Named & Shamed
Keumars Afifi-Sabet puts the boot into tech villains, jargon-spouting companies and misbehaving software
SOFTWARE WARNING! Samsung’s all-logging ‘No Log VPN’
Many free VPN apps are the modern equivalent of snake oil, in that they promise you the Earth and deliver the square root of naff all. With countless obscure options to choose from, relying on a known brand is normally a good rule of thumb. That’s why I gave the ‘Samsung Max VPN & Data Saver’ a spin.
This app comes installed on Samsung Galaxy devices, but it’s also available to all Android users via the Play Store (www.snipca.com/47084) – from where I installed it on my Oppo Find X3 phone. With more than 50 million downloads, and built by a reputable company, there seemed little to worry about. Samsung even goes to great lengths to assure you they value your privacy, claiming ‘Samsung Max is a No Log VPN’ and that ‘we do not track your usage in logs’.
The VPN itself does a decent job, though many of the most useful tools such as changing your location (see screenshot 1 ) require a subscription. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that Samsung was protesting a little too much by claiming it didn’t log your activity.
So I checked its privacy policy (www. snipca.com/47085) and found that Samsung’s ‘No Log VPN’ actually logs a stupendously long list of data, including
IP addresses, details about your phone and information about other apps you use. Thirty seconds after reading that I uninstalled the app.
I’m now using ProtonVPN (www. snipca.com/47299, pictured above 2 ) instead. It offers just about everything Samsung’s VPN claims to, but won’t follow me around like the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings.
WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?
WHAT THEY SAY
OpenAI www.snipca.com/47010 “Our goal is to build a roughly human-level automated alignm
