The short version

Most free VPNs are not safe for long-term privacy. Because a VPN can see your browsing traffic, the provider’s trustworthiness is your privacy — and investigators have found that roughly 1 in 5 of the top free VPN apps in the US App Store were covertly Chinese-owned, downloaded over 70 million times, with several tied to a US-sanctioned firm. A handful of free VPNs are reputable, but the safer free VPN alternative is router-level VPN protection: one trusted VPN solution protecting your whole home, including smart TVs, streaming sticks, phones, laptops, and consoles.

A VPN is supposed to be the tool that protects your privacy. So there’s a bitter irony in the fact that the wrong one can quietly hand your entire browsing history to a stranger — or to a foreign government. “Free” is where that risk concentrates, and the research on it is genuinely alarming.

Key takeaways

  • A VPN provider can see everything you do online, so who runs it matters more than any feature.
  • The Tech Transparency Project found 20 of the top 100 free VPN apps in the US App Store were covertly Chinese-owned — over 70 million downloads.
  • Several traced to Qihoo 360, a firm the US sanctioned in 2020 and labeled a “Chinese Military Company.”
  • Separate academic research found free VPN apps with hard-coded passwords that let eavesdroppers decrypt user traffic.
  • If “free” unsettles you, use a whole-home VPN router with a vetted provider or included router-level VPN solution, so every device is protected without installing random apps.

Are free VPNs safe to use?

For the most part, no — and the reason is structural, not incidental. When you connect through a VPN, all of your internet traffic flows through that company’s servers. That means the provider can, in principle, see every site you visit. A trustworthy VPN promises never to log or sell that data and proves it with independent audits. A free app run by an unknown company offers no such guarantee, and running servers costs real money — so if you aren’t paying, your data is often the product.

Why a bad VPN is worse than no VPN

Without a VPN, your traffic is spread across your ISP and the sites you visit. With a VPN, you funnel all of it through one company’s pipe. If that company is untrustworthy, you haven’t added privacy — you’ve handed a complete view of your online life to a single party you can’t see.

What did the research actually find?

Two independent investigations turned the abstract risk into hard evidence:

  • Covert Chinese ownership. The Tech Transparency Project examined the top 100 free VPN apps in the US App Store and found 20 were secretly owned by companies or individuals in mainland China or Hong Kong, none of which clearly disclosed it. Combined, those apps had been downloaded more than 70 million times. Under China’s National Intelligence Law, companies there can be compelled to hand user data to the state.
  • A sanctioned military-linked firm. Several of the flagged apps traced back to Qihoo 360, which the US Department of Defense labeled a “Chinese Military Company” and the Commerce Department sanctioned in 2020 over national-security concerns.
  • Broken encryption. Researchers at Arizona State University and Citizen Lab analyzed Android VPN apps with over 700 million combined downloads and found families of apps sharing hard-coded passwords — a flaw that lets a network eavesdropper decrypt the traffic of every user on those apps. Several also collected location data their privacy policies claimed they didn’t.

Among the free VPN apps investigators tied to Qihoo 360:

App Why it was flagged
Turbo VPN Linked to Qihoo 360 through layered corporate ownership
VPN Proxy Master Same ownership family as Turbo VPN
Thunder VPN Traced to the same Chinese ownership network
Snap VPN Shared developers with other flagged apps
Signal Secure VPN Tied to the Qihoo 360 ownership cluster

Source: Tech Transparency Project investigation into the top 100 free VPN apps on the US Apple App Store. App availability and ownership can change over time.

Are any free VPNs trustworthy?

A few, yes — and it’s worth being fair about that. Security reviewers consistently point to Proton VPN’s free tier and PrivadoVPN Free as reputable options that don’t log or sell your data. The catch is that trustworthy free tiers survive by being loss-leaders for a paid product, so they cap your speed, servers, or data. The dangerous ones are the anonymous apps promising unlimited everything for nothing — that math only works if you are what’s being sold.

The reliable test for any VPN, free or paid: Does it have a clear no-logs policy? Has an independent auditor verified it? Is the company’s ownership transparent? If you can’t answer those, don’t route your traffic through it.

What is the safest free VPN alternative?

The safest free VPN alternative is not another anonymous app — it is router-level VPN protection from a provider or platform you can vet. Instead of gambling on a mystery VPN app for each device, run a trusted VPN solution at the router. You make one trust decision, and it protects everything on your network: phones, laptops, smart TVs, Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, streaming sticks, and consoles that can’t run a VPN app at all. No sketchy downloads, no per-device guesswork.

Are free VPNs safe warning graphic showing data exposure and VPN router protection
Free VPN apps can come with hidden privacy risks, from data exposure to activity logging.

Privacy without the guesswork

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Related FlashRouters guides

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Frequently asked questions

Are free VPNs safe?

Most are not. Because a VPN can see all of your traffic, an untrustworthy free provider can log or sell your browsing data. Investigators have found many popular free VPN apps with hidden ownership and broken encryption, so free apps carry real risk.

Why are some free VPNs dangerous?

Running VPN servers is expensive, so a truly free app often monetizes your data instead. Research has tied millions of free-VPN downloads to covertly Chinese-owned companies, some linked to a US-sanctioned firm, and to apps with hard-coded passwords that let others decrypt user traffic.

Which free VPNs were flagged by researchers?

The Tech Transparency Project tied apps including Turbo VPN, VPN Proxy Master, Thunder VPN, Snap VPN, and Signal Secure VPN to Qihoo 360, a US-sanctioned firm. App availability and ownership can change, so treat any anonymous free VPN with caution.

Is any free VPN trustworthy?

A few reputable providers, such as Proton VPN and PrivadoVPN, offer limited free tiers backed by real companies and no-logs policies. The trade-off is capped speed, data, or servers. Avoid anonymous apps that promise unlimited free service.

Is a VPN router safer than a free VPN app?

Yes. A VPN router protects every device on your network from one trusted solution, so you avoid installing unknown free VPN apps on each phone, laptop, smart TV, streaming stick, or console. It is especially useful for devices that do not support VPN apps directly.

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