The Dangers of Free VPNs

Updated Jun 5, 2024

Simon Migliano
Simon Migliano is a recognized world expert in VPNs. He's tested hundreds of apps and his research has been featured on the BBC, The New York Times, and more. Read full bio

Since 2018, we have been conducting a series of investigations into the dangers of free VPNs. This article summarizes our main findings and introduces a body of evidence demonstrating the true cost of using a free VPN.
We’ve uncovered hidden security flaws, concerning ownership, and shady operators behind many popular free VPN apps.

The latest update to our research also includes details of our new report on the security flaws of dozens of free Android VPNs.

Free VPN Ownership Investigations

  • Chinese VPN Ownership in Taiwan (2022): Half of the 10 most popular free VPN services in Apple’s Taiwan App Store have ownership links with mainland China.
  • Chinese Ownership Investigation (2020): 10 of the most popular free VPN mobile apps in the US are still Chinese-owned. Another four have suspected links to mainland China.
  • Free VPN Update (2019): Apple and Google failed to act on our 2018 findings: 77% of the free VPNs flagged as potentially unsafe were still available.
  • Free VPN Ownership Investigation (2018): 59% of the most popular free VPN mobile apps were revealed to be secretly Chinese-owned. The majority of these apps were found to have substandard privacy protections.

Free VPN Security Investigations

  • Free Android VPN Security Flaws (2024): In our most comprehensive VPN security research yet, we tested the 100 most popular free Android VPNs and found 88% suffered data leaks while encryption failures affected one in 10.
  • Internet Shutdown VPN Security (2021): We are tracking the VPNs rising to popularity during major censorship incidents and testing them for privacy and security issues. 80% share or log users’ real IP addresses.
  • Free VPN Update (2019): Apple and Google failed to act once more – 90% of the VPN apps flagged as potentially unsafe were still available six months after the Free VPN Risk Index was published.
  • Free VPN Risk Index (2018/19): We tested 150 free VPN apps and 25% failed to protect user privacy due to DNS and other leaks. 85% featured excessive permissions or functions with potential for privacy abuses.

Free VPN iOS App Store Privacy

Are Free VPNs Safe?

A personal VPN service encrypts a user’s internet connection and diverts their traffic via a remote server in order to hide their IP address. They are primarily used to keep internet activity private, evade censorship, and use public WiFi securely.

The best VPN software usually comes with a monthly subscription cost, but a subsection of providers offer VPN applications completely for free.

Most free VPNs claim to provide all the protection of a paid VPN, without any of the cost. Unfortunately, many free VPNs put users at greater risk than using no VPN at all.

With most free VPNs, you may not pay financially, but you pay with your privacy and security.

These free VPN apps are often the first port of call for users suffering from censorship or an internet shutdown.

While it is possible to find a safe free VPN, many of the most popular free services available are in fact dangerous to use.

Based on the combined findings of our reports, we recommend consumers strongly consider premium VPN services or at the very least research safe free VPN alternatives.

Free VPN Investigations Explained

By 2018, it was becoming increasingly clear that Apple and Google were struggling to manage the increasingly popular VPN category in their app stores.

Generic free VPNs had amassed tens of millions of installs, pushing more established VPN services down in the search results.
That same year, we published the first ever free VPN ownership investigation to shine a light on who owned and operated these free VPN services.

Since then, we’ve used our expertise and experience in reviewing VPN services to examine every aspect of these hugely popular free VPNs.
This article brings all of this extensive research together. We’ve organized the reports by theme to make it easier to understand the extent of the dangers posed by so many of these apps.