Watch Out for These Red Flags When Picking a VPN as an Expat

You'll definitely need a VPN as an expat if you want to secure your data, unblock Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and other popular sites, and bypass government censorship (if you moved to a restrictive country like China).

But to do that, you need to pick a good expat VPN. Otherwise, you'll just waste money and time. To make it easier to weed out the bad services, we made a list of red flags to watch out for when looking into VPNs:

1. Usage or Connection Logs

A VPN provider should never monitor what you do with its service. They don't need to know what sites you visit or what files you download. Well, if they keep usage logs, that's exactly what they're going to do.

Connection logs are usually less harmful. However, they could still record your IP address.

The only ideal situation is when a VPN doesn't keep any logs. Make sure you fully read their Privacy Policy and/or TOS page to make sure they don't record any sensitive data. You never know when the government could try to force them to hand over user logs or seize their servers.

2. Bandwidth Caps

Bandwidth caps refer to how much GB a VPN limits you to each day or month. For example, they could limit your usage to 2 GB per month.

Now, any bandwidth cap is a red flag in our opinion. It won't let you fully use the VPN. If you want to unblock Netflix, for example, you'll only get to watch around one hour of HD content before you go over the 2 GB limit. And if you play games like Fortnite, you'll consume up to 100 MB per hour.

Really, the only acceptable bandwidth is unlimited data. The VPN shouldn't restrict how much you can use its service as long as you pay for it.

3. Unsecure Protocols

If the VPN only lets you use PPTP or L2TP/IPSec, that's a red flag. L2TP/IPSec isn't extremely unsafe, but it's nowhere near as secure as other VPN protocols. And PPTP is extremely risky to use. Its encryption is very weak - the NSA already cracked it, in fact.

As a general rule of thumb, these are the kinds of protocols you'd want to see:

• OpenVPN

• WireGuard

• IKEv2/IPSec

A VPN could also have its own proprietary protocol that's really secure. For example, NordVPN has NordLynx, ExpressVPN has Lightway, and VyprVPN has Chameleon.

4. No Kill Switch

A kill switch is a feature that shuts down online access if the VPN disconnects. It's an essential VPN feature as it prevents traffic leaks (nobody can log your data during the short period you're disconnected from the VPN).

A really secure expat VPN should offer a kill switch on as many devices as it can.

5. No Refunds

If the VPN provider doesn't offer a money-back guarantee, that's a bad sign. It means they're not 100% confident they can offer a good VPN. Also, it means your purchase isn't risk-free.

Usually, VPNs offer 30-day money-back guarantees. Most of them let you get a refund if you're not 100% satisfied with the VPN. Some providers might enforce a few requirements (like not going over 10 GB of data usage). It's understandable why they do that, but we'd suggest sticking with no-questions-asked refunds instead.

6. No Leak Protection

VPNs can actually suffer leaks - DNS, IPv6, and WebRTC leaks, to be exact. That basically means the VPN leave your IP address or DNS queries outside the encrypted tunnel. That's obviously bad because it means your ISP, the government, and hackers can still see your online browsing.

If a VPN doesn't offer IPv6 and DNS leak protection, that's a huge problem. At the very least, you should get DNS leak protection. You can prevent IPv6 leaks on your own by disabling IPv6 on your device (though, that is annoying). But the VPN should use its own encrypted DNS servers to protect your from DNS leaks.

Now, WebRTC leak protection isn't that mandatory. A few VPNs offer in-app WebRTC leak protection, while others have web browser extensions that prevent WebRTC leaks. But you can easily get rid of them by using uBlock Origin.

7. Small Server Network

This isn't a huge drawback, but it can still be a problem. If a VPN only has 10-20 servers, you'll deal with overcrowding which can result in slow speeds. Plus, it will be hard to find servers that are close to your location (again, for better speeds). Not to mention you might not find VPN servers in your home country (to unblock sites from back home).

Ideally, a VPN should have hundreds of servers to choose from. The best VPNs on the market have over 1,000 servers.

8. Freemium Service

If the VPN advertises that it's free to use and doesn't have any paid plans, just run. It sounds appealing, we know, but it's really not worth it.

A free VPN usually checks all the red flags we mentioned so far - it logs your data, it has bandwidth caps, and it has a small server network.

Besides that, free VPNs also have buggy apps, they might sell your data to advertisers, and they could even expose you to malware.

It's much, much safer to stick with a paid VPN. The top ones like Surfshark and CyberGhost VPN even have dirt-cheap long-term plans.

Need Help Picking a Good Expat VPN?

Even with all the advice we offered, we realize that it's still pretty difficult to find a reliable VPN. Luckily, picking a VPN as an expat becomes much easier if you just follow that link. It will take you to ExpatTech - a ProPrivacy blog that details how expats can stay safe online by using VPNs. The link we left will take you to the articles that talk about picking a good expat VPN.

What Other Red Flags Should Expats Watch Out for?

If you know other issues people should keep an eye on when picking an expat VPN, please tell us about them in the comments. Also, don't forget to tell us what your favorite expat VPNs are (and why you like them).