If You Will Not Pay to VPN App What Will Happen ?

Hey guys welcome back, So I think there's a lot of security concerns out there regarding FREE VPNs some people are saying that you don't need a paid VPN other people are saying that if you pick the right provider, you’ll definitely get to enjoy great security and privacy, So Let's talk about it. 

Now just an overview VPN stands for virtual private network and it's a method of connecting to the internet or to another network in a secure manner where your traffic is encrypted. Let's not get deep into what VPN is, I guess most of you guy's already know so.

Can you use a free VPN?

Yes of course you can use a free VPN it's totally free to try out but the question I see people asking is how come this VPN is free, Generally when anything is free online there's a reason why it's free.There is famous saying that: 

If You are not Paying for the Product, You are the Product.

You Will Pay for a Free VPN Let me Tell You How..

Free VPNs provider's need to earn money from their product somehow otherwise how else would they generate revenue?

1. Data Leaks

So the first reason is that free VPN normally tracks and sells your data but VPNs are supposed to keep you safe while you're online Right?

One of the biggest marketing point is that they will stop ISPs and other data trackers selling your data for profit, The premise is pretty simple by encrypting the data and routing it through a VPN or a VPN servers your ISP can no longer see what you are doing online however that VPN company can as you're using their servers see. Now most premium and paid VPNs offer zero logs which means they log absolutely no data for your connection but--

Trust no one.

2. Hidden Dangers

Straight to the point - there are some VPNs that actually contain malware. Study of VPNs revealed that free providers contain malware including Betternet, SuperVPN, and CrossVPN.

While 37% of the analyzed VPN apps have more than 500K installs and 25% of them receive at least a 4-star rating, over 38% of them contain some malware presence according to VirusTotal.

Most of the malware is related to advertising they rely on advertising for revenue.

3. (Lack of) Encryption and traffic leaks

18% of the VPN apps implement tunneling protocols without encryption despite promising online anonymity and security to their users. In fact, approximately 84% and 66% of the analyzed VPN apps do not tunnel IPv6 and DNS traffic through the tunnel interface respectively due to lack of IPv6 support.

Misconfigurations or developer-induced errors. Both the lack of strong encryption and traffic leakages can ease online tracking activities performed by inpath middleboxes (e.g., commercial WiFi APs harvesting user’s data) and by surveillance agencies.

4. JavaScript Injection

According to the study. Free VPN apps actively injecting JavaScript codes using iframes for advertising and tracking purposes. static analysis of apps’ source code revealed that the actively use more than 5 different third-party tracking libraries. 

5. PPTP

PPTP stands for Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol. Most Free VPN uses it, PPTP used to be secure, but that's no longer the case. Simply put, PPTP security is extremely outdated by today's standards, and using this protocol to secure your online data is very risky.

NSA documents released by Snowden reveal the NSA successfully cracked PPTP traffic and NSA has a dedicated team to crack VPN traffic and feed it to their data mining software. The documents list over 200 commercial VPN providers, like Astrill, CyberGhostVPN, iPredator and PrivateInternetAccess (PIA), they include companies that no longer exist like Xerobank and also name small VPN providers.

How to Avoid VPN Security Issues

Make sure the provider was never involved in any privacy or security scandals, check reviews to see what other people have to say about them.

Chose a VPN service provider based in a jurisdiction of your preference and with a solid reputation for security and transparency on what is logged and when.

Using the TOR Browser could be an option for many users looking for anonymity, though rouge TOR nodes could potentially reveal information about the user too.

Oh, and one of the easiest ways to avoid VPN security risks is to make your own VPN- Check Here.

SUMMARY

A free VPN can be less secure than a paid one. If you are a free VPN user, you might encounter the following issues:

• Free VPNs can track and sell your data.
• Some free VPNs can infect you with malware.
• Free VPNs might steal your bandwidth.
• Free VPNs can cryptojack you.
• Free VPNs can sometimes hijack your browser.