastest server, and how to run one. We will discuss more about the help system employed by the ExpressVPN Android app later in this section of our review.
After tapping on the “speedometer” icon on the top right of the middle screen above you will see a screen like the image shown on the left below. You could cancel the test or click the box if you wish this screen not to be shown again. We like the option to cancel the test so we did not click the aforementioned option. Running the test will result in a screen like those shown to the right of it. The middle screen shows a ping test with all countries compacted and the one on the right below shows a ping test which shows the United Kingdom extracted so the individual ping of cities within it can be seen. This allows us to manually choose the best server in the UK to connect to based on the lowest ping rate. Assuming no other cities had lower ping rates in the UK, it looks like UK – East London will provide us with the fastest connection in that region at the moment. Ping rates are a general guideline but you may have to test a couple to find the fastest sever connection for you. Tapping on the UK East London location starts the process to connect to it.
Their are three different location connection tabs that you can use to connect to a VPN server. These are the following:
Recommended – This shows the top connection locations recommended for you by ExpressVPN. We saw this tab earlier in this section.
Favorites – This shows the sites that you have selected as favorite connection destinations.
You select a favored connection by tapping the uncolored star beside the location name and turning it red.
You deselect a favored connection by tapping the red star beside its name.
All – This shows a list of all connections by region.
The four regions are as follows: Americas; Europe; Africa, Middle East & India; and Asia Pacific.
The image below illustrates the favorites and all connection lists. The first image below shows what the favorites list looks like when you first see it before you have selected a favorite location. It contains instruction for creating a favorite and an example. The middle image below shows the favorite screen once you have connected to a few locations and selected a few favorite connection. It is divided into two lists. The first is a recently connected list which shows the three most recent connections with the most recent first. This is followed by a list of locations you have favored. You will notice that this list also shows the ping values of each location in milliseconds. The final image below shows that the “ALL” list of locations is organized first by region. Each region can be expanded to see all its server locations so that you can choose a the best option to meet your needs.
The final way to choose a site to connect to is to click on the search icon (magnifying glass) at the top and begin typing the name of a location you want to connect to. This is a responsive search and will change as you continue typing. This is illustrated in the images below. The first image shows the search screen once we select the search icon. The second displays the list of locations that match our search as letters are added. Finally, the last screen has narrowed down our location to Cambodia. Tapping this location will connect you to a VPN server there.
Now that we have examined all the ways to find a location to connect to, let us examine the connection process on the ExpressVPN Android app. The illustration below shows you this process. First, tap on the USA -New York location under top recommendation on the first screen. This starts the connection process and the connecting screen appears like that shown in the middle image. This screen has a yellow circle surrounding the lock, the word connecting in the same color, the location of the VPN server you are connecting to, and a progress bar for the connection. It also lets you cancel the connection if you change your mind. The image on the right below shows what the final connection screen looks like. The lock is encircled in green, the word connected is below it in the same color, followed by the location you are connected to. Tapping on the red “disconnect” button will first bring up a warning asking you if you want to close the connection. Tapping ok to this warning will return you to the recent connections list with USA New York at the top of it. You can now swipe to the tab you want and select another location to connect to.
Tapping the three horizontal dots to the right of the speedometer icon will open a small menu screen with four items as follows:
My account – This displays information about your account and lets you refer friends.
Settings – This display a list of options that you can set or actions you can take.
Set preferred protocol – Tapping this will let you chose your protocol from the following choices: automatic, UDP, and TCP. (this is shown in the first image below)
Auto-launch – Tapping this will let you connect on boot, select a protocol to use, and a default location to connect to. You must save your setting to enable connect on boot. (this is shown in the middle image below)
Follow ExpressVPN blog – This will take you to the blog to sign up for its email list.
Refer friends – This will let you refer friends to get 30 free days of service.
Rate ExpressVPN onGoogle Play
App version
Share diagnostic data – Share anonymous info about whether connections to the VPN succeed so ExpressVPN can improve the service.
Log out – This will log you off the VPN network
Contact support – This will allow you to open and send a support ticket through the app.
Help – This is a series of helpful questions and answers to common questions you may have about using the app. (the main screen for this help is shown in the last image below)
We think the help topics in the Android app are a great feature and provide not only useful answers to many common questions that you may have about using the app but also hints and tips to help you master it. They will help you to make better use of the ExpressVPN network.
The staff at ExpressVPN have designed an easy to install and use Android app to be able to securely connect to servers in their network. It does not have the kill switch found in the Windows client but makes it easy to reconnect to their service if the connection drops. A few simple taps will have you connecting to the server of your choice.
Connecting with the iOS App
ExpressVPN has created an app to make it easy for iOS users to connect to the servers on their network. Once you create an account and login to your account page, you will see a green “set up ExpressVPN” button under the subscription tab. Click on this and it will take you to your licenses page where you can find the link to download the latest iOS app for ExpressVPN. Expand the iOS (iPhone, iPad & iPod) tab and click on the green “install ExpressVPN for iOS’ button as shown in the image below. Leave this window open, memorize, or write this username and password down as you will need them to login to and activate the iOS app.
From the Apple iTunes store, download the app to your iPhone or iPad device. Once the app downloads the installation will start. The images displayed below show some of the screens in this setup process. On the first image, you must tap allow or the setup will not continue. The middle image asks if you want to share anonymous data with the ExpressVPN support staff to help them improve the service. This is optional. The last image indicates that the setup is complete.
Tapping on the “take a tour” button in the last image above will display the following images from left to right. The first image below says you can either connect to the current location UK – London or tap the up arrow to select a different location. The middle image below shows the results of tapping for another location. This opens up the recommendations tab of the locations screen. The last image is the result of selecting the red “connect” button in the first screen. In this case it creates a connection between the true location, France – Paris (shown in blue on the map) and a VPN server at our chosen location, UK – London. A red connection line indicates that a connection has been made between the two locations. You could tap on the “disconnect” button to break the connection. This tour illustrates some of the features of the ExpressVPN iOS app that we will discuss in greater detail later in this section. Now that we have taken the tour, lets continue on.
Tapping on the “great, let’s go” button will take us to the first of screens shown in the image below. This is the login screen and its sister slide screens. The images just illustrate some of the features of the ExpressVPN service. Tapping on the “sign in” button will bring up the log in screen where you can enter your username (email address) and the password from your account page that you previous wrote down or memorized. This will activate the app on your device and let you begin connecting to the ExpressVPN network.
When you first log into the iOS app you will see a screen like the one shown on the left below. This screen will allow you to zoom in and out on the map as well as drag it left or right. The red dots on the map represent ExpressVPN server locations that you can connect to. The currently selected location is shown at the bottom of the screen under the “connect” button. The selected location in the first screen below is USA – New York. Scrolling the screen down and to the left allows us to tap on the USA – Atlanta location as we have done in the second image. This makes this the selected location as we can now see USA – Atlanta below the “connect” button in the middle image. Tapping on the Atlanta location also opened an information bubble showing an ExpressVPN logo, the location name, the IP address of the server at that location, and a blue icon representing an open connection. You can tap the blue icon to initiate a connection to the USA – Atlanta location. Alternately, you can just tap on the red “connect” button. The last screen displays a connection to a VPN server at the USA – Atlanta location. The blue icon now shows a closed connection and the red “connect” button has been replaced by the grey ‘disconnect” button. You can also see a red connection line between your actual location and the location you are connected to. Tapping the blue icon will break the connection returning you to the map centered on your home location which shows as a blue circle. Alternately, you could tap the “disconnect” button to close the connection.
Tapping the up-arrow (^) beside the the selected location will open up the locations screen. The location screen has three tabs which are as follows:
Recommended – This tab shows you the top server locations recommended for you by ExpressVPN.
The top recommendation is shown first followed by a list of other recommendations. This is illustrated in the first image below.
Favorites – This shows two different lists of locations. The first is the three most recent connections ordered by most recent. The second is a list of those locations that you have favored. This tab is shown in the middle image below.
You select a favored connection by tapping the uncolored star beside the location name which will then turn red. Tapping a red star will reverse the process.
All – This shows a list of all connections sorted by region. This tab is shown in the last image below.
The four regions are as follows: Americas; Europe; Africa, Middle East & India; and Asia Pacific. Tapping one of the down-arrows will expand that region.
The most recommended locations are sorted at the top of each region.
Tapping on a name under any of the location tabs will open a connection to that location. Countries can be expanded or contracted by tapping the triangles beside them. In addition to these tabs, you can also tap on the magnifying glass to search for a particular location. As you type letters in the search, the list of locations shown will respond and adjust until the one you are searching for appears. You can then tap on it to open a connection to it.
The last thing we want to examine for the ExpressVPN iOS app is the settings which can be accessed by tapping the menu icon (three red horizontal lines) at the top left of the screen as shown in the first image above The second image is the screen that opens when you tap the menu icon. The settings section in the middle of it has a few options that you can choose.
Auto-reconnect (toggle off/on)
VPN protocol – This is by default set to automatic. The screen on the right above shows the options that are available for the iOS app which are UDP, TCP, and IPSec.
Share diagnostic data (toggle off/on)
The iOS app designed by the ExpressVPN team is like the other custom software they have written. It is easy to install and use. With it, you are only a few taps from securely connecting to any VPN server in their network. They provide multiple ways of selecting the location you want to connect to. You can connect to servers in a variety of ways as we have shown in this section of the review.
ExpressVPN Speed Test
We were very pleased with the overall performance of ExpressVPN. You can see from the speed test below that their service performed well in our speed test. As expected, there was some speed loss while connected to their network due to the encryption used by the connection. However, this was very minimal in the case of ExpressVPN.
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13649" src="http://www.vpnfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/expressvpn-speed-test.png" alt="ExpressVPN Speed Test" width="700" height="200" srcset="http://www.vpnfan.com/wp