VPN.ac Review (2024): Fast and Easy to Use (2024)

VPN.ac is a relatively unknown VPN provider operating out of Romania. However, its list of advanced features had us wondering why this service is not up there with bigger VPN providers. Hidden issues or just tough competition? That’s why we decided to write this extensive VPN.ac review and look for potential problems under the hood.

Our experts analyzed its security, reliability, performance, and other essential VPN aspects. Did they discover a diamond in the rough or just a mid-tier product with a polished facade?

Read our full VPN.ac review below to find out.

VPN.ac: A Short Review

An important factor of any VPN provider is security. VPN.ac is a provider that uses high-end encryption features. They support OpenVPN protocol, L2TP/IKEv2 (IPsec), PPTP, TLS, and WireGuard. Additionally, you can activate SecureProxy, which allows you to split-tunnel your traffic and encrypt data through a browser add-on.

When it comes to privacy, VPN.ac performs well. It’s located in Romania, and because this country is not a member of the 14 Eyes coalition, your data is not likely to end up in the hands of foreign authorities. The service has a no-logs policy, but connection logs are kept while in session (though they are automatically erased right after).

Though its server network is pretty small, VPN.ac provides Double-Hop and China-optimized servers. It also has clients on all major operating systems, including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Its software is easy to install and looks great, too.

During daily use, the connection stayed fast and reliable, allowing us to browse and stream without issue. There’s no live chat, but customer service is supportive and quick to respond.

All in all, we give VPN.ac a score of 7.6 out of 10 in our VPN.ac review.

SpecificationsVPN.ac

💵 Price	From $3.75 a month
📱 Operating systems	Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux
💻 Connections	6
💳 Payment methods	UnionPay, PayPal, iDeal, Gift cards, Cryptocurrency, Credit card, Other
🔒 Protocols	OpenVPN, IKEv2, WireGuard, L2TP/IPsec, PPTP
📥 Torrent options	Torrenting allowed
📅 Money-back guarantee	Money-back guarantee, 7 Days
📋 Logs	Connection Logs
🎬 Works with

Deal

Grab a two-year VPN.ac subscription for $3.75 per month

VisitVPN.ac

Speed – How Fast Is VPN.ac?

VPN.ac gave us some pretty good speeds during testing. VPN speed is essential for smooth streaming, downloading, and gaming. That’s why we conduct thorough VPN speed tests for each service we review. VPN.ac got an 8.5/10 for performance.

Here’s what we discovered:

• VPN.ac offered decent speeds on nearby servers.
• The day-to-day operations felt smooth, except in Japan.

Speed test results for VPN.ac

For this VPN.ac review, we tested its Windows app from our company office in the Netherlands. We first measured our speed without a VPN and used it as a benchmark for VPN.ac’s performance.

Here are the final results of our VPN.ac speed tests.

As you can see, VPN.ac maintained good speeds on nearby servers. However, the VPN.ac download speed dropped in the US, cutting our download almost in half. Moreover, the VPN.ac download speed also went downhill in Japan, where we kept only 32.1% of our original download. Our upload also plummeted to just 24.2%./p>

Ping values were acceptable for the most part. However, the latency in Japan was 455 ms, which is an absolute deal-breaker for online gaming. The connection times ranged from 5 to 21 seconds for us, depending on the server distance.

All in all, VPN.ac will perform well on high-speed networks and nearby servers. If your connection is slow or you want to use international VPN locations, we recommend going with Surfshark instead.

Alternatively, you can check our list of the fastest VPNs for this year.

Speed during daily use

During our test run, we watched some of the best Netflix shows, YouTube clips, and anime. VPN.ac performed adequately on closer servers and even unblocked Netflix US. We couldn’t access any other streaming services, though.

We also played Minecraft and MTG Arena on nearby VPN servers without any problems. Having said that, playing Minecraft on Japanese servers was an ordeal, and we don’t recommend it. Finally, we were quite satisfied with the torrenting speeds on the Dutch and Romanian servers.

Safety – How Secure Is VPN.ac?

VPN.ac can do a good job of keeping your data safe. A VPN has to ensure solid online privacy and security. It should hide your real IP address, encrypt your traffic, and keep zero dangerous logs. This allows you to remain anonymous online and avoid data theft and other intrusive actions. We gave this VPN an 8/10 for online safety in our VPN.ac review.

The following features stood out during our testing:

• VPN.ac supports OpenVPN, L2TP/IKEv2 (IPsec), PPTP, TLS, and WireGuard.
• The company collects temporary connection logs.
• There’s a kill switch for OpenVPN only.
• We experienced zero data leaks during our tests.
• The registration requires your email and country info.

Protocols

Your VPN’s overall performance, safety, and flexibility depend on its VPN protocols. With that in mind, VPN.ac supports the following tunnels:

• OpenVPN: This is the gold standard among VPN protocols. It provides the best speed/security ratio and supports a lot of encryption ciphers. It should meet the needs of most VPN users. VPN.ac also implements OpenVPN XOR, which is used for obfuscation. You can pick this option to bypass censorship in China and similar countries.

  

• IKEv2: This high-speed protocol lets you switch between networks without disconnecting. It’s ideal if you use your phone frequently and constantly changing networks. It’s also a perfect option for avid travelers.
• L2TP: The successor of PPTP offers decent speeds but is easily blocked by VPN filters and firewalls. Since it’s also resource-heavy (due to double encapsulation), we don’t recommend using this protocol.
• PPTP: The encryption implemented by PPTP can be broken relatively easily nowadays. As such, it offers no security benefits, and you should never use it.
• TLS: VPN.ac uses TLS for its extensions to protect your browser traffic from hackers, eavesdroppers, and other malicious entities.

VPN.ac also supports WireGuard – the youngest and fastest protocol out there. However, it has been in beta for years, and you have to set it up manually. This is not ideal for VPN beginners, who’d benefit more from a built-in WireGuard like the one offered by NordVPN.

Regarding VPN.ac’s encryption, you can use OpenVPN with 128 and 256-bit AES, which are both highly secure. You can also pick the ECC algorithm (elliptic curve cryptography) instead of RSA. ECC offers stronger encryption for the same key size and is generally faster than RSA. On the other hand, RSA offers wider compatibility than ECC, so you should always use it with older software.

Logging and privacy

VPN.ac is owned by a Romanian company called Cryptolayer (ex. Netsec Interactive Solutions SRL.), which puts it outside the Eyes alliance. You also don’t have to worry about any mandatory data retention laws. In 2009 and 2014, the Romanian Constitutional Court held that such directives were unconstitutional. In other words, VPN.ac doesn’t have to log any data.

In the image below, you can see what information VPN.ac records during usage.

Their ToS also states that the software collects connection timestamps and the “amount of traffic transferred.” They don’t keep any activity logs, including on the sites you visit, DNS queries, or email messages.

This is not a good logging policy. Your IP address and connection timestamps could be used to identify you and mount a hack attack. VPN.ac’s privacy policy states that those records are deleted when the session ends, but they shouldn’t log them in the first place. Furthermore, we only have the company’s word that the info is erased.

Cryptolayer doesn’t share any personal data unless required by law. We also don’t like the phrasing of the ToS document here. Namely, it says:

We do not cooperate with any requests for information unless we are ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction.

What is a “competent jurisdiction?” Why not say Romanian courts? Is there another jurisdiction the company will answer to?

All in all, we don’t like VPN.ac’s privacy policy and recommend going with a more privacy-oriented VPN like Mullvad. Mullvad also supports cash payments, which guarantees complete anonymity.

Kill switch

VPN.ac comes with an automatic kill switch. So, you don’t have to worry about dangerous data leaks if VPN.ac drops the connection. However, the kill switch only works with OpenVPN, making all other protocols unsafe.

After installation, the kill switch is disabled by default. You’ll have to activate it manually from the Advanced menu in the client. This caused some connectivity issues during our testing, but a quick restart fixed everything.

DNS filtering

DNS filtering blocks malicious domains known for phishing and other scams. It can also block ads, malware, and trackers. Note that DNS filtering cannot replace dedicated antivirus programs. It doesn’t stop or quarantine malware; it just prevents you from accessing malicious content at the DNS level.

The wording of these options is not intuitive, so we’ll explain what they do:

• SecureDNS: Enables the ad/malware/tracking filters without affecting the ability to unblock Netflix US.
• SecureDNS + local streaming: The filters remain the same, but we got the so-called default Netflix catalog, only featuring their originals. We don’t understand this option, and why would someone choose it instead of unblocking the US catalog.

Does VPN.ac leak your data?

During our tests, we saw zero DNS or IP leaks with VPN.ac. This means your private info will always be safe and hidden from prying eyes. We ran hundreds of tests across all VPN server locations and haven’t experienced a single problem.

VPN.ac did a good job hiding our real IP address and switching locations as needed for our extensive testing.

What information does VPN.ac need?

The info you’ll have to provide during registration includes your:

• Country
• Email address
• Payment method

Given VPN.ac’s logging policy, we disliked sharing info about our country. If you can buy this VPN anonymously with crypto, we recommend taking that route. If you can’t, you should use PayPal and avoid credit cards. Also, we advise creating a burner email without personal identifiers and using that for registration.

Usability – How User-Friendly Is VPN.ac?

VPN.ac is a user-friendly VPN that is very focused on customer experience, as we discovered in our VPN.ac review. The support team, for example, consists of tech experts with many years of experience. User-friendliness is at the core of how they’ve organized its website and VPN software. After assessing, we gave the service an 8/10 for usability.

When reviewing usability, we noticed the following things:

• The VPN.ac website is well-organized and easy to navigate.
• The installation is fast and effortless.
• VPN.ac apps are easy to use.
• The prices are acceptable for the value.
• The support team responds quickly, but there’s no live chat.

The VPN.ac website and installation process

The VPN.ac website is well-organized, with clear navigation options. The “Get it now” button will take you directly to the purchase screen. Here, you can choose a subscription, provide the necessary data, and pick your payment method.

After registration, we accessed our personal dashboard (or “client area”) by clicking the corresponding button in the top-right corner. This page allowed us to:

• Inspect our active services, due invoices, and open tickets
• Check the latest VPN.ac news
• Open a support ticket and access the knowledge base
• Download VPN.ac apps for our devices
• Expand our subscription

The installation of VPN.ac was quick and effortless. Currently, the company offers native VPN apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, Linux (Beta), and Android. You can set it up manually on other platforms like Android/Fire TV and VPN routers. It also offers browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. For this VPN.ac review, we primarily tested its Windows app.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to install VPN.ac for Windows:

1. Visit VPN.ac’s official website.
2. Click on “Get It Now” at the top of the homepage.
3. Pick a subscription option.

   

4. Provide the required info and click “Complete Order” at the bottom of the page.

   

5. Use the chosen credentials to access your personal dashboard.
6. Click on the “Apps & Guides” button in the top-right corner.

   

7. Choose your platform and click the “Download” button.
8. Click on the downloaded setup file to start the installation.
9. Follow the instructions to complete the installation.

After installation, you’ll receive an email with your VPN.ac client login credentials. It will also feature some helpful links and advice to get you started.

When you start the VPN.ac app, go to “Preferences” and enter your assigned username and password. Note that you won’t get a login button or any confirmation. You’ll log in just by entering your credentials in the corresponding fields.

VPN.ac supports up to six simultaneous connections (plus another six on WireGuard). Note that the one-week trial account only supports up to three connections. This is acceptable but can’t compare with Surfshark or PIA, which can support unlimited devices.

VPN.ac appearance and ease-of-use

VPN.ac’s clients are fairly easy to use but also offer some advanced features for power users. This makes VPN.ac a good service for both beginners and advanced users alike.

The client features a prominent on/off button with location and IP address info underneath. There’s also a shortcut to VPN.ac’s list of servers for easier access. Once you connect, you’ll be able to monitor your connection time as well. You can also add protocol and port info to the main screen from the Settings menu.

During our testing, the client would sometimes show the wrong location. For example, when we used the New York server, the app showed our location in Serbia paired with a Serbian IP. However, this is just a client glitch that doesn’t reflect the actual situation, as confirmed by ipleak.net.

The “Preferences” tab allows you to customize your VPN.ac experience. It lets you pick the following options:

• Minimize on close/start minimized
• Light/dark theme (which we particularly like)
• Auto-connect/launch on system start
• Auto-connect on location switch

The “Advanced” tab offers many options aimed at more experienced users. The most important features here include:

• Choosing your protocols/port
• Activating obfuscation and DNS filtering
• Activating the kill switch
• Enabling “China-optimized” servers
• Block IPv6
• Lower MTU for better speeds
• Pick LibreSSL over OpenSSL
• Disable latency tests for the available servers

At the moment, VPN.ac apps are only available in English. We hope the company will expand its language support in the future.

Pricing and payment methods

With its lowest price sitting at $3.75/month for a two-year plan, VPN.ac is not the cheapest VPN out there by any stretch. Its prices are not scandalous, but you’ll get much better value with CyberGhost for just a few dollars a month.

That said, here’s a quick overview of VPN.ac’s pricing options.

VPN.ac does offer a one-week trial period for $2.00. This option includes full functionality but supports only three simultaneous connections. Note that this package didn’t work for us during our testing circuit. We couldn’t buy it for some reason.

VPN.ac supports the following billing methods:

• PayPal
• Credit/debit cards
• Region-based payments: UnionPay, iDeal, Webmoney, SEPA Direct Debit, etc.
• Bitcoin and many altcoins: Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, Monero, Dash, etc.
• Gift cards

You can pay anonymously by using any of the cryptocurrency options. Note that only PayPal allows for auto-renewing payments. With each other method, you’ll have to pay manually for each billing cycle. This is also possible with PayPal, though.

While purchasing this VPN provider for our VPN.ac review, we noticed a 5% discount on its monthly subscription. We’re unsure why we got it or whether it’s available to all users. Regardless, we got the monthly subscription for $8.55 instead of $9.

There’s a seven-day money-back guarantee available for each plan. With 30 or even 45 days being the norm nowadays, this feels entirely inappropriate, especially when the cheaper one-week trial doesn’t work.

How does VPN.ac’s money-back guarantee work?

VPN.ac offers a seven-day money-back guarantee on all purchases. The site states that the team will contact you and try to fix any issues you might have before granting you a full refund. That didn’t happen for us, though. About an hour after submitting the refund request, we just got a PayPal notice that we got a refund. We didn’t get any emails from agents.

We like this approach – fast refund, no haggling, no special offers, no tedious back-and-forths. The refund period might be short, but we got our money back, no questions asked.

Customer service

There are a few ways to contact the VPN.ac support team. The site features a decent knowledge base where you can find solutions to some usual problems. The VPN.ac blog also has a lot of information. Unfortunately, there’s no 24/7 live chat.

If you want to speak to a VPN.ac employee directly, you can send them a ticket. When using the ticket system during our testing, we got our answers within 12 hours.

On its website, VPN.ac states that the team will only assist customers remotely by using desktop sharing/control software as a last resort.

Server Network – Can VPN.ac Unblock the Internet?

VPN.ac’s ability to unblock the Internet is a bit of a mixed bag. VPN.ac’s network consists of high-quality bare-metal servers, which is always a plus in our book. However, the cost of operating physical servers prevents any significant expansions. With that in mind, for this VPN.ac review, we gave VPN.ac a 6/10 for its current setup.

Here are some essential points to keep in mind:

• VPN.ac has a small server network (130+ servers across 20+ countries).
• It offers China-optimized servers as well as multi-hop.
• VPN.ac can unblock Netflix US but no other streaming platform.
• Torrenting is allowed, and VPN.ac offers P2P-optimized servers.
• VPN.ac doesn’t have dedicated IP addresses.

Number of servers and locations

VPN.ac currently operates 130+ servers in 20+ countries. This sounds relatively small compared to providers like NordVPN (5,100+ servers in over 60 countries). The servers are top-quality, but the company still needs more coverage to compete in the modern VPN market. Putting a massive emphasis on China is very commendable, though.

You can access all the available VPN servers directly from the app. Just click on the shortcut located under the on/off button. The client provides latency values, which give you an indicator of potential performance. You can also create a list of favorites for easier access.

VPN.ac also supports multi-hop, also known as “double VPN.” Namely, you can route your traffic through two VPN servers instead of one. This ensures better security but can drop your speeds significantly due to double encryption.

As such, we only recommend using this VPN connection if you absolutely have to. Since the extra layer of encryption helps you bypass VPN blocks, you can also use multi-hop as an obfuscation technique.

As mentioned, VPN.ac is very committed to unblocking content in China. It offers special servers optimized for performance in this country that can deal with its firewall and content filters. Some servers can only work with OpenVPN XOR, which employs obfuscation techniques.

Here’s a full list of VPN.ac server countries:

• Asia-Pacific: Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan
• Europe: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
• North America: Canada, Mexico, United States
• South America: Brazil

On the VPN.ac website, you can check the real-time status of any server location.

VPN.ac and streaming (Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, BBC iPlayer)

We tested VPN.ac across all major streaming websites and weren’t impressed with the results. VPN.ac does not have any dedicated servers for streaming. It can unblock Netflix US semi-reliably, but we couldn’t access any other streaming platform. The screenshot below shows that the country glitch is just visual since we had no problems unblocking Netflix US.

Here are the full results of our VPN.ac streaming tests.

VPN.ac is a far cry from the geo-unblocking powerhouse you’re looking for. While testing the UK servers, we couldn’t even watch BBC iPlayer, let alone play something.

If you want a reliable geo-unblocker, check out Surfshark. Their browser extension works particularly well for unblocking foreign Netflix libraries.

VPN.ac and torrents

VPN.ac allows torrenting on all servers but also offers some P2P-optimized locations. These include VPN servers in:

• Canada (Toronto)
• Finland
• France
• Netherlands
• Romania
• Sweden
• Switzerland

In fact, the company doesn’t recommend using any other servers for torrenting. On top of that, we caution against using protocols other than OpenVPN. Other tunnels don’t support the kill switch and can leak your info to other peers if VPN.ac malfunctions. Also, don’t forget to activate the kill switch after installation.

Dedicated IP addresses

VPN.ac doesn’t sell dedicated IP addresses. If you need this service, you should go with NordVPN or CyberGhost instead. A dedicated IP is tied to your account, and only you can use it. This helps you avoid IP blacklisting, CAPTCHA checks, and additional checks from online banking apps.

VPA.ac, on the other hand, relies on shared IPs, which is a more cost-effective solution. In other words, you’ll share the server IP with thousands of users. The biggest benefit of shared IPs is the ability to “hide” your P2P traffic – your ISP or the government can never pinpoint where the torrenting downloads originated.

However, monitoring the VPN.ac server while you’re torrenting could identify you due to IP/timestamp logging.

VPN.ac vs Surfshark

After recommending Surfshark so many times in this VPN.ac review, we decided to give you a small direct comparison. It will illustrate why VPN.ac can’t compete with top-level VPN services.

Here’s a quick comparison of their essential features:

As you can see, Surfshark is a vastly superior VPN service. It offers built-in WireGuard, unblocks all streaming websites, doesn’t keep connection logs, has independent audits under its belt, and runs RAM-only servers.

The advantages are too many to count. On top of it all, it’s cheaper and offers a longer money-back guarantee. Not to mention the fact that it’s much faster than VPN.ac and that it supports unlimited simultaneous connections.

With that in mind, we recommend going with Surfshark, especially if this is your first VPN ever.

Our Experience With VPN.ac

Our VPN.ac review has revealed a service with a lot of advanced features and some glaring flaws. It supports solid protocols and doesn’t leak any private data. However, the company collects temporary connection logs, including your real IP and timestamps.

The kill switch only works with OpenVPN, which makes all other protocols useless. It employs good obfuscation techniques, which will help users in censorship-heavy countries.

We got good speeds on nearby servers, but they went down on distant locations. The server network is small and doesn’t unblock anything except Netflix US. VPN.ac offers special P2P, multi-hop, and China-optimized servers. You can use multi-hop for obfuscation, but your speeds will go down drastically due to double encryption.

We had no trouble installing and using VPN.ac. It’s an ok VPN for beginners with advanced features for power users. The prices are acceptable, but plenty of top-level VPNs provide better value for less money. The refund period is only seven days, and the cheaper one-week trial didn’t work for us.

The support team is quite knowledgeable, though, and we got our refund in under an hour. There’s no live chat, and going through the ticket system is incredibly tedious when you need quick help.

All in all, our extensive testing showed why VPN.ac can’t compete with VPN giants. It has too many wrinkles to iron out and must expand its entire infrastructure. When (and if) that happens, we could talk about a very serious VPN service, but we’re not there yet.

Personal Opinions of VPNOverview’s Experts

“Good VPN for beginners”

7.6

Lauren Mak

Senior Journalist

VPN.ac is a decent VPN for beginners. It has strong encryption features, the software is easy to install and the dashboard looks sleek. It’s unfortunate that you can’t always unblock Netflix. But for browsing, watching YouTube, and other every-day activities, VPN.ac is a good option, though it is still a bit pricey.

Deal

Grab a two-year VPN.ac subscription for $3.75 per month

Visit VPN.ac

From $3.75 a month