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Clearward

An independent VPN privacy desk

A VPN moves your trust. It does not erase you.

Clearward is an independent desk covering one thing: how VPN privacy actually works. We name the auditor and date behind every no-logs claim, cite the court cases, and recommend the providers that pay us nothing — because that is how you tell an honest recommendation from an ad.

Audited no-logs VPNsWhat a VPN really protects

Every “no-logs” claim on this site names the auditor and the date. Every court test is cited. We recommend Mullvad and IVPN — neither of which pays us a cent.

The VPN threat model

Does a VPN help?
Your ISP or mobile carrier logging every site you openSees encrypted traffic to one VPN endpoint — not the sites.Helps
Advertisers tracking you across sites (cookies, fingerprinting)Unchanged — a VPN hides your IP, not your browser or cookies.No help
Malware, ransomware and virusesStill at risk. A VPN is not antivirus and scans nothing.No help
A subpoena or police request for your activityDepends entirely on the provider: an audited no-logs VPN has nothing to give; a logging one does.Depends
The VPN provider itself reading your trafficYou have moved trust from the ISP to the provider. That is the whole trade.Trust shifts

The short version. See the full threat model →

Latest field notes

All notes →
№012Oct 13, 2026

Has NordVPN Been Hacked? Every VPN Breach Since 2015

NordVPN was breached once, in 2018. Every verified VPN breach, leak and data handover since 2015, and what each one exposed.

Field note№011Oct 13, 2026

Who Owns Your VPN? The 2026 Ownership Map

Who owns NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN and the rest, with sources and dates, plus which VPN owners also run the review sites that rank them.

Field note№010Aug 19, 2026

VPN vs Tor for Privacy: Which Should You Use?

A VPN trusts one company for speed and everyday privacy; Tor spreads trust across three relays for anonymity, slowly. They solve different problems. Here's how to choose.

Field note№009Aug 14, 2026

What a VPN Does NOT Protect You From

A VPN hides your IP and encrypts your connection — and that's the end of the list. Here's what it never protects: your logins, trackers, malware, phishing, and more.

Field note№008Aug 9, 2026

Does a VPN Stop Hackers, Your ISP and the Government?

A VPN hides your browsing from your ISP and the Wi-Fi owner, helps a little against hackers, and stops the government only if the provider truly keeps no logs. The honest breakdown.

Field note

Why this desk exists

The VPN industry is one of the most aggressively marketed corners of the internet, and much of that marketing is dishonest — “military-grade,” “total anonymity,” “100% safe.” It is also unusually concentrated: a handful of companies own most of the big VPNs and several of the “independent” review sites that rank them. Clearward is the opposite of that. We cover the privacy and security side of VPNs only, and we care about one currency: evidence you can check.

How we work

Three rules keep us honest:

  • Every no-logs claim we repeat names the auditor and the date. If we cannot find a real report, we say the claim is unverified.
  • We run no speed tests we did not perform and publish no numbers we cannot source. Facts carry a date.
  • Our top picks for privacy — Mullvad and IVPN — run no affiliate programme. When a recommendation cannot make us money, you can trust it more.

Start here

If you want to know which providers have actually proven their privacy claims, read which no-logs VPN claims are audited. If you want the bigger picture of what a VPN can and cannot do for you, start with are VPNs safe — the honest threat model. Everything else on the site is a field note that goes one level deeper.

Straight answers

Does a VPN make you anonymous?
No. A VPN moves your trust from your internet provider to the VPN company — it does not erase you. It hides your IP address from the sites you visit, but your logins, cookies and browser fingerprint still identify you, and the VPN provider itself can see where your traffic goes. Treat any service promising total anonymity as a red flag.
Does a 'no-logs' policy actually mean my activity is private?
Only when an independent auditor has checked it. 'No-logs' on its own is just a marketing claim. It becomes credible when a named firm — Deloitte, KPMG, Cure53, Securitum and others do this work — inspects the live servers and publishes a dated report, and it is strongest when the provider has also had nothing to hand over during a real subpoena or seizure.
Can a VPN protect me from hackers, viruses and scams?
Partly, and mostly no. A VPN encrypts your connection, which genuinely helps on open public Wi-Fi. But it is not antivirus: it will not stop malware, ransomware or phishing, and it cannot help a device that is already compromised. For those threats you need updates, a password manager and good habits — not a VPN.
Which VPN is best for privacy?
For privacy specifically, Mullvad and IVPN stand out: they collect almost nothing, publish independent audits, and — the point worth stressing — pay us nothing to recommend them. Among mainstream providers, Proton VPN, NordVPN and Private Internet Access have all published recent third-party no-logs audits; our no-logs page names each auditor and date.
Has a VPN's no-logs claim ever been proven true?
Yes, a handful of times. When Turkish investigators seized an ExpressVPN server in 2017 they found no logs; when US authorities subpoenaed Private Internet Access in 2016 and 2018 it had nothing to produce; and when Swedish police raided Mullvad's office in April 2023 they left with no customer data. These real-world tests are the strongest evidence a no-logs claim can have.