Free VPN Services May Be Selling Your Data to Third Parties 

Free VPN Services May Be Selling Your Data to Third Parties 

Are you considering taking advantage of a free VPN service? Before you go through with it, we have some news that you may want to hear. When it comes to paid vs free VPN services, there are some pretty major differences. One of them is that some of those free VPN services might be bridging the gap by selling some of your data to other companies on the Internet.  

Nothing is Truly Free 

We all know that Internet services are never truly free. In most cases, if you aren’t paying a fee, you are still offering the company payment by viewing ads or otherwise offering a service. You’d think that using a VPN would remove this problem, but if the VPN is free, that may not actually be the case. According to an article on Next Web, there are numerous free VPN services out there that engage in selling the date of their users to third parties.  

How VPNs Work 

What a VPN does is hide your IP address and provide a virtual address which all of your Internet traffic is then routed through. This gives you additional security which can be useful for accessing geo-restricted content or bypassing certain firewalls. Most people choose a paid VPN service but there are a handful of free options available. Some of the biggest free options may be doing a bad job at keeping your data private and we aren’t just talking about one or two outliers. Many are large companies with tons of users.  

Why Consider a Paid VPN 

There are several reasons a paid VPN is the better option, not least of which is that they often have better connection speeds. The free guys can’t put up the cost needed to ensure your VPN connection is lightening speed. On top of that, paid VPNs often have more protocols available which gives you additional options. With free VPNs, you typically are left with using only PPTP VPNs. Paid services might offer that in addition to SSTP, OpenVPN, SSH, and more.   

You’ll also find that free VPNs are most likely to have excessive downtime. Since you aren’t paying for the service, there’s not much you can do about that. Paid VPNs need to ensure constant service to keep their customers and many of them are available more than 99% of the time. If you prefer not to randomly disconnect from your VPN, paid is the better option. 

On top of that, you can expect a higher level of customer service from paid options. You’re paying for the service so you will have someone there to help you if there are problems. There may be limited options if you go with a free service or there may be no customer service at all. 

While there are reasons to use a free VPN, there are also plenty of reasons not to. If privacy truly matters to you, it’s best to pay a few dollars each month to ensure you have it whenever you need it.