Are Free VPNs safe to use?
4 reasons why you shouldn't ever use a free VPN.
Are you looking for cheap VPN options and now you are wondering if you should try a free VPN found in the internet. We’ll take you through different reasons, why you should not use free VPN, ever.
Free VPNs are good, but not that good
While Free VPNs might work as intended, there may still be security or other flaws along. We’ll go through them later in this article, and what we can say is that most free VPNs are not what they tell they’re.
If you want to have VPN for free, we suggest trying risk-free trials.
It is true that free VPNs are popular option along many people, but most of them use what is called a “money-back guarantee”. This means that you can try almost every premium VPN out there for free and ask for a refund later.
Many of those premium VPNs even offer a free trial for new users to try the software themselves.
Free trials from premium providers are only safe and secure option when it comes to free VPNs.
Catch a free trial now:
- NordVPN offers 30-day free trial for every new user that register to their service.
- ExpressVPN offers 30-day free trial also for every new user.
- But Cyberghost offers 45 days money-back guarantee for anyone wanting to try out the service.
So, take advantage of free trials if you only need VPN for a limited time. If you are looking for a long-term budget VPN, we suggest choosing Surfshark as you provider.
Why using free trial is better than free VPN?
VPNs are so popular that there are so many options for everyone. You can test almost each one of them for free or with a money-back guarantee. You can keep your mind peaceful when you use trusted providers to handle your logins and browsing instead of giving all data to untrusted parties.
Many times, there have been incidents where free VPNs have been used for unethical activities. The most recent one is the UFO VPN which was Hong-Kong based free VPN that was full of bs.
They logged each activity from every user and that can be potential risk of security and privacy. They could have made a user-identifying processes and sold them for ad companies or used them for spying.
But the funniest part was they told customer they keep no-log policy. Therefore, you should never trust foreign providers without actual data.
If you have used this VPN in the past, be careful. And for others this is a good warning example of why not to use free VPNs.
Let’s go to the 4 key points or reasons why you should not ever use free VPN.
1. Free VPNs can never be as safe as trusted providers
There are many reports by trusted cybersecurity companies that simply claim free VPNs to be very dangerous. You can think yourself, how it is possible for free VPNs to operate in such a scale, because hardware and expertise needed to run big customer bases make costs tremendous.
Many VPN reviewers have a good saying that if you don’t want to pay VPN with your money, you will pay with your data. And mostly this is the truth behind the scenes.
If you don’t know what we are talking about, take your time and read most of the VPNs privacy policies in Apple or Android stores. They are weird and sound illegal, how is that even possible? Yet still these applications have millions and millions of installs each month.
Apple and Android are trying to fight against this phenomenon but unfortunately there are still a lot of applications that share data to third parties like there is no tomorrow.
Imagine what they do and what they can do with the huge data they have…
2. Malwares and viruses take over your device
This is the sad truth about free VPNs. CSIRO made a study about this subject and what they found out is awful. According to that study a whopping 38 percent of free Android VPNs contains malware.
So, you are not willing to pay few bucks a month to get your hands on a trusted VPN but you are willing to catch a malware or viruses with very high chance?
Attacks on mobile devices have skyrocketed in the past years. Now or ever, this should be your time to secure your privacy and security with a real VPN.
If you don’t catch a malware, you’ll still run to problems where you will probably get abused.
3. Aggressive or targeted ads
Advertising is common in the digital world, but what advertisers can do with your data. They can hammer you with targeted ads in every possible channel.
And what we found out that many free VPN providers hammer your devices with push-notifications and other aggressive marketing methods.
Unfortunately, when this kind of software is installed, they can easily fake log-in platforms in banks services and other where they can obtain your personal data. This is very common amongst free services.
But even legit providers do this. The most popular case happened in 2017 when the Federal Trade Commission made a complaint to HoptSpot Shield VPN. They were accused of selling data to third-party advertising networks, but also redirected traffic on the go.
In their policies they stated that the free version of the VPN is funded by ads. None the less, we don’t accept this kind of activities. Normal advertising is ok if it is enough to fund the program.
4. Free VPNs are slow as…
This is what we all know. Most people use VPN for security purposes, but a new customer base has completely different idea. They use VPNs for streaming Netflix, Hulu or HBO.
They simply use VPN to go around geographic limits and watch their favorite movies and soap operas provided by other country. And this is completely legal.
But what the free VPN users don’t know is many providers sell their bandwidth or even mine cryptocurrencies with their hardware. A popular example of this kind of activity belongs to Hola, which was caught in 2015 for stealing user’s bandwidth and selling it forward.
This allows third parties to use this bandwidth for illegal purposes.
Hola quickly defended themselves and said that Hola is a P2P network, and it was clear for every user that sharing their bandwidth with the community and getting back free VPN service is ok.
Usually this is the case when free VPN feels slow or buffers forever. Some of the bandwidth might get to a different location perhaps.
So, in conclusion
Free VPNs never are an option. If you really want to use VPN for a short-period of time you should look for free trials or money-back policies. Fortunately, we made all this easy for you, as we listed top providers who are trusted, popular and offer free trials for new users.
The VPN market is big, and you have plenty of options to choose from. Why would you ever want a free VPN that is slow, contains malware with very high chance and sells your data forward.
Pay for VPN with money not with your data as they saying goes…