Betternet is surely among the most popular free VPNs. It offers easy-to-use apps for desktop/mobile platforms, with seemingly plenty of great qualities. Is Betternet VPN safe and secure, though? Well, if you trust this company, you can find the answer to this question on its site.
But if we learned something working with VPNs for over a decade, it is to never trust them blindly. As the title explains, this provider isn’t safe to use and there are many reasons for that. However, we told you to never trust anyone blindly – not even us!
That’s why we recommend reading our Betternet VPN security analysis through the end. We’ll examine its security features, privacy policy, jurisdiction, and finally, its IP/DNS leak prevention capabilities. These parameters will tell you whether is Betternet VPN really safe or just another scam.
Is Betternet VPN Safe to Use? Security Features Examinedf
In this part of our security analysis, we’ll examine the security features you can find in the app. For full examination, make sure you read our Betternet VPN review.
Bank-Grade Encryption
Okay, so the first and most important thing in a VPN is encryption. Weak encryption means weak security and no encryption means no security. Betternet utilizes 256-bit encryption to secure your traffic and make it untraceable by your ISP and hackers.
We found out this information through the support team, which confirmed that the provider indeed uses bank-grade encryption. This applies to all of its protocols and apps, so even users on mobile devices will get the same level of encryption for maximum protection.
Catapult Hydra
Catapult Hydra, along with IKEv2/IPsec, is the only protocol that Betternet VPN supports. While we hate seeing no OpenVPN presence, we do appreciate the inclusion of IKEv2. Catapult Hydra is a proprietary protocol developed by AnchorFree, which later became Pango Group.
This protocol was first used in Hotspot Shield, but now, we can find it in every Pango Group VPN, including Betternet, UltraVPN, and a few others. Our tests showed that the protocol is indeed excellent, showing decent speeds and connection stability.
The company behind Hydra claims that it’s the fastest protocol, though. This isn’t the case as ExpressVPN’s Lightway is much faster. Nevertheless, Catapult Hydra has no external audits, which brings some concerns, as no third-party company ever examined the protocol’s source code.
So far, the protocol worked really well but we’d like to see official security experts’ opinions on it.
Automatic Kill Switch (IP Leak Protection)
Is Betternet VPN safe and secure when talking about IP leak prevention? Well, surprisingly, it is. The service has an automatic kill switch that you can enable in conjunction with IP leak protection. These two features will make sure you’re always safe online.
What is a kill switch exactly? It’s a feature that will disable your internet if the VPN connection is lost. This way, it prevents accidental IP leaks and exposure to your ISP and hackers. In Betternet, the feature works properly and we had no issues during a few disconnects we experienced.
It’s good to know that this is a “normal” kill switch with no fancy features. As a result, it works on the system level and can’t be applied to particular apps and domains like in NordVPN.
Split Tunneling
Split tunneling is a feature called “Exclude domains.” As you can guess, you can choose which domains (websites) can take advantage of a VPN and which won’t. We’d like to see the app split tunneling here, but as things stand, we don’t know if it’s going to happen.
Still, we tested this “Exclude domains” feature and can report it’s great. All you need is to type in the domain of the site on the list and when you visit it, that part of traffic won’t be tunneled via the VPN. You’ll find this useful for your banking site or local shopping portals.
WiFi Protection
Finally, Betternet has a handy feature that allows it to be turned on automatically when you connect to particular WiFi hotspots. These include:
- Unsafe WiFi hotspots
- Safe WiFi hotspots
Yes, you can even turn it on automatically when using a safe WiFi network like the one in your home. However, the first option is much more sensible, as it’ll protect you on public WiFi hotspots in restaurants, hotels, and cafes.
As a safe WiFi hotspot, you can add your home network, for example. This means every other WiFi hotspot will make Betternet VPN turn on and grant you protection immediately. Quite a handy little feature but far from unique, as every other VPN has it.
Does Betternet VPN Store Logs? Analysis of Its Privacy Policy & Jurisdiction
For a free VPN, Betternet definitely offers a good set of features. But still, we think ProtonVPN is far better, offering more protocols and other quirks and functionalities. Nevertheless, it’s time to talk about the privacy aspect of this VPN, which we think is lacking severely.
Where Is the Company Based?
Betternet VPN resides under the US jurisdiction, which is one of the worst countries for a VPN. It’s a founding member of 5 Eyes, a conglomerate of countries notorious for online surveillance, data collection, and all other privacy-unfriendly practices.
That’s not the worst part. The worst part is that it’s a Pango Group VPN, which means it’s under the same umbrella as Hotspot Shield, another unsafe service. Pango Group VPNs are notorious for these practices and they all share the same privacy policy – more or less.
Is Betternet VPN Safe in Terms of Logging Practices?
Speaking of the privacy policy, we have a lot to cover when talking about Betternet VPN. The privacy policy of this VPN first implies that the provider will store logs of your account/billing info, which sounds benign. But then, we arrive at this part regarding VPN usage.
When you use the VPN, Betternet will store PLENTY of information that could potentially identify you. For example, there’s device information which includes device identifiers, browser types, operating systems, network information, etc.
Diagnostic information is here too. Betternet clearly states that it’ll collect information about “the nature of the requests that you make to their servers” which means the sites you’re trying to visit. Timestamps, referring URLs, and location information are all here, which is already an alarming sign.
In fact, Betternet will know your location based on your GPS settings AND even your IP address, which Betternet will gladly store. The provider then goes on and says that it doesn’t log any information that associates your identity with the VPN session but that’s not true, as you saw.
Ads-Related Logging
We then switched to Pango Group’s site and checked its privacy policy. It has a part where it explains the use of ads in free VPNs. Guess what – Betternet is a free VPN that belongs to this company. Pango states that its free VPN services will store the following data:
- Mobile/device advertising identifiers.
- IP address!! This is used for tracking your approximate location, which helps implement targeted ads.
- Your device model, language, time zone, and OS version.
- The name of the website or app serving the ad.
As you can clearly see, Betternet is pretty heavy on logging, which is further confirmed by Pango Group, so at least they’re brutally honest. Sure, some euphemisms are used here and there, but if your IQ isn’t as low as the room temperature, you can easily connect the dots.
Betternet obviously sells your private data to third parties as well. I mean, implementing targeted ads and storing logs of your IP and “the nature of the requests” we mentioned a minute ago surely tells us a lot about it. For advertisers to serve you ads, they MUST have some of your private information.
And that’s why Betternet is one of the worst free services and an embodiment of a free VPN that you should absolutely avoid.
Third-Party Audits
As for third-party audits, the company has none. Did you really think a VPN like this could get ANY external audit? If so, you’ll need to think again because Betternet VPN is far from being safe, secure, and legit. We’d much rather use ExpressVPN with 3 audits which represents a far better option.
While it’s not free, it won’t collect and sell your data to third parties because it earns enough money through subscriptions. Plus, it has a 49% discount and 3 free months for the annual plan, making it an affordable pick that you won’t regret purchasing.
IP & DNS Leak Tests: Let’s See if There’re Any Leaks
To answer if Betternet VPN is safe to use, we’ll do the last test for today – the IP/DNS leak test.
The screenshot above shows you our IP/DNS leak test while not using a Virtual Private Network. Here, you’ll see that we were located in Belgrade at the time of testing but our DNS and IP addresses are hidden, as we want to preserve our privacy.
With this in place, we connected to Betternet and this time, we used the VPN server in America.
Using the same site to test the VPN, which is ipleak.net, we discovered that Betternet wasn’t leaking our IP or DNS. This wasn’t strange considering that the provider has a decent number of security features and all of them work well.
To confirm our test results, we went to another site called browserleaks.com. As you can see, we got identical results and Betternet fully concealed our addresses. Both IP and DNS addresses were in the US and even WebRTC leaks weren’t present, which is great to know.
So, Is Betternet VPN Safe to Use?
To conclude this analysis and answer the question of whether Betternet VPN is safe to use, we need to consider all the test results. Or we shouldn’t, having in mind its privacy-unfriendly jurisdiction, alarming logging practices, and its tendency to sell your personal info to third parties.
No doubt, Betternet VPN isn’t a safe and secure VPN and it’s miles away from being a legit service that our team would recommend. We didn’t call it one of the worst free VPNs for no reason – as you learned today, there are plenty of reasons for our opinion.
If you’re looking for a free alternative, our team happily recommends Atlas VPN – it’s our favorite free provider. However, as said, we’d much rather recommend ExpressVPN, even though it’s not free. However, it’s significantly better and more secure than Betternet.
With its unlimited traffic, the fastest speeds, no-logging policy, HD streaming, and many other benefits, ExpressVPN should be an obvious choice. Don’t forget about its special 49% discount and 3 free months for the 1-year plan that you can obtain through our site.
ExpressVPN can be used for free for 30 days thanks to a money-back guarantee as well! This means it’s risk-free and everyone can test it before making the final decision. As for Betternet VPN… well, let’s forget about its existence. It’s really not worth your time, let alone money.
