Apple and Google are hosting hundreds of dangerous VPN links — here is why your device is at risk
But there are a significant number of mobile VPN apps that leave you exposed to phishing and malware before you even install the app.Insecure protocols and obscured linksThe biggest concern we found surrounds encryption enforcement. We found that 339 Android links (5.3%) and 188 iOS links (6.8%) use plain, unencrypted HTTP instead of secure HTTPS. The audit uncovered several other severely obscured URL formats being approved, such as:URL Shorteners: Multiple store listings rely on shorteners like shorturl.at and the Yandex-based clck.ru.
- ▪But there are a significant number of mobile VPN apps that leave you exposed to phishing and malware before you even install the app.Insecure protocols and obscured linksThe biggest concern we found surrounds encryption enforcement.
- ▪We found that 339 Android links (5.3%) and 188 iOS links (6.8%) use plain, unencrypted HTTP instead of secure HTTPS.
- ▪The audit uncovered several other severely obscured URL formats being approved, such as:URL Shorteners: Multiple store listings rely on shorteners like shorturl.at and the Yandex-based clck.ru.
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Record
| Original publisher | TechRadar |
| Canonical URL | https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/apple-and-google-are-hosting-hundreds-of-dangerous-vpn-links-here-is-why-your-device-is-at-risk |
| Publication time | Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:44:37 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-07-31T15:48:05.547Z |
| Last seen | 2026-07-31T15:48:05.547Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | AVW8fAi8DWHG · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
VPN VPN Privacy & Security Apple and Google are hosting hundreds of dangerous VPN links — here is why your device is at risk Features By Rene Millman Published 31 July 2026 Our audit of over 4,000 VPN apps has uncovered that it doesn't take much for dangerous links to make their way onto store listings When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter When you download an app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, you assume the environment is heavily moderated and entirely safe.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at TechRadar.
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