And to edit this in out of curiosity: Is it safe to use free VPN providers?
Not everyone has the skills or knowledge is one reason. Even if you can setup an open on install you still have to consider a lot of other factors like bandwidth, security, privacy, machine specs, which cryptography tools are best/right for you etc.
I consider myself fairly competent and HAVE setup a VPN on a vps provider to protect myself while on open WiFi networks. However if I were more concerned about privacy and anonymity for my browsing I may wish to just pay a company that is (hopefully) much better at that type thing than I am. In that case it is about mitigating and or managing risks.
I’m very great full we have options for both.
Free VPNs might be more likely to be logging your internet use (such as what websites you visit), while you there are paid VPN services that won’t log your internet use. With free VPNs you’re also running the risk of them selling your data because they do have to profit somehow… and paid VPNs may provide better latency and speeds than a free one.
How safe they are can vary between VPN services so there’s no one answer to that question… but if you just want maximum privacy then Tor is a good option… but the speeds are pretty low and don’t think of torrenting through Tor.
All vpns logged in some ways… Even the paid ones… Doesnt matter if they own the servers or not… Is all logged.
They have your current ip… They restrict the number of connected machines which mean they logged.
What makes it confusing is that they are called VPN services when they should be called Anonymizers.