privacyguides.org/legacy_pages/providers/vpn.html

---
layout: page
permalink: /providers/vpn/
title: "VPN Services"
description: "Find a no-logging VPN operator who isn't out to sell or read your web traffic."
breadcrumb: "VPN"
---

<div class="card border-danger">
  <div class="card-header text-danger"><i class="fas fa-exclamation-circle fa-fw"></i> Warning</div>
  <div class="card-body">
    <p class="card-text text-danger">Using a VPN will <strong>not</strong> keep your browsing habits anonymous, nor will it add additional security to non-secure (HTTP) traffic.</p>
    <p class="card-text text-danger">If you are looking for <strong>anonymity</strong>, you should use the Tor Browser <strong>instead</strong> of a VPN.</p>
    <p class="card-text text-danger">If you're looking for added <strong>security</strong>, you should always ensure you're connecting to websites using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS">HTTPS</a>. A VPN is not a replacement for good security practices.</p>
    <p class="card-text text-info">If you're looking for additional <strong>privacy</strong> from your ISP, on a public Wi-Fi network, or while torrenting files, a VPN may be the solution for you as long as you understand <a href="#info">the risks involved</a>.</p>
    <a href="https://www.torproject.org/" class="btn btn-danger">Download Tor</a>
    <a href="https://medium.com/privacyguides/slicing-onions-part-1-myth-busting-tor-9ec188ae1904" class="btn btn-outline-danger">Tor Myths &amp; FAQ</a>
    <a href="#info" class="btn btn-outline-info">More Info</a>
  </div>
</div>

{% include legacy/sections/vpn.html %}

<hr>
<h2 id="criteria" class="anchor"><a href="#criteria"><i class="fas fa-link anchor-icon"></i></a> Our VPN Provider Criteria</h2>

<p><strong>Please note we are not affiliated with any of the providers we recommend. This allows us to provide completely objective recommendations.</strong> We have developed a clear set of requirements for any VPN provider wishing to be recommended, including strong encryption, independent security audits, modern technology, and more. We suggest you familiarize yourself with this list before choosing a VPN provider, and conduct your own research to ensure the VPN provider you choose is as trustworthy as possible.</p>

<div class="container">
  <div class="row">
    <div class="col-12">
      <h3>{% include badge.html color="info" text="Jurisdiction" %}</h3>
      <p>Operating outside the five/nine/fourteen-eyes countries is not a guarantee of privacy necessarily, and there are other factors to consider. However, we believe that avoiding these countries is important if you wish to avoid mass government dragnet surveillance, especially from the United States. Read our page on <a href="/providers/#ukusa">global mass surveillance and avoiding the US and UK</a> to learn more about why we feel this is important.</p>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Minimum to Qualify:</strong></p>
      <ul>
        <li>Operating outside the USA or other Five Eyes countries.</li>
      </ul>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Best Case:</strong></p>
      <ul>
        <li>Operating outside the USA or other Fourteen Eyes countries.</li>
        <li>Operating inside a country with strong consumer protection laws.</li>
      </ul>
    </div>

    <div class="col-12">
      <h3>{% include badge.html color="info" text="Technology" %}</h3>
      <p>We require all our recommended VPN providers to provide OpenVPN configuration files to be used in any client. <strong>If</strong> a VPN provides their own custom client, we require a killswitch to block network data leaks when disconnected.</p>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Minimum to Qualify:</strong></p>
      <ul>
        <li>Support for strong protocols such as OpenVPN.</li>
        <li>Killswitch built in to clients.</li>
        <li>Multihop support. Multihopping is important to keep data private in case of a single node compromise.</li>
        <li>If VPN clients are provided, they should be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source">open source</a>, like the VPN software they generally have built into them. We believe that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code">source code</a> availability provides greater transparency to the user about what their device is actually doing. We like to see these applications <a href="https://www.f-droid.org/en/2019/05/05/trust-privacy-and-free-software.html">available in F-Droid</a>.</li>
      </ul>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Best Case:</strong></p>
      <ul>
        <li>OpenVPN and WireGuard support.</li>
        <li>Killswitch with highly configurable options (enable/disable on certain networks, on boot, etc.)</li>
        <li>Easy-to-use VPN clients</li>
        <li>Supports <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6">IPv6</a>. We expect that servers will allow incoming connections via IPv6 and allow users to access services hosted on IPv6 addresses.</li>
        <li>Capability of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_forwarding#Remote_port_forwarding">remote port forwarding</a> assists in creating connections when using P2P (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer">Peer-to-Peer</a>) filesharing software, Freenet, or hosting a server (e.g., Mumble).</li>
      </ul>
    </div>

    <div class="col-12">
      <h3>{% include badge.html color="info" text="Privacy" %}</h3>
      <p>We prefer our recommended providers to collect as little data as possible. Not collecting personal information on registration, and accepting anonymous forms of payment are required.</p>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Minimum to Qualify:</strong></p>
      <ul>
        <li>Bitcoin or cash payment option.</li>
        <li>No personal information required to register: Only username, password, and email at most.</li>
      </ul>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Best Case:</strong></p>
      <ul>
        <li>Accepts Bitcoin, cash, and other forms of cryptocurrency and/or anonymous payment options (gift cards, etc.)</li>
        <li>No personal information accepted (autogenerated username, no email required, etc.)</li>
      </ul>
    </div>

    <div class="col-12">
      <h3>{% include badge.html color="info" text="Security" %}</h3>
      <p>A VPN is pointless if it can't even provide adequate security. We require all our recommended providers to abide by current security standards for their OpenVPN connections. Ideally, they would use more future-proof encryption schemes by default. We also require an independent third-party to audit the provider's security, ideally in a very comprehensive manner and on a repeated (yearly) basis.</p>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Minimum to Qualify:</strong></p>
      <ul>
        <li>Strong Encryption Schemes: OpenVPN with SHA-256 authentication; RSA-2048 or better handshake; AES-256-GCM or AES-256-CBC data encryption.</li>
        <li>Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS).</li>
        <li>Published security audits from a reputable third-party firm.</li>
      </ul>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Best Case:</strong></p>
      <ul>
        <li>Strongest Encryption: RSA-4096.</li>
        <li>Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS).</li>
        <li>Comprehensive published security audits from a reputable third-party firm.</li>
        <li>Bug-bounty programs and/or a coordinated vulnerability-disclosure process.</li>
      </ul>
    </div>

    <div class="col-12">
      <h3>{% include badge.html color="info" text="Trust" %}</h3>
      <p>You wouldn't trust your finances to someone with a fake identity, so why trust them with your internet data? We require our recommended providers to be public about their ownership or leadership. We also would like to see frequent transparency reports, especially in regard to how government requests are handled.</p>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Minimum to Qualify:</strong></p>
      <ul>
        <li>Public-facing leadership or ownership.</li>
      </ul>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Best Case:</strong></p>
      <ul>
        <li>Public-facing leadership.</li>
        <li>Frequent transparency reports.</li>
      </ul>
    </div>

    <div class="col-12">
      <h3>{% include badge.html color="info" text="Marketing" %}</h3>
      <p>With the VPN providers we recommend we like to see responsible marketing.</p>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Minimum to Qualify:</strong></p>
      <ul>
          <li>Must self host analytics (no Google Analytics etc). The provider's site must also comply with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track">DNT (Do Not Track)</a> for those users who want to opt-out.</li>
      </ul>
      <p>Must not have any marketing which is irresponsible:</p>
        <ul>
          <li>Making guarantees of protecting anonymity 100%. When someone makes a claim that something is 100% it means there is no certainty for failure. We know users can quite easily deanonymize themselves in a number of ways, eg:</li>
          <ul>
            <li>Reusing personal information eg. (email accounts, unique pseudonyms etc) that they accessed without anonymity software (Tor, VPN etc)</li>
            <li><a href="/browsers/#fingerprint">Browser fingerprinting</a></li>
          </ul>
          <li>Claim that a single circuit VPN is "more anonymous" than Tor, which is a circuit of 3 or more hops that regularly changes.</li>
          <li>Use responsible language, eg it is okay to say that a VPN is "disconnected" or "not connected", however claiming that a user is "exposed", "vulnerable" or "compromised" is needless use of alarming language that may be incorrect. For example the visiting user might be on another VPN provider's service or using Tor.</li>
        </ul>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <p><strong>Best Case:</strong></p>
      <p>Responsible marketing that is both educational and useful to the consumer could include:</p>
      <ul>
        <li>A accurate comparison to when Tor or other <a href="/software/networks/">Self contained networks</a> should be used.</li>
        <li>Availability of the VPN provider's website over a .onion <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.onion">Hidden Service</a></li>
      </ul>
    </div>

    <div class="col-12">
      <h3>{% include badge.html color="info" text="Additional Functionality" %}</h3>
      <p>While not strictly requirements, there are some factors we looked into when determining which providers to recommend. These include adblocking/tracker-blocking functionality, warrant canaries, multihop connections, excellent customer support, the number of allowed simultaneous connections, etc.</p>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>
<hr>

<h2 id="info" class="anchor"><a href="#info"><i class="fas fa-link anchor-icon"></i></a> Further Information</h2>

<div class="container">
  <div class="row">
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <h3>Should I use a VPN?</h3>
      <p><strong>Yes</strong>, unless you are already using Tor. A VPN does 2 things: shifting the risks from your Internet Service Provider to itself and hiding your IP from a third party service.</p>
      <p>VPNs cannot encrypt data outside of the connection between your device and the VPN server. VPN providers can see and modify your traffic the same way your ISP could. And there is no way to verify a VPN provider's "no logging" policies in any way.</p>
      <p>However, they do hide your actual IP from a third party service, provided that there are no IP leaks. They help you blend in with others and mitigate IP based tracking.</p>
      <h3>What about encryption?</h3>
      <p>Encryption offered by VPN providers are between your devices and their servers. It guarantees that this specific link is secure. This is a step up from using unencrypted proxies where an adversary on the network can intercept the communications between your devices and said proxies and modify them. However, encryption between your apps or browsers with the service providers are not handled by this encryption.</p>
      <p>In order to keep what you actually do on the websites you visit private and secure, you must use HTTPS. This will keep your passwords, session tokens, and queries safe from the VPN provider. Consider enabling "HTTPS everywhere" in your browser to mitigate downgrade attacks like <a href="https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-dc-09/Marlinspike/BlackHat-DC-09-Marlinspike-Defeating-SSL.pdf">SSL Strip</a>.</p>
      <h4>Should I use encrypted DNS with a VPN?</h4>
      <p>Unless your VPN provider hosts the encrypted DNS servers, <strong>no</strong>. Using DOH/DOT (or any other form of encrypted DNS) with third party servers will simply add more entities to trust, and does <strong>absolutely nothing</strong> to improve your privacy/security. Your VPN provider can still see which websites you visit based on the IP addresses and other methods. Instead of just trusting your VPN provider, you are now trusting both the VPN provider and the DNS provider.</p>
      <p>A common reason to recommend encrypted DNS is that it helps against DNS spoofing. However, your browser should already be checking for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security#Digital_certificates">TLS certificates</a> with <strong>HTTPS</strong> and warn you about it. If you are not using <strong>HTTPS</strong>, then an adversary can still just modify anything other than your DNS queries and the end result will be little different.</p>
      <p>Needless to say, <strong>you shouldn't use encrypted DNS with Tor</strong>. This would direct all of your DNS requests through a single circuit, and would allow the encrypted DNS provider to deanonymize you.</p>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-6">
      <h3>Should I use Tor <em>and</em> a VPN?</h3>
      <p>By using a VPN with Tor, you're creating essentially a permanent entry node, often with a money trail attached. This provides zero additional benefit to you, while increasing the attack surface of your connection dramatically. If you wish to hide your Tor usage from your ISP or your government, Tor has a built-in solution for that: Tor bridges. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210116140725/https://write.privacytools.io/my-thoughts-on-security/slicing-onions-part-2-onion-recipes-vpn-not-required">Read more about Tor bridges and why using a VPN is not necessary</a>.</p>
      <h3>What if I need anonymity?</h3>
      <p>VPNs cannot provide anonymity. Your VPN provider will still see your real IP address, and often has a money trail that can be linked directly back to you. You cannot rely on "no logging" policies to protect your data. Use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a> instead.</p>
      <h3>What about VPN providers that provides Tor nodes?</h3>
      <p>Do not use that feature. The point of using Tor is that you do not trust your VPN provider. Currently Tor only supports the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol">TCP</a> protocol. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Datagram_Protocol">UDP</a> (used in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC">WebRTC</a> for voice and video sharing, the new <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/3">http3/QUIC</a> protocol, etc), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Control_Message_Protocol">ICMP</a> and other packets will be dropped. To compensate for this, VPN providers typically will route all non TCP packets through their VPN server (your first hop). This is the case with <a href="https://protonvpn.com/support/tor-vpn/">ProtonVPN</a>. Additionally, when using this Tor over VPN setup, you do not have control over other important Tor features such as <a href="https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Stream_Isolation">Isolated Destination Address</a> (using a different Tor circuit for every domain you visit).</p>
      <p>Thus, this feature should be viewed as a convenient way to access the Tor Network, not to stay annonymous. For true anonimity, use the Tor Browser Bundle, TorSocks, or a Tor gateway.</p>
      <h3>When are VPNs useful?</h3>
      <p>A VPN may still be useful to you in a variety of scenarios, such as:</p>
      <ol>
        <li>Hiding your traffic from <strong>only</strong> your Internet Service Provider.</li>
        <li>Hiding your downloads (such as torrents) from your ISP and anti-piracy organizations.</li>
        <li>Hiding your IP from third party websites and services, preventing IP based tracking.</li>
      </ol>
      <p>For use cases like these, or if you have another compelling reason, the VPN providers we listed above are who we think are the most trustworthy. However, using a VPN provider still means you're <em>trusting</em> the provider. In pretty much any other scenario you should be using a secure<strong>-by-design</strong> tool such as Tor.</p>
    </div>
  </div>
  <div class="row">
    <div class="col">
      <p><strong>Sources and Further Reading</strong>:
        <ol>
          <li><a href="https://schub.io/blog/2019/04/08/very-precarious-narrative.html">VPN - a Very Precarious Narrative</a> by Dennis Schubert</li>
          <li><a href="/software/networks/">The self-contained networks</a> recommended by Privacy Guides are able to replace a VPN that allows access to services on local area network</li>
          <li><a href="https://medium.com/privacyguides/slicing-onions-part-1-myth-busting-tor-9ec188ae1904">Slicing Onions: Part 1 – Myth-busting Tor</a> by blacklight447</li>
          <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210116140725/https://write.privacytools.io/my-thoughts-on-security/slicing-onions-part-2-onion-recipes-vpn-not-required">Slicing Onions: Part 2 – Onion recipes; VPN not required</a> by blacklight447</li>
          <li><a href="https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/">IVPN Privacy Guides</a></li>
        </ol>
      <p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <hr>

  <div id="related-vpn-info" class="container">
    <div class="row">
      <div class="col-md-12">

        <h3>Related VPN information</h3>

        <ul>
          <li><a href="https://medium.com/privacyguides/the-trouble-with-vpn-and-privacy-review-sites-ae9b29eda8fd">The Trouble with VPN and Privacy Review Sites</a></li>
          <li><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/proxy-sh-vpn-provider-monitored-traffic-to-catch-hacker-130930/">Proxy.sh VPN Provider Sniffed Server Traffic to Catch Hacker</a></li>
          <li><a href="https://medium.com/@blackVPN/no-logs-6d65d95a3016">blackVPN announced to delete connection logs after disconnection</a></li>
          <li><a href="https://gist.github.com/kennwhite/1f3bc4d889b02b35d8aa">Don't use LT2P IPSec, use other protocols.</a></li>
          <li>
            <a href="https://www.top10vpn.com/free-vpn-app-investigation/">Free VPN App Investigation</a>
            {% include badge.html
            color="warning"
            icon="fas fa-exclamation-triangle"
            link="https://medium.com/privacyguides/the-trouble-with-vpn-and-privacy-review-sites-ae9b29eda8fd"
            tooltip="This site has affiliate based recommendations. They get paid for referring visitors to specific VPN providers."
            text="Affiliate program"
            %}
          </li>
          <li>
            <a href="https://vpnpro.com/blog/hidden-vpn-owners-unveiled-97-vpns-23-companies/">Hidden VPN owners unveiled: 101 VPN products run by just 23 companies</a>
            {% include badge.html
            color="warning"
            icon="fas fa-exclamation-triangle"
            link="https://medium.com/privacyguides/the-trouble-with-vpn-and-privacy-review-sites-ae9b29eda8fd"
            tooltip="This site has affiliate based recommendations. They get paid for referring visitors to specific VPN providers."
            text="Affiliate program"
            %}
          </li>
          <li>
            <a href="https://vpnpro.com/blog/chinese-company-secretly-behind-popular-apps-seeking-dangerous-permissions/">This Chinese company is secretly behind 24 popular apps seeking dangerous permissions</a>
            {% include badge.html
            color="warning"
            icon="fas fa-exclamation-triangle"
            link="https://medium.com/privacyguides/the-trouble-with-vpn-and-privacy-review-sites-ae9b29eda8fd"
            tooltip="This site has affiliate based recommendations. They get paid for referring visitors to specific VPN providers."
            text="Affiliate program"
            %}
          </li>
        </ul>

      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <hr>

  <div id="vpn-breaches" class="container">
    <div class="row">
      <div class="col-md-12">

        <h3>VPN Related breaches - why external auditing is important!</h3>

        <ul>
          <li><a href="https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/ufo-vpn-data-exposure/">"Zero logs" VPN exposes millions of logs including user passwords, claims data is anonymous</a> July 2020 </li>
          <li><a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/nordvpn-http-post-bug-exposed-sensitive-customer-information/">NordVPN HTTP POST bug exposed customer information, no authentication required</a> March 2020</li>
          <li><a href="https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/21/nordvpn_security_issue/">Row erupts over who to blame after NordVPN says: One of our servers was hacked via remote management tool</a> October 2019</li>
          <li><a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/vpn-servers-seized-by-ukrainian-authorities-werent-encrypted/">VPN servers seized by Ukrainian authorities weren't encrypted and allowed authorities to impersonate Windscribe servers and capture and decrypt traffic passing through them</a> July 2021</li>
        </ul>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>