Unblocking streaming services like Netflix and Hulu is especially important if you’re traveling. And with the battle raging against consumers and geographic content blocking, only a handful of proxy services will work. VIP DNS Club is one of those services that does work, but there’s a catch: Only a limited number of users can sign up for a subscription. As a result, you may find you need a VIP DNS Club alternative that will still help you bypass geographic content restrictions for popular sites and services.
Those looking to use VIP DNS Club typically turn to the service for several reasons, most notably:
- Effective bypassing of geographic content blocks
- Fast speeds with unlimited bandwidth
- Use of current and updated technology for proxy services
- Secure and anonymous connection to the web
However, the service has a few critical limitations that should make anyone seek an alternative. These include:
- The privacy and security limitations of a DNS service
- VIP DNS Club’s overwhelming lack of information regarding its services
- Limited subscriptions available
- Few payment options
With that in mind, let’s explore a few services that not only serve as great alternatives but surpass what you’ll find using VIP DNS Club.
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The Best VIP DNS Club Alternatives
ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN is one of the best alternatives to VIP DNS Club for several reasons. Key among them is the sheer number of servers that ExpressVPN provides, alongside the level of protection and privacy it guarantees.
Best features
With ExpressVPN, you can access an extremely large number of servers made available in many different countries and locations. There are over 2,000 servers to choose from with this service, in 148 locations across the world.
You’ll also find many of those servers located in popular countries for content access, including the US, UK, Canada, and Germany. In all, there are servers in 94 different countries.
Those numbers are not set in stone, however, and tend to trend upward. ExpressVPN is dedicated to expanding its service, regularly adding new servers, server locations, and countries for subscribers to utilize.
While VIP DNS Club does not give much detail on what it offers in comparison, it’s unlikely that their service has this kind of extensive coverage.
Perhaps one of the best reasons to opt for ExpressVPN over VIP DNS Club is the transparency ExpressVPN provides about its service. Whereas VIP DNS Club does not give you much detail about what you get before signing up, ExpressVPN is very clear regarding all of its features. You will find pages dedicated to explaining how the service works, what servers are available and where, and more details about its security features and logging policies.
ExpressVPN also easily surpasses all of the benefits that are offered with VIP DNS Club. It has fast servers with unlimited bandwidth, unblocks content from across the world and from major services, regularly updates its technology to stay ahead of the VPN detection technologies, and provides the type of encryption and no-logs policies subscribers need to stay anonymous and secure.
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What we don’t like
There are some negatives to signing up to ExpressVPN, compared to VIP DNS Club.
For one, VIP DNS Club is significantly less expensive. To unblock Netflix with their service you need to purchase the Gold membership, which is either $9.95 per month, or $6.97 per month when purchased as a yearly subscription.
In contrast, ExpressVPN can be purchased on a month-to-month basis for $12.95/month, or $8.32/month when purchased as a yearly subscription.
However, even at its most expensive, ExpressVPN is still cheaper than VIP DNS Club’s Diamond and VIP memberships, both of which are more expensive than ExpressVPN.
ExpressVPN may also be a bit more difficult to navigate if you’re looking to bypass content restrictions. Not every server will work, and you may find yourself often contacting customer support to figure out which server to connect to in order to access blocked content.
ExpressVPN does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, however, allowing you to try it out before you decide whether or not to keep it.
NordVPN
NordVPN offers a great VPN service at a great price, and its features beat everything that VIP DNS club has to offer – at a lower price.
Best features
NordVPN offers a number of different servers, and many of them are optimized for specific types of browsing, such as P2P file sharing. Through NordVPN, you’ll have access to Double VPN, P2P, Anti DDoS, Obfuscated, Dedicated IP, and Onion Over VPN servers.
Each of these provides different types of security, and it’s a feature that is completely unique to NordVPN.
Alongside this, NordVPN provides a high level of security and anonymity for users, both through the encryption technology it employs and through its no-logs policy. For good measure, you can also sign up to NordVPN using standard payment methods, but also using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum which protect your personal information.
Through NordVPN, users also have access to a huge number of servers, server locations, and countries. NordVPN beats every other service on our list of VIP DNS Club alternatives by offering over 4,400 servers in 62 countries around the world.
What we don’t like
NordVPN is still a bit expensive compared to VIP DNS club. You can only choose between a month-to or yearlong subscription. You can subscribe for $11.95/month with a monthly contract.
However, their yearly subscription is much cheaper than the VIP DNS Club (Gold membership, 1-year plan). NordVPN only costs $5.75 per month if you sign up for a year, discounting the service by 52%.
Additionally, if you do want to go for the 2-year plan, NordVPNgives you an even better discount with a 72% drop in price, offering the service for an equivalent of $3.29 per month.
You can indeed get NordVPN for cheaper than VIP DNS Club, but you’re going to have to sign up for longer-term subscriptions in order to do so. This means that you’re probably not going to want to use NordVPN if you only want a shorter-term subscription.
Nevertheless, NordVPN lets users use the service for 30 days with a money-back guarantee, so that should give you enough time to determine if one of their multi-year plans is worth the commitment.
StrongVPN
StrongVPN’s name outlines its best feature – it’s a strong, robust, security- and privacy-focused service that offers more benefits and security features than you’ll get with VIP DNS Club.
Best features
Many potential subscribers are drawn to VIP DNS Club because of its small size. There are just over 12,000 users connecting through this service, which is a far cry from the hundreds of thousands (or even millions) using ExpressVPN and NordVPN. On that end, StrongVPN is a potentially good alternative. It is one of the smaller services on our list, offering around 650 VPN servers in 26 countries and 46 cities.
That size is definitely is part of StrongVPN’s appeal. Fewer users sharing the network means much less chance of bandwidth issues related to overloaded servers. And it can still bypass content restrictions from large and popular networks, such as Netflix, Hulu, and the BBC iPlayer.
As well, StrongVPN maintains a dedication to user privacy. It comes complete with a no-logging policy, as well as the option to pay with cryptocurrencies and other more secure payment methods.
What we don’t like
One of StrongVPN’s primary benefits is also its biggest weakness. Having fewer customers, VPN servers, and locations is good for some things, but it also means you might find less value in StrongVPN.
With fewer servers, the most popular locations are more likely to experience server load as the limited number of available servers fill up. This will inevitably lead to bandwidth issues for some users.
And if there are certain countries you want to connect to through your VPN, you may find that they aren’t available through StrongVPN. Larger services like ExpressVPN and NordVPN have the server capacity and size to provide more benefits to subscribers on that end, while StrongVPN simply can’t compete for users who need location choice outside of the most popular regions.
Thankfully, the price is not a big issue with StrongVPN, as it’s similarly priced to VIP DNS Club on the month-to-month basis. Its annual subscription is cheaper than with VIP DNS Club as well, although only by just over $1.00 less per month.
Limited server options and locations aside, StrongVPN provides a 30-day money-back guarantee for users to try before they make a commitment.
VyprVPN
VyprVPN’s key selling point—the Chameleon VPN protocol—is one that makes it worth considering above the other 3 VPN services on our list. It’s also a key factor that makes it a far better option than VIP DNS Club.
Best features
The biggest issue with VIP DNS Club is the fact that it is a DNS service. DNS services have proven easy to block, making them worthless for accessing content like American Netflix. This is why most users who turned to DNS services in the past have begun using VPNs.
However, many VPN services are blocked as well thanks to what’s known as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), among other blocking techniques.
To counteract security threats presented by government spying, VyprVPN created a unique protocol called Chameleon. Naturally, the company does not explain how this proprietary technology works. But beyond preventing government spying while connected to the VPN, Chameleon also makes it easy to access geo-blocked content from anywhere in the world.
VyprVPN has more going for it, however. The service has over 70 server locations worldwide, covering 6 continents.
And for those users who simply must have DNS, VyprVPN has a superior, zero-knowledge DNS service for its VyprVPN subscribers. As such, you can get both DNS and VPN options through VyprVPN, making the service far more useful.
What we don’t like
VyprVPN has a high minimum cost of entry when compared to VIP DNS Club. The service is available for $5 per month for an annual subscription. Yet to get the must-have Chameleon protocol, you need to sign up for VyprVPN Premium. Premium costs $12.95 per month for the month-to-month option.
However, Premium is a better deal for the annual subscription. This subscription costs $6.67 per month, beating out the VIP DNS Club’s Gold membership, although only by about 30 cents per month.
Additionally, while VyprVPN has over 1 million customers, it has only slightly more servers than StrongVPN. The service has over 1 million customers sharing 700 servers worldwide. And while most of those servers are based in the more popular North American and European countries, server load and bandwidth issues are more likely to be a problem.
VyprVPN is also a bit less generous with their trial period. You can give the service a try for 5 days free of charge.
Why Do I Need an Alternative to VIP DNS Club?
As stated, one of the primary problems with VIP DNS Club is the fact that it significantly limits who can sign up. On the website, a notice that says how many spots are left for those who can sign up. We’ve found that this number is often misleading.
For example, at one point we went to the VIP DNS Club website to find it advertising 16 spots left.
However, we could not sign up for service and secure one of the open spots. Instead, we were redirected to a page that says there are no more spots left.
VIP DNS Club allows potential subscribers to receive an email if there are any spots available, but all you’re really doing at that point is handing over your information to the company for marketing purposes.
Unlike the options listed above, VIP DNS Club accepts very few forms of payment. You’re limited to Visa, Mastercard, or PayPal. PayPal is the most secure payment method there, but for anyone looking to complete anonymity from the payment process onward, you won’t find it through this service.
Lack of privacy and overall effectiveness
Indeed, if complete privacy and anonymity are what you need alongside unblocking content, VIP DNS Club is not the service for you. They do not have any stated policy regarding the security of user data. Additionally, the service utilizes weak security measures.
DNS services will only give you access to a new server in the country you’re trying to access. For the most part, there are no privacy or security features through DNS. Such services are also far easier to block than VPNs.
As such, a VPN service, which routes your connection through a private tunnel to a new, hosted server in the country of your choice, offers both encryption and proxy services, alongside other security benefits.
Finally, the overall lack of information VIP DNS Club provides about its services should trouble anyway. The site leaves a lot to be desired regarding what you get when you sign up—that is if you can actually sign up at all!
Sam Cook is a full-time content strategist by day, a part-time freelance content writer since 2015. In another life, he was a high school English teacher for nearly a decade. Based in sunny New Orleans, he writes long-form educational content on technology, including Insurtech, Fintech, HRtech, and content streaming. He loves whittling down complex ideas within these areas that make decisions easier for buyers. When he’s not reading books with his son Miles and playing video games with the family, you can find him immersed in his growing collection of Euro-style board games.
