5 Reasons why free VPN services are detrimental to your online security
Free VPN services provide alternative measures for internet users to protect their online privacy. VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) serve the purpose of hiding your personal data from third-party entities and tracking technology, but free VPN services may not be as secure as they’d like us to think. Nothing in life is truly free and in this scenario free VPNs may not be taking any financial compensation, but you may be paying with something far more valuable – your personal data. Here are five ways that free VPN services are leveraging off your sign-up:
- Cookies
Browser cookies are little packets of data can track your browsing history without you even having knowledge of it. Free VPNs make money from you by granting permission to advertisers to insert these little trackers that collect information about your browsing history.
- Annoying ads
Free VPNs typically make money from you by allowing their partners or sponsors to display their ads while using their service.
- Email information divulged
Some free VPNs share your email information with their business partners or third-parties. Ransomware, phishing, crypto-jacking and spam are just some of the cyberthreats that use email as an attack vector.
- Limited service
Free VPNs are generally trial subscriptions, with the hope of the user upgrading to the vendor’s other paid services. But a new trend has arisen whereby free VPN vendors purposefully manipulate you into upgrading to their premium service with extreme limitations such as limited data, bandwidth and even disabled peer-to-peer connections.
- Openly share user data
Some free VPN companies openly share user data with their marketing partners. This poses a major threat because in your attempt to hide from these online parasites you will start to realise that the free VPN and their marketing partner are basically one and the same and that your personal data is not as private as you thought it was.
For companies without an ethical backbone, your privacy, convenience and safety come second to their money-making. It is not advised for you to even consider free VPNs. They sell your information, let third parties track your internet traffic and bombard you with annoying ads. If your free VPN doesn’t protect your privacy, then there is no real use you should actually be using it.
