Many other VPNs offer an App to connect to their VPN servers. Hidden24 do not have an app. This may seem like an odd choice. Why does Hidden24 not offer an app like everyone else?

The answer to this question can be found when looking at advantages and disadvantages with an app. Let us begin with stating something obvious. No VPN absolutely needs an App. All modern operating systems (MacOS, Windows, iOS, Android) have built in VPN support. This means you can connect to any VPN from your device, without installing any additional software.

We believe that the advantages of No App outweighs the advantages with an App. It boils down to a question of security and privacy over ease-of-use.

Let us start with a small summary of the disadvantages with an App.

1) An App uses battery.
2) Most VPN Apps run in the background, thus Always draining battery and system resources, even when you are not using the VPN.
3) An App introduces an unnecessary level of complexity. In any system, higher complexity introduces additional security risks. Simpler is better.
4) All Apps have bugs, and will need updating over time.
5) An App takes disk space.
6) Most VPN apps needs “root privileges” to work on your computer, meaning you give this app access to the deepest level of access on your computer.

Let’s look at some real world examples. The following screenshots highlights some of the risks and negatives that comes with installing a VPN App on your device. These examples are from one of the most commonly used VPN apps, installed on MacOS. We have chosen to hide the name of this VPN – suffice to say that many users have this app installed, without perhaps realising the dangers and implications.

App constantly using system resources (battery, processor, memory)

When you install a VPN app, you are typically asked to allow a “Helper”-app or similar, to have full root access your system. The VPN provider will tell you that this is safe and normal. However, as you can see in the screenshot below, in the syslog of MacOX, we are specifically warned about this app. It says “This service is defined to be constantly running, and is inherently inefficient”.

App cannot be terminated

If we then try to terminate this app, it has actually ingrained itself so much into your system that it cannot be terminated (“killed”). Even if you uninstall the VPN app from your computer, this “helper” app will not be uninstalled. It will continue to run on your computer forever.

Apps can be disingenuous

When you have installed a VPN app, it will help you connect to your VPN. But since it is a full app, you do not know exactly what it does on your computer. An app can do anything without your knowledge – you do not have access to the code behind it to check. As can be seen in the example below, many VPN apps uses the opportunity to collect data about you. Please note that in this example, the “Help us improve” option is On automatically, unless the user unselects it. It is remarkable (in our opinion) that a VPN app – designed to protect privacy – has this option On by default.

How Hidden24 is different

 
We do not have an App. The main reason is that all devices already have VPN connectivity built in. This means an app is uneccessary, and we do not like to introduce unnecessary complexity. Installing something that already exiosts on your computer is a little bit like buying a car that has an engine, and then install a second engine in it. It is just not a good idea.

We do acknowledge that VPN apps have advantages too of course. The main one is “ease-of-use”. It is simpler to connect to the VPN the very first time with an app. With Hidden24, you need to configure your VPN the very first time you use it on a new device. But if privacy and security is your main consideration when using a VPN, then it is simply better to not install any app.

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