Lost $60 on a VPN that promised too much

Saw an ad for a $60 yearly VPN that claimed to block all trackers and ads. Figured why not, gave it a shot last month. First week was fine, but then my banking apps started failing and my speed dropped to like 5 Mbps. Turns out their kill switch was basically fake - my IP leaked in a test. Anyone else get burned by a cheap VPN that oversold itself?

3 comments

3 Comments

drew9061mo ago

Real quick, kill switches in cheap VPNs usually don't work like they claim.

aaron7081mo ago

Man, tell me about it... I remember back in the day I tried one of those free VPNs from some random site, figured I was being smart for a trip. Kill switch was supposed to drop the connection if the VPN went down... but it just let my IP leak out for like five minutes straight while I was checking my email at a coffee shop. Didn't even notice until I got home and saw my location was bouncing all over the place. Makes you wonder what other "features" they're just slapping a label on without actually testing.

hayden_rivera18d ago

Kill switches are kind of tricky even on the better ones. They usually work at the app level, not deep in the operating system, so if the VPN crashes hard the switch can't do anything. A proper kill switch needs to block all traffic at the network adapter level before the VPN even connects. Most budget VPNs skip that step entirely.