Everybody knows that a VPN should protect users’ privacy, hide IP address, encrypt browsing data and keep everything in a secret. But did you ever think that it could not be true? What if a VPN service providers do track their users and shares gathered data with somebody else? In this article, we’re going to reveal the dark side of the virtual private network business and how to choose the best no log VPN.
So let’s get started.
There are hundreds or maybe thousands of various VPN service providers on the market, and it is very difficult to choose the right one. When we start looking for the VPN service, we don’t even know what to look for. Nice vendors’ websites and attractive plans, make us buy some kind of services. Only after some time, we might realize that we did a mistake.
Do Paid VPN Vendors Monitor and Gathers Your Browsing Data?
We have visited more than 20 well known paid VPN service providers, carefully read “term of use” and “privacy policy” sections. Maybe it is not the most interesting content in the world and it took us plenty of time to read and analyze it, but we did it anyway.
There you can find many interesting facts about how VPN vendors do behave, aggregate or log the data of your browsing activity.
Everybody will agree, that nobody reads those annoying pages, we just check the checkbox “I agree” and proceeding further. We are doing big mistakes when we are not reading those pages and accepting all terms and conditions. What we have found has shocked us.
Most of the VPN service providers are telling lies to us about privacy and security. They do collect your browsing data (websites you visit, the time you spend on the specific websites), limit your bandwidth and do other tricks.
Why do they do it? The answer is very simple, in most cases, they sell data, to the marketing, advertising or data trading agencies to make more money.
Can Government Agencies Spy on Me If I Am Using a VPN?
Moreover, many VPN service providers can give away the log files of certain users activity to government security agencies if asked. There were many cases when the hackers were arrested after using a certain VPN service.
If you still don’t know, many countries have gathered in the international security alliance which is called “Fourteen Eyes”. This alliance was gathered to fight terrorism and monitor citizens’ online activity.
The countries are monitoring certain groups of users and sharing between them gathered information. Especially, if you are the immigrant, emigrant, tourist, journalist, you should be aware of the VPN service providers which are situated in the countries of “Fourteen Eyes”.
The activity of “Fourteen Eyes” alliance was kept in a secret for many years, and only in 2003 years, when Edward Snowden leaked some documents the things became more visible to the society. The network’s activity was spread much wider then it was thought before. The leaked documents have shown that the alliance carried out extremely large-scale citizen surveillance.
In this alliance belongs these countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, and Spain.
How to Choose the Best Virtual Private Network?
So if your chosen VPN service provider is situated in the country list mentioned before, it is affected by the international laws and might be manipulated by the “Fourteen Eyes” alliance. The VPN vendors have no choice and they must gather users’ activity on the log files.
A decent VPN service provider should be located in offshore countries, which is not regulated by the law. It could be located in the British Virgin Islands, The Cayman Islands, The Bahamas, and similar locations.
Also, you should look that the VPN vendor is using strict no-log policy. It means, that is not gathering your browsing data and it will not be exposed to the government agencies or third-party companies.
We have prepared the list of VPNs we have checked and there are the results:
| VPN Provider | Browsing History | Bandwidth | IP Address |
| Hola VPN |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Safe Connect VPN |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Hotspot VPN |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| AVG VPN |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| PureVPN |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Unlocator |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Hide My IP |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Bitdefender VPN |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Astrill |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| VPN Unlimited |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Avast Secureline |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Encrypt Me |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| F-Secure Freedome |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| TigerVPN |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Thunder VPN |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Tunnel Bear |
No |
Yes |
No |
| Private Tunnel |
No |
Yes |
No |
| OpenVPN |
No |
Yes |
No |
| ZenMate |
No |
No |
Yes |
| DotVPN |
No |
No |
Yes |
| UltraSurf |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Opera VPN |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Ace VPN |
No |
No |
Yes |
| CyberGhost |
No |
No |
No |
| ExpressVPN |
No |
No |
No |
| Private Internet Access |
No |
No |
No |
| IPVanish |
No |
No |
No |
| VPNArea |
No |
No |
No |
| OneVPN |
No |
No |
No |
| PrivateVPN |
No |
No |
No |
| NordVPN |
No |
No |
No |
| TorGuard |
No |
No |
No |
| VyprVPN |
No |
No |
No |
| AirVPN |
No |
No |
No |
| BolehVPN |
No |
No |
No |
What About the Free VPN Service Providers?
Millions of users around the world are using free VPN services. I wonder, does anybody thought how to a free service can exist? How do they make money and why is it free? The answer is also very simple.
The free VPN service providers do collect all the users’ data, gathers, and aggregate and sell it to the third-parties advertising, marketing, and data trading agencies. In another case there is no logical reason to work for free, right?
Another reason, why you should avoid free VPN services is that in most of the cases your computer becomes a VPN server for other users. After you install the free VPN application, you start sharing your PC resources and internet connection with other community network users. It means that somebody can use your IP address for browsing porn websites or do a cyber-crimes.
Moreover, a free VPN service provider offers a paid version of the service with a faster connection and unlimited bandwidth. The interesting fact is that they don’t have a single VPN server.
They sell service and gives to somebody faster internet which comes from your PC. How do you like that?
Final Thoughts
From our research, you can see that there are some important factors while choosing a VPN provider. Many VPN providers do collect your browsing data and sell it to the third-party companies. Moreover, you need to be sure that your selected VPN vendor does not belong to the “Fourteen Eyes” alliance, otherwise, your data will be logged, aggregated and forwarded to the government agencies in case of cyber-crime.
Also, you should avoid free VPN services because of data logging and trading. Also, a free VPN service like Hola, do not encrypt data and might use your computer and internet resources for their own needs.
Choose a VPN with ultra-fast speed, wide server coverage, and strict no-log policy. Always read terms of use and privacy policy pages before deciding to buy a VPN.
Good luck.