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Which VPN Providers Really Take Privacy Seriously in 2021?

June 14, 2021 by Ernesto Van der Sar  in Torrentfreak

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Choosing the right VPN can be a tricky endeavor. There are hundreds of VPN services out there, all promising to keep you private but some are more private than others. To help you pick the best one for your needs, we asked dozens of VPNs to detail their logging practices, how they handle torrent users, and what else they do to keep you as anonymous as possible.

private lockThe VPN industry is booming and prospective users have hundreds of options to pick from. All claim to be the best, but some are more privacy-conscious than others.

The VPN review business is also flourishing as well. Just do a random search for “best VPN service” or “VPN review” and you’ll see dozens of sites filled with recommendations and preferred picks.

We don’t want to make any recommendations. When it comes to privacy and anonymity, an outsider can’t offer any guarantees. Vulnerabilities are always lurking around the corner and even with the most secure VPN, you still have to trust the VPN company with your data.

Instead, we aim to provide an unranked overview of VPN providers, asking them questions we believe are important. Many of these questions relate to privacy and security, and the various companies answer them in their own words.

We hope that this helps users to make an informed choice. However, we stress that users themselves should always make sure that their VPN setup is secure, working correctly, and not leaking.

This year’s questions and answers are listed below. We have included all VPNs we contacted that don’t keep extensive logs or block torrent traffic on all of their servers. The order of the providers is arbitrary and doesn’t carry any value.

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1. Do you keep (or share with third parties) ANY data that would allow you to match an IP-address and a timestamp to a current or former user of your service? If so, exactly what information do you hold/share and for how long?

2. What is the name under which your company is incorporated (+ parent companies, if applicable) and under which jurisdiction does your company operate?

3. What tools are used to monitor and mitigate abuse of your service, including limits on concurrent connections if these are enforced?

4. Do you use any external email providers (e.g. Google Apps), analytics, or support tools ( e.g Live support, Zendesk) that hold information provided by users?

5. In the event you receive a DMCA takedown notice or a non-US equivalent, how are these handled?

6. What steps would be taken in the event a court orders your company to identify an active or former user of your service? How would your company respond to a court order that requires you to log activity for a user going forward? Have these scenarios ever played out in the past?

7. Is BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic allowed on all servers? If not, why? Do you provide port forwarding services? Are any ports blocked?

8. Which payment systems/providers do you use? Do you take any measures to ensure that payment details can’t be linked to account usage or IP-assignments?

9. What is the most secure VPN connection and encryption algorithm you would recommend to your users?

10. Do you provide tools such as “kill switches” if a connection drops and DNS/IPv6 leak protection? Do you support Dual Stack IPv4/IPv6 functionality?

11. Are any of your VPN servers hosted by third parties? If so, what measures do you take to prevent those partners from snooping on any inbound and/or outbound traffic? Do you use your own DNS servers?

12. In which countries are your servers physically located? Do you offer virtual locations?

Important note: services that offer dedicated or fixed IP-addresses are often able to link the IP-address to the user account, irrespective of the answer to question 1.

Tip: Here’s a list of all VPN providers covered here, with direct links to the answers. Some links in this article are affiliate links. This won’t cost you a penny more but it helps us to keep the lights on. ... '