VPN.AC Review Outside USA 2023

VPN.ac is a relatively powerful VPN on paper, but is it good in real life? Does its performance justify its $3.75 monthly price? find out if it's worth getting over other options in this review.

vpn.ac-Review-outside-USA

VPN.AC, established in 2009, is a Romania-based VPN service owned by Netsec Interactive Solutions. While it might not be as well-known as some of the other VPNs mentioned in our unbiased VPN reviews guide for 2023, it actually offers a pretty decent service. During our review of VPN.AC, we were impressed by its fast speeds.

We were also impressed by its performance with various online activities, like torrenting and streaming Netflix and BBC iPlayer. It even comes with a decent amount of features. As standard, it comes with Multi-hop, Kill Switch, 6 multi-logins, and no logs. It’s quite commendable to see this VPN working in China as well.

That said, VPN.AC is still not flawless to deserve 5 stars. For one, it costs more than many more renowned VPNs like ExpressVPN or Surfshark. Other than that, we found its server network pretty limited to only 26 countries and also suspected of keeping connection logs. Overall, after weighing its pros and cons, we’ve given it 3.0/5.0 stars in this review. You can check more VPN ratings given by VPNRanks.


Our Verdict

Overall Rating :

4.7 / 10

Ranked #49 out of 56 VPNs

VPN.ac Category Ratings
  • 7 / 10

  • 4 / 10

  • 6.5 / 10

  • 4.5 / 10

  • 4 / 10

  • 0 / 10

  • 7 / 10

  • 6 / 10

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  • 4 / 10

Why Should You Trust Us?

We have spent thousands of hours and days testing 160+ VPN services using our carefully curated testing process to recommend you the best VPN. Here are a few statistics:

  • tick_doneTotal Hours of Testing1000+
  • tick_doneWeekly Speed Tests110
  • tick_doneVPN Services Reviewed160+
  • tick_doneStreaming Platforms Tested Daily50+
  • tick_doneIP & DNS Leak Tests Performed100+
  • tick_doneHow Much we have spent on testing$30,000+


Key Findings – VPN.AC Review Outside USA

Here are our key findings after our VPN.AC review outside USA:

  1. Pricing – Costly pricing plans.
  2. Servers – Small network of servers.
  3. Security – Good security and encryption features.
  4. Speeds – Sufficient speeds.
  5. Streaming – Unblocks Netflix and BBC iPlayer only.
  6. Compatibility – Doesn’t offer native apps for different operating systems.
  7. Customer Support – Relies on a ticketing system and email. 
Pros
  • Strong privacy and security features
  • Unblocks China using obfuscation tools
  • Trustworthy privacy policy
  • Fast speeds

Cons
  • Servers in limited countries
  • Customer support needs to be improved
  • Non-optimized servers are slow for torrenting
  • Expensive pricing plans


Pricing – How much does VPN.AC cost?

VPN.AC outside USA is slightly more expensive than its competitors, starting at US$9.00. That’s something to consider when there are other cheaper options like Surfshark that offer similar features and way more servers. But to make up for it, they allow six multi-logins.

1 Month 3 Months 1 Year 2 Years
US$9.00/mo US$24 (US$8.00/mo) US$58.00 (US$4.8/mo) $90.00 (US$3.75/mo)
Save 11% Save 46% Save 62%
vpn.ac-pricing-plans-outside-USA

VPN.AC’s pricing plans are a bit expensive.

Moving on to payment methods, you can expect to see options like Bitcoin, PayPal, Credit Cards, Union Pay, and more. Not a lot of VPN providers offer this many options.

vpn.ac-payment-mode-outside-USA

Aside from pricing, another thing that’s a bit disappointing about VPN.AC is the short refund policy. Unlike other providers, like ExpressVPN or Surfshark, which offer 30-day refunds, VPN.AC only offers a 7-day money-back guarantee. They offer a trial version as well, but it costs $2, which is not good either.


Servers – How many servers are offered by VPN.AC Outside USA?

VPN.AC offers a limited number of servers; 130+ servers across 26 countries. You may find the list of servers on the VPN.AC’s website is right here. Here’s a complete list of countries where VPN.AC provides its server:

Australia, Melbourne Spain, Madrid
Belgium Finland
Brazil France, Paris
Switzerland Italy
Germany, Frankfurt Japan, Tokyo
Czechia Lithuania
Canada, Toronto Hong Kong
Denmark Mexico, Mexico City
Netherlands, Amsterdam Norway
Poland Portugal
Romania Sweden, Stockholm
Singapore Taiwan
United Kingdom, London United States

Here are a few of the servers offered by VPN.AC:

vpn.ac-server-network-outside-USA

VPN.AC has a small server network with most servers in the UK and the US.

That being said, in comparison, ExpressVPN and NordVPN offer way more servers in wide range of countries.


Security & Encryption Features – Is VPN.AC safe?

Yes, VPN.AC servers are secure and fast outside USA thanks to their dedicated bare-metal servers aka physical servers.

In terms of encryption and protocols, VPN.AC is pretty well equipped. VPN.AC uses AES-GCM 256-bit encryption with Elliptic Curve along with 4096-bit RSA authentication if we talk about encryption. They even use SHA512 HMAC and PFS for added security.

In addition to that, VPN.AC also uses top-of-the-line VPN protocols like PPTP, OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, and even IKEv2. They also now support the WireGuard VPN protocol, which we think is pretty impressive.

VPN.ac-Protocols-outside-USA

VPN.ac protcols are efficient.

Double-hop

This feature allows your traffic to go through two servers at the same time, encrypting your traffic twice. We think this feature works great and makes you even more anonymous on the web. VPN.AC currently offers around 20+ server locations for you to use the Double-hop feature with. One thing you are going to experience when you enable this feature is slightly slower speeds. That’s because you’ll be connected to two servers simultaneously.

vpn.ac-double-hop-feature-outside-USA

VPN.AC double-hop features worked well.

Leak protection and kill switch

Two features that we really like about VPN.AC is the built-in Kill Switch and leak protection. We easily enabled these features in the app which added an extra layer of privacy. Kill Switch can block your internet connection if your VPN connection abruptly drops, and leak protection basically prevents your IP, WebRTC, and DNS from leaking. Overall, these are pretty cool features to have.

vpn.ac-security-features-outside-USA

VPN.AC security featuers worked well for us.

Obfuscation technology

If you pay attention to the screenshot above, you’ll see an option that says, “I’m in China or other censored countries.” This option is basically powered by obfuscation technology. This feature can mask your internet traffic to appear as ordinary HTTPS traffic. If you enable this feature, you can get past geo-blocks and firewalls in countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and others countries. Based on our tests, VPN Unlimited worked in these countries, however, it didn’t provide satisfactory results.

IP Leak Test:

For my IP leak test, we connected to the French server of the VPN.AC and ran the test. As you can see from the screenshot below, VPN.AC passed this test without any issues.

IP-Leak-Test-VPN.AC_-outside-USA

VPN.AC passed our IP leak test successfully.

DNS Leak Test:

Next, we checked for any signs of DNS leak protection. We connected to the same server, and sure enough, VPN.AC passed without any problem. Check out the screenshot below, and you’ll see that all of my traffic is being routed through French DNS servers.

DNS-Leak-Test-VPN.AC_-outside-USA

VPN.AC passed our DNS leak test with ease.

WebRTC Leak Test:

As for WebRTC leaks again, VPN.AC passed this test, too, without any issues. To be honest with you, it performed better than my expectations. Just check out the screenshot below:

WebRTC-Leak-Test-VPN.AC_-outside-USA

While using VPN.AC, we didn’t face any WebRTC leaks.

Virus Test:

Last but not least, we ran its Android app link through Virustotal.com to observe any malware or viruses. Surprisingly enough, we didn’t find anything suspicious.

Virus-Test-VPN.AC_-outside-USA

We found no virus in the VPN.AC’s set up file.

VPN.AC – Jurisdiction

If you’re wondering, ‘where is VPN.AC is based?’ VPN.AC is a Romanian VPN service headquartered in Bucharest, which is a safe country from a privacy standpoint. This is because Romina does not fall under the surveillance jurisdiction of the 5 Eyes alliances.

Even more impressive is the fact that, in Romania, data retention is considered illegal by law. It also makes VPN.AC is one of the best VPNs to use in Romania.

Therefore, operating from Romania basically grants VPN.AC has the freedom to not store logs by law. Also, Romania is the only EU country that has disregarded the EU’s data retention laws.

VPN.AC – Logging Policy

As for activity logs, they don’t store any of that. While connection logs aren’t too intrusive, we still don’t get why they have to log user IPs. If you go through their terms of service, you’ll see that they clearly mention logging customers’ IP addresses. That’s because they use it for service improvement, security purposes, and troubleshooting.

vpn.ac-logging-policy

In addition to IPs, they also store other connection logs like VPN session connect and disconnect time and traffic transferred amount. But again, they remove this data from their secure servers daily. So, overall, we think it can supposedly pass as a no-logs service.


Speeds – How fast is VPN.AC Outside USA?

As for speeds, VPN.AC is surprisingly fast outside USA. It possesses a decent number of servers and most work fast. On our base 35 Mbps test connection, VPN.AC performed better than we expected. We received a download speed of 33.52 Mbps and an upload speed of 34.12 Mbps. Here’s a screenshot of our default internet speeds without connecting to VPN.AC:

speed-test-result-on-35-mbps-connection-outside-USA

Speeds without VPN.AC servers.

German Server:

When connected to the German server of the VPN.AC, we managed to get around a download speed of 25.03 Mbps and an upload speed of 23.94 Mbps. Although not the fastest speeds we’ve seen, it is still pretty remarkable.

VPN.ac-speed-test-result-on-german-server-outside-USA

VPN.AC servers on German server.

US Server:

With the US server of VPN.AC, we managed to get even better speeds. At max, we got around 29.71 Mbps downloading speed and 20.07 Mbps uploading speed. That’s seriously impressive.

VPN.ac-speed-test-result-on-US-server-outside-USA

VPN.AC speeds on US server

UK Server:

Last but not least, we also tested the speeds of the VPN.AC on its UK servers. On average, we received a download speed of 22.80 Mbps and an upload speed of 26.85 Mbps, which is slightly low. However, nothing worth complaining about.

VPN.ac-speed-test-result-on-UK-server-outside-USA

VPN.AC server speeds on UK.


Streaming – Is VPN.AC good with Netflix Outside USA?

Yes, VPN still works with Netflix outside USA even though VPN.AC doesn’t advertise it. We tried playing a bunch of shows on Netflix, and all of them played in HD quality. Overall, we were really impressed by the fact that it works with American Netflix. Just check out the screenshot below.

vpn.ac-working-with-american-netflix-outside-USA

It took us a few tries, but VPN.AC unblocked Netflix for us.

Other Streaming Services that work with VPN.AC

Aside from American Netflix, what really blew us away was that it also managed to unblock the BBC iPlayer without much effort. Simply connecting the UK server, we were easily able to stream many geo-restricted shows on the BBC iPlayer. And the video quality was also great. Overall, it performed quite well.

vpn.ac-working-with-bbc-iplayer-outside-USA

VPN.AC also unblocked BBC iPlayer for us to stream the latest shows.


Torrenting – Is VPN.AC P2P Compatible Outside USA?

Yes, VPN.AC is P2P compatible outside USA. However, since it only offers servers in some 26+ countries, you might encounter slightly slow speeds on P2P networks. Also, because it only offers around 130+ servers, you will have a hard time finding servers compatible with torrenting. Overall, in terms of privacy, VPN.AC is safe thanks to its Romanian jurisdiction.


Compatibility – Which devices are supported by VPN.AC Outside USA?

On the compatibility front, VPN.AC outside USA is available on nearly every device you can imagine. You can download VPN.AC on:

  • Windows
  • macOS
  • Linux
  • Android
  • iOS

It also offers browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and even Opera. VPN.AC is also capable of working with third-party apps OpenVPN, StrongSwan, WireGuard, Tunnelblick, and more.

You can even use it on other devices as well that don’t have native support for VPNs. With tons of tutorials available on their website, you can easily configure it to work with routers and even on Linux systems. And best of all, they allow six multi-logins per subscription plan.

vpn.ac-device-compatibility-outside-USA

VPN.AC for Windows & Mac

If we talk about the Windows and macOS apps of VPN.AC, they’re really well built. One thing that you’re definitely going to love about their apps is the options. If you hop on to the Advance settings, you’ll literally see a ton of options that you can play around with. But despite having so many options, it is still dead easy to use as far as our VPN.AC review research goes.

VPN.ac-mac-and-windows-interface-2020-outside-USA

VPN.AC for iOS & Android

As for the iOS and Android apps of VPN.AC, they are also very user-friendly. Both apps are pretty snappy to use, and all of their options are right in plain sight. Overall, VPN.AC has done a fine job developing its apps. As for app ratings, VPN.AC has a 3.9-star rating on Google Play Store and the same 3.9-star rating on the iTunes store.

VPN.ac-android-and-ios-interface (1)-outside-USA


Customer Support – Is the VPN.AC customer support helpful Outside USA?

Yes VPN.AC customer support outside USA is helpful but we don’t think it’s worth the price they’re charging. They don’t offer live chat support, which is just a shame. In comparison, Surfshark offers 24/7 live chat support. But other than that, they do offer the usual customer support options like:

  • Knowledgebase
  • FAQs
  • Contact Us
  • Tutorials
  • Skype
vpn.ac-customer-support (1)-outside-USA

Look up any of these modes to check if you’re able to resolve your queries by yourself.

Speaking of Skype, although not the fastest option, we did manage to get answers to my queries via Skype quite conveniently. We like that their support team is quite knowledgeable and doesn’t resort to copying and pasting answers.

You may also create a ticket to get in touch with VPN.AC customer support to resolve your queries. Although it’ll take some time for them to get back to you it’s worth a shot if your query isn’t urgent.

vpn.ac-ticketing-system-outside-USA

VPN.AC says you can contact its customer representatives by creating a ticket.


Alternatives to VPN.AC Outside USA

If you do not wish to use VPN.AC outside USA for any reason, you might want to consider checking out the list of alternatives listed below. Who knows, you might find something even better.


FAQs – VPN.AC Review

Yes, VPN.AC is safe and secures outside USA as it offers the best standards for security and encryption protocols according to our VPN.AC review. Such as AES 256-bit encryption, WireGuard, Double hop, no activity logging, and many others. However, there are still better VPNs out there which will offer you the same features at the most reasonable charges.

Yes, VPN.AC can unblock Netflix outside USA based on our first-hand experience. Although sometimes the speeds may drop varying from server to server, it’s a good choice for streaming. You may also unblock BBC iPlayer using VPN.AC, however, that’s about it in terms of bypassing geo-restricted streaming channels.

Yes, VPN.AC actually works in China. That’s mainly because of its obfuscation technology. In fact, you can find China-optimized Romanian servers in its apps that are designed to help you bypass the Great Firewall. Personally, the thing that helped us unblock websites like Baidu, Bilibili, QQ, and more, is their OpenVPN XOR protocol along with their TCP Port 443. 


Do We Recommend VPN.AC Outside USA?

Yes, we do recommend trying out VPN.AC outside USA. As we have seen in this VPN.AC review, it is actually a pretty capable VPN service. After all, it works with Netflix and torrenting and also keeps no logs. It is also pretty decent in terms of speed and performance.

Even if you’re an advanced VPN user outside USA, you’ll be more than happy with VPN.AC simply because of the sheer number of features it offers. That being said, it does have its shortcomings as well. For instance, it only offers limited servers. Also, it lacks one major feature, and that is live chat support. It is also comparatively more expensive than other options like Surfshark.

Overall considering all the good and bad, we’ve given VPN.AC 3.0/5.0 stars in this review. So, if you want to try VPN.AC, that’s perfectly okay, but if you want to try something else, check out our unbiased VPN reviews.