If you’re wondering how do free VPNs make money, let us be of service. They can do that in a number of ways which are often unknown to most users. With the use of VPNs getting more habitual as of late, people want to get their hands on any means necessary to get a VPN. Even if it means giving free VPNs a try and not fully understanding the consequences of using one.
In this blog, we’ll be giving you a detailed overview of all the ways which are profitable for free VPNs but at the cost of your privacy and security. Don’t say you haven’t been warned later on if using a free VPN gets you into trouble.
Detailed discussion: How Free VPNs Make Money
Let us give you an insight into how free VPNs make money and exploit users just to make their own living. Some of them may be shocking as you may have not known that free VPNs actually practice such tactics.
Let’s have a look:
1. They Show You Ads
For any user, ads are the most annoying and pesky little things which hinder their work at times. When you visit any website, you’ll be bombarded with ads and it may take you a while to get past them. Now, ads can be relevant or completely irrelevant, however, you might have no chance of getting to the main page without suffering through them.
If by miracle a tiny “x” does appear, it’ll take all your might to click on it because it’d be so minuscule you can barely see it. All the additional effort is the courtesy of free VPN providers which make a deal with their affiliates or marketing agencies so they can display their ads while you use a free VPN.
To say such ads are bothersome is an understatement, however, free VPNs make money through such tactics so they don’t really care about user needs. After all, they’re providing you unrestricted access free of cost, they should get something in return too. Perhaps the worse of these ads are videos which you cannot skip at all.
You have to sit through 30 seconds or an entire minute after which if you’re lucky you may be allowed to skip. We’d suggest not to use a free VPN when you’re working on a task that’s time-sensitive.
2. They Insert Cookies, Web Beacons, and Pixels
Cookies are only fun to have when they’ve been baked by someone else and they’re offering you with a glass of milk. However, in IT terminology, cookies don’t necessarily mean a good thing. Specifically, not you can devour. In case you didn’t know, free VPNs make money by inserting cookies into your web browsers.
The purpose of these cookies is to track your activities across the web without your knowledge. Apart from cookies, there are web beacons too. They’re more like web bugs and they’re pretty common as they simply use a clear picture file to track your internet usage.
Moreover, tracking pixels are graphics of 1×1 dimensions that are loaded every time you visit a website or open an email. In fact, they’re more helpful for analyzing data and the online behavior of users. Point is one way or another they’re used to track your footprint on the internet and your behavior patterns.
A premium VPN service like ExpressVPN follows a strict no-logs policy. So we’re sure you can make a calculated decision.
3. They Give Away Your Email to Their Business Partners
Free VPNs make money by establishing partnerships with other businesses that need user data for their personal use. Now you cannot be sure for what purpose your data could be used. Perhaps, to come up with a user profile to whom they can market their product or other illegal means.
Many free VPN providers also sell user email addresses to third parties. As a result, you’ll be slammed with a bunch of unwanted emails and spam. You cannot even find out just how public your email address has become as of late and how many companies have it to send you emails every now and then.
Furthermore, you’d make an easy victim for ransomware, phishing or cryptojacking. One-click and you’d regret opening up the email. That’s why you should be highly careful when dealing with suspicious-looking emails that land in your inbox.
4. They Make Your Computer an Exit Node for Paying Users
In case you believed there are no real-world consequences of using free VPNs, sadly we’re about to provide you with a reality check. Free VPNs make money by creating BotNets and Exit Nodes within your system. Don’t get a thing? Let us explain in layman’s terms.
If your system becomes a server exit node, it means it’d appear as if all the incoming traffic is the result of the server’s IP address. To be more specific, there could be all sorts of traffic passing through your system and you wouldn’t have the slightest clue. It may or may not include illegal activities, and browsing history.
A Botnet also works in a similar way as other people would be allowed to connect to your IP address thinking it’s a server. As a result, you could be held responsible for someone else’s illegal activities when you’ve barely done anything wrong. It’s like being framed for a murder you didn’t even know took place.
Furthermore, hackers can easily take hold of the free accounts in a VPN network to create malware by amalgamating a large botnet and then utilizing it for carrying out anonymous attacks.
On the other hand, ExpressVPN ensures your privacy remains intact at all times, thanks to its amazing fool-proof security features like a kill switch.
5. They Sell Other Collected Information to Their Partners or 3rd Parties
Free VPN providers have to resort to unethical means to make money for their venture to take off. So, they often sell information and data collected from users to third parties. It is a huge breach of privacy and most users would be offended by such a violation. Such a VPN provider also puts a user at risk as they can become a victim of cyberattacks due to security breaches.
Free VPNs make money by mining a user’s device for confidential data and storing the said data in individual files for each person. If you knew the amount of data and personal information you’d be baffled because it can be highly unsettling.
To give you some perspective here’s all the data they store:
- Device information
- Location data
- Emails
- Messages
- Phone numbers
- Everything stored in your phone’s memory
Here’s a brief overview of risks that are a consequence of using free VPNs.
If given a chance, many free VPNs can also launch malware on your device to take control of it entirely, and perform operations like editing, modifying and even deleting media, and you wouldn’t even know what’s going on until it’s too late.
A premium VPN service like ExpressVPN will be there to troubleshoot your way through its 24/7 customer support.
6. They Set Limits on Purpose
Another sneaky tactic utilized by free VPNs to make money is by setting limits to your bandwidth or other features. They do that after you’ve used the free VPN for a certain while and once you get used to it, they start placing limitations on one thing after the another in an attempt to force you to buy their overpriced VPN subscription.
At first, they ensure you habitually use their services and then take them away from you so that you have no choice but to invest in the long run. For instance, they can limit your data or disable peer-to-peer connections to get you to upgrade to their “updated” version of VPN which probably promises a bunch of additional features.
It’s mere pretense though. Most free VPNs are unable to even get past strong geo-restrictions like that of Netflix and much less provide top-notch security features to keep you safe at all times. If you’d like to invest in the long run, you might as well get a trusted premium VPN service so that you don’t have to face issues that may not even have a viable solution.
Because if these free VPN providers were confident in their services, they’d also offer a fail-safe option like a money-back guarantee. ExpressVPN, a premium VPN service has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
7. They Use Your Data for Marketing and Advertising Purposes
Targeted ads can be a fascinating and horrifying thing at the same time. Fascinating, if you knew what to expect, horrifying when your data is being used without your consent or knowledge. Free VPNs make money by allowing their affiliates to go through your data. It’s known as data sharing for marketing purposes.
Since free VPNs don’t have a concept of user subscription packages, they don’t earn from the users directly. But they find ways to exploit users anyway. Given marketers and advertisers are always dying to know how to read their customers, free VPNs allow their affiliates to do just that.
Remember looking up a pair of brand-specific shoes? Next thing you know, you’d be seeing suggested ads of that very brand’s competitors on your device everywhere, specifically on your social media or web browsers.
That’s because your browsing data has been shared by the free VPN provider with marketing companies. These companies will now use your data to make customer-specific ads and entice other people like you to gain more customers. They’d also incorporate all sorts of links which can lead to not-so-reliable links and websites.
Unlike free VPNs, ExpressVPN allows you to cancel your subscription easily and without dragging the issue in the least.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it. We’ve explained how do free VPNs make money in detail, meanwhile you suffer through its consequences. Free VPNs may be beneficial in the short run but there’s no guarantee how long that’s going to last and whether your device will be protected or not. Our bet is on the latter so we’d strongly advise you not to opt for a VPN.
Instead, go for ExpressVPN, the best VPN service. It has 3,000 servers across 94 countries and provides the best security features like AES 256-bit encryption along with a strict no-logs policy. It’s capable of bypassing the strongest geo-restrictions. ExpressVPN also comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you’ve got nothing to worry about.
You can get to know more about ExpressVPN through this review.
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