Having recently purchased a subscription to iPredator I wanted to filter only certain traffic over the VPN and the rest, by default, over my normal ADSL account. My solution was to setup a SOCKS5 and HTTP proxy that went out over the VPN leaving the rest of the traffic to follow the default route as normal. So, we finally did it! A bit over 12 years ago IPREDator was started. The name IPREDator was a symbolic name made up back then because of the new IPRED law. That law grants companies the right to acquire peoples private information without going through the police regarding immaterial rights violations.
Summary
- 7/10Features - 7/10
- 8/10Speed & Reliability - 8/10
- 8/10Security & Privacy - 8/10
- 6/10Usability & Compatibility - 6/10
- 7/10Support & Documentation - 7/10
- 6/10Value for Money - 6/10
Summary
IPredator is a sturdy, privacy focused VPN service that takes their customer's privacy very seriously. There is a restriction in the number of locations and there is no proprietary application, but considering the performance and the privacy level, we still feel they belong in the top part of the VPN services.
IPredator VPN is a service based in Sweden launched at the end of 2009, incorporated in Cyprus, founded by Peter Sunde, the infamous former Pirate Bay spokesman. The name “Ipredator” is a response to the IPRED law in Sweden, which allows copyright owners and law enforcement to request personal information about people suspected to be involved in copyright infringement.
Features
IPredator provides OpenVPN and PPTP VPN access on their single location, in Sweden. OpenVPN connection can be made on any ports except for 22 (ssh) used by their admins. Encryption strength is AES 256-bit.
They claim in their FAQ page that SSTP and L2TP protocols will be available by the end of the year.
Software
They do not provide a custom-built VPN connection software but the tutorials for OpenVPN GUI and other connection software including OS built-in are very easy to follow.
Pricing
IPredator VPN pricing starts at $8 for a month of service, or 6 EUR. Prepaid options are available for 3, 6 and 12 months. No discount is available for paying in advance, so the prepaid price for one year of service is 72 EUR or around $100.
Payment methods include Bitcoin, Payson and Paypal. Payson is a popular payment method for Scandinavian users but it doesn’t accept credit cards anymore.
IPredator is also known for having problems with Paypal in the past, who had frozen their account temporarily.
A free 3-day trial is available on request if you send them an email.
Logging and Privacy
They state in their FAQ page what kind of information they collect and how they store it. They store connection logs for debugging purposes off-site. We appreciate the level of transparency when it comes to detailing what kind of information is stored.
IPredator also clearly state that they won’t hand over any customer information to anyone, unless those demanding the information are the Swedish authorities and can prove that the reason why they ask for customer information is very serious, like a murder case or serious fraud.
Speed and Reliability
Speed was very good in all our testing, in the range of 30 Mbps to 70 Mbps, and we rarely experienced connection drops.
speedtest.net results:
Torrent speed:
Support
IPredator provides support via email, IRC and jabber service. We asked a few questions by email and IRC and the staff replied in a timely manner.
Conclusions
The good:
- IPredator is committed to users privacy
- Very good speed
- Minimalist and clean website, not cluttered with marketing fluff
- OpenVPN connection is possible on all ports
- They are operating their own servers
- Bitcoin accepted
- P2P allowed
The Bad:
- Only one gateway location (Sweden)
- Too few payment methods
- No custom-built VPN software
Final notes
Ipredator is a solid privacy-focused VPN service and their affiliation to Pirate Bay is a guarantee that they are serious about users’ privacy. Because they provide access in a single location and some other limitations mentioned in our review, we are forced to rank them lower than some competitors. We rate IPredator at 7/10 but we highly recommend it if you’re fine with sticking to a single location.
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So, we finally did it!
A bit over 12 years ago IPREDator was started. The name IPREDator was a symbolic name made up back then because of the new IPRED law. That law grants companies the right to acquire peoples private information without going through the police regarding immaterial rights violations. The VPN service was born as a fuck you to the politicians for voiding the peoples right to a fair trial. In retrospect, we should have named it something less creepy, but at the time it was very good and effective.
But just as the name has passed the expiration date the service had also become a bit stale. The team has always been very passionate but not always the most structured. So some time back it was decided that it was time to move away from the current platform and revamp it all. And we already had a structured modern infrastructure in mind, namely Njalla!
As you might know, the core of the Ipredator team also started Njalla. The idea was to bring our unique view on privacy also to domains, since we personally always had trust issues with domain privacy. And then we added virtual servers since a lot of people also asked for that. And since IPredator was a bit stale and VPN is the obvious thing Njalla was missing, we decided to add a modern VPN service to Njalla.
All the people using IPredator will be able to move their account over to Njalla. All the remaining VPN time is added to the account - plus one extra month as a welcome bonus. Those of you that already have a njalla account will get your VPN time extended. But if you want to give it to someone else, or have multiple accounts, just contact our support and we'll help you!
![Ipredator Ipredator](/uploads/1/2/7/7/127770228/997585781.jpg)
We're turning off the old infrastructure for IPredator in the middle of november. All the previous issues with broken VPNs and so on are memories of the past, since we're a bigger team working with Njalla, we run on newer hardware and with better infrastructure. It was really time to upgrade and it just didn't make sense to have two similar services running with two overlapping teams.
Most things from IPredator will be the same, but since we're moving from a decade old way of thinking, the world has changed a lot. In 2008 Donald Trump was a trolling TV-host instead of a trolling president. Facebook was a thing back then. (Not sure if we even had colour screens back then?) So some things will have to change. The most major things are:
- The IPs for the public resolvers are going to be changed. Go to https://dns.njal.la/ for the new public resolver (which also supports private DNS-over-TLS/HTTPS).
- The IRC server will be closed down. This has mostly been used for support, which is now using the njalla ticketing system.
- The Jabber server will be closed down. It would be good for the few people still using it to find alternative jabber servers to move to. We'd suggest getting a domain name and a VPS to run your own, or better migrate to Matrix.
Any questions you might have about the transition from IPredator to Njalla can of course be asked to our support!
You can migrate your IPredator account to Njalla on njal.la/ipredator.
Ipredator Kuma
Bures boahtin ('welcome' in Sámi)!