How to Choose a VPN
Finding a great VPN can be a daunting task – to put it mildly. It is not difficult to find any kind of VPN service. There are many applications that promise to encrypt your connection by shuffling it through a third-party server, making your requests look like they are coming from a specified server (even if it’s on the other side of the world) and not your more easily identifiable device. …
To keep your public Wi-Fi and BitTorrenting browsing private, should you search the App Store or Google Play for “VPN”, download any old highly rated app, and stop working? No no no
A free VPN – whether it’s an app that you download or a service that you pay and manually configure on your devices – is a bad thing, because if a company doesn’t charge you a dime for your server investment or content, it surely , makes money by keeping track of everything you do and selling that information to someone else. Even well-known companies are to blame for this . Don’t trust anyone who uses the f-word to try to entice you into using a VPN.
I also see paid VPNs sold all the time, and I usually hesitate to pull the trigger on any of them. They are not free, that’s all, but you still have to make a decision based on trust. A service you’ve never heard of, headquartered in another country, has a nice privacy policy that claims it doesn’t track any of your activities . How can you be sure?
I’ve looked into the tips of a number of legitimate security and privacy watchdogs, and here’s a quick overview of the top tips to keep in mind when buying a VPN service. There are many of them, but they are important because the security of your data is important .
Federal Trade Commission
Explore the VPN app before using it. You trust the VPN with potentially all your traffic. Before you download a VPN app, learn as much as you can about it. Look for third-party reviews from sources you respect. You can also view screenshots, app descriptions, content ratings and user reviews, and do online research about the developer. The fact that an app promises security or privacy doesn’t necessarily make it trustworthy.
Check carefully the permissions requested by the app. Apps will present their requested permissions on their app store page, during installation, or while using the permission. This is useful information that tells you what types of information the app will access on your device in addition to your internet traffic. If your app is asking for highly sensitive permissions (such as reading text messages), consider whether the permission makes sense given the purpose of the app and whether you trust the app developer with that access.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
How long has your VPN provider been around? If it’s relatively new and doesn’t have a reliable history, you’ll have to put a lot of trust in your provider to use this service.
Is your VPN provider logging your traffic? If so, what information is being recorded? You should look for one that clearly promises not to log your internet traffic and how active the VPN provider is in protecting users’ privacy.
Does the VPN provider use encryption when providing the service? It is generally recommended to use services that support a proven open source protocol such as OpenVPN or IPSec. Using these protocols provides the best security available .
If your VPN provider uses encryption, but has a common password for all users, this encryption is not enough. [[David: Like like this]]
Krebs on safety
My bar for choosing a VPN provider has more to do with choosing one that makes the effort to make sure their customers understand how to use a service safely and securely and manage their customers’ expectations of service usage restrictions. These include VPN companies that take the time to explain seemingly esoteric but important concepts like DNS and IPv6 leaks and whether they keep any logs of client activity. I also tend to focus more on VPN providers that offer payment mechanisms that go beyond easily traceable methods like credit cards or PayPal and offer more privacy-safe payment options like bitcoin (or even cash).
This site privacy
“You may have started your VPN search by searching for ‘VPN Reviews’ on the search engine of your choice. If that were the case, you would land on page after page of seemingly innocuous review sites, top 10 or blog-style reviews of various VPN services. You may even come here to confirm what these sites have told you. The sites that make these recommendations are in almost all cases paid for by the services they view and recommend. They start their business relationship with you, which is essentially a lie . The technical term for this type of marketing is “native advertising,” and its abuse is a huge problem in the VPN industry. “
Restore privacy
1. Is in a good privacy jurisdiction (outside of 5/9/14 Eyes countries ) to ensure the security of user data.
2. Passed all tests, no leaks were found (IP addresses and DNS leaks).
3. Good performance across the entire server network (speed and reliability).
4. Quality VPN apps with all features working properly.
5. Supports OpenVPN protocol and strong encryption standards.
6. Offers a money-back guarantee (7 to 30 days).
7. Reliable and well-established VPN provider with a good reputation.
Nippers
“Kick off” comes across in various ways, but the term describes VPN software that cuts off all network traffic in and out of your computer in the event of an encrypted connection failure. Hiccups in your Wi-Fi, or even your ISP, can cause the VPN to go offline, and if you then keep an unsecured connection – especially if the VPN software doesn’t warn you that it is no longer protecting your traffic – it will wipe out all the benefits of your VPN. We considered emergency switches to be a must. While we were looking for applications that would make it easier to add rules about when to activate the shutdown switches, we found special configuration files or manual firewall settings too complex. ”
Finding the right VPN for you
Even though you now have an idea of what to look for in the next VPN, the exploration phase is not over yet – close, but not quite yet. While I have a handful of reviewers I trust and provide reliable recommendations on gadgets and software, VPNs are a different story altogether. I’ve seen a lot of reviews that are just speed tests masquerading as helpful tips. File download times, while helpful, shouldn’t be a top priority when choosing your next VPN. Security and privacy are much more important, and not everyone checks these aspects as well as others (if they check at all).
You will be as safe as possible by setting up and running your own VPN , but that is probably beyond the skill of most people. It’s a little easier to use the VPN server built into your router or NAS, but it’s only useful if you want to encrypt your traffic over a public Wi-Fi connection. Your ISP will still see everything you do, making it less practical if you are trying to hide something you are doing from a company that might get angry if it catches you doing it.
If I were buying a new VPN, I would fire up Excel or Google Sheets and do a giant analysis looking at how different services address the different topics I just highlighted. To complete this list, I would look for services that are highly recommended on privacy- focused sites like TorrentFreak ,That One Privacy Site , privacytools.io, or Restore Privacy , as well as thoughtful aggregators like vpnMentor or Wirecutter . I also read about user experiences with various VPNs in / r / VPN , just to make sure I didn’t miss any issues reported by users of the service.
There is no great resource for finding your next VPN – at least not one that I fully trust. I know running is important and it’s a lot of work. If you succeed in your task, you will exit the process with much more confidence in the VPN service you ultimately choose ( if you choose it at all ).
More importantly, you will complete a Crash Course in Network Security, Self-Study, which will help you become a smarter, privacy-focused web user for years to come. If you give another company free access to your data, you must know as much as possible about the process, and then a little more.