Part 1
Do I need a VPN?
Part 2
Is this VPN app safe?
On a phone, press and hold the text, choose Select all, then Copy. The check reads the words here; it does not visit the app store or the company.
Part 3
Built-in options you may already have
Before paying for a VPN, look at what you already pay for. Some browsers, phone makers, mobile networks and security software packages now include a VPN or a private-relay feature in certain plans. Open the account page of your security software, your mobile network, your browser and your cloud storage plan, and search their settings for “VPN” or “private relay”.
- Apple’s iCloud Private Relay comes with the paid iCloud+ plan. Apple describes it as protecting your privacy when you browse the web in Safari, so it does not cover every app the way a full VPN does, and it is not available in every country (Apple Support, “About iCloud Private Relay”).
- Google ended the VPN that came with Google One storage plans on 20 June 2024, so a Google One plan on its own no longer includes one.
- Work and school VPNs are set up by your organisation. Use them for the work they are set up for, and follow your organisation’s rules: the organisation may be able to see traffic that passes through them.
- On Android, Google Play shows a “Verified” badge on VPN apps that have passed an independent security review called the Mobile Application Security Assessment, among other conditions (Google, 28 January 2025). The badge is a useful sign, not a guarantee.
Plans change often. Read the current terms of any plan before you rely on it.
What you paste stays on your device
The check runs on your own phone or computer, inside this page. The page’s security setting (a Content Security Policy, a rule the browser enforces) blocks it from connecting to any server after it has loaded, so what you paste stays on your device.
- No account, no sign-up and no cookies.
- Press Clear or close the tab, and what you pasted is gone.
- To confirm it yourself on a computer, open your browser’s developer tools, choose the Network tab, then run a check: no new request appears.
What the safety check looks for
Stop signs
- A request to turn off antivirus or Play Protect, or to install and trust a certificate or device profile.
- Access a VPN does not need: device administrator, accessibility, text messages or call logs.
- Installing from outside the official app stores, such as an APK file (an Android app file downloaded directly) from a website or a chat channel.
- Sharing your connection or your data with others, or putting adverts into the websites you visit.
- Pop-ups saying your phone is infected or hacked and telling you to install a VPN.
- Payment only by gift card or only by cryptocurrency.
Take care
- “Free, unlimited, forever” with no word on how the service pays for itself.
- No named company or country of registration, and no privacy policy or promise about what is kept.
- “100% anonymous”, “unhackable” or “military-grade” as the main pitch.
- A browser extension that can read every website you visit.
Good signs
- A named company and the country it is registered in, an independent audit with a published report, a transparency report, clear pricing and a listing in an official app store.
What this check cannot do
It reads only the words you paste. It cannot test the app, see who really owns the company, confirm that an audit happened or that a no-logs promise is kept, or see what the app does once it is installed. It never says an app is safe, and it never names any VPN brand as good or bad. A clean result means only that the signs it looks for were not found in the words you pasted.
How UtilForge tested this tool
Before release, the safety check was run against 31 written test descriptions: ten paraphrased from the style of careful, legitimate VPN listings, with no brand names, which must not be marked as a stop sign; thirteen modelled on the warning signs that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and university researchers describe, which must be; four that should be marked “take care”; and four edge cases, including invisible characters and code pasted into the box. On 24 October 2026 four independent reviews by other AI systems tested it again, and thirteen more cases were added from what they found: lists that say what an app does not ask for, spaced-out or dotted letters, misspellings, and text in other languages. It now knows the main warning signs in English and the most common ones in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and Afrikaans, and says so when pasted text does not look like English. The questions in Part 1 were run through eight combinations of answers, and every link to another UtilForge tool was checked. The page was also checked at phone width and with the network watched in the browser’s developer tools. If you find a description it gets wrong, the buttons below open an email you can send.
Questions and answers
Do I need a VPN at home?
Usually not for safety. On your own home Wi-Fi with a password, most websites and apps already encrypt what you send. A VPN at home mainly hides which websites you visit from your internet provider, and the VPN company sees that instead.
Does a VPN stop scams?
No. Scam texts, phishing links, fake shops, job-fee requests and voice-clone calls all reach you with a VPN switched on. Use the scam text check, the shop check and a family safe word instead.
Are free VPNs safe?
Some free VPN apps have serious problems. University researchers who tested 281 popular free Android VPN apps found that 29 leaked traffic outside the encrypted tunnel and 246 contacted advertising and tracking addresses (Network and Distributed System Security Symposium, February 2026). Check who runs the app and how it pays for itself before you install it.
Does a VPN protect what I type into an AI app?
No. What you type into an AI app, such as DeepSeek or any other assistant, still goes to the company that runs the app. A VPN changes the route, not the recipient. Take names and numbers out first with Hide names from AI.
How do I know my VPN is on?
Most phones show a small VPN symbol or the word VPN in the status bar while it is connected, and the VPN app shows Connected. You can also look in your phone’s settings under VPN.
Fifteen household checks, kept on your own device
The Family Safety Tools pack gathers fifteen UtilForge checks for payments, scams and investments into files you keep and use at home. You pay what you want, including nothing, and the free tools on this site stay free.
See Family Safety ToolsPay what you want