Helping people decide if they need a VPN - DoINeedAVPN launch

Under the Hood By Viktor Vecsei | Posted on March 17, 2021

TL;DR: We have created an open-source tool that helps people decide if they need a commercial VPN.

Releasing a blog post titled “Why you don’t need a VPN” seemed like a bold move for some who follow IVPN. Who heard of a business that turns away potential customers?

For us, publishing that piece felt inevitable. We were jaded by the marketing hype and over-promises by popular providers, who chase new audiences and position their solutions as a privacy and security cure-all. After incorporating certain points made in the original blog post to our home page copy, we realized we should do more.

Most websites that discuss VPNs detail finding the best one, or picking the most suitable for you. There is less focus is on whether a commercial VPN is a fitting choice for your needs and threat model. Promoting VPNs is more lucrative than steering people away from them. Yet A VPN won’t make you anonymous and for that purpose Tor is a better fit. Protecting your data on WiFi networks you don’t trust is better solved by running your own VPN. Commercial VPNs can only partly solve other problems and we wanted to address these as well.

DoINeedAVPN.com lists twenty-one privacy, security and anti-censorship concerns. It evaluates the combination of selections and recommends the use of commercial VPNs or alternative tools, where applicable. If the user picks issues that VPNs cannot solve, like hiding financial transactions, or stopping Facebook from tracking them, we steer them clear from using a commercial VPN service. We provide a detailed explanation for each selection, no matter if a VPN solves that issue or not.

For better transparency, we have added a ‘decision tree’ explanation page where you can review the logic behind the recommendations and each end state. Similarly to IVPN website and app projects, DoINeedAVPN.com is open source. If you have spotted a bug or found a way to improve the project, open an issue on GitHub or contact us. Any suggestions and feedback is welcome.

We hope this tool will provide clarity for people who want to understand what a commercial VPN can and cannot do for them.

Open Source Privacy Security
We invite you to discuss this post in our Reddit community or on Twitter. You can also send your feedback to blog@ivpn.net.
IVPN News

Independent security audit concluded

By Nick Pestell

IVPN News

IVPN applications are now open source

By Viktor Vecsei

Releases

Beta IVPN Linux app released

By Viktor Vecsei

App-based VPN using SOCKS5 Under the Hood

App-based VPN using SOCKS5

Posted on July 13, 2022 by Nick Pestell

Today we’re launching our new SOCKS5 proxy service, available on all IVPN servers. This enables multiple new features but I feel the most exciting is the ability to configure individual apps (or browser tabs!) to route their traffic through a different VPN server than the one you are connected to.
In support of Ukraine: distributing free IVPN accounts IVPN News

In support of Ukraine: distributing free IVPN accounts

Posted on February 28, 2022 by IVPN Staff

March 16 Update: Visit our dedicated Support Ukraine page to request a free IVPN account. This offer is open to anyone in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. IVPN has multiple team members hailing from Ukraine. Their reality has shifted from living and working in a peaceful environment to fleeing the country and hiding in bomb shelters in a matter of days.
Spotted a mistake or have an idea on how to improve this page?
Suggest an edit on GitHub.