First VPN: ExpressVPN
Just subscribed to my first VPN, and I am less than pleased.
First the good. I installed the android app on my phone and tablet, and it works perfectly flawlessly. Occasionally I have to change servers or reconnect, but for the first month, it has been reliable.
My home setup is non-standard. Two Windows 10 PCs, a windows 10 laptop, 3 Nvidia Shield Android TVs, a Linux server, a UNIX server (FreeNAS), and the previously mentioned phone and tablet. I had quite a few difficulties, and ExpressVPN support has been responsive and helpful. Yes, good customer service does still exist. It is because of their customer service that I put the "good" at the beginning of my review.
Now the problems. I don't want to configure each of my devices individually, so I configured my Asus router. The router used to be a flagship router, and it supported manual VPN configuration, but it did not support the ExpressVPN firmware. I configured the router, but all I could reach was 10 Mbps, and I pay for 150 Mbps. I also sometimes had DNS leaks. It was a pain to log in to the router to disable VPN when I gamed, and I could only play online with one person at a time. More than that required me to disable VPN or Discord would cut in and out.
After a few weeks of this, I decided to buy a router that supports the ExpressVPN firmware. The newest I could find was released in 2016, and it was hard to find. Most of the supported routers are not even available anymore, but I ordered a Linksys WRT3200ACM online. This router has all the bells and whistles. At least it did until I flashed it with the ExpressVPN firmware.
The good again. I tested 170 (see Edit 2 at the end) Mbps download. That isn't a typo. I pay for 150 Mbps, but I often get better than that. I was very please to find that my download speed seemed unaffected. I don't expect this to always be true, but the speed was so good I had to check and make sure the VPN was running.
The bad again. The router no longer supports port forwarding or guest networks. ExpressVPN says port forwarding is a security risk. Fair enough, but I should choose if I want to accept that risk. It gets worse. The device list shows a list of devices with no names. I can click on them to see their IP addresses and MAC addresses. I can then manually enter names for them, but it takes 2 clicks to see the IP and MAC address for a single device. It took me over an hour to identify all the devices on my network. I forgot I connected an Ethernet cable to that smart TV. This router interface is worse than a $30 router from 2000.
I can set static IPs. I want my servers and printer to be static. I can't port forward anymore, so I guess the rest don't matter. There is no way to set a dynamic IP. DHCP defaults to dynamic, but once you set an IP, all you can do is set it to something else or "forget" the device if you want it to be dynamic again. There is no checkbox to set DHCP per device. This morning, one of my servers that was supposed to be static had been allocated an IP from the dynamic pool.
https://openweb.vip/whatsapp-web/ https://19216801.onl/
There is a lot to like about ExpressVPN. The speed and customer service seem like the best things. I have not been able to test downloading a large file. I don't expect the 170 Mbps that my speed test got, but I am hoping it beats 10 Mbps. My server was supposed to download some stuff, but apparently it was offline for a few days. I rebooted it and disabled VPN, so now I have to wait for another test opportunity with VPN enabled.
The router interface and lack of features really bother me. When my subscription runs out next year, I have to research alternatives.
I was able to get Netflix to stream by changing servers. I am in the US and was using US servers. I don't give a damn about regional programming. I just don't want my ISP logging and selling all of my Internet activity. I disabled VPN for the Nvidia Shields because it was a pain switching between the fastest server and the server Netflix wasn't blocking.
Edit: Flashing a router with ExpressVPN firmware is not required. ExpressVPN has an app that runs on Windows, Linux, and Android. It runs on other popular OSs too, but I have not tried them. Only 5 devices at a time can use the VPN app. It works great on my Android mobile devices, and it seems to work well on Windows as well (limited experience).
Edit 2: I consistently maintain 100 Mbps download speeds now that I have had a chance to test it.
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