You probably already know that there are companies out there selling your personal information for profit. The most likely buyers are online marketers who are using that data to target you with ads. However, they’re not the only ones who are buying and using this very sensitive data. It would take too much time to list all the entities who engage in such behavior but that ultimately doesn’t matter. What matters is how you can stop them from doing that.
We already talked about this issue in our article Is Your Phone Listening to Everything You’re Saying Test, giving you instructions on how you can test this hypothesis. The answer to the question of what can you do about is rather simple. Just use VPNs and you’re good to go. This is currently the only way to stop them from acquiring your personal information apart from going completely offline. VPNs are not so intrusive and you can install them both on your phone and computer.
Now, the only question that remains is which VPNs are best for privacy. The debate about that issue is still ongoing but we can offer you some insights. After all, this is what we do here at The VPN Lab, we review VPN services and tell you if they are any good. We can roughly divide them into three categories. First, we have the big dogs, the most popular and most scrutinized VPN solutions out there. They are constantly working on improving their safety and privacy features, often inviting third-party cybersecurity companies to audit them.
For example, just a couple of months ago ExpressVPN finished its latest audit with great results. These are companies like NordVPN, Surfshark VPN, and PureVPN. You probably heard of them already. Next up are VPNs specifically designed to provide you with the best security and privacy settings. They are not so big and probably headquartered outside the Five Eyes Alliance countries. For example, PandaVPN doesn’t require you to enter any personal information as it assigns random numbers to your account. And you can use cryptocurrency to buy it.
ProtonVPN and VyprVPN are also good solutions. And finally there are those VPNs designed with the sole purpose of stealing your data and then eventually selling it. If you think about it their plan is devilishly smart and extremely immoral as they openly log your online activity and package it into one nice bundle. We will not give them any space here nor mention their names. So, if you’re looking to protect yourself from data brokers go for one of the proven VPN solutions.