IronSocket VPN Review (2024): Great for Tech-Savvy Users
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Please note:
IronSocket doesn’t exist anymore. If you are looking for a excellent premium VPN, check out our NordVPN review.
Although not as well-known as many premium VPN providers, IronSocket has quite some history. It all started in 2005 with the Hong Kong-based tech company Pusa and Daga and their website HideMyNet.com. They started building VPN and DNS proxy technologies. In 2013 they went through a large-scale rebrand and officially became “IronSocket.”
IronSocket still offers its VPN service and its motto is “Be safe, be private, be free”. Needless to say, we were eager to put this slogan to the test. You’ll find the result of our thorough tests in this review.
IronSocket VPN Review: a Brief Summary
IronSocket is quite a secure VPN that offers good speeds. Unfortunately, they do log some connection data which is not ideal when it comes to privacy. Moreover, it’s a relatively (compared with our premium providers) pricey VPN. Below you’ll find a brief overview of its main pros and cons.
Pros
- Offers good speeds
- Offers different protocols, among which OpenVPN
- Allows for anonymous payments
- Special torrenting servers allow for fast downloading
Cons
- Keeps connection logs
- Small server network
- Interface can be (unnecessarily) overwhelming
- Relatively expensive
- Customer service could be improved
IronSocket’s Speed
VPNs were originally created to facilitate secure connections between users that weren’t in the same place and therefore not able to use the same network. Nevertheless, modern users want a VPN to be fast as well. In order to browse the web comfortably and stream videos, after all, you need a decent connection speed. As such we thoroughly tested IronSocket’s speed. These are our conclusions on the speed of this provider:
- IronSocket offers good browsing and streaming speeds.
- Even some far-away servers (in our case the US servers), maintain impressive speeds.
- There is some lag during online gaming, most likely due to ping.
- Make sure to use a server close to you and ideally a special P2P server for torrenting and downloading for good and even great speeds. If not, your download will be very slow.
Speed tests
To give you an objective and fair indication of IronSocket’s speed, we used the renowned speed tested speedtest.net. First, we measured our “base speed”, i.e. our speed without connecting to a VPN server. This is very important. This way you can see how much IronSocket decreases our normal internet speed. You’ll find the results below.
| Measurement | Ping | Download Speed | Upload Speed | Relative Download Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base speed (without VPN) | 5 | 94,77 Mb/s | 92.66 Mb/s | 100% |
| Local (Dutch) server | 8 | 32,93 Mb/s | 31,55 Mb/s | 34,7% |
| US East Coast server (long-range connection) | 94 | 77,44 Mb/s | 81,7 Mb/s | 86,74% |
| US West Coast server (extra long range-connection) | 165 | 43,21 Mb/s | 25,59 Mb/s | 45,6% |
Interestingly, it seems the US servers that we tested were faster than our local server. This is quite surprising, considering the distance. Nevertheless, a lot depends on the specific VPN server as well, so it’s certainly not impossible.
It’s good to see IronSocket manages to offer decent speed test results for these servers. At the same time, the fact the Dutch server slows down our traffic so much on paper is not necessarily a huge issue. After all, the most important thing is how these servers perform in day-to-day web action. Of course, we tested this as well and you’ll find our results down below.
Speed during daily use
Obviously, we’ve used IronSocket extensively during various online tasks to put its speed to the test. Generally, we were satisfied with our browsing and streaming speeds, since we were able to visit web pages and stream YouTube videos with very little speed loss. We did notice a tiny speed reduction, but by no means was this a dealbreaker for us.
We were actually somewhat positively shocked to find out that with the right server IronSocket allows for very fast torrenting. When we used a P2P server close to us we could download large torrent files at about 25 Mb/s. This is very high since it’s only 1 or 2 Mb/s lower than our normal speed when downloading and torrenting (large) files.
We do have to say, however, that if you use a normal server or a server that’s far away, torrenting and downloading can be very, very slow. This is something to keep in mind, especially if you live quite far away from the nearest IronSocket (P2P) server.
While playing an online multiplayer game, we noticed a little lag, especially while using a far-away server, most likely due to the high ping. Nevertheless, all in all, we are quite satisfied with IronSocket’s speeds.
Security: How Safe is IronSocket?
There’s no doubt about it: security is one of if not the most aspect of a VPN. After all, people trust a VPN to reliably protect their real IP address and make them anonymous. Moreover, they rely on a VPN’s encryption to keep their data safe. These are our conclusions on IronSocket’s security:
- IronSocket offers several great VPN protocols, among which the very safe OpenVPN protocol.
- They log a lot of user information.
- It’s possible to purchase a subscription anonymously.
- IronSocket offers a kill switch.
VPN protocols
IronSocket offers three VPN protocols and three proxy protocols as well. The VPN protocols include OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec, and PPTP. Of these three, we definitely recommend OpenVPN the most as an all-around protocol, due to its great balance between speed and security.
L2TP is mainly useful if OpenVPN is not supported on your device and you’re still aiming for a high degree of security. Notice, however, that this protocol is often slower than OpenVPN. This protocol is often a good fit for iOS and Android devices.
The third and last VPN protocol IronSocket offers is PPTP. This protocol is praised by many because of the great speeds it can achieve with the right configuration. However, note this comes at the expense of greatly reduced security.
For one, PPTP only supports encryption up to 128 bits, which is significantly less advanced than the virtually impossible to crack 256-bit encryption OpenVPN offers. However, if security is not a priority and you’re just using your VPN to unblock a certain stream, for instance, this protocol could prove useful.
Kill switch
IronSocket offers a built-in kill switch. This is automatically enabled, which in our opinion is a good thing. After all, a kill switch makes sure that in the event of an interrupted VPN connection, your internet connection stops as well. This ensures your data will not be unprotected.
However, if there are apps or websites that you don’t want to lose connection to the internet when your VPN connection drops, this isn’t an issue. After all, you can use IronSocket’s split-tunneling feature to specify specific domains and apps that won’t use your VPN connection (more on this later).
Privacy and logging policy
IronSoket claims they don’t keep activity logs. However, their privacy policy suggests something different:
| Source of data | Collected data |
|---|---|
| The IronSocket website | – Your IP address, browser type, operating system, and time of visit. – The pages and content you viewed while browsing the Site. – Information about how you arrived on the Site such as, the referring site, advertisement information, keyword search phrase, etc. |
| User registration | – Your provided email address, and password; – Any referral or coupon codes used; – Details about your subscription choices; – Details about your payment such as payment type, transaction ID, and limited transaction data provided by the payment processor used; – All customer communications and files received via email, online chat, or web form submission such as our Contact Us form, or through the use of our Ticket System. |
| Use of the VPN | – Time and date of the session connection and disconnection; – The IP address used for the session and which server was connected to; – A numerical representation showing total bytes transferred per session; |
IronSocket mentioned they only store the data above temporarily. They say they “typically” do so for 72 hours. The fact they say “typically” doesn’t sound too reassuring. Especially considering the considerable amount of data they collect.
At least, the provider states clearly what they use the above information for: “to manage your account, to provide their services and to prevent fraud and abuse.” On another positive note, IronSocket clearly mentioned they do not sell or trade user data commercially. Moreover, they do not actually log the contents of what you’re doing online.
What is slightly worrying from a privacy standpoint is that they clearly state they will cooperate with information requests that are admissible under Hong Kong law. Ideally, when this is the case, you want to have a VPN provider with a strong no logs policy that doesn’t even register which VPN server you used and connection timestamps. Nevertheless, it is still somewhat reassuring that at least they won’t be able to hand over information on their users’ browsing history.
Which information does IronSocket need for registration?
When you create your IronSocket account you need to give them an email address. However, of course, you can create an anonymous email account and use this.
Furthermore, you will obviously need to choose a payment method. If you pay using credit/debit card or PayPal, the provider will get access to personal details associated with your card or account. Fortunately, IronSocket also offers two ways you can pay anonymously: using Bitcoin or a gift card.
Do note that, since IronSocket logs website visitors’ IP addresses, you technically already need to be connected to a (temporary) VPN to get your IronSocket subscription completely anonymously. You can use a good and safe free VPN for this purpose.
User-friendliness
Of course, it’s important for a VPN to be fast and secure. Nevertheless, these traits are not easy to enjoy if the VPN’s application is horrible to use and the service isn’t user-friendly. That’s why we always make sure to test this aspect of every VPN we review. These are our findings:
- IronSocket’s website is clear and easy to navigate.
- Installation is easy, but you can’t connect straight away after installing the app.
- The application is easy to use, but a tech-savvy and experienced VPN user can do a lot of custom configuration.
- IronSocket doesn’t offer a live chat.
IronSocket Website
IronSocket’s website is clear and easy to navigate. The only thing we can really fault them for is having pretty “busy” pages with very bright colors and little space between elements to calm things down a bit. We found this a bit overwhelming.
The good things is they have very useful tabs at the top of the website which allow you to rapidly visit every important page of the website. We appreciated that they even have a tab for “Network” and one that takes you to “Support” including their contact form. Some VPNs make it too difficult to find this information, so it’s good that IronSocket doesn’t.
IronSocket installation process
IronSocket has an application for Windows, iOS, macOS and Android called EasyVPNConnect. You can easily install this application by following the following steps:
- Go to the IronSocket subscription page.
- Choose your subscription and click on the “Order now” button below the subscription of your choice.
- Fill out the requested details. Make sure to remember your password as you’ll need this later to sign in. Perhaps consider using a good password manager for this.
- Choose your add-ons. This refers to the number of possible simultaneous connections and IP addresses for proxies. The minimum is three (included in your plan) and the maximum is eight.
- Choose your payment method and complete the transaction.
- Return to the IronSocket website (this often happens automatically after finishing the transaction) and click on “Download” at the top of the page. Choose the right software for your operating system.
- Open the installation file and go through the installation.
- Open the app.
- Fill out your username and password. Please note that these details are different from your account username and password. You’ll find your log in info when you log in on the IronSocket website, under “Subscriptions.”
- Choose a server and click on “Connect.”
You are now connected to IronSocket.
An issue that occurs frequently is users not being able to click on the “Connect” button, supposedly because of a firewall related issue. Fortunately, you can easily solve this the following way:
- Click on your PC’s Windows button/icon (on your keyboard or screen).
- Type “cmd”. Click on the first result that appears “Command prompt.”
- Copy and paste the following line of code in the code editor that appears: netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name=”Block IP address – 66.171.248.178″ dir=out action=block remoteip=66.171.248.178
Now open the IronSocket app. The issue should now be resolved.
IronSocket’s interface
IronSocket’s app and interface are straightforward and minimalistic, to say the least. At the same time, it is a bit different from most VPN apps we’ve seen and there are a lot of customization options.
These two sentences might seem contradictory. However, they’re both true: many VPN users will never wander beyond the very simple first part of the app where you fill out your login details, select a server and click on connect.
However, for those who want to there are other screens where users can customize a lot of options. For starters, to the right of the standard VPN “tab”, you can configure two DNS proxy servers. You can also whitelist specific IP addresses of webpages, but this requires an authorization “token” from the IronSocket website.
By far the most complex part of the IronSocket app is the settings section. First of, you can customize the way the app behaves in lots of different ways. When you go to “VPN Settings”, you can choose your VPN protocol (OpenVPN, L2TP or PPTP). You can also enable the kill switch and choose which apps will respond to it and enable or disable DNS Leak protection.
Interestingly, the settings also include a very extensive customization menu for the OpenVPN protocol and you can also change the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) of the LT2P and PPTP protocol. The MTU can greatly affect your internet speed, so it’s definitely worth experimenting with this of you’re using the L2TP/PPTP protocol.
IronSocket’s app – is the complexity worth it?
At VPNOverview we try to find VPN solutions that work for a large majority of users, so we generally evaluate VPNs with this in mind. Considering this, we do have to ask ourselves how useful all the bells and whistles that IronSocket offers are for the average users. We’re sure there are many very tech-savvy users who greatly enjoy these features and find them very useful.
At the same time, we feel IronSocket suffers a little bit from a somewhat common flaw of tech-solutions: it seems the VPN was created with network specialists/engineers in mind, rather than the average consumer. As such, it shows a stark contrast with VPNs that also offer a lot of options (perhaps even more that the average user finds useful) but have a more consumer-friendly app, such as NordVPN or CyberGhost.
For instance, we strongly doubt whether most users will want to change something as complex as the Maxiumum Transmission Unit of a protocol or the encryption level of the OpenVPN protocol, if they have to choose between those features and the dedicated streaming servers that CyberGhost offers, for instance. Then again, it has to be said IronSocket definitely addresses a niche in the VPN market: the tech-savvy network enthusiast.
Pricing and Payment Methods
IronSocket is a relatively pricey VPN. If you’re looking for a real bargain, we recommend checking out our article on the best cheap VPNs instead. IronSocket offers three different subscriptions, which each allow for three simultaneous connections (unless you increase this by buying an add-on). You’ll find the three subscriptions below:
- A monthly subscription costs $6.99.
- Yearly subscriptions are also available, for $49.95 a month. This comes down to about $4.16 a month.
- Lastly, they also offer a six-month subscription for $35.95. Converted, this is about $6 a month.
All of the subscriptions offer the same features (but again, you can purchase an add-on for more connections). Moreover, all subscriptions come with a 7-day money-back guarantee. To get your money back, you need to contact customer service.
You can pay for your subscription using credit card, PayPal, Bitcoin, and prepaid cards (gift cards). Note that you can’t use the 7-day money-back guarantee if you pay using a gift card or Bitcoin.
Customer service
We think IronSocket could still improve a bit when it comes to customer service. For starters, they don’t offer a live chat. Frankly, to be among the best VPNs out there, you more or less need to offer a live chat these days. After all, most premium and high-quality VPNs do so.
IronSocket offers a contact form and support ticket system. When we submitted our question through the contact form, it took a while (a few hours) to get a reply. Moreover, we believe we were given some incorrect information by the customer support agent. They told us IronSocket offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all subscriptions. However, on its website, IronSocket states that subscriptions only come with a 7-day money-back guarantee.
IronSocket also offers an extensive FAQ and a Getting Started Guide. To use the latter, you do need to be logged in on the website, however.
Server Network
A good and large server network is very important for a VPN and its users because it helps with unblocking geo-restricted content and maintaining good speeds. After all, the more server locations (countries) a VPN offers, the more foreign streams and other content you can unblock.
Moreover, if a VPN has few servers and a lot of users, these users will likely experience low speeds because of crowded servers. These are our conclusions on IronSocket’s server network:
- IronSocket offers just over 90 servers in 38 countries all around the globe. This means their server network is rather small.
- The provider also offers different proxy servers, among which HTTP, Socks5 and DNS proxies.
- IronSocket doesn’t offer dedicated IP addresses.
Number of servers and locations
IronSocket offers over 90 servers in around 40 countries and these servers do not have bandwidth restrictions. Their number of server locations is not bad. In fact, we’d even say that having servers in about 40 countries is quite impressive for a non-premium VPN.
Nevertheless, as a whole, IronSocket’s server network obviously doesn’t come close to those of many of the best providers out there. Case in point: NordVPN has over 5000 servers in 60 countries, while Surfshark has over 3200 in 65+ countries.
IronSocket has servers in the following regions and countries:
| Region | Countries |
|---|---|
| Asia (Pacific) | Australia, Hongkong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand |
| Europe | Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom |
| Middle East | Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey |
| North America | Canada, Mexico, United States |
| South America | Argentina, Brazil, Mexico |
Proxy servers
IronSocket doesn’t just offer VPN servers, but also proxy servers. These servers are located in the countries listed above. There is one exception: IronSocket also offers a HTTP proxy server in Colombia, although they don’t offer VPN servers in this country.
The HTTP Proxy that IronSocket offers is an easy to configure proxy service which anonymizes your traffic and gives you access to content that would otherwise be inaccessible in your country because it changes your IP address just like a VPN server does. Unfortunately, however, this protocol doesn’t support any form of encryption. As such, we strongly recommend using a VPN server instead if security and privacy are important.
IronSocket also offers SOCKS5 proxies. SOCKS5 does offer the possibility to use encryption. After all, one can use the SOCKS protocol in conjunction with the SSH protocol, to create a so-called SSH SOCKS tunnel. We didn’t find this option anywhere on the IronSocket website or in the app. However, the useful OpenSSH tool is compatible with SOCKS5 proxies.
Lastly, IronSocket also offers DNS proxy servers. To learn more about DNS and what it does, you can check out this article. Notice this proxy does not support encryption.
Extra Features and Options
Obviously, a lot of people appreciate certain extra features in a VPN, apart from the security and privacy they offer. In fact, there are even people who primarily use a VPN to get access to certain streaming services (especially Netflix USA is popular) or for torrenting. Streamers might be disappointed to know that IronSocket doesn’t work with Netflix USA. However, it does seem to be a great VPN for torrenting.
IronSocket and torrenting
IronSocket offers specific optimized P2P servers for torrenting. While testing these, we were able to quickly and anonymously download various torrent files. Moreover, we could access The Pirate Bay without any issue.
Conclusion
All in all, IronSocket is a decent VPN, thanks to its pretty good speeds, adequate security measures, and torrenting capabilities. Nevertheless, it has some flaws too: keeping logs such as timestamps and the amount of transferred data, not being compatible with the US version of Netflix, and having a customer service that could do with some improvement.
Considering the relatively high price of this service as well, we do think there are options that offer better value out there, such as the VPNs in our top 5. You can also check out our extensive review page with a great number of VPN reviews.
Personal Opinions Experts VPNOverview
Do you have a specific question about IronSocket? Check out our FAQ below to see if we’ve answered them. If not, be sure to post your question in the comment section, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!
IronSocket uses the highly secure OpenVPN protocol, which means your data will be safely encrypted. However, IronSocket only offers AES 128-bit encryption and also stores some connection logs. If you’re looking for privacy-focused VPN providers, we recommend checking out our picks for the best no-log VPNs.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to access the US version of Netflix using IronSocket. The IronSocket website, however, says the VPN is compatible with the US version of Netflix. If accessing the Netflix US library is your main reason for using a VPN, we recommend checking out our article on the best VPNs for Netflix.
Yes, you can. In fact, IronSocket has special servers which are optimized for just this purpose. Check out our full review for more information.
IronSocket doesn’t offer a free version. In fact, compared to many premium providers, it’s a bit pricey. If you’re looking for a good and safe free VPN, you can check out our article on the best free VPNs.
IronSocket offers three different subscription plans:
- One month for $6.99
- Six months for $35.95 ($5.99 a month)
- One year for $49.95 ($4.16 a month)
All subscriptions support a maximum of three simultaneous connections. You can increase the number of simultaneous connections by purchasing add-ons. Read our full review for more information.
