How Can You Decide Which VPN To Trust?
A January investigation by the site Top10VPN found that more than half of the top 20 free VPN apps on the iOS and Android app stores either have Chinese ownership or are based in China. That’s all the more suspicious given that China officially banned VPNs last year. The concern: If China is allowing them to continue operating, it could be because they’re sharing data on their users with the Chinese government. When you use a VPN, you’re trusting that VPN with the same deep level of access to your online activity that you’d normally give your ISP. In other words, now they can see what you’re up to whenever you’re using the internet. VPNs may be more privacy-focused than big, corporate ISPs, but they’re also smaller, more opaque, and less publicly accountable.