This popular VPN has been shut down, and I'm glad

Though I champion VPN services as perfectly legitimate privacy tools and totally understand why people use them, I've encountered a number of people who think that they're quite dodgy, or possibly even illegal. It's services like First VPN which reinforce this negative reputation - so I'm glad it was shut down this week.

For those not in the know, First VPN was a moderately popular service that had been around for a number of years (though you won't find it on our list of the best VPN services!). Now it's been shut down, and its administrator has been arrested because of its rampant use with cyber-criminals. It was probably quite a shock to the ordinary people who were only using it to watch another country's Netflix library.

This shutdown came at the end of a five-year investigation and was made possible by the collaboration of law enforcement agencies across 16 countries. It all happened because First VPN was at the heart of many online criminal rings, allowing people to carry out ransomware attacks, fraud, and a whole bunch of other nefarious activities.

An ugly truth of reality is that even the legit, upstanding services like NordVPN and PureVPN have probably been used to cover the tracks of malicious parties in much the same way, so does that mean we can expect a crackdown on all VPNs? No, there are a couple of things that set First VPN apart from other providers.

One of the biggest things was the fact that it allowed users to pay anonymously, and used hidden infrastructure and other features that specifically made it easier to commit online crimes. It had gotten so bad that in the seediest corners of the internet, First VPN was being actively recommended for anyone looking to get away with exploiting others.

This stands in stark contrast to NordVPN, which has expressed that it will cooperate with law enforcement agencies in the event that its users are believed to be trying to mask illegal activities. That's just one example, but really, most of the respected VPN providers have said and done this at various points in time.

Wanting to avoid huge corporations tracking all your data is perfectly understandable, as is feeling like nobody should know about personal and private things that you've searched for online - but VPNs shouldn't be used for harm like this. The internet is a better place without First VPN.

If you're interested in protecting your privacy online, we recommend going for NordVPN, Proton VPN, Surfshark, CyberGhost, and ExpressVPN. No time to read up on them all? Well, you can't go wrong with NordVPN - our top choice.