Technology @lemmy.world Sunny' 🌻 @slrpnk.net 7 mo. ago

How come TurboVPN can have double the amount of downloads compared to NordVPN and ExpresVPN? ++

Disclaimer: I know TurboVPN and the others mentioned are not good services to use, I'm strictly doing research. I'm not looking for VPN recommendations.

Genuinely wondering how these numbers are possible? 300M downloads and 8.35M reviews...? How?! Not even Amazon Shopping app or Disney+ have this many reviews. And surely NordVPN and Express VPN are considerable larger in both users and resources? I've never seen a sponsorship, not even once, from Turbo VPN. Are these numbers regional based? Is Turbo VPN more known in other regions? Is it easy to spoof these numbers?

Appreciate any comments on the matter, and have a nice day 🌻

61 comments

It's as simple as 'it's free'. Most people don't care about privacy, just bypassing censorship. Plus, the majority of people in third world countries can't afford to pay for a vpn, so they'll flock towards free ones.
- and Nordvpn or Expressvpn isnt even private so... its paid but you still give all your data to them.
  
  As much as I detest nordvpn they do have a 0 logs policy that has been validated. Don't give them money under any circumstance, but this isn't accurate.
  
  Isn't that how non-self-hosted VPNs work by their very nature? The VPN owner is always going to know where your traffic originates and where its destination is.
- That's my thought, these are worldwide numbers, so while the "premium" VPN services are popular in developed countries where most have the disposable income to afford them, those in developing countries may find the free services much more accessible, even if they aren't as reliable. Income may not even be too much of a factor, sometimes software or services can get popular in places like India where there's just a very high population. India played a big part in worldwide desktop Linux growing to 4% market share, for example.
- Right they do have a free, rather limited tier. But this still has me shocked that they actually got that many downloads. I've now also checked other free ones, and they also have 100M downloads, truly crazy. As these are so far from being good for privacy.
  
  As I said, only very few people cares about their privacy, so it's not really that shocking. I believe that the people that download these vpns don't even knows what these companies are doing with their data afterwards. Can't be scared of something happening to you if you don't know it's happening, or even what's happening in the first place.
  
  The majority of netizens have a privacy literacy problem.
Ever heard of bots?
- Right, I wanted to confirm that.
They advertise aggressively through YouTubers/streamers. A lot of mushy brained people probably download it once just to see what their favourite e-girl is on about. Then once they realize it's not providing them any tangible value they don't use it, but probably leave it installed since nobody ever uninstalls apps from their phone.
- Ok so they do advertise, good to know thanks
  
  Well IDK because I use ad block and sponsor block for everything, but all the big VPNs do
- I've seen plenty of ads for nord, this is the first I'm hearing of turbo
- Why you targeting "E-girls" specifically?
  
  That was just a bit of humour. I just mean in general whatever streamer or YouTuber someone might be watching, they are probably getting paid the VPN bucks.
  
  It's not specific to e-girls. Can be twitch streamers, bloggers, etc
  
  Because of the implication
Downloads isn't the same as recurring subscribers.

Could be gameified
- It seems so indeed
I think it's free.
- A free tier indeed, although they push extremely hard to make people pay for premium.
- Proton has a free plan as well
  
  if you search "Free VPN" on playstore, turboVPN is ranked higher than proton
  
  Edit: and I see its reviews are also negative, probably because of the connection issues (I've been having the issue too, takes a long time to connect if it even does
Does it come pre-installed on any phones? Might be a reason the downloads are inflated.
- Not as far as I know or have researched, but good idea!
Maybe something like this service. Find it a bit dishonest if you ask me, but I don't think it affects competition that much. People will try multiple apps if they don't find what they are looking for.
- Ah yeah, quite possible! Would have thought Google would be on top of this though, but probably not? The service in the mail does not seem to exist anymore, but was able to check them out with Wayback Machine; https://web.archive.org/web/20220831185349if_/https://www.appenhancer.com/
  
  Thanks for sharing 🌻
  
  Would have thought Google would be on top of this though, but probably not?
  
  It's against play store ToS, but if somehow you can make it look organic enough it might be difficult to proof. In truth I don't know how this kind of services operate. I do think Google would try to counter this as much as possible yes. And 8M reviews can't be just from this kind of services, at some point you have real users engagement, you just need the initial visibility boost.
  
  Good luck with your research🖖
I can't speak for the popularity of TurboVPN, or the probable ease in which companies can manipulate download numbers, but note the "+" on the end of each number.

NordVPN could have 99,999,995 downloads, TurboVPN can have 100,000,002 downloads, but one would be 50M+ and the other would be 100M+.
- Yeah good point!
Rounding?
It’s very possible - you literally just type them in.

I like 2, 5 and 8 - but you can use any number you like :

258

Give it a try.
- I would have thought these numbers are more-less controlled by PlayStore and not the publisher themselves? Or did I misunderstand you?
  
  I didn’t know it was the store

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