3 Reasons to Avoid Free VPNs if you Want to Protect your Data
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have become a necessity with the current scenario of mass data breaches across the world.
And it’s not just the small businesses that are becoming victims of these data breaches. It’s the more prominent companies and organizations that, considering the spike in the data breaches, leave various loopholes and vulnerabilities in their cybersecurity tactics.
For example, the current victim of the data breach scenario was Microsoft. Due to alleged neglect, data of multiple authorities and ministries present in the United States and the United Kingdom fell prey to an email server hack by the tech giant.
This is why internet users are taking responsibility for their internet privacy into their own hands and looking for tools to protect their sensitive data over the internet. These tools include using antivirus software, VPN, password manager, and more.
However, a VPN always remains a reliable option for protecting your personally identifiable information (PII).
But, a mistake users make is saving their bucks and getting a free VPN service for themselves. Free VPNs can never be compared to the paid VPN services. To know more about premium VPNs, just check out the best VPN guide of VPNRanks. And to know why you should avoid a free VPN service, just look at the reasons below:
Three reasons why you should avoid using a free VPN service:
If you think about it, free VPNs are extremely attractive with all the fancy promises they make. However, it’s common sense that even if they do promise you 100% security, will it really be that way for free?
A VPN is known to offer premium security features and guarantee complete anonymity over the internet.
But, how can such fantastic features even come at no cost unless you have an ulterior motive?
Due to this, we tested and researched a lot about free VPN services, and that extensive research confirmed that free VPN services are not safe at all.
Here are three of the most significant reasons why you should avoid a free VPN:
1. Free VPN services leak your IP address:
You should never opt for a free VPN service for yourself because it does not offer the state-of-the-art encryption that it promises and is known to leak your PII, including your IP address and location.
A fundamental reason for using a VPN service is to become anonymous over the internet, so no one can know anything about you. If you access a website with a VPN, you’d want the service to hide your location and let you access it easily.
But, free VPNs do the complete opposite. They leak your IP address and location for third parties to snoop in and track you over the internet. If you’ve been trying to avoid targeted ads, then just know that using a free VPN won’t help you in doing that. Their encryption protocols may be the best, or so they claim, but they won’t secure anything for anyone.
2. They collect logs, track you, and sell your data:
The second and the most significant reason why avoiding a free VPN is a sensible decision is that these VPNs collect logs of their users. If you don’t know what these logs include, then just know that they contain everything, from your sensitive data to your online activities.
The device you use, the activities you perform, the applications you’re using, the server you’re connected to – all this and more is collected by free VPNs.
But, you must be thinking, why do they collect everything about you? Well, once collected, these VPNs sell all this data to third parties that later target you over the internet. This is how they put your privacy at stake. Also, this is how they earn money by offering you a free service.
3. They expose you to malware:
Many free VPN apps come with malware that can infect your device badly, steal your data, and cost you your privacy. In addition, these VPNs often come with nasty bugs that get installed on your device and later do what they’re meant to do – cause a whole lot of damage.
Some of this malware include viruses, spyware, ransomware, and more. Hacking into free VPNs and data breaching is relatively easy for hackers as well. Earlier this month, data of 21 million users of free VPNs got exposed after being hacked.
Conclusion
With that said, and the top 3 reasons mentioned that should be enough to make you avoid free VPNs, you should always go for a VPN that keeps you secure at all costs. And, a free VPN absolutely fails to do that.
Therefore, in this era where cyber breaches occur every day, it’s a better option to spend some cash and protect your data online using a premium VPN service.
These VPNs will cost you a bit but would guarantee to secure your data and activities across the internet with their top-notch encryption protocols, effective security features, and more.