what is a vpn?
Last week, Consumer Reports published an article where they evaluated the privacy and security of 16 virtual private networks also known as VPNs.
A VPN is a service that routes all of the data sent to and from your computer or phone through the VPN provider’s own servers, or servers it rents.
After Consumer Reports tested 16 VPN services running on Windows 10, they came to the conclusion that the industry’s privacy and security practices tend to be disappointing, lacking the ability to live up to their marketing.
“By using a VPN, a user essentially transfers trust from their network provider to the VPN provider. With a misalignment of incentives between users and VPN providers, this can result in bad actors exploiting and preying on users’ trust,” says Roya Ensafi, assistant professor at the University of Michigan and principal investigator of VPNalyzer, an interdisciplinary research project that aims to analyze the VPN ecosystem.
It’s quite unsettling to know that something that has no other job than to provide you with additional privacy and security still manages to be intrusive, lack transparency and have major flaws.
After testing 16 VPNS, CR found 4 that described their services well and provided practical advice to the consumer. There wasn’t one VPN that stood out from the crowd, one perfect private network where a user can get full transparency, education, and privacy with no mysterious strings attached, irritating gaps such as easy ways for the user to cancel, etc. You would think these characteristics would be prerequisites for VPNs.
Our takeaway is that something is missing in this “complicated” world of VPNs. Hey, maybe we can fill in that blank. Stay tuned for Reklaim in 2022...Just saying.
