Antivirus vendor Malwarebytes is now expanding into the VPN market.
On Thursday, the company introduced its own VPN service called Malwarebytes Privacy. Get it now for Windows PCs for $59.99 a year; Android, iOS, and Mac versions are in the works.
The VPN is the first in a suite of privacy-focused products Malwarebytes is developing. “Today you can’t go online without corporations, advertisers, and hackers trying to eavesdrop on you, and it’s feeling increasingly invasive for consumers,” says Chief Product Officer Akshay Bhargava.
One way you can protect your privacy is with a VPN; the technology encrypts your browsing activities, which can prevent an internet service provider or government from learning what websites you’ve been visiting.
Today, you can already find dozens of paid VPNs on the market. So to stand out from the rest of the pack, Malwarebytes has decided to use the newer WireGuard protocol in its VPN product. Although somewhat untested, the protocol is basically next-generation VPN technology akin to 5G in the wireless world. As a result, the company says its own product should outperform other traditional VPN services in terms of internet speeds.
The new Malwarebytes VPN service also operates via 180-plus servers based in 30 countries. So you’ll be able to alter your IP address and access the internet from a variety of different regions. In addition, connections are secured with 256-bit AES encryption.
“Most importantly, Malwarebytes Privacy does not collect user logs or telemetry data whatsoever. Your data remains private — even from us,” the company added. That said, Malwarebytes hasn’t published a specific privacy policy for the product yet.
The company isn’t alone in adopting WireGuard. On Wednesday, one of the biggest providers in the market, NordVPN, began widely adopting the newer encryption protocol, citing its speed benefits.
