Free vs Paid VPN: A Detailed Comparison

by Mike on February 9, 2012

in VPN

When it comes to selecting a VPN service, cost seems to be the overriding consideration for many internet users nowadays. Many casually read through posts and articles explaining the importance of getting a VPN service to protect themselves against hacking, spying, and many other dubious internet activities only to fall for free VPN services because they do not want to spend “too much” on VPN services.

Free vs Paid VPN

Obviously, the white elephant in this whole discussion boils down to two important points that need an honest and direct answer:

  1. How much are you willing to pay for to secure your personal data? Are you comfortable with the fact that your data – your personal information, passwords, credit card information and address, billing statements, among others – can get stolen quite as easily because you are not taking the necessary precautions to secure yourself?
  2. Have you assessed the potential damage of what a successful hack or phishing can do to your personal life? Should your credit card information get stolen after a careless internet shopping spree, would you be comfortable trading a few dollars per month for the few thousand that you will pay to settle the bill because of identity theft?

These questions raise serious issues regarding the necessity of using VPN services as well as the inherent tendency to go half-way through and just choose free VPN services and dispensing with paid VPN packages.

So to address these issues once and for all, let’s do a detailed comparison of free vs paid VPN services and see just what kind of protection you are getting by opting for free VPN, not to mention the hassles associated with using a security device that is only half-baked and never truly designed to keep you secure all the time. In the following bullets, we will look at the specific attributes of free VPN and contrast these with what paid VPN services have to offer to highlight the differences between the two VPN packages.

Free VPN services exist because of advertisements that generate revenue for the companies behind these VPN offers. In that regard, free VPN bombards you with ads that have been tailored to your browsing habits. In short, your data gets stored and fed to advertisers so you can be shown the ads that supposedly match your taste. In very strict terms, you are shielding yourself away from hackers or phishers only to hand your personal browsing data over to advertisers for such a cheap service.

In contrast, paid VPN services are designed for anonymous surfing with no traceable logs of your browsing history. You also remain anonymous the whole time you are online so you cannot be recognized by anyone looking to trace your whereabouts.

Free VPN services are notorious for unreliable signals. Because nobody is paying for the service, the facilities are poorly maintained and servers are shared by many individuals resulting to frequent signal interruptions. You can never be assured of continued protection because your signal can go out anytime while you are transmitting confidential data.

Paid VPN services do not have this problem. Your payment goes to server and signal maintenance, not to mention giving you a dedicated IP to prevent congestion in the network which typically leads to hang-ups.

Free VPN services suffer from limited bandwidth not only for downloads but even for page loads during surfing. If your page loads very slowly, blame it on the fact that you chose to save a few dollars even as you waste your valuable time waiting for the page to load.

Of course, the best paid VPN services have unlimited bandwidth allocations so you can surf and download all you want, within the secure confines of the VPN connection.

These points highlight the story behind free vs paid VPN services. Without a doubt, free VPN is never adequate to cater to typical internet usage habits. Those who are looking for protection but chose to get it with free VPN brands are only slightly protected but are still largely vulnerable from most forms of internet threats.

Top 5 Paid VPN Providers

True internet security comes with a paid VPN service that is configured to meet your needs without being too costly or extravagant. If you want to be truly secure, do not settle for free VPN services; rather, invest in a good quality paid VPN brand and be assured that with each click, your data remains secure and your identity remains safe.Here is the list of Top 5 Paid VPN providers.

Rank Provider Starting Price Visit Provider Site
1 ExpressVPN $6.67 /Month Visit Provider Site
2 Hidemyass $11.52 /Month Visit Provider Site
3 IPvanish $10.00/Month Visit Provider Site
4 StrongVPN $21/ 3 Months Visit Provider Site
5 VyprVPN $14.95/Month Visit Provider Site
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Smith April 16, 2012 at 9:11 am

HideMyAss VPN is a great service given at a decent rate. I bought it for 6 months and paid $12 per month. This price is actually quite less as what they are providing
are of massive potential. The installation process is very easy and handy using openVPN. The advantage is that, this can be used to connect to any server or to servers with the least amount of
active users. For connection, it works at the first time and the speed is impressive. I usually get very high speed whenever I am using it. Speed is one of the most required criteria whenever a customer is looking for a VPN. HideMyAss will easily score 5 out of 5 in that. Saying that, I love my HideMyAss very much. Thumbs up!

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