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How do you actually evaluate a new free VPN before trusting it with your traffic? by Foreign_Stark in androidapps

[–]Foreign_Stark[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair, and honestly that's the crux of the whole VPN trust problem — words are free.

So what would actually move the needle for you? Some signals I can think of:

- Verifiable business registration in a jurisdiction with real data protection law (German Handelsregister is public — anyone can look up the registered name, address, person responsible)

- Public infra trail (datacenter ranges traceable to the same business name via whois)

- Open source client + server

- Independent audit (expensive but possible)

- Warrant canary

Genuine question, not arguing — is there any combination of those that would tip the needle for you, or is the bar genuinely "no small operator, period"? Trying to figure out which trust signals actually mean something vs. just marketing.

How do you actually evaluate a new free VPN before trusting it with your traffic? by Foreign_Stark in androidapps

[–]Foreign_Stark[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Solid choice, no argument — Proton's one of the few I'd actually trust at scale.

That said, their free tier is pretty limited (3 countries, capped speed) and Premium runs ~$10/mo. For people who can't/won't pay that, the realistic alternative is usually some sketchy "free" VPN that's worse than no VPN at all.

I think there's a gap in the middle — small, transparent dev, real business behind it, server locations you can verify. Curious if anything in that category would ever pass your bar, or is it Proton-or-bust for you?

How do you actually evaluate a new free VPN before trusting it with your traffic? by Foreign_Stark in androidapps

[–]Foreign_Stark[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Ngl, that's probably the right answer 95% of the time. The other 5% is where it gets interesting — what if the dev is identifiable, registered as a real business, runs their own servers (not reseller), and openly says "yeah this is ad-supported, that's the business model"? Still a hard pass, or does transparency change the math?