In March 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine we started a campaign to provide free VPN access to anyone currently in the affected countries (Ukraine, Russia, Belarus). The use case for Russians are quite clear: evading censorship with any tools still available and not blocked. For Ukrainians, displacement brings security concerns when using untrusted networks. We have been handing out IVPN Pro account gift codes since the start of the war and distributed thousands so far with no cap on availability.More info on the campaign: In support of Ukraine: distributing free IVPN accounts
For those who don’t know us, a short intro: IVPN is run by information security professionals and privacy activists, and we have been around since 2009. We try to stand out from the crowd of VPN providers by focusing on ethical practices, radical transparency and comissionning regular audits. We offer open-source apps and aim for minimal data collection e.g. no email is required to sign up. IVPN has no affiliate program and we shun surveillance advertising. We also strive towards self-sovereignty as a business by not using third-party tools wherever possible, and accepting cryptocurrencies (BTC/XMR) without intermediaries.
We have been long-term fans of PrivacyGuides and its previous iteration, and we highly value our listing as a recommended VPN provider. The purpose of this AMA is to open up the floor to any community questions about our free access campaign, VPNs, audits, features, infrastructure, privacy best practices or anything else you are interested in. We would also like to learn about your experiences with privacy focused VPNs (or IVPN in particular) and see what we can improve on our service There is one topic we cannot discuss about the free access campaign, namely abuse mitigation and verification of eligibility, due to the high number of fraudulent requests we have received.
Four members of the IVPN staff are standing by for questions between now and Saturday 5pm CET (11 am EST).
Participating in this AMA:
Nick Pestell - CEO - /u/ivpnik
Iain Douglas - System Administration (posts by viktorivpn)
Juraj Hilje - Mobile app development - /u/jurajivpn
Are there any differences from a VPN side for working with desktop and mobile devices?
What about working with different operating systems, be they Windows, MacOS & Linux, and, iOS, Android & the hardened Android OSs?
Does which hardware or OS software someone uses have an impact on how well a VPN can protect a user, in other words? Or at the network level, is it all abstracted so far that it doesn’t make much of a difference?
Editing all my posts, as Reddit is violating your privacy again - they will train Google Gemini AI on your post and comment history. Respect yourself and move to Lemmy!
One of the things that I try spreading the word on is the importance of doing an honest threat model for yourself first, then building upon that to decide which steps/technologies you take, to protect which subsets of PII that are important to you.
What advice do you have for people in developing the best threat model for themselves, and what are the hazards of overdoing it, and adapting a threat model that exceeds what they’re trying to really protect?
I just want to say thank you so much for your service, I live in Russia and IVPN is absolutely incredible! Just wish it was also available on the russian App Store, so that people with Apple deviced could use it as well.
Will there be a promo/discounts? for example: Black Friday promos? If yes, does it stack with a promo subscription to a regular one?
Is the company already sustainable for the upcoming years or are committed for a long term, since there are a lot of competitions out in this kind of industry.
Does the Standard Tier Subscription is already good for streaming and downloading movies or do we have to use the Pro Tier?
Does standard tier and pro tier have so much difference? if yes, can you elaborate what are the main difference of pro tier to standard tier for a non-techies who wants to use your product? a short explanation would be appreciated.
Thanks everyone! We are wrapping up here with Nick, Iain and Juraj. We enjoyed this AMA and appreciate your thoughtful questions and comments. We will do a recap of suggestions and possible improvements internally, they will have an influence on our roadmap and decisions going forward.
Number of requests for free accounts from Ukraine/Russia have also increased since the start of the AMA. That’s the best outcome we could hope for.
If you stumble upon this thread later and have a question we are always available on /r/ivpn or via email viktor at ivpn dot net.
Finally, a huge thanks to /u/trai_dep and the rest of the Privacy Guides team for facilitating this conversation and supporting our free access campaign!
Could you consider making your pricing similar to Mullvad, so users could choose to commit to as little or as long time as they wish without it being bad for them financially in the long run? The current monthly plan is quite expensive (especially the Pro plan), and paying 100-220$ for the longer subscriptions is a lot of money to spend in one go.
Do you have plans to improve your inbuilt adblocker?
Even if the OISD full list is a very effective one, to speak the truth, I’ve switched to Blokada as it has a very interesting one of a kind DNS customizable adblocker/VPN combo for about 7€/month.
It’s working pretty well, has great speeds, and pass the d3ward test at 100%.
Now, I won’t lie, I actually like your brand image. I would really like to come back to IVPN but the adblocker isn’t the best of the market for the time being. Any plans?
I tested the Wireguard br1.wg.ivpn.net server in Brazil, but the maximum speed was 80 Mbps and my connection is 500 Mbps. So while the connection speed from the Brazil server doesnt get higher, I cannot use IVPN, unfortunately. With other VPNs I can get 500 Mbps using wireguard…
I see your Wireguard brazilian server is located at Franca - SP. A possible solution is to use some server in Sao Paulo - SP, which is the biggest brazilian city and has a much better infrastructure.
