Ace, as an adjective, means something that is of the highest quality. Therefore, the name AceVPN suggests that the VPN service is of the highest quality.
A high quality VPN should, while maintaining good speed: give protection from online threats by encrypting traffic; give anonymity by masking your real IP with different virtual IPs; and give access to restricted content by unblocking geo restricted channels and websites.
The Ace VPN service started operation in 2009 and promise to give all these elements of a high quality service – speed, protection, anonymity and content accessibility.
Is Ace VPN just “ace” in name or do they have a service that match the name? This review will provide the information to help you answer that question.
Is AceVPN legit and safe? This AceVPN review tells you if AceVPN safe. And also if AceVPN legit, real and secure. Or if it is scam and fake. AceVPN complaints and feedback of users also reviewed. So, If you are looking for AceVPN reviews, you have come to the right place!
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Note: Since you have nothing to loss, it will be a very good idea to register from this post so we can be able to assist you by getting in touch with them if you have any problem in the future. We have the power to force them into rectifying their faults. However, we cannot do anything if you try to trick the system. Just make sure you comply with their rules and regulations to make it easier for us.
Is AceVPN safe and legit?
AceVPN is safe and legit. There is no information leakage. Or complaints about info leakage. They do not log period. AceVPN use military grade encryption to ensure secure and private communication. AceVPN servers are constantly monitored for attacks from both inside and outside the network. Keep hackers and other Internet bad guys out. Surf the web on public Wi-Fi securely and without leaving any trace.
Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. They are highly rated by their customers. They are transparent and honest. No scams, and no bad practices. Try it yourself or read their VPN reviews
AceVPN Tutorial
Server Locations
Ace VPN operates servers in 50+ locations in 26+ countries. These are small numbers compared to the hundreds and thousands of servers operated by the top players in the industry; the network of these top players also covere over 60 countries across the globe.
A robust server network offers better anonymity and performance than a small network. The anonymity com’s from having more virtual locations to place yourself in; and the better performance comes from being less likely to have many persons connected to a few servers. The 50+ locations in 26+ network of Ace VPN will adequately cover server location needs; but they need to up their numbers if they are to provide optimal anonymity and performance.
The Ace VPN server network touches choice places in North America and Europe. It also covers Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea), South America (Brazil), Oceania (Australia), and Africa (Egypt and South Africa). It means that the network covers all the continents of the world. Though the network is small in terms of server count and countries covered, it held its own in terms of geographical distribution. The fine global spread of their network means that anywhere you might be on the earth, there will be an Ace VPN server close by for you to connect to for optimal performance.
The Ace VPN service also allow unlimited server switches; this means that as many times as you like, you can switch from one server to the other placing yourself anywhere in the world that their server network supports.
AceVPN complaints and feedback:
David says:
I have been using Ace VPN for about 2 months and I should say its the best and fastest VPN I have used till now. Your service and support is simply great. I am recommending all my friends to Ace VPN. Keep up the good work guys.
Lucy says:
At work I use Windows and at home I have Mac. The same Premium VPN account works on both machines. This is fantastic. I am saving money too
Micheal says:
I live in China and as foreigner had lot of issues browsing internet and using google mails, ACEVPN were so caring about my problems, they answered in hours to my requests of support and I should say their service is excellent so I recommend to use it
Phillip says:
I had used FindNot for about 5 years. It was generally quite reliable, except that the servers often just too slow. You just didn’t know day to day which server to use. That had some 2 dozen of them. Then they went AWOL! I lost 6 months of remaining premium. I checked out all the companies listed on this site, and finally decided to take plunge with ACEVPN. It’s been 6 weeks now, I must say I wish I had found them earlier. Firstly I don’t see any slowing down at all when I connect through their server. They have three. I had 4 occasion to email them to ask questions (not problems) and they answered with 5 minutes!!! and longest waiting was 8 hrs. The best part is it cost only about $5/mo, paid monthly. I can’t see how you can beat this.I am very happy so far. Phil
Packages And Pricing
Packages
Ace VPN has three service offerings – Premium VPN, Ultimate VPN, and Unblock TV. The first two are VPNs, while the third is a Smart DNS.
The Unblock TV being a Smart DNS does not encrypt data, and so cannot be used to protect sensitive information. As its name suggests it is simply for unblocking geo restricted contents for viewing pleasure. The Ace VPN Unblock TV does all that you’ll expect a Smart DNS to do. It unblocks TV shows, videos and movies, with support for over 110 popular channels. Because, there is no encryption, it is faster than the regular VPN; and there is no bandwidth cap, so you can stream in HD and super HD without worrying about data usage.
The two VPN plans of Ace VPN are not similar in features. The only features they both share are: they give the same level of security because they both offer the same VPN protocol and encryption; they both have the Unblock TV for HD streaming; and they both offer unlimited bandwidth and server switching.
However, the Premium Plan is premium in name only, and is actually a lower graded plan that has fewer features than than the Ultimate Plan. The Premium Plan gives access to only three countries (the US, the UK, and France) in the entire Ace VPN server network. The goodnews is that these three countries holds 20 server locations, but the bad news is that P2P activity and torrenting is blocked in all 20 servers.
To download torrents with Ace VPN you have to upgrade to the Ultimate Plan. This plan is their top tier VPN plan; it gives access to their entire server network, and also include free remote installation.
Pricing
Ace VPN says: “We wanted to offer people an opportunity to protect their privacy without breaking their wallet“.
The Premium Plan has 6 billing cycles – monthly, quarterly (every 3 months), semi-annually (every 6 months), annually, biennially (every 2 years), and triennially (every 3 years).
The monthly subscription cost $5.95; the 3 months subscription cost $15.00, which breaks down to $5.00 per month; the 6 months subscription cost $30.00, which is also $5.00 per month; the one year subscription cost $55.00, which breaks down to $4.59 per month; the 2 years subscription cost $100.00, which breaks down to $4.17 per month; and the 3 years subscription cost $140.00, which breaks down to $3.89 per month.
Ace VPN discounts the packages such that the longer your subscription period, the more your cost saving. The 3 months and 6 months subscriptions both have a 16% discount, the one year subscription has a 23% discount, the 2 years subscription has a 30% discount, while the 3 years subscription has a 35% discount.
The Ultimate Plan also has the six billing cycles of the Premium Plan. The single month subscription cost $15.00; the 3 months subscription cost $45.00, which is still $15.00 per month; the 6 months subscription cost $90.00, and is still $15.00 per month; the annual subscription cost $165.00, which breaks down to $13.75 per month; the 2 years subscription cost $300.00, which breaks down to $12.50 per month; and the 3 years subscription cost $420.00, and breaks down to $11.67 per month.
The three months and six months subscription can as well be scrapped because they give no price advantage over the single month subscription; they are not discounted and so will set you back by the same amount as when you roll over the single month subscription. Thankfully, the one year subscription has an 8.33% discount, the 2 years subscription has a 16.67% discount, and the 3 years subscription has a 22.2% discount.
AceVPN on their landing page give few reasons why you should choose them; among the reasons is “Lowest Price and Best Value for Money”. Because of this, I expected their prices to be floored, but that was not to be.
It is the Premium Plan they talk about when boasting of low prices. In one place they that their “premium VPN service costs less than 15 cents a day, cheaper than a cup of coffee or even a candy“; what they don’t say up front is that, you’ll have to make a 3 years’ commitment to get that price. It should also be remembered that the plan gives access to only 3 countries and does not downloading torrents.
Their Ultimate Plan definitely breaks the wallet from every angle. The single month subscription is cost prohibitive, the 3 and 6 months subscriptions are nothing but farces, and the best deal which is three long years is discounted by only 22.2% to still stand at a high $11.67 per month. To compare Ace VPN pricing with other top services: most of the services that are regarded as expensive services charge about $10.00 for their single month subscription; and they discount their best deals (usually one year or two years) by up to 70% to get prices as low as $3.00 per month.
Payment Method
Ace VPN restrict payment options. They allow payments via PayPal and checks drawn on USA bank account. If you want to pay using credit cards you have to do that through PayPal. These payment methods entail the submission of personal information; and many users would rather avoid them for privacy sake. Ace VPN have that covered by also supporting anonymous payment methods. They accept bitcoins transaction through Coinbase, and they allow users to mail in payment.
Auto Subscription
Many VPN services will automatically renew your subscription when it expires and charge the account you submitted the corresponding sum. They usually provide for cancelling your subscription to avoid the auto renewal and automatic charges.
However, the practice presents a lot of issues. First the added effort of cancelling a subscription does not make for good user experience. Also, a lot of billing issues usually arise: most times users are unsuspectingly charged; other times users try to cancel, fail to, but are charged all the same. In either case, users are charged for a subscription they’ll rather be without at the same.
Ace VPN avoids all of these by not doing auto renewals. They email an invoice / renewal reminder 7 days before due date, and give the user the choice of renewing. This also makes for easy user experience, because there is no added effort required to cancel an account. Every account simply expires on due date if not renewed.
Free Trial/ Free Version
Many VPN services offer a free version of their service (though, with limited features) for users who would rather not pay for a VPN protection. Some also offer a free trial which allow users to test the service fully to understand its offerings before committing resources to a subscription.
Ace VPN offers none – there is no free version of its VPN service, and no free trial of it. When advertising their service plans, Ace VPN always add the Unblock TV with a cost of $0.00. This can easily be mistaken for a free VPN plan, but it is not because it offers no protection.
The lack of a free trial might be a deal breaker because many other services offer various length of trial periods (some more to seven day).
Money back guarantee
Ace VPN says you can still try out their service via the 7 days money back guarantee that they offer. The guarantee is given to allow users who are not totally satisfied with the service to request a refund of their payment. However the 7 days window means that you have only up to 7 days of free use of the service – any refund request must be made not later than seven days of making payment.
In truth, given that Ace VPN do not have a free trial, I expected a more generous refund period. This is also because many services give money back guarantees of up to 30 days in addition to some period of free trial.
However, the goodnews about Ace VPN guarantee is that there are no conditions attached. Some services will not grant your request if you exceed a set data limit. Ace grants all request as long as they are made within seven days. However, there is a $1.00 processing fee; so what you get back is always $1.00 less than your actual payment. This might not sit well with some users, especially since there are services that will return their full payment.
Promotions
Ace VPN gives you the opportunity to enjoy their service free of charge; but you’ll have to do certain things. If you refer someone who purchase one year or more subscription, you are entitled to a free month of VPN service. The only conditions are that you must be an existing premium member or ultimate member, and the friend has to mention your email address while signing up for our service.
Also, they run different promotions from time to time that will cut something off the cost of the service. Currently (the time of writing), they are running a promo that takes 37% off Ultimate VPN or 30% off Premium VPN. All you need do is share the promotional page on Facebook.
Features
Device Compatibility
Ace VPN works with virtually every device. They support all the popular operating systems and platforms including Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android and Linux. You can also set up the service on routers (Tomato, DD-WRT, and Asus). It is also compatible with Smart TVs and gaming consoles.
Simultaneous Connections
Ace VPN does not allow multiple connections. This means that you cannot use your one VPN account to protect more than one device at the same time. This does not score points for the service, because users typically have more than one device they use at the same time, and will seek to protect all these devices with one VPN account.
The lack of support for simultaneous connections will push up their prices for users with multiple devices. To protect two devices with Ace VPN single month Ultimate plan, you’ll need two accounts which is already $30.00.
Torrenting
VPN services that supports P2P activity and torrenting holds an advantage over those that do not. There are two reasons for this: (i) torrenting is one of the fastest and most effective way of moving files over the internet (ii) torrenting is increasingly becoming dangerous; the peers you connect to may use the file sharing activity to get at personal information stored in your device, and there is also the danger of unwittingly downloading copyrighted materials.
VPN help users torrent safely and anonymously. Ace VPN supports torrenting. However, Torrents and P2P are not supported by the Unblock TV account and Premium VPN account. To connect to peers and download torrents with Ace VPN, you need the top tier pricey Ultimate VPN account. Also, the activity is not allowed on all servers; it is only allowed on P2P designated servers, and is blocked on all the other servers.
The Ace VPN also offers unlimited bandwidth making it more suitable for torrents and downloads.
Streaming:
Ace VPN says one of the reasons why you must choose them is that they unblock Streaming Videos, Sports and TV Channels and allows you “watch and stream Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Eurosport, Sky Go, Rai, Pluzz and over 110 popular channels without buffering“.
Content accessibility is one of the reasons people seek VPN services. This is because streaming services restrict certain contents to certain locations; and the only way to watch a location-specific content is to be in the particular location. VPNs help you beat the geo restrictions by giving you a virtual IP that places you in the location where your desired content is available for viewing. However, many streaming services have clamped down on VPN and have effectively blocked VPNs such that even with a VPN you still cannot stream their restricted contents. Netflix is one such streaming service. Any VPN service that can bypass Netflix firewall and give access to its vast library is regarded as an excellent service for streaming.
Ace VPN says they allow Netflix; and that is not just advert-speak. The service did unblock Netflix in our test. As you’d expect, not all their servers gave Netflix; you’ll have to go through the trial and error process to get one.
However, if privacy is not a priority, you can use the Ace VPN Unblock TV to unblock a host of channels for your streaming pleasure. In all, Ace VPN is a damn good service for streaming.
Using the Service
When I saw free remote installation offered with the Ultimate Plan, I feared that for free remote installation to qualify as a special feature the service would be difficult to install. My fears were confirmed when i discovered that they do not have clients and you have to manually set up the VPN on your device. Though they have detailed installation guides in their knowledgebase, the process can easily turn away new and less techie users.
Ace VPN does not come out as easy to use; getting started with the service is a cumbersome log process. When you have services with custom one click download and install clients, it would really take some love to go for Ace VPN.
Privacy And Security Features
VPN Protocols and Encryption
Ace VPN ticks all the right boxes in terms of supported protocols and encryption. They offer users a range of protocols; these are OpenVPN, IPSEC IKEv2, L2TP, PPTP, and Stealth VPN.
The OpenVPN is what every user wants to see. It is the most secure VPN protocol, and it also offer the advantage of being highly configurable. It is always recommended as the best combination of security and speed that users need to establish connections. The IKEv2 is a new protocol but also considered secure, with the L2TP/ IPSec, is the secure alternative to the OpenVPN. PPTP is very insecure but offers the advantage of speed. The stealth VPN can be used to avoid deep packet inspections (DPI) which identifies and block the other protocols. It disguises VPN traffic, making it look like HTTPS (web traffic), and making it less likely to be blocked by DPI. This will be invaluable to users in countries with very restrictive firewalls such as China and countries in the Middle East.
In terms of encryption, Ace VPN says they use “military grade encryption to ensure secure and private communication”.
For the OpenVPN: Protocol is UDP and TCP; and ciphers is Elliptic Curve Cryptography (Best security), RSA 4096 bit and AES 256 bit encryption. For the IPSEC IKEv2 VPN: Protocol is UDP; and Ciphers are 384 bits ECC (Equivalent to RSA 7680 bits) and AES 256 bit encryption.
No jokes when they said their encryption standard is military grade; this is the encryption level used by government agencies to ecurebtop secrets.
Kill Switch
Ace VPN comes with a kill switch feature. Just as everyone have some off time, every piece of technology have a downtime. It is inevitable that a VPN would suddenly loose connection. When that happens without warning, the user would continue online without knowing and have traffic and location exposed. The kill switch prevents this; it cuts off internet connection the moment the VPN looses connection, ensuring that your traffic and location is not suddenly exposed.
The Ace VPN kill switch gives an added layer of security ensuring that even when the VPN abruptly goes down, your security and privacy is not compromised.
Security Leak Protection
Security leaks can undermine the good encryption and location spoofing work of a VPN service. When your DNS requests leaks outside the VPN tunnel to the default connection DNS servers, your activity and IP is exposed. As a result, a privacy focused service should plug DNS leaks as well as WebRTC leaks.
It is easy to run these security checks, so I ran them. Thankfully, Ace VPN plugged these leaks. This makes the service especially good for torrenters, because it mean there is no chance of having activities exposed via leaks.
Logging Policy
One of the features of the Ace VPN service as advertised is “No logs. 100% Private & Anonymous”.
Users’ logs kept are time bombs waiting to explode users’ privacy; as a result users seek VPN services that keep no logs. However, because some services that claim to be no-logs services have been caught pants down keeping logs; the no logs claims of VPN services are not taken without some digging. The digging involve checking the fine prints of their privacy policy to determine what information (if any) is actually collected and how the information is handled.
Interestingly, the fine prints of Ace VPN does not start with the usual “DO NOTs” – we do not collect this and we do not collect that. Rather it starts by listing every information that the service DO collect, and explaining why the information is collected.
They collect “Personal Information” when you create an Ace VPN account, place an order on the site, participate in a contest, or when you reach out to them through any of their support channels. The information collected include your name, address, telephone number, credit or debit card information, e-mail address, date of birth, IP address and the last four digits of your credit card number.
If you think they collect too much; so do I. Where’s the anonymity when you request my full name and file it away somewhere? Many services, citing concern for users’ privacy, limit the personal information that they collect to only email addresses; and there are still others that do not even collect email addresses.
Finally, Ace VPN gets to the “DO NOTs”. They state that they do not log VPN traffic, and also do not spy on users or monitor their bandwidth or Internet usage. Many services monitor bandwidth usage, so it’s to the Ace VPN service that they do not keep these logs.
Ace VPN promises never to sell, rent, or give away any personal information of a user without the express consent of the user. As a way to earn trust of customers, they are now publishing a quarterly transparency report on the governmental requests it has received to disclose information about their customers. To date (the time of writing), they have not been served any warrants, and no searches or seizures of any kind have ever been performed on their assets.
Jurisdiction
Ace VPN is located in the US. This means the service is subject to the anti privacy laws of the US that persist the storing (and even selling to parties) of users’ data. It also mean the service is under the jurisdiction of the notorious NSA and FBI, whose track record is chekered with invasive practices.
The US is also a founding member of the Five-Eyes surveillance (read: spy) network. This is an agreement between five nations (which has grown to fourteen) to work together to collect and share intelligence on specific targets.
This is where the personal information that the Ace VPN collects becomes a worry; this information can end up with these security agencies, or be bounced around the world among the intelligence agencies of the Eyes alliance.
Speed
The encryption and the rerouting that VPNs do to give you security and anonymity take their toll on speed. As a result a VPN use will always drop your network speed. However, we won’t want out speed to be dropped to intolerable levels where watching contents or downloading files becomes sufferable.
AceVPN says that their speed will allow you stream contents without disruptive buffering. That’s just about right. I connected to four servers (two distant servers and two nearby ones), took upload and download times, and averaged the results; then I compared this to readings obtained when the VPN is disconnected. On the average, the AceVPN service dropped download speed and upload speed by 72% and 65% respectively. These numbers means that they are definitely not in the running for the fastest VPN service, but they do offer serviceable speed.
Customer Support
If there’s one area where the Ace VPN service has received sky high rating, its in customer support. You can contact the service directly for assistance through email and online ticket service. The good news is that they give prompt and quality responses. Most servics will have you waiting for more than 24 hours; but the Ace VPN support endeavours to reply every inquiry with 6 hours. This makes their support service one of the fastest; but they also do not simply deliver copy-and-paste or generic responses. Their responses are specific, well thought, and most times contain links to other helpful articles in their knowledge base.
They also have self help channels such a a knowledge base, an FAQs section and a forum.
Summary
AceVPN offers top notch security and privacy; they offer secure protocols with military grade encryption, they have a kill switch feature and plug security leaks. The only dent on the security and privacy front is that they collect just too much personal information, and they happen to be in the US which makes them subject to some unfriendly anti-privacy laws, notorious intelligence agencies and a global spy network.
The service is compatible just about every device, but you cannot use it on more than one device at the same time. AceVPN is a good choice for streaming especially with a free Smart DNS, and they also support torrenting; but getting started with the service is cumbersome. Luckily, they have an efficient customer service.
AceVPN offers average speeds, and have a small server network. Lastly, they like to say that their prices are friendly; but in reality their top tier plan will break every stitch of your wallet.
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