Who doesn’t want something free? Many of us are a bit cautious about spending money online, especially for an online subscription. But sometimes spending a bit of money will save you from the problems tied with free VPNs.
Problems with Free VPNs
Even though you might not have to pay money, darmowy VPN has a few problems that will prevent you from enjoying a proper VPN experience.
- Free vs Freemium
If it’s a free VPN, then they are not deriving any income from the sale of their services. To make money they have to either have 3rd party software distribution, advertising, selling users data/bandwidth, etc. Either way, if you have no idea what the company is doing money – you should pause to think. Freemium services, on the other hand, are offered by reputable companies that also offer paid-for VPN services. They might offer their VPNs with limited features for free to entice new customers. They are, however, still making enough money from the sale of VPNs to cover this offer.
- Security
Many of us use VPNs for security purposes. If you go for a free VPN you are accepting a lower level of security. These companies typically do not offer the most advanced security protocols and do not invest as many resources into their server infrastructure. If your connection is less secure, it means you are more exposed to the risks that you are trying to prevent in the first place.
- Lacking Features
Many of the best features that you’d expect from a VPN will not be present in a free one. An automatic connect feature might not be your number one priority, but what about a kill switch or DNS leak protection. Without these basic features, your internet connection could be at risk the next time your VPN loses connection.
- Data Logging
The whole purpose of a VPN is to hide your internet identity (IP address) behind the VPN. Whatever your reason for using one, you surely wouldn’t want to know that the VPN company is logging and selling your data. Many free VPN companies use this as one of their revenue streams to make up for the lack of subscription fees.
- Connection Speeds
Good luck trying to view online content using a free VPN. Even though you might get a connection, the speeds are usually quite bad. You will be connecting far slower than usual and downloading photos/videos will probably take a frustratingly long time. The main reason for this is the lack of infrastructure. Free VPN companies generally do not invest a lot in their infrastructure, so this makes it difficult to supply a quality service for their large client base.
- Unblocking Online Content
If you’re planning on using your VPN to view online content like Netflix USA, BBC iPlayer, or even to get past internet censorship; you might run into some problems with a free VPN. Security protocols preventing VPN connections are always being updated. If the VPN darmowy is not actively invested in updating their own servers, you will find them losing access to the most popular streaming sites.