McAfee To Acquire TunnelBear VPN Provider

• McAfee is acquiring Canadian VPN provider TunnelBear.
• The company has announced that they plan to integrate TunnelBear's technology into their own VPN product - Safe Connect.
• TunnelBear, till now obeyed Canadian laws and after the acquisition, it will be under U.S. laws. Changes to terms of service and privacy policy might happen.

McAfee has just made an announcement that they are acquiring the VPN provider TunnelBear. There has been no disclosure regarding the deal, but the security giant has discussed plans for integrating the technology into Safe Connect, McAfee’s own VPN product. They have also informed that the TunnelBear team will also keep working on TunnelBear products without much change.

TunnelBear is a well known VPN service based in Canada. They cater their services to mobile and desktop users, allowing them to connect to one of TunnelBear’s many servers. This helps users to gain access to otherwise restricted websites in their locality, or avoid prying eyes to look at your data packets if you are sharing a local WiFi Network. Subscription plans for a TunnelBear start at $4.99 a month to $9.99 a month.

TunnelBear also respects their users’ privacy, a quality that is very much admired by its user base. It is also one the few VPN services that had a third party run a security audit. Thankfully, the report points out there are no critical security issues found in TunnelBear’s service. A few low to medium vulnerabilities were present, but those were hidden from the report so that hackers might not take advantage of the information.

Now since TunnelBear was a Canadian company, users still couldn’t avoid intelligence services, however, after being acquired by McAfee, the service now falls under U.S. jurisdiction. This means changes to the terms of service and privacy policy are to be expected.

Regardless, using a VPN service involves many security concerns. Primarily, a VPN provider has access to everything you do on the internet, including analyzing browsing habits, incorporating their own ads, sell acquired data to advertisers, or even cooperate with local authorities.