

This includes situations where you cannot access a site due to bad routing on part of your ISP. They can be used to access sites that are blocked otherwise, for instance in a school network, at work or country-wide. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), regardless of whether they are free or paid, offer a selection of features that make them attractive for several use-cases. We have tested numerous providers that offer free VPN services and added only the best to this page. Top10VPN 's research also states that it found highly intrusive permissions as well as code functions that expose the app's users to privacy risks in about 85% of all tested free VPN apps.By Martin Brinkmann on Augin Internet - Last Update: Aug28 commentsįinding a reliable free VPN provider can be a a daunting task.

The issues found in the top ten free VPN apps (most installs) on the Google Play store: App This security flaw occurs when a VPN fails to force DNS requests through its encrypted tunnel to its own DNS servers and instead permits the requests to be made directly to the default ISP DNS servers. Even though the rest of their traffic may be concealed, the leak exposes a user’s browsing history to their ISP and any third-party DNS server operator that it may use.


To make matters even worse, 25% of the apps that were affected by a DNS leak security issue. Top10VPN's extensive research has been organized and published in the form of a risk index designed to help Android users understand the exact privacy risks they are exposing themselves when installing a free VPN on their smartphone or tablet.Īccording to Migliano's analysis and as previously stated, one in five free VPN apps tested (27 applications in total) was flagged as a potential source of malware when tested using VirusTotal, greatly increasing the severity of the risks their users are exposed too. One in five apps from the top 150 free VPN Android apps in Google's Play Store was flagged as a potential source of malware, while a quarter of them come with user privacy breaking bugs such as DNS leaks which expose user DNS queries to their ISPs.Īs found by Simon Migliano, Metric Labs' Head of Research, the company behind the Top10VPN service, these VPN Android applications have already been installed approximately 260 million times according to the numbers reported by Google's official store.
