A VPN can be a powerful tool to protect your privacy online, as long as you use a good one. You can mask the location of your computer, and good service will also encrypt all the data you send and receive online.

Nearly two-thirds of people who use the internet, connect through a VPN to do it – they’re super common and even necessary. There are plenty of less-than-reputable VPNs out there who want to access your data and potentially sell it to hackers.

Knowing that, here’s our guide to spotting a bad VPN.

It logs your activity

The whole point of a VPN is to keep your browsing secure, right? Some VPNs do keep a log of all the traffic you send through it, which defeats the point of using one.

This data can be sold to advertisers or, in the worst-case scenario, handed over to governments to investigate your online activity. Either way, you want to be sure that a VPN you download doesn’t log your activity at all.

To be sure you’re not being tracked with your chosen VPN, you’ll need to trawl through the terms of service to see what they do with your data.

It’s free

You don’t get anything for nothing, especially on the internet. When an online company offers you a free service, you can be pretty sure that you’re the product, and this is true with free VPNs, too.

Running a VPN service isn’t cheap, so you need to ask yourself how the company is making money if it’s completely free to use. Odds are, your data is being tracked and used to sell to advertisers.

There are laws that protect your data, such as GDPR regulations in the EU, so you do have some protection. However, if the reason you want to use a VPN is to anonymize your browsing, a free service probably doesn’t do what you need.

It’s slow

A solid VPN will have servers worldwide and plenty of bandwidth for all its customers. If you notice your internet speed drastically slows when you connect to your VPN, it might be time to shop around for a new one.

As well as poor infrastructure, a slowed-down connection could be because your VPN is throttling traffic. This means your provider might be slowing down your heavy-use activities like gaming to compensate for a lack of bandwidth.

Most paid-for VPNs will offer you a free trial which is your time to check out the speed it offers. There are simple online tools that will show you your download and upload speeds so you can check if your VPN will keep your connection fast enough.

It’s unknown

You trust a VPN with a lot of information about you. It knows the websites you browse, the content you download, when you access your bank account…

A new company that you’ve never heard of before could be nefarious and out to farm your data. Be sure to look into any VPN you’ve just come across and check things like:

• Its online presence such as a solid website and blog;
• Online review websites to see if anyone else knows about it;
• Social media presence, including sites like Reddit.

If you can’t find much online, it’s probably not a good enough VPN for your needs.

It’s got bad support

VPNs can be tricky if you’re not technically minded. Things like tunneling, obfuscated servers, and encryption doesn’t mean a whole lot to the general public, so you’d expect a good VPN to have support available.

Look on the website for a chat function and email address. Check out its social media to see if the inbox is enabled. These indicators will tell you if your VPN has got your back in terms of support.

All in all, you should choose your VPN wisely. A bad VPN will track your activity, slow your speeds down, be unknown online, and not be able to help when you have a problem. These are all red flags for a bad VPN.

Image Credits:

Image 1: Photo by Stefan Coders on PexelsImage 2: Image by Omar Medina from Pixabay