Ironsocket Review

IronSocket started off the journey as HideMyNet.com but recently got re-branded to ironsocket.com. Based in Hong Kong, their service provides standard and dependable encryption with a zero-log policy. Not only do they fit the bill as an ideal off-shore service to steer clear of government surveillance, but they also have some of the lowest prices in the market. The service does not come with a huge network, but covers a respectable 36+ countries, with all key locations covered, including P2P friendly server locations. Although they support just about every type of device and platform, they don’t have custom software clients, and opt for providing OpenVPN configurations instead. In my opinion, this is just as good if not better, since it reduces the possibility of having a buggy or faulty client. After testing the service over a year ago and recently revisiting it once more, I have been more than satisfied with overall performance and stability provided by IronSocket’s network.

Pricing:

This is IronSocket’s strong suit, low prices. For 3 simultaneous devices, they have some of the lowest prices out of all VPN providers. The server speeds are good enough for the cost and for those who need more devices, they can be added for around $1.50/Month for each device. Although they do not offer a free trial, you get a 7 day money back guarantee when you first purchase any of their packages. If for any reason, you’re not fully satisfied, make sure to contact IronSocket before or on the 7th day and they will refund your order.

Risk Free Edition

The first includes a short term package for one month. It offers you the package of all services for a month in $6.99. It offers encrypted private VPN services. It also offers unblocking of Geo-restricted content. Apart from it all other services like Wi-Fi protection, Global access, absence of VPN traffic logs and round the clock customer support.

14% Discount Edition

The next package increases the duration for six months and it offers the service for $35.95. It also includes all the above services and features. However, the most profitable thing in this offer is, you almost end up in saving 14% of your money for the VPN services. The customer support and 7 days money back guarantee remains intact for this plan.

40 % Discount Edition

The last package is most beneficial for the users are for 1 year offers the service for $49.95. Having said about the benefits, it is important to clear the payouts for the package. The calculation for the last package costs you around $4.16 per month only. The extra coupon codes and vouchers can further extend the profits for the users. All the other features remain constant. It also includes the 7 days money back guarantee.

Features:

IronSocket has a great website to start with. It is appeasing, sharply designed and easy to navigate. They feature easy to follow step-by-step setup guides for every device from computers on all operating systems, mobile devices, DD-WRT routers, TV boxes and gaming consoles. The setup guides vary from VPN to SmartDNS and proxy depending on the device. Although the design is great and they feature lots of tutorials, one thing that struck us, is the lack of information on their service. They do not divulge how many shared IPs are available and no load or ping times are available on the web server list. No mention of how many simultaneous connected devices are allowed on the price packages, but the FAQ does advise 3 and when we asked you have the option to up that to 8 devices which is great and very cost effective and we wish they would advertise this add-on on their main ordering page.

Along with 3 simultaneous devices, the packages offer unlimited bandwidth and data transfer and never throttle your speed. P2P is allowed from various country server locations and although they have a small amount of servers, they do have some good global coverage. IronSocket is constantly upgrading capacity and beta stage servers are found on the server list before being deployed but compared to larger tier-1 VPN providers, they remain a smaller network overall.

IronSocket does not offer software on any platform and opts to suggest OpenVPN for most devices. Although software is great, we do think OpenVPN is the best option at the moment in terms of encryption and all software offered by other providers is usually built around using the OpenVPN protocol anyways. They also represent the different advantages of TCP vs UDP OpenVPN in their FAQ section to best setup your VPN for daily browsing or data transfers vs. streaming video, music or gaming.

Security:

There is no mention of how many shared IPs are used on the network. As far as security, they offer high ironclad type security with their OpenVPN 1024 bit data encryption. To use 256 bit encryption in favor of speed, we would suggest L2TP/IPSec over PPTP protocol for a secure yet fast 256 bit connection. SmartDNS proxy service is offered as well as HTTP or SOCKS5 proxy. Although these services do not compare to an OpenVPN encryption, it is better than not using anything at all and are offered with the plans.

The service agreement and privacy policy states that “some” data can be collected for the use of monitoring their servers and that it will permanently be deleted after a certain amount of time. They track your IP for advertising and such when you visit the site. IronSocket advises they only collect timestamp logs, IP addresses used for connection, anonymous Google Analytics data and all support contacts made to them. The Privacy Policy is extensive and when we contacted IronSocket about it, they broke the good news that they will soon implement a 0-log policy and enforce it well to better assure the public that even in the case of a DMCA takedown, very little data would be retrievable from the network. We will keep posted and update the page as soon as the announcement is made.

Speed & Stability:

When using the OpenVPN connection, we felt the loss of speed from certain networks. That is no surprise with VPNs and you often have to look around for servers that just happen to have shorter routes to the services and websites you are accessing. Although slower, we still had some high data transfers going on FTP to test out the stability of the speed and it remained constant on the few tests we did. We later got around to testing L2TP and we’re pleasantly surprised with speeds.. We only lost connection to the VPN once over a week of testing various spots and found it to be very stable overall. Although not the fastest servers we ever tested, the cost/ratio for the performance delivered was excellent.

Customer Service:

The best part of IronSocket’s customer service is its simplicity and readiness. The FAQ section has been well designed and properly maintained. Most of the general queries and the process details are readily available on this section. Talking about the website, it also includes the section for support team. This feature further increases the value of customer interaction and support. Apart from it, IronSocket has a dedicated 24/7 technical support and we had to email them once to ask a question, reply was very quick.