Not all VPNs are made equal – here’s what you should know

So, you are pretty learned when it comes toVPNs and understand why using a VPN is important. More power to you! You have taken the first steps towards a better and more privacy-respecting internet for all.

You now need to settle on a good VPN that will cater to your security and privacy needs. Choosing the right VPN is not an easy task. Different VPN services have different types of qualities, speeds, and rates.

You need to do your research when hunting for the right VPN service for your needs.

This research will include a brief comparison of all the important qualities. And of course, you also need to compare the charges for the VPN services. Some are very costly but give a wider range of features, more robustness, and a greater speed. On the other hand, cheaper options allow you to stay private and safe online at a fraction of the cost but don’t offer the type of speed and features that others, more expensiveVPNs do.

It all depends on your particular needs.

Logging

VPN services can be broadly categorized into three: free VPN, paid VPN, and decentralized VPN.

Some VPNs – particularly the free ones –might be logging your browsing activity and selling it to third parties. Apart from the connection instability they provide, this is one of the reasons why we don’t recommend free VPNs or free VPN browser extensions.

They need to pay for their servers too. And no matter how pure their intentions are, everyone has a price in this world.They can easily release their logs when the right companies approach them with the right amount.

There have also been reports of paid VPN services selling their data. Today, most paid VPN services do have a “no-logs policy” listed in their features, but sadly there’s no way to double-check this.

VPNs can easily give you a false sense of anonymity and security. It’s worse than actually being insecure using a normal internet connection as it will lead you to think that you can freely take risks when browsing online.

What to do?

Not all VPN companies are bad. Some truly have a no-logs or log-deletion feature. But just to be on the safe side, we highly recommend using the third category of VPNs – decentralized VPNs (abbreviated as dVPNs).

dVPNs allow users to do accomplish everything that a traditional VPN service allows. They just don’t have centrally-owned servers that are handling all the traffic. Instead, they rely on the users themselves. Even you can run a node and be a part of a decentralized virtual private network.

As the nodes aren’t centrally controlled, no logs can be created or kept, much less sold. The way dVPNs work is pretty straightforward. You are connecting to a node of your choice (which is an independent device) to connect to a resource. Or if we are talking the other way round, your node allows others to connect to it.

A decentralized network that works on anode-based system is much better for security and efficiency.

Our favorite dVPN is Mysterium VPN (affiliated with the Mysterium Network – a project that aims to democratize internet usage and fight censorship). It has several perks, such as:

1.    You can make payments in cryptocurrency. This can work as something as simple as a more convenient payment method to a privacy shield.

2.    There’s no central point of failure or a means to store logs.

3.    Mysterium VPN has a pay-as-you-use payment structure. You only pay per GB of internet used. No subscriptions, no locked-in periods, no hidden costs, no contracts. They even give you free tokens to begin your journey.

Of course, the users running the nodes are incentivized to sell their additional internet bandwidth when they are part of the Mysterium VPN. This is a great system, actually. dVPNs allow users to rent their unused bandwidth to those who need access specifically from that particular location. Such a decentralized internet bandwidth network isn’t just superior in efficiency but also much faster than a traditional VPN thanks to several techniques as well as lesser congestion.

Which VPN is the best?

What fits the bill for you is completely specific to your use case. For example, if you only wish to browse a website that’s blocked in your region in order to gather some information or do some reading, you can use a free VPN browser extension.

If you regularly consume media that’s blocked in your region then you can get a subscription service through a VPN provider.

And in almost all cases, we highly recommend using a dVPN like Mysterium VPN.

Using the Mysterium VPN will allow you to make use of all the benefits of a traditional VPN such as remaining anonymous while also paying only for the bandwidth you use. It further allows you to make payments in cryptocurrencies and switch your account on and off at any time.

Mysterium VPN allows you to directly buy internet bandwidth from any node. And there are so many node options to choose from. It might take some time to get a favorites list ready, but finding nodes that are up all the time and provide good speeds is fairly easy.

The competitors of Mysterium VPN includeOrchid and Deeper Network. Both of them work in a similar fashion but none provide as much flexibility in paying for the service as Mysterium VPN. Another alternative can be the Tor browser. Tor works by relaying your traffic through various nodes sequentially but is extremely slow especially if you are not on a very high-speed internet connection yourself.