Since the launch of geo-blocked streaming sites like Netflix, people with almost no technical knowledge at all have become interested in VPNs. But – as you’ll know if you’ve made it this far down the page – VPNs are primarily privacy tools. While researching for my reviews, I take deep dives through companies’ sites and customer service. I get to learn if companies truly value both your privacy and you as a customer. When websites don’t bother including technical information, or customer service reps don’t understand how the product they represent works, it raises a red flag for me: this is a lazy and unethical company.

Some VPN companies just don’t take your privacy seriously. When you trust them to act in your best interests and protect your privacy at all costs, this is a huge issue.

Many governments around the world silence the citizens and strip them of their fundamental rights. Censoring political content is abuse. Blocking access to search engines and social media – especially in response to activism or terror – is abuse. VPNs exist to protect users from this abuse (and not just to unblock Netflix). You should have complete confidence in every aspect of the commercial VPN service you buy. You should expect it to be competently run by honest, transparent people who are passionate about privacy and understand what is at risk for their users: everything from maintaining their privacy to political dissidence against oppressive regimes that sanction free speech. We aren’t talking about something from Walmart breaking or an order getting screwed up at McDonald’s. The gravity of VPN company policies and actions have far greater consequences than people not being able to watch Netflix. When things go wrong, people lose their rights.

Lives are at stake.

I have no affiliation with this company but here is the VPN that I personally use- https://mullvad.net/en/