ExpressVPN vs NordVPN

These two cybersecurity companies know exactly what they need to do right from the start. From their business location bypassing mandatory data retention laws to tried-and-tested security tools, ExpressVPN and NordVPN deserve to be on top.

The Most Advanced Encryption 🔐

ExpressVPN and NordVPN don’t settle for less when it matters most. Both use AES-256 encryption, which is what the US National Security Agency proposes for safeguarding the most valuable information.

Governments around the world use 256-bit AES encryption — and this standard has yet to fail any entity.

AES-256 is virtually impossible to decrypt through brute force. You can attempt to break it the moment the Big Bang happened (that’s 13.8 billion years ago) — and you still won’t have enough time. Likewise, even a big army of future supercomputers working together 24/7 for billions of years will fail to identify the correct key combination.

Strategically Located Headquarters 🗺️

One important factor in the trustworthiness of a VPN provider is its business location. Why? Some countries are part of the 5/14 Eyes Surveillance group. They’ve agreed to share information, especially if it’s crucial to their national security. However, this pact poses huge privacy concerns to citizens.

Thankfully, neither ExpressVPN nor NordVPN are headquartered in a member country of this surveillance alliance. Express’ company is situated in the British Virgin Islands while Nord is in Panama.

Both don’t have obligatory data retention laws, which means that the two VPNs have authentic no-logging policies.

Other Convenient Measures 🛡️

Aside from the no-logs policy and AES-256 encryption, ExpressVPN and NordVPN utilize the following:

Split Tunneling

What if you need to browse UK-based content and local networks on Chrome while still having encrypted connections for other apps and browsers?

Split tunneling allows you to exclude programs (or even individual websites) from VPN connections. This way, you can avoid getting geo-restricted from your country’s online services and still secure your streaming and file-sharing activities.

Private DNS

Even if you’ve established a VPN connection, your privacy is still unsecured if the traffic still goes through your ISP’s DNS servers. To alleviate potential DNS leaks, ExpressVPN and NordVPN have their own DNS servers — guaranteeing that both online traffic and DNS queries are sent to private, encrypted tunnels.

Kill Switch

ExpressVPN calls it Network Lock. Essentially, a kill switch is an emergency security measure.

It automatically blocks your computer from all internet traffic if your VPN connection dips for some reason (e.g., your computer enters sleep mode or your wifi signal goes down).

NordVPN offers more flexibility. It has system-wide and app-level kill switches. The former stops all programs and processes on the network from having access to the Internet. And as its name implies, the second type is for when you still want some apps to remain online even when the connection is no longer secure.

Also, NordVPN has its multi-hopping technology called DoubleVPN. It may have noticeable performance drawbacks in terms of connection speed, but this reinforces your security by connecting you to two VPN servers. A hacker (or ISP or government) has to put in twice the effort to snoop into your online activities.

Not to be outshined, ExpressVPN has TrustedServer, a pioneering, independently audited VPN tech that removes the inherent risks of using hard drives. How? Instead of hard drives, ExpressVPN runs VPN servers on RAM, which needs power to retain data (i.e., all information is automatically wiped each time the servers reboot).

No-Logs Policy No Matter What 😤

Both VPN providers have had at least one headline-making security dilemma. You see, the killer of ambassador Andrei Karlov reportedly used ExpressVPN to remove crucial information on his accounts.

Turkish authorities then grabbed one of its VPN servers in December 2017 but found no logs, which proved ExpressVPN’s no-logs policy. Learning what is VPN Logging can sometimes be a matter of life and death.

Similarly, one third-party VPN server of NordVPN suffered a breach in March 2018. The datacenter they were working with did not inform them of any shoddy configurations nor did they notify NordVPN first when the attack was detected.

As expected, however, the server did not contain any user logs, and NordVPN has since cut ties with the data center and conducted a comprehensive internal audit to improve its cybersecurity system.