Due to 2 recent events that happened to ExpressVPN, one of them being acquired by Kape Technologies (https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn-cyberghost-pia-zenmate-vpn-review-sites/) and information about the VPN’s CIO working as a UAE spy going public (https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aq9p5/expressvpn-uae-hacking-project-raven-daniel-gericke), there has been a lot of buzz in the Reddit community as well as the Internet as a whole.
It is not difficult to see that rivals want to take advantage of the situation and are continuously recommending their own services. However, we want to bring some impartial opinions of cybersecurity experts that could be publicly available for everyone to see and to be able to make an informed decision.
Expert comments (Updated on 21st of September):
- John Scott-Railton (163K followers), senior researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, said on Twitter that the ExpressVPN decision to hire and retain Gericke showed that “ExpressVPN knowingly hired a man that helped the UAE build its spy system…and help hack human rights defenders & target Americans. Time for a shakeup: the VPN industry is a toxic, dangerous mess”.
- David Maynor (14k followers), independent security researcher and former research scientist at Barracuda Networks, said on Twitter, “For safety reasons maybe skip ExpressVPN and Kape.”
- Liam Pomfret, pHD (2500 followers) privacy researcher and board member of the Australian Privacy Foundation, tweeted, “If you’re using VPNs to do more than just view overseas streaming services, you really want to move away from ExpressVPN.”
- Edward Snowden (4.8M followers), ex Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee tweeted: “If you’re an ExpressVPN customer, you shouldn’t be.”
- Sven Taylor, the founder of RestorePrivacy.com: “From our perspective, all of the recent events have given us pause in our recommendation of ExpressVPN. While this is a service that we have used, trusted, and recommended for years, this week’s news has certainly raised some questions about ExpressVPN and its future.”
- David Gewirtz, Cnet/ZDNet columnist, journalist and a cybersecurity expert who covered this topic extensively and without bias: “If you’re currently using ExpressVPN for general-purpose safe computing (like checking your mail at the local coffee shop) and you like it, I wouldn’t say you should give it up.”
- Jim Martin, editor of Tech Advisor: “No VPN can offer 100% protection, including ExpressVPN. Maybe you’ll choose to continue using it, maybe you’ll decide now’s the time to switch providers.”
It is very important to hear both sides in this situation, as there are varying opinions - we don’t want this thread to become ‘kick Express while it’s down’. Therefore, we reached out VPN experts who are still recommending ExpressVPN. We want to hear out where they stand and the factors, that still make them trust this brand. We tried to reach out PCMag, Computer Bild, CNET as well as a few others. At the moment, we have not received any comments regarding this, I will update the thread once I get more information.
You can also find an official statement from ExpressVPN on this issue on their website (can’t post the link as ExpressVPN’s domain is banned on Reddit).