Free VPNs simply aren’t as safe
Free VPNs can be very dangerous. Why? Because to maintain the hardware and expertise needed for large networks and secure users, VPN services have expensive bills to pay. As a VPN customer, you either pay for a premium VPN service with your dollars or you pay for free services with your data. If you aren’t ordering at the table, you’re on the menu.
Some 86% of free iOS and Android VPN apps — accounting for millions of installs — have unacceptable privacy policies, ranging from a simple lack of transparency to explicitly sharing user data with Chinese authorities, according to two independent 2018 investigations into free VPN apps from Top10VPN. Another 64% of free VPN app offerings had no web presence outside their app store pages, and only 17% responded to customer support emails.
In June 2019, Apple reportedly brought the hammer down on apps that share user data with third parties. 80% of the top 20 free VPN apps in Apple’s App Store appear to be breaking those rules, according to a June update on the Top10VPN investigation.
In 2021, 77% of apps were flagged as potentially unsafe in the Top10VPN VPN Ownership Investigation — and 90% of those flagged as potentially unsafe in the Free VPN Risk Index — still posed a risk.
“Google Play downloads of apps we flagged as potentially unsafe have soared to 214 million in total, rocketing by 85% in six months,” the report reads. “Monthly installs from the App Store held steady at around 3.8 million, which represents a relative increase as this total was generated by 20% fewer apps than at the start of the year as a number of apps are no longer available.”
On Android, 214 million downloads represent a lot of user login data, culled from unwitting volunteers. What’s one of the most profitable things one can do with large swaths of user login data?
You can catch malware
Let’s get this out of the way right now: 38% of free Android VPNs contain malware — despite the security features on offer, a CSIRO study found. Yes, many of those free VPNs were highly-rated apps with millions of downloads. If you’re a free user, your odds of catching a nasty bug are greater than 1 in 3.
Ask yourself which costs less: a secure VPN service for about $100 a year, or hiring an identity theft recovery firm after some chump steals your bank account login and Social Security number?
It couldn’t happen to you, right? Wrong. Mobile ransomware attacks are skyrocketing. Symantec detected more than 18 million mobile malware instances in 2018 alone, constituting a 54% year-over-year increase in variants. In 2019, Kaspersky noted a 60% spike in password-stealing Trojans.
Malware isn’t the only way to make money if you’re running a free VPN service; there’s an even easier way.
The ad-valanche
PCMAG, DO NOT USE ON CNET
