![]() ![]() Would I recommend Windscribe? Absolutely. And So…ĭoes Windscribe VPN keep logs? No, but… I believe they should stop logging connection timestamps, whether kept in “a rolling counter is not kept historically” or not. I just think that they could log even less. They’re transparent about what they collect and don’t collect and they’re very much a privacy-focused VPN provider. You have no choice other than trust (or not using the service at all). You need to trust your proxy network (the VPN) because it has the ability to see everything you do online.Īs I’ve said before, you can quite easily check your IP address, once connected to the VPN, to make sure your traffic appears to come from the VPN server.īut you can’t perform any kind of test to know if your provider is logging your activities. There’s just no way around it: digital privacy is based on trust. I think they provide an excellent VPN service.īut there is still room for improvement and this one area where they have such an opportunity. I do not believe anything ominous is going on, and in my review of Windscribe, I gave them the highest score of any provider so far. Why do they need timestamps?Įven if, as they say, this data is kept in “a rolling counter and is not kept historically”, I don’t see the justification for paid users, at the very least. Windscribe offers its paying customers unlimited bandwidth and unlimited simultaneous connections. Mitigating abuse is what is always touted to justify such collection.īut there are other ways of achieving that goal, as evidenced by other serious & secure VPN providers who do not log that information. The connection timestamps should go, in my opinion. Maybe they could disable it for paying customers? VPN services that offer a capped free tier need to keep track of the amount of data consumed, somehow… Now, we can understand the bandwidth logs because Windscribe actually offers a very useable free plan, which is capped at 10GBs monthly bandwidth. Your VPN provider can use 4096-bit RSA keys, if it logs your traffic, that won't make any difference. Without a strong no-logging policy & commitment and the technical infrastructure to enable no-logging, your VPN might not be so beneficial to your online privacy… You’ve essentially handed over to your VPN provider what you took away from your ISP: the ability to track you. But you’re not immune to tracking simply because you’re connected to a VPN. When you use a VPN, you take away your ISP’s ability to directly view your activities. Why is the Logging Policy so Important?Īs stated above, the logging policy is critical because it enables all of the other privacy benefits provided by VPNs. A good place to look for such answers would be TorrentFreak’s annual Which VPN Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously in 2020? guide.īut the point is that all of the above points are undermined if your VPN provider logs your activities. Support for Anonymous Payments: Do they enable anonymous payments, by accepting cash or Bitcoin payments?Ī serious VPN provider that deserves your trust should have no trouble answering all of these questions.Jurisdiction: Is it legal for them to run a no-logging service in their country of operation? In which jurisdiction are they based? Are they outside a 14 Eyes jurisdiction?.Tor Over VPN: Do they support bouncing your VPN traffic over the Tor network?.WebRTC Protection: Do they guard against WebRTC leaks?.Ads & Tracker Blocking: Do they provide an ad and tracker blocker?.DNS Leak Protection: Do they provide in-tunnel no-logging DNS servers?.VPN Kill Switch: Do the native apps supplied by the VPN provider include a VPN kill switch that will block your (unencrypted) traffic if the connection should drop?.Encryption Strength: What protocols and ciphers does the VPN provider support? Are they strong and modern or weak and obsolete?.Security Considerations In Assessing VPNs Providers: So what does it take to be a trustworthy VPN provider? A trustworthy VPN provider should have no trouble answering these questions: One of those boxes will obviously be the provider’s logging policies. For a VPN provider to be considered trustworthy, there are quite a few boxes to tick.
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