The truth about free VPNs

Think a VPN will keep you totally private? Prepare to be disappointed

This feature has been brought to you by Windscribe.

Living in total privacy is a fallacy which cannot be achieved however hard you try. However there are steps that anyone can take in order to reduce the probability of being digitally fingerprinted and followed around.

The conventional thinking that a VPN is enough to ensure your privacy needs to go away. In this day and age where data collection is widely accepted and the lack of privacy assumed to be price to be paid to get stuff for free, using one application to cover all bases is akin to using a pair of goggles to dive into the sea and expect not to get wet.

The Faustian agreement made by billions of us with the likes of Google, Facebook or Twitter guarantees the sort of free services we’ve been accustomed or rather, hooked on, over the past decade. But what if you want to get out of that? Where’s the opt-out clause?

Well, there’s none except if you use something like Windscribe VPN. Actually, this service is more than just a VPN as it also includes a souped-up, super ad blocker (but then again, it blocks more than just ads). What’s more, its basic service is totally free, forever with nothing else to pay.

A different way of doing business.

Unlike some of its competitors, Windscribe doesn’t use your data as a bartering currency. No, the free package, comes without any strings attached and the company makes it clear that it uses its paid-for service to prop up the free service.

As a reminder, you get a very generous 10GB data per month, access to servers from eight of the more popular locations (including the United Kingdom and the United States), support for one device, P2P, a firewall and ad blocking.

For those requiring extra, for under $4 a month (that’s far less than a cup of coffee), you get all this plus unlimited bandwidth, unlimited devices with servers from 45 locations and OpenVPN Configs. (NB: You will need to use that special Techradar/Windscribe link to grab that offer, which is half what Windscribe has on its site).

In fact, whereas most businesses tout their knowledge of their customers as a precious commodity and a valuable asset, it prides itself with how little it knows about its user base. It goes beyond the call of duty to make sure that it knows as little as possible.

Session data for example, which includes the username, VPN server and data transferred, is discarded 180 seconds after a session is terminated.

In addition, Windscribe doesn’t shy away from revealing details of any improvements and bugfixes to its application, in a bid to maintain as much transparency as possible. These are publicly available on its blog.

Perhaps more importantly, Windscribe can best be described as being wholesome and practising what it preaches. Its entire privacy document is less than 600 words and the site doesn’t have any 3rd party tracking mechanisms.

It is worth noting as well that you don’t need an email address or even a credit card in order to purchase their product and there’s plenty of exciting things coming up like an Android App and native Linux App.

So, why not try Windscribe for free and while we can’t promise that we’ll keep you safe from the KGB or the CIA, we will do our best to make your browsing experience as seamless and as private as ours. All for zilch.