ExpressVPN, one of the best VPNs, is launching two brand new features that sound confusingly like what’s already there. Users on Android, Mac, and iOS (but obviously not Windows, Linux, or smart TVs) can now use Fastest Location to automatically select the VPN server with the fastest download speeds and lowest latency. Mac users are also getting a new ExpressVPN app designed to work natively with MacOS.
If you’ve used ExpressVPN before, your first reaction was probably something like “Wait, didn’t it already have a Fastest Location button and a Mac app?” You’re not wrong, but these new features still make a meaningful difference. In the past, ExpressVPN was not technically the fastest pick location, but smart location, which chooses the best available server using “metrics like Download Speed, Latency, and Distance” (emphasis mine). These are the same metrics as the new feature, but Such as I think there are or were other ingredients in the “smart location” algorithm.
My guess is that ExpressVPN is changing “Smart” to “Fastest” in response to customer complaints that “Smart” was choosing sub-optimal server locations. This isn’t the behavior I saw when I last reviewed ExpressVPN – Smart Location was always much faster for me – but I’m just a user. Only testing can show whether they really changed the algorithm or just changed the name.
The new Mac app is a more straightforward upgrade. While ExpressVPN has always had a client for Mac, until now it has been a port of an app originally developed for the iPad. This makes its otherwise-excellent interface feel somewhat like a phone app that you use on your desktop. In contrast, the new app was built using Project Catalyst, which lets Mac developers turn their iOS apps into desktop-native software. The new interface looks much richer, using screen space like ProtonVPN. And being like ProtonVPN is hardly a bad thing.
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