What are the risks of using a substandard VPN?

We regularly extol the benefits of the best VPNs here at Tom's Guide, and for good reason – using a trusted VPN has a lot of benefits to boost your privacy and security online. But with a crazy amount of VPN providers out there, what if you didn't heed our advice and went for something a bit more spurious? What could you expect?

Note: There is no need to choose a substandard VPN, our guides cover a host of specific uses and products at all kinds of prices. If you don't want to pay a penny for a VPN, you don't have to – try one of the best free VPNs .

Questionable protection

One of the biggest draws of using a VPN is for added protection online. The most secure VPNs can protect your data, your device, and even stop you from falling for phishing scams.

If your VPN doesn't use industry-standard AES-256 encryption with an OpenVPN or WireGuard protocol, then it's probably not offering you as much protection as it could. In fact, one thing that fills us with confidence when reviewing top VPNs is that you can get proof they're enabled. Try visiting a site like WhatIsMyIp.com and see if your IP location matches up with the server you're connected to.

Of course, even the best VPNs can drop occasionally and it's here that having a kill switch is so important, especially if you're using a VPN to get around government censorship. A kill switch will terminate your connection completely as soon as your VPN drops, stopping you from revealing your true IP Address. That's obviously of paramount importance for a lot of users.

A low-quality VPN may claim to offer a kill switch, but in our experience, not all are created equal. It's worth checking independent reviews to see if features like this really work. For example, in our reviews we try many different techniques to see if we can break a VPN's kill switch – and sometimes, we can.

The illusion of privacy

Using a VPN is a more private way of harnessing the internet. By encrypting your data securely and maintaining proven "no-logs" policies, the top VPNs let you confidently browse without worrying about your data being collected and sold on. That's not always the case, however.

We've seen plenty of untrustworthy VPNs claim to be privacy champions, only to admit to selling on user data in their own privacy policy. If you're connected to a VPN, then you're more likely to view sensitive information online, but if you can't trust your VPN, then you may be doing more harm than good. Don't take a chance on an untrustworthy provider.

Patchy streaming performance

One of the most popular uses for a VPN is to access region-specific streaming content from anywhere via IP spoofing. The problem is, accessing streaming services such as Netflix from another region is still one of the hardest tests for a VPN, and only the best streaming VPNs have consistent success.

If you're using a substandard service you might only be able to access a fraction of the streaming services you're after, or they might only work intermittently. That's an incredibly frustrating way to watch your favorite show while on vacation.

Hopelessly slow internet

It's a common belief that using a VPN slows down your internet connection, and that makes sense. With a VPN your traffic has to route through an extra server, adding another step to the process. But with one of the fastest VPNs , like Surfshark, you'll have a really tough time spotting any slowdown.

More suspect services that don't offer such lightning-fast speeds are going to have noticeably slower speeds, especially if they don't offer many servers to choose from. Another way to keep speeds up on a VPN is to offer a choice of encryption protocols. Top providers often let customers choose to use the quicker WireGuard or the more secure (but slower) OpenVPN as they see fit.