iVPN in China
I recently found out about iVPN, a service I had never heard of before. They offer free trials for people who write reviews in their blogs, so I took them up on their offer.
I use the VPN for three days, and after the three days I decided to call it quits. The VPN slowed my connection down. Now, I'll give them credit, they did try to work through the problem with me, and their support team was really cool. However, in the end, 12vpn's limited service was still faster than their full service. iVPN is not all bad, it's not the worst VPN in China I've tried.
One of the things I really liked about iVPN was the amount of information on their site. They really explain how a VPN works, why you need to use one, and what having a VPN can do for you. Not everyone is interested, but I am, and I felt that they did an excellent job of making VPN technology understood, even for someone as technically challenged as I am. It's funny to see some of the bloggers out there try to explain how a vpn works. You can tell when someone doesn't know what they're talking about because they talk about very technical words without explaining them. This is not the case with iVPN
You can check out what they say about VPN's here.
Not only was the VPN technology explained, but their pricing plan was very clear, and very organized. Lots of VPN sites make buying the VPN more difficult than actually using the VPN. This is my gripe with StrongVPN, who's site is very difficult to navigate for newbies. iVPN doesn't overload you with technical terms and a maze of price plans and tons of options. They basically divide it into three categories.
PPTP – Shouldn't use it
L2TP – Mobile Devices
OpenVPN – Laptop/Desktop
Which is how VPN's should be sold to newbies just looking to play, and not to read a computer science book before they buy.
iVPN was averagely priced, not very cheap, but also not the most expensive. They have $15 dollar a month plans (Monthly Service) and $125 (Year service), as well as quarterly and bi-annual options for $40 and $70 respectively. I have no doubt that they do have a great VPN service. When I said that it slowed down my connection (I used it on a BRAND NEW Lenovo laptop running Win XP SP3), they said that their servers hadn't even topped 20% bandwidth use for the last month. That's pretty freakin' awesome. They were also very adamant that customers are usually very satisfied with their service, and seemed genuinely surprised that I was having issues. Maybe it's something wrong on my side.
iVPN is accessible in China so should be considered as your choice of VPN. I give them a 8/10.
Key thing to remember here – They're NOT BLOCKED, which makes them a great choice in an every shrinking VPN market in China!