Are VPNs Safe? A Full Guide to VPN Safety and What to Avoid (2024)

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Virtual private networks, also known as VPNs, are safe to use – provided you choose a reliable one like PureVPN. A VPN changes your IP address to effectively mask your computer’s identity and disguise your browsing location, which isn’t dangerous at all.

Considering that VPNs are illegal in some countriesand have a reputation for being used by cybercriminals, it’s understandable why you might think they’re unsafe. But in reality, there’s no risk to your device in using a VPN, and you’re not using some back-channel version of the internet – it’s the same web, just accessed over a different server.

Top VPN services offer a great way to protect your identity online and open up areas of the internet that could be blocked off to you because of your location. This guide explains what to look out for with a VPN, the benefits of paying for one over a free alternative (far less safe), plus everything you need to know about the safest VPNs currently on the market.

In this guide:

• What Is (and Isn’t) a VPN?
• Are VPNs Safe?
• Are Free VPNs Safe?
• What Makes a VPN Safe?
• Are VPNs Safe for Online Banking?
• Are VPNs Safe for Businesses to Use?
• The Limitations of VPNs
• How to Use a VPN Safely
• The Safest VPNs currently available

What Is (and Isn’t) a VPN?

A VPN is a software service that reroutes your internet data through a private, encrypted server belonging to a VPN provider. The VPN servers do not log, store or subsequently share any data passing through their servers.

When connected, all of your data will appear to be coming from the IP address of the VPN server you connected to, not your actual IP address. This will enhance your privacy, hide your activity from your internet service provider (ISP), and make it much more difficult for websites and other online entities to track you, but will not make you anonymous.

Private browsers or private browsing modes are not the same as VPNs and offer no privacy protections at all. Smart DNS services will spoof your location, but won’t encrypt your data or hide your IP address. Finally, Proxy services will spoof your location and hide your IP address, but they won’t encrypt your traffic. A VPN is much safer than all three.

Are VPNs Safe?

As I covered in the introduction to this article, VPNs are safe to use. The technical process of rerouting your connection through a reputable provider’s server won’t put you at risk. In the vast majority of territories, using a VPN isn’t against the law in any way, so it’s “safe” in this crucial, legal sense.

In terms of the providers themselves, companies like NordVPN and PureVPN are huge, multi-national cybersecurity companies that have been rerouting user traffic through their networks for over a decade.

Companies like this are much more trustworthy than your average social media site or the latest app you’re using at work, and their whole business model rests on them keeping zero activity logs. However, there are some important points to remember:

• VPNs are not legal everywhere in the world. In a country where VPNs are illegal, it won’t be safe to use a VPN. So, while the process and provider may be “safe”, using a VPN in a territory where it could get you arrested isn’t.
• Not all VPN providers are equal.Using a reputable VPN provider like NordVPN won’t cause you any problems – but some shady VPNs actually engage in data logging practices and will happily sell your data to other companies, while others don’t secure their networks and leave their users exposed to threat actors.
• VPNs do not make you invincible. When you’re using a VPN, you don’t have a license to carry out illegal activities or commit crimes. VPNs do not make you completely anonymous.

Are Free VPNs Safe?

If you’re using a free VPN, you could be taking a gamble with your online security. Explore the often-murky privacy policies of any free VPN, and you’ll probably spot a clause that means agreeing to sign off on some degree of your privacy.

This could be as simple as targeted advertising that will interrupt your browsing experience, or could even be as egregious as sharing your own bandwidth with other users – we’re looking at you, Hola VPN.

Hola VPN appears to be an attractive free VPN on the surface, offering a VPN as a browser extension, without charge. However, to provide this service, it allows its premium users to piggyback off your own bandwidth, which not only affects your speed but also means that people are using your bandwidth for nefarious or illegal purposes.

Hola’s privacy policy (pictured below) is hidden away at the bottom of its homepage and requires you to click a button to reveal the link to the page where it explains what you’re letting yourself into while using the service. Despite claiming to be a VPN, as you can see from the image below, they unashamedly log data:

Calling Hola VPN a VPN is a stretch when it logs this level of user activity. Image: Tech.co

A decent VPN can be purchased for a few dollars a month, and most take your online security seriously, without logging your activities or storing your data. Big providers (ExpressVPN, Surfshark, PureVPN, etc.) have much more robust privacy policies and are regularly audited by third parties to verify their claims.

Other free VPNs are simply too limited to offer true security. The Opera Browser, for example, offers a built-in VPN. This is great for giving you a degree more privacy while browsing online. However, it won’t cover all of your online activities – only what you’re doing in the browser. The rest of your connection to the web is happening as usual, with all the privacy concerns that may raise.

What Makes a VPN Safe?

Encryption standards/protocols. Encryption standards effectively determine how a VPN protects your data when you’re using their servers. AES 256-bit encryption is the industry standard. No known threat or attack can break it, hence its use by the US military and other governments. The “256” is the encryption key size. You would need more resources than governments have at their disposal – including mammoth supercomputers that don’t yet exist – to break this encryption. If a VPN isn’t using this standard, think twice.

Company history. This is quite important because it gives you a flavor of a company’s approach to its own security, its user’s security, and its server infrastructure. For example, it’s good to know whether a VPN has suffered a data breach and, if it has, how it responded to it. Some VPNs, like NordVPN, have had scares in the past, but have responded well and improved their security. Others – especially a lot of free VPNs – have not done so well.

A clearly stated no logs commitment. You need a VPN with a commitment to keeping no logs of your activity – no ifs, no buts. In this regard, a VPN’s privacy policy can be telling. Often, shady providers will sneak something about actually keeping logs or collecting information in there somewhere – if someone wants to sue, they can point to the privacy policy and say it’s clearly stated in the public domain. NordVPN, on the other hand, has a great privacy policy, which emphatically states:

NordVPN’s privacy policy is clear, and the provider sets out exaclty what they will and won’t do in simple terms. Image: Tech.co

Transparency reports and audits. It is effectively now the industry standard for VPN companies to release transparency reports, and some companies even ask independent firms to audit their apps and programs. For example, in March, ExpressVPN asked F-secure to perform a penetration test on the provider’s Windows app. Private Internet Access releases transparency reports every year. If you can’t find any evidence a VPN has undergone an audit or released a transparency report, beware.

“Additional” security features. by “additional” I mean additional security features on top of the basic VPN mission statement to encrypt your data and mask your IP address. For example, NordVPN and Surfshark – which merged into one company in February 2022 – both have tools that alert users to potentially malicious websites. It’s not essential, but it’s nice to have.

Are VPNs Safe for Online Banking?

A VPN can be a useful way to carry out banking safely when using a WiFi network you’re not familiar with. When you’re at home, however, and using your own ISP connection, there shouldn’t be any real need to use a VPN for this purpose.

If you’re away from your trusted home connection, and using a public WiFi network, such as at a coffee shop or store, accessing your bank through a VPN is a smart choice. This gives you an extra layer of protection to ensure that any nefarious activity on the open network won’t be able to intercept your details.

Remember, VPNs aren’t just limited to use on a desktop or laptop. The best VPN services all have tablet and smartphone apps, too. And using a VPN on a phone while out and about has its own security implications – see our guide to Using a VPN Safely on a Phone for more information.

Are VPNs Safe for Business?

VPNs are not only safe for businesses, but they’re highly encouraged in the current era of online security. With cyber criminals targeting small businesses in hopes of gaining access to customer and employee data as well as trade secrets, protecting your company from security breaches is an essential strategy for long-term success.

However, you can’t just ask your employees to get any old VPN. You definitely don’t want to just send out a memo that says “download whatever VPN you like,” and hope that secures your company’s network.

There are business-focused plans from reputable VPN providers that provide stable, encrypted connections so employees can access company resources from remote locations, such as PureVPN’s PureDome, which can provision a gateway for 30 different locations in around 10 minutes.

Take note that you’ll probably want your IT department to take control of this. They’ll be able to more effectively manage accounts through admin control panels provided by VPN companies, making your business’s online security more of a centralized system than a random shot in the dark.

You must pick a secure business VPN now more than ever – IT professionals have noted that business VPN attacks have been on the rise in the last few years.

Limitations of VPNs

Now we’ve covered some of the benefits of using a VPN, but it’s also important to know what VPNs can’t do. It’s good practice to know the limitations of any software product you’re using, but if you live in a region governed by an authoritarian government, for instance, knowing what a VPN could save your skin one day. Most VPNs can’t:

• Offer virus protection. Some VPNs, like Surfshark, can alert you to suspicious websites, but they can’t prevent malware from entering your device’s systems or flush it out if you’re already infected.
• Make you anonymous.We’ve mentioned this before, but it’s good to reiterate – VPNs enhance your privacy, but do not make you anonymous or digitally invisible in any way. There are still ways to track you while you use a VPN, but it makes it significantly harder.
• Hide that you’re using a VPN. Most of the top VPNs on the market now offer obfuscated (or “stealth”) servers that scramble your VPN connection and make it look as if you’re not using one. Some only offer this feature on specific protocols, however, while others don’t have stealth servers at all.

How to use a VPN Safely

The first step to using a VPN safely is to make sure you actually have a good one like PureVPN, rather than more basic tools like Encrypt.me or a proxy service like Psiphon VPN. Once you’ve secured a reliable provider, follow the tips below:

• Use stealth servers. If you live in a country where VPN usage is tightly monitored or controlled, connect to a stealth (or obfuscated) server, as this will appear like normal traffic under Deep Packet Inspection (DPI).
• Use a Kill Switch. Get a VPN with a Kill Switch. This means that if your connection to the VPN fails, your browser won’t pick up on your standard connection, saving you from having your activity exposed.
• Check your provider’s terms.Boring? Yes, but check the terms of the VPN you’re considering to see what, if anything, they do with your data. The best won’t log or collect anything at all.
• Use a VPN on public wifi. When you sign up for a VPN, download its associated app too, to ensure you’re protected on your tablet or phone when out and about.
• Use additional security tools. Pair a VPN with a private web browser like Brave, as well as an adblocker and antivirus software, if you’d like maximum protection.

In fact, if you’d like all that stuff I just mentioned above rolled into one, check out Surfshark One – it’s just $3.19 per month and includes a VPN plus data breach monitoring tools, a private search engine, and a string of other useful features.

For more information, see our complete guide on How To Set Up a VPN

All of the above providers are safe VPNs maintained by reputable brands that take your security seriously. From our extensive testing, we identified three that stand out from the crowd.

NordVPN, IPVanish, and PureVPN combine great features with dependable speeds and easy-to-navigate user interfaces. Below, we give a little more detail on our top-choice VPN services:

Surfshark

You may worry that in order to get a safe VPN, you’ll need to spend more. Surfshark proves this isn’t the case – this is one of the cheapest VPNs around, but also one of the most secure.

In terms of safety and security features, Surfshark gives you everything you’d want in an easy-to-use package. It offers a choice of 3,200 global servers to choose from. There’s an all-important killswitch function to ensure your data isn’t exposed should the VPN ever pause, and a multi-hop function for rerouting your traffic through two VPN servers, adding extra protection.

Surfshark uses diskless servers that run on Random Access Memory (RAM), so even the operational data required for proper VPN function is lost when the servers are powered down. The company no-logs claims have been verified by Deloitte, and it now has a multi-purpose version Surfshark One, which includes antivirus protection and a private search engine.

NordVPN

NordVPN takes your security very seriously. To begin with, it uses military-grade 256-bit AES encryption to protect your information, a great bonus if you’re looking to use public WiFi networks without concern.

The provider makes a range of security features available that VPNs don’t offer, such as an Onion-Over-VPN setting which will allow you to reroute your traffic through a VPN and the TOR network. There’s also a Double VPN feature similar to Surfshark’s multi-hop function.

While NordVPN is known for being one of the most secure VPNs on the market, it’s also one of the fastest. I’ve tested VPNs consistently for around four years now, and I don’t know if anyone comes to close to NordVPN in terms of connection speeds. The provider also offers a very comprehensive business VPN called NordLayer which is perfect for small and medium-sized teams.

PureVPN

PureVPN is not only a capable and safe VPN in its own right, but also boasts an impressive suite of additional security features. One of these is Ozone, a tool that gives you content filtering tools and has intrusion-detection features that alert you if someone is trying to hack into your PC. Then there’s a tool called Gravity. This is an ad blocker that stops ads appearing during your browsing.

PureVPN has more than 6,500 servers across 78 countries, which is one of the biggest server networks in the industry. You can also connect up to 10 devices through one account, which is not quite as impressive as Surfshark, which sets no limit – although it’s several more than NordVPN, which does.

For VPN first-timers, PureVPN is also brilliantly simple to use. You don’t have to delve into complex settings to get up and running, and there’s support on hand, too. Best of all? You don’t have to spend much – it’s a great-value VPN, starting at just $2.11 per month – making it the cheapest of the major brands I trust.

Find out how PureVPN and NordVPN match up in our full head-to-head.

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