Ivacy review: The BEST low-cost VPN for streaming

Ivacy review: What you NEED to know

Ivacy is mid-specced VPN with a low price tag. Making it a great option for anyone looking to (cheaply) access streaming services from another region. However, if you’re looking for a VPN for privacy reasons, then you can do better (more on this later). 

Ivacy review: Steaming

I’d wager that streaming performance is the most desirable feature a VPN can have. With that in mind, it’s nothing but good news here. Ivacy is an overachiever regarding the number of services it unblocks.

US Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime. Ivacy unblocks these services with ease. Ivacy also has a good, but not perfect, record at unblocking second-tier streaming services such as RTE (Ireland), ITV (UK) and TVNZ (New Zealand).

Ivacy review: Speed

Unblocking a streaming service is only part of the puzzle. Performance is equally important. Having a VPN that unblocks US Netflix but is only capable of returning a stream that buffers is no good.

More good news here. Ivacy’s servers are fast. My most recent test, when connected to Ivacy’s dedicated US Netflix server, return speeds of more than 60mbps. Or, in other words, enough to stream Netflix in 4K three times over.

Ivacy review: Security

On the surface, Ivacy has everything in place for the security conscious. It talks a good game in terms of privacy with claims of “no logs” on both the main pages of its website and more importantly, the small print too. 

Here’s the important section verbatim “We strictly do not log or monitor, online browsing activities, connection logs, VPN IPs assigned, original IP addresses, browsing history, outgoing traffic, connection times, data you have accessed and/or DNS queries generated by your end. We have no information that could associate specific activities to specific users.”

Ivacy also passes another important security “must-have”. It’s a Singapore-based company. This is important, not because it’s based in Singapore specifically, rather it’s a region that’s located outside of the five-eyes, nine-eyes, and 14-eyes information-sharing agreements.

I’d suggest taking all of the above with a large pinch of salt though. VPNs have made claims similar to this in the past, and then they miraculously hand over user logs when powerful demand them.

The best way to be sure of a VPN’s security credentials is to see the results of an independent privacy audit. Established VPNs such as ExpressVPN and TunnelBear are market leaders here and proudly use their proven “no logs” network as a marketing tool too.  

Unfortunately, Ivacy is yet to subject itself to an independent privacy audit. And for that reason, its hard to recommend this VPN for anyone who wants a watertight VPN for privacy reasons.

But as I said above, for most people who want a low-cost VPN for streaming US Netflix or downloading torrents, this is a feature that shouldn’t be a dealbreaker.

Ivacy review: Apps

There are no issues here. Ivacy has dedicated apps available to download on PCs, Macs, iPhones, iPads, Androids, Fire TV Stick, Linux, Chrome and Firefox.

Ivacy’s app is one of the more user-friendly interfaces too, allowing the user to quickly connect to the best server based on what they need a VPN connection for. Quick connect, Secure Download, Streaming and Unblocking are the self-explanatory options here.

Streaming is the one that will be most useful for the majority of users. Here, users can connect to the fastest servers for the streaming service that they want to watch. There are servers for US Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Amazon Prime, RTE, ITV and dozens more.

Ivacy review: Verdict

Ivacy is a well-priced VPN that offers users a reliable and easy-to-use way to unblock their favourite streaming services – US Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, etc. – with impressively-fast speeds (enough to watch a 4K stream several times over!). 

Ivacy also looks to offer its users excellent privacy protection too, with its strict “no log” promise. However, until Ivacy commissions an independent privacy audit, it’s impossible to verify how watertight this feature is.

If you’re looking for a low-cost VPN to unblock US Netflix and other popular streaming services with transfer speeds fast enough to stream 4K content, Ivacy is hard to ignore.

Click here to get Ivacy for $2.25/month (30-day money-back guarantee)

Read next: BBC iPlayer not working with VPN? Here’s how to fix that!