A free VPN provider has been caught hijacking a paid-for service

If you're using a free VPN, it might not be as legit as you'd hope. Aside from the risk of it not being as private as a VPN should be, or of it mining your personal details, it now turns out that some free VPNs could be leeching from reputable providers. Not ideal…

This was discovered by VPN provider Windscribe, which recently posted on X:

"JET VPN has been using our Windscribe servers to host their VPN. Absolutely shameless. No one's heard of them but they came out of nowhere into the top 10 Free Apps in the Play Store."

While a free VPN might seem like a good deal, none of the best VPN providers offer anything along the same lines beyond a free trial, or a very limited service that cannot be used for streaming. Free VPNs of this kind can be a useful - if risky - tool for anyone living under censorship, but certainly up to the job when it comes to streaming, and they aren't suitable for use as a gaming VPN.

So how did a free VPN manage to piggy back on Windscribe's servers? Windscribe later expanded: "[…] they just stole an account and used its authentication to connect to our servers. We were alerted to it, just took us a couple of days to action it. It was also not a lot of usage which means that it didn't trigger any major flags."

In short, someone created an app that provided free access via Windscribe's VPN servers using a single account. The cheapest Windscribe plan works out at $5.75 a month, so either the publisher of the dodgy VPN app was banking on advertising revenue, or they planned to steal information from users.

That's pretty worrying, isn't it?

So, if you are using a free VPN on your smartphone, it might be time to think again. Don't just go with a brand-new app that no one has heard of, or one that hasn't been recommended by a trusted website. Uninstall that app, and find something that is well regarded, has been tested, and preferably one with recent audits.

There are plenty of great options out there, including products from NordVPN, Proton VPN, SurfShark, Cyberghost, and ExpressVPN. You can find out which of these best suits your needs - whether you're streaming, using a VPN for gaming, or avoiding censorship - in our list of the best VPN services from trusted providers. Stay safe out there!