Reports [1] on „Hidemyass.com“ identifying users to law enforcement authorities have raised awareness of the fact that not all VPN services are anonymizers [2], effectively protecting your privacy on the web. Your privacy is reasonably safe only with VPN providers that do not log your IP address or other personally identifiable information when signing up for, paying for and using their service. Even then, providers can generally be required to keep logs needed for a specific criminal investigation, in order to identify criminal suspects (data preservation). However your privacy is reasonably well protected if your online activity is traceable only while such an investigation is taking place.
We have been publishing and updating a comparative test of VPN services [3] in German since 2009 which points out which VPN services log their users‘ IP addresses and which do not. Due to the current interest I am providing an English version of the short summary of the results (last updated: 02/06/2011). The test relies on information given by the providers.
Based in |
No logging of any traffic data (not even partially or temporarily) | No e-mail port blocking |
Price | |
1. Jondonym [4] | International | from 6,15 €/GB | ||
2. Tor [5] | International | 0 | ||
3. Cyberghost VPN [6] | Romania | from 0 € | ||
4. Perfect Privacy [7] | International |
()
|
from 10 €/month | |
5. Relakks [8] | Sweden | from 5 €/month | ||
6. Internet Anonym VPN [9] | Germany | from 12 €/month and 25 GB | ||
7. Ivacy [10] | Switzerland | from 8,33 €/month or 0,50 €/GB | ||
8. Linkideo [11] | Jersey | from 2 €/month | ||
9. Xerobank/ShadowVPN [12] | Panama | from 10 US$/month and 10 GB | ||
10. Swiss VPN [13] | Switzerland | 5 US$/month | ||
11. Safersurf [14] | Germany | 5,90 €/month | ||
12. Witopia [15] | USA | 3,33 US$/month | ||
13. Trackbuster [16] | - |
-
|
-
|
- |
14. Your Freedom [17] | Germany | from 0 € | ||
15. Surfonym Premium [18] | Austria | 10 €/month | ||
16. BananaVPN [19] | Cyprus | from 15 US$/month | ||
17. VPN Out [20] | USA | from 8,33 US$/month and 83 GB | ||
18. Hideway [21] | Austria | from 6 €/month incl. 10 GB | ||
19. Hotspot VPN [22] | USA | from 8 US$/month | ||
20. Mad VPN [23] | China | from 9 US$/month and 5 GB | ||
21. VPN Accounts [24] | Cyprus | from 15 US$/month | ||
22. Tiggers Welt [25] | Germany | from 3 €/month incl. 1 GB | ||
23. Public VPN [26] | USA | from 5,83 US$/month | ||
24. PRQ Tunnel [27] | Sweden |
()
|
from 8 €/month | |
25. Torrent Freedom/ Crypto Cloud [28] | Canada | from 11,58 US$/month | ||
26. Trilightzone VPN [29] | International | from 6,67 €/month | ||
27. Anonine [30] | Sweden | from 3,25 €/month | ||
28. AlwaysVPN [31] | USA | from 5,72 €/month | ||
29. Roadwarrior [32] | USA | from 15,42 €/month and 15 GB | ||
30. AceVPN [33] | USA | from 3,10 €/month | ||
31. 12VPN [34] | China | from 1,99 €/month | ||
32. VPN Privacy [35] | Canada | from 8,27 €/month | ||
33. Strong VPN [36] | USA | from 4,33 €/month | ||
34. HideIP VPN [37] | Romania | from 6,15 US$/month | ||
35. Solvpn [38] | USA | from 16,67 US$/month | ||
36. Your Private VPN [39] | International | from 5 €/month | ||
37. TuVPN [40] | Singapore | from 8 €/month | ||
38. VPNUK [41] | Netherlands | from 6,50 GBP/month | ||
39. Cinipac [42] | Panama | from 10 €/month | ||
40. Ideal VPN [43] | France | 4,90 €/month | ||
41. VPN Master [44] | Netherlands | from 3,95 €/month | ||
42. Key VPN [45] | Germany | unknown |
Full information is provided in the German article [46].
Note that the test was initially conducted in 2009. Some information may be outdated.
Update of 28/10/2011:
See also torrentfreak.com: Which VPN Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously? [47] (07.10.2011) covering BTguard, ItsHidden, TorrentPrivacy, Ipredator, Faceless, AirVPN, VPNReactor, BlackVPN, PrivatVPN, Privacy.io, Mullvad, Cryptocloud, VyprVPN, SwissVPN, StrongVPN, Blacklogic.com, PureVPN.com, VPNTunnel.se, Bolehvpn.net and Ivacy.com.