What we all feel is free is just awesome. We love free things, free food and everything which comes free, without paying a single penny. But when it comes to free VPN services, we do require best VPN services despite we have to pay something for the top VPN services.
Now, the services such as hosting, IT support, or VPN services- we get best when we pay for them. Also, VPN accounts are no exception.
We will be talking about top 6 things that you must know about free and paid VPN services, enough to let you decide whether you are going for the free or the paid VPN services.
VPN Protocols
So, the very first thing we are talking about is VPN Protocols, but before that let us have a brief understanding of what VPN really is. A virtual private network (VPN) is a technology which creates a safe and encrypted connection over a less secured network, such as the internet.
The VPN technology was developed as a way in order to allow remote users and branch offices to securely access corporate applications and other resources. To make sure the safety, data travels through various secure tunnels and VPN users are needed to use authentication methods such as including passwords, tokens and other unique identification methods in order to gain access to the VPN.
Most of the free VPN services provide only PPTP VPNs. And we must know that PPTP VPN is highly insecure. On the other hand, the top VPN Services providers allow you to use PPTP, L2TP/IPSEC, OpenVPN, SSTP, and even SSH so that you can tunnel your connections securely.
So on the terms of Protocols, we must say that the clear winner is Paid VPN.
VPN Connection Speed
If you are using a free VPN Connection, so what you can think you will be getting? Are you going to have high connection speed? The clear answer is NO. It is as obvious, if you are using a free service then that usually means it is already overused by other people, who themselves are striving for such services. Then, don’t ever forget that since the provider is providing free service then there may be issues like lack of bandwidth, as bandwidth comes at a particular cost and it is really not cheap to provide a VPN server which is able to support hundreds and thousands of connections at the same time.
Now, as we know best VPN services providers that are paid, generally invest a decent percent of their profit on their bandwidth and servers, in order to gain the huge customer base along with satisfied customer base. So the winner is, again, Paid VPN
There are few similarities between free VPN providers and TOR deep web browser, and low bandwidth is the main thing which they have in common.
VPN Availability
None of us want to get unexpectedly disconnected every now and then. And the only solution to this major issue is availability. Availability is important. As discussed above, the bandwidth problem combined together with a lack of multiple VPN nodes puts the free VPN provider aside.
And again the clear winner is Paid VPN.
Support
The most important thing you look forward to after availing any service is the support. As bandwidth comes at a cost, similarly the support after availing any service comes at a cost. If you are really willing to get free support and expect someone to spend his/her time for free in order to solve your connection problem then definitely you are going to experience a bad time if you have availed the free VPN Service. But the same issue would not be experienced by you if you have got the Paid VPN service.
You must have heard about Free vs. Paid Software model, similarly customer service support is one of those things which you pay for. Whenever you choose the best VPN services then for sure you can expect someone to answer your queries and listen to your problems carefully in order to give you the expected solutions. On the other hand, the free VPN services would not provide any after support which may cause a lot of trouble on the longer run.
So, again Paid VPN gets all the votes.
VPN Servers/Nodes Location
More number of servers equals to more money you spend. So, isn’t this a valid question that why would a free VPN provider will give you access to 100 servers in 50 different countries if it only manages to get a few dollars by advertising on its homepage? That definitely won’t be able to pay the servers & bandwidth fees – which can easily go beyond few dollars a month. On the other hand, the paid VPN business model relies on offering as much VPN server locations as possible.
Again, the maximum votes go to the Paid VPN
Anonymity
Such as TOR (free software for enabling anonymous communication), a free VPN provider usually wouldn’t ask you to sign up, in order to use its VPN service. And even if it asks to sign up for the service then you can easily use the fake information and user details, while a Paid VPN service provider will not let you use their service until or unless you provide them with your correct details which will be again used during the payment process (i.e. PayPal, credit card etc.). Most of the top VPN services ask you to signup.
So, the numbers of votes are more for Free VPN in terms of anonymity, as you don’t need to provide full/real details. But don’t forget that your IP address will still be logged in by the VPN provider, or your traffic will be monitored. So you become kind of totally anonymous for not providing your contact details but your IP address is still the same. Whether you are using a paid or free VPN provider your provider can easily log your activities online.
The Last Words
These are the few things you must know about free and Paid VPN services. You might find a lot more about them while using them. Clearly, the paid VPN services win over the free VPN services and have much more to offer to you.