“VPNs are great tools for helping secure your internet access on an unsecured Wi-Fi network, such as those at McDonald’s, but did you know that not all VPNs are created equally?” Anthony Bouchard writes for iDownloadBlog. “By using a free VPN that you haven’t carefully read the terms and conditions of, you might be putting your privacy at more of a risk than it would have been just using the unsecured Wi-Fi network to browse the web in the first place.”
“Free VPN services have to pay for their servers somehow, and this typically means tracking information about your web browsing activity to sell to third parties, whether anonymous or not,” Bouchard writes. “Many free VPN providers claim to provide you with shelter from snoopers, just to snoop on you themselves.”
“By now you’re probably thinking I’m trying to sell you on some kind of paid VPN service, but that isn’t the case. The whole point of this piece is to get you thinking about your privacy,” Bouchard writes. “On the other hand, there are some paid VPNs out there that have a good reputation for security.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good advice: Always read the terms and conditions!
What’s the best VPN, free or paid, that you’ve found?
I’ve been using Cisco.
Please don’t take this as a recommendation exactly, but I’ve had very good results with ProXPN. I of course heard about it via its TWiT advertising. Then I saw MacAppware advertise a ‘Premium, Lifetime License’ for $39. This sounded dodgy, as does anything with ‘lifetime’ in its description. Also, their website doesn’t provide that option. So I wrote them. It took a couple tries to hear back from them, but I did. They verified that the license is very real. So I bought in. The results have been very good. Steve Gibson, of the ‘Security Now’ podcast convinced them to never log their user’s data and verified that they don’t. That solves exactly the problem listed in the article above.
MacAppware has repeated the same offer at least three times since. They provide their ‘Deals’ via StackCommerce, who offer the same deals via many other channels. You can view their current list of deals here:
https://deals.macappware.com
I don’t work for them, make any money from them, can’t speak for them, etc. But that specific deal, I liked.
Do the research on VPN’s, I can’t remember who did the article but someone interviewed many VPN companies and asked specific questions about tracking.
About half tracked the user in some way, many 100% shielded the user from everyone.
I personally use ibVPN and have no issues at all.
Also keep in mind speed.. VPN’s will reduce your speed. Depending on where the server is it could be a minor decrease, or major..
For the last year, I had IPVanish, but one day it stopped working on ½ my apps, (suspiciously at the time of the iOS 9.2.1 update) a gray situation for which I found no resolution after days of wrangling with it. So I kicked it to the curb since my subscription was about up anyway; I hold no loyalties.
I’m now giving airVPN a try with a 3-month subscription for €15 to see if I like it, no terrible latency, decent throughput. It’s wonkier than other “push-button” style VPNs for iDevices; they have not written their own app, using the OpenVPN client and one generates config files on the website for the different servers of one’s desire and send them to the iPhone and iPad. Once I got all the devices loaded up with the server configs I wanted it’s been good.
For my style they allow 3 simultaneous connections, which covers me.
Sometimes the performance is so zippy, I can’t even tell when it’s enabled, not feeling that lag I did from other services.
If security is your concern, I’d recommend not going with any 3rd party VPN, but instead set up a VPN server at your home (or ask for one set up at your company). This provides the best security and has the added benefit of being able to access thing inside your network.
Witopia is what I use, and it’s fantastic. I buy a package that supports my iMac, MacBook Air, iPhone and iPad. They have servers all over the world, with 18 in the U.S., from coast to coast. And their customer support is excellent. I highly recommend them.
I was unaware of this one, so I went to go take a look.
It’s competitively prices compared to so many of the other services. I’ll take note of this one for consideration in case the one I’m now using turns out to dissapoint.
Getcloak.com
Been using it for years. Great product.
It is so easy to run your own VPN using the Mac OSX server software. That has served me well. I guess the only downside is if you are trying to totally hide your location. But this does the job when traveling or on a public network.
I have been using StrongVpn (paid) for a few years now and it works well for me. Since I live in South Korea I need it since South Korea has it own version of the the “Great firewall”
What about Disconnect’s paid service $5 month?
BW: Kat did not accuse Walling of getting a rapist. Robin describes components really properly: portion of why the change concerning “rapist” and “sexual attack” is vital, and the preceding expression thus billed, may perhaps be that its retain the services of is a different just one of those people factors mentioned toward girls — feminists, within just this circumstance — in the direction of ignore them or paint them all as loonies (alongside with humorless, furry, and many others)If it can overlook ALL Girls as loonies, envision what it can do if on your own partner the criminal offense with 1 particular person gentleman. The Immediate Boat commercials towards Kerry hardly ever lied. Yet they damaged a recognition through affiliation.
You might want to have a look at Shimo https://www.feingeist.io/shimo/. Data security is my highest concern due to my job, so it feels like a VPN is a vitally important thing to me. After trying several clients, I discovered Shimo by incident couple of years ago and have been sticking to it ever since. Awesome VPN client, trustworthy and user-friendly.
Alice by accident found herself in an incident.
With Tronald Dump.
Then she met Cillary Hinton and she knew she made met the Red Queen. Off with her head!