I'm sure everyone has heard about VPNs by now. Along other things, they promise better privacy and to protect you from tracking. Are they lying?
VPN Marketing
VPN Ads are everywhere. They push the narrative that you need a VPN to be safe and have privacy online. And since I care a lot about Privacy, I take that very seriously. Although it's true that your Internet Provider can see what you do on the web (in some Counties), it's still not the entire truth: In certain Countries, including America, Internet Providers can see what Websites are visited by their customers, but not what their customers do on those Websites (at least if the connection is via HTTPS, which it is in most cases).
So in my opinion, VPN Marketing is somewhat deceptive, especially for uninformed users.
VPN Companies
There are a lot of VPN Companies, but the main ones you might recognize are NordVPN, SurfSharkVPN, CyberGhostVPN, ExpressVPN and PrivateInternetAccess.
The interesting thing is that there are just two companies behind these five VPNs: NordVPN and SurfSharkVPN are both owned by NordSecurity, while CyberGhostVPN, ExpressVPN and PrivateInternetAccess are owned by Kape Technologies.
VPN Privacy
"If you want to have more Privacy, just use a VPN", but is it actually that simple?
Since your Internet Provider can see, what Websites you're visiting, so can your VPN, that is because a VPN acts as the middle man, which hides your traffic, between you and your Internet Provider. Ultimately, this means, that you have to be able to trust your VPN.
To make it simple, you can't really trust Kape Technologies or NordSecurity with your data. If you choose one of their VPNs, you just change the Corporation which sells your data. Also, these Corporations are very happily giving your data to the government, so their promises can genuinely be dangerous for journalists or in more recent News, People, that are hunted by ICE.
What is there to do?
Not all Hope is lost! There are trustworthy VPN Companies out there, just not very many. There are really only two VPNs that I can recommend.
- MullvadVPN
- ProtonVPN
If you are more experienced and don't mind the only very occasional tinkering, MullVadVPN is a great Option. It's comparably cheap, at $5/mo and $60/yr, and also very trustworthy, as you don't even need to give them your E-mail to make an account.
If you are less experienced and coming from a mainstream VPN like NordVPN or never used a VPN, ProtonVPN is also a great Option. It's a bit more expensive at $12/mo and $80/yr, but offers more convince and a few extra features.
MozillaVPN is an honorable mention, but it's still pretty small and has its own set of issues.
Some helpful resources: