Snap VPN’s privacy policy has recently moved to a self-hosted, secure HTTPS website – a big improvement over what it was before. It’s very odd that it isn’t hosted on Autumn Breeze’s own website, though.
It’s far from perfect, but this level of logging isn’t anywhere near as bad as some of the worst free VPNs we’ve seen, like SkyVPN and Hola VPN, that record your every move.
Company Ownership
Snap VPN was previously owned by a company called Lemon Clove PTE Ltd., but that has recently changed to Autumn Breeze. It is unclear if Autumn Breeze is a rebrand or a new company altogether.
However, on multiple occasions throughout its privacy policy Snap VPN makes reference to Lemon Clove – this lack of attention to detail further erodes our confidence in the document as a whole and is part of the reason why we don’t trust Snap VPN.
The privacy policy states that Snap VPN’s Singapore jurisdiction has “no special data retention laws and no guidance pertaining to e-discovery or disclosure to foreign law enforcement agencies.” However, this is simply not true – Singapore is a member of the SIGINT data sharing alliance and we’d rather a VPN not be based there if possible.
Our research into the Chinese ownership of free VPNs has also revealed that Snap VPN has links to mainland China, a big, obvious drawback for privacy.
Excessive Advertising Permissions
An overabundance of in-app adverts is one of our biggest complaints about Snap VPN. These ads don’t just disturb you while you use it – they also get access to your personal data.
Third-party ad services AdMob, Unity AD, Vungle, and Startapp all have permission to place “their own cookies, pixel tags, and similar technologies” on your device via Snap VPN and may use them to “access information about you which they may collect over time and across different online services.”
In-app ads are common with free VPNs, and are one of the many reasons you should consider using a cheap premium VPN instead, but Snap VPN’s permissions are still far more invasive than most other free VPNs.