Urban VPN review: Is it safe?
I tried Urban VPN recently because I wanted a fast and free way to watch a football stream that was blocked in my area. I saw a few people mention it in Reddit threads, and since it did not ask for an account or payment, I figured it was worth testing. The setup was quick and easy, and I was connected to a US server almost instantly. The stream worked without any issues at first, which made it seem like a solid option for simple use.
After a few hours, things started to feel off. My laptop fans were suddenly much louder than usual, and when I checked Task Manager, I noticed strange spikes in network activity even though I was not really doing anything online. I was not downloading files or running updates, and Urban VPN was the only new thing I had installed that day. That alone made me uncomfortable.
I decided to uninstall it, but the problem did not fully stop there. I started seeing random pop ups when opening Chrome, which pushed me to run a full malware scan and reset my browser settings just to be safe. That whole process was annoying and stressful, especially since I only wanted to watch one stream.
I get that it is free and technically does what it promises on the surface. Still, it made me question what is really going on behind the scenes and whether it routes traffic through other users devices or something similar. I am curious if anyone else has tried Urban VPN recently and noticed odd behavior, or if I just had bad luck. At this point, it does not feel worth the risk to me.