So, most every company has a version of this, right? Why we’re awesome and everyone else….isn’t. This is a bit different though because the VPN business has become shady on a level you just don’t see very often. We hate to be a “narc” but we view this as a public service at this point and an effort to save an industry we love and helped create.
Take away? You don’t have to buy from us, but be very careful before you send your data through some of these characters.
Most VPN companies make the time-share business look downright principled by comparison. You can practically smell the Imposter cologne oozing from their websites.
Actually we do have a free tier of our email encryption service, SecureMyEmail. We’re able to do it because the incremental costs are low and our free users help us grow when they use it.
But, free VPNs are different. The costs to run a VPN service are much higher. So, if a VPN is free, and they don’t explain their revenue source, you can usually bet something is amiss. It’s quite possible your data is being harvested and sold. Or, it could even be worse than that!
It’s like we’re making this stuff up. Nope. The CIO, of possibly the largest VPN provider on Earth, is an ex-spy who got caught hacking for the UAE. In fairness, he may actually be a great guy. Probably has a rescue dog or something. We don’t know. We’re just saying you may want to consider this before installing his company’s VPN apps on your phone or computer.😉
No AI chatbots with cringy names. No third party overseas call centers. With WiTopia, you’ll receive truly expert support from actual WiTopia employees. Many of whom have been with us for many years. They are a tremendous wealth of knowledge and will get any issue resolved fast!
This maybe wouldn’t be as big a big deal if this company hadn’t gobbled up several huge VPN companies AND several VPN “review” sites to become the largest VPN company in the world! Yay. We’re sure those reviews are toooooootally unbiased too. ;-)
Hey, at least the company’s current CEO admitted they changed their name to escape the “strong association to the past activities of the company.” No doubt!
And, in the truth is stranger than fiction department, this VPN mega-company is currently owned, by a semi-scary multi-billionaire who has quite an interesting past. Although we’re sure this somewhat fascinating dude is way fun to party with in his volcanic island lair, you may want to reconsider sending your data through his companies. Just don’t tell him we said that.
In full disclosure, we do, in fact, like money. But, we also like to be able to sleep at night. As a fully independent, 98% employee-owned company, we keep it simple. Our money comes from you for protecting your data and privacy. So, that is what we care about.
Your only regret will be that you didn’t do it sooner.
Not only were we one of the pioneers of this industry, we got our start at a company called UUNET, who actually invented the VPN, web hosting (“The Cloud”), and ran pretty much half of the internet once upon a time. Basically, we know what we’re doing.
We could be unoriginal and just tell you we’re “the best!” And, although we believe we are, no VPN or encrypted email provider is perfect for every situation. It’s always possible a specific feature or aspect of someone else’s service may make it a better fit for you. But, barring any special cases, we believe you’ll find our reliability, performance, and security to be unmatched. We back this up with an **unconditional** 30-day money-back guarantee on our VPN service and a zero obligation 30-day free trial of our email encryption services.
While there are certainly legitimate VPN review sites, there are also a LOT with “questionable journalistic integrity.” Many are actually even owned by the VPN companies themselves! The situation is so bad that it’s very difficult to not fall victim to these deceptive marketing practices. Because we don’t play ball with these folks, we, and probably other solid VPNs, tend to receive some quite inaccurate reviews.
This very well-researched article shows us there are seemingly 105 VPNs that are run by just 24 companies. Not a crime in itself, but many appear to deliberately pose as separate companies to hide who they really are, where they really are, and to give you the illusion of choice. They also tend to claim a mix of legal jurisdictions where convenient based on flimsy corporate filings. Quite a few are actually in China. Some are in Pakistan. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.🙂 Point is, many appear to be deliberately misrepresenting things and, in our opinion, those aren’t the kind of people you want to trust with your data and web searches.
Okay. We’re not saying this makes us better. ;-) Actually, many of the cool people who make WiTopia happen are not American, but we are US-based. Ultimately, all our SecureMyEmail systems are in Switzerland, and our VPN servers are spread around the world, so we’re as global as anyone.
We’re bringing this up because, at some point, it became popular to say a US-based provider was somehow more of an easy target for the US intelligence community. This isn't true for a myriad of reasons. Worse, many of those claims were made by companies located in human rights bastions like China and Pakistan.🙂 It’s a marketing tactic. But, since they brought it up, here are some things we think are good about being US-based:
The reality is that no government loves the idea of people having encryption but we believe the environment in the US is quite good.
Trust us. If a piece of paper saying we’re on some Caribbean island ever has any real benefit, we’ll get one. There is no shortage of lawyers here. :)
Your only regret will be that you didn’t do it sooner.