• The best free VPN isn’t going to be good.
• Do you really need a VPN?
• If you do, choose one you pay for (or build it yourself).

If something is free, you’re the product. Think about it: how do companies offering a free service make money? Sure, there’s always the hope that by offering a free version of a product, users will like the service so much, they’ll upgrade to a paid-for tier. But that’s a business model that’s not often lucrative – not many free service users upgrade, even when it’s something they use all the time.

Instead of relying on the hope of eventual conversion of customers to paying price tiers, free VPN providers are able to sell information about you on the open data market. In fact, some free VPN providers are quite open about their relationships with data brokerage companies, organisations that buy and sell user data. And it’s worth remembering two things:

• Users of VPNs are more likely to have something they wish to hide, so their details are of higher value than most,
• All data from your devices passes through the VPN providers’ systems, giving them carte blanche to examine online activity.

There are some more mundane reasons, too, why free VPN services might not work as you expect:

• Speed. Slow internet speeds. Free tiers of anything don’t offer the best experience. Free service users will end up sharing a limited amount of bandwidth, so expect traffic to move at a crawl.
• Streaming. Streaming media might not be possible, and if it is, won’t be worth watching. Some VPNs block streaming traffic by default, and those that do allow it will rate-limit throughput, so your experience will be average at best.
• Malware. VPN applications downloaded to your computer or phone need very deep access to your device’s operating system. That’s an open invitation to bad actors to offer an app that includes malware, spyware and ransomware.
• Advertising. One way free VPN providers can monetise is to show you intrusive ads. Normal ad-blockers and browser extensions won’t be able to stop this, so be prepared to be inundated with messages about dubious goods and services.
• Limited options. Free tiers from VPN companies will probably only offer a few ‘virtual endpoints,’ that is, where your connection ‘comes out’ in the world. If you need a connection to appear as if it’s coming from somewhere specific, you may be out of luck. (And don’t forget that most streaming services, for example, block traffic to and from VPN providers as a matter of course.)

Why you should pay for a VPN

Although there are no guarantees that any provider is above board, at least by paying for a service you have some weight with the providing company in the eyes of the law. Issues around speed and bandwidth will – or should – be addressed faster, and you will have some legal recourse in the event of a dispute that’s difficult to resolve.

In some territories, there are also guarantees of money-back if the service provided proves unsuitable. If you were relying on being able to stream media from a different country, for example, and it proves impossible with your chosen VPN service, you can back out of the arrangement.

Paid-for VPNs typically offer their customers more endpoints, so users have many more options at their disposal to experiment with, plus features like split-tunnelling (choosing which apps use the VPN and which don’t) become available options. Plus, you should get better connection speeds and much less traffic throttling (slow-downs) at peak times.

The final point to note is that choosing a VPN you’re willing to pay for gives you more choice, so you can pick the provider whose features you want, rather than being constrained by the few free VPNs that you can get to work in your circumstances.

Do you really need a VPN?

If your issue that a you hope a VPN might cure is personal or business data privacy, there are many other ways to ensure your data stays secure, before you part with any cash for a VPN service.

Companies like Microsoft (Windows and Office 365) and Google (Chrome, Maps, Search etc.), social media platforms, plus most popular websites already collect data about you and your organisation. These processes will continue whether or not a VPN is active. Additionally, your mobile provider in the case of phones or ISP (internet service provider) will likely have access to, at least, a list of everywhere on the internet you connect to (through looking up resource names, like ‘secret-website.com’ on your behalf).

VPNs provide some protection and extra freedom when using captive wi-fi (such as in a hotel) or when using public wi-fi networks, like in your local coffee shop. But the vast majority of internet traffic today is encrypted, so without a specific use-case, using a VPN – free or paid – might be more than you really need.

Final thoughts

VPN providers that advertise paid-for services are businesses that are subject to the rule of law. In most countries, law-enforcement can force them to produce log files from their systems that show all connections that are made to and from their platforms. In just a few cases, VPN companies don’t keep those files for more than a few seconds, but it’s nearly impossible to determine which those providers are, as such information is private and rarely available to see.

The ‘safest’ VPN is one that you build yourself, using – for example – a Virtual Private Server (VPS) from a public cloud company, and installing the required software, such as OpenVPN or Wireguard. But that’s beyond the scope of this article!

If you need a VPN, be sure of why you need it, and be prepared to pay for the service if you do.