Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr K
'You get what you pay for' is often quoted by those that have paid too much for something !
|
If you are not paying with money for a service online, you are usually paying for it with your data and free/very cheap VPNs usually fall under this banner.
ProtonVPN is one of the rare exceptions. Their model is akin to giving away free cheese and wine samples in supermarkets for people to try, knowing that some will go ahead and buy after they like the sample, making more than they lose even if others always consume their future samples but never buy.
Some security software and browser 'VPN's use other well known VPN providers to provide their service so knowing what logs are kept can be a minefield unless you can follow the trail and they have done audits etc. Probably not a problem for most. Some block certain protocols or are limited in speed and other ways.
As tweetiepooh said, you only need the VPN to do what you need it to do. If you would like other features you don't actually need, the choice is there. If you are techie enough you can run your own on a VPS for literally a couple of quid a month too.
Although the legality and morality could be debated, I scan websites I want to sign up with for vulnerabilities/what they are running etc so I can decide if I will sign up and how much trust I might put in to say what I put in a private message on the site. Same with sites I want to buy from. Just knowing a site is using certain webcart/basket systems will make me avoid them. Its second nature and I do it knowing that my isp can't see it, the police couldn't see it and the site would not know the source of it because I wouldn't use the same IP/traceable VPN provider (without going in to too many details). Its nice knowing I can do that but I wouldn't just do that with any random VPN provider.