Unless you need to masquerade your geography to access a restricted website, get around a government restriction, or want to run BitTorrent, there isn't much use for a third-party VPN anymore.
As HTTPS has long since become the standard, third-party VPNs have lost much of their utility. Even necessary VPNs tend to complicate things, and frequently become the "Oh, yeah! I forgot about that" thing that has taken me offline. Here, it is demonstrated that you can obtain a high-quality Chinese military-linked VPN service from Apple's App Store. It is probably easier to find a crooked VPN provider than a good one.
TTP's investigation found that one in five of the top 100 free virtual private networks in the U.S. App Store during 2024 were surreptitiously owned by Chinese companies, which are obliged to hand over their users' browsing data to the Chinese government under the country's national security laws. Several of the apps traced back to Qihoo 360, a firm declared by the Defense Department to be a "Chinese Military Company." Qihoo did not respond to questions about its app-related holdings.
VPNs allow users to mask the IP address that can identify them, and, in theory, keep their internet browsing private. For that reason, they have been used by people around the world to sidestep government censorship or surveillance, or because they believe it will improve their online security. In the U.S., kids often download free VPNs to play games or access social media during school hours.
However, VPNs can themselves pose serious risks because the companies that provide them can read all the internet traffic routed through them. That risk is compounded in the case of Chinese apps, given China's strict laws that can force companies in that country to secretly share access to their users' data with the government.
TechTransparencyProject
Previously:
• China orders mobile app stores to remove VPN apps
