No. We wouldn’t install Urban VPN, and if it’s already in your browser, we’d remove it today. In December 2025, security researchers showed that the Urban VPN Proxy extension was capturing what its users typed into AI chatbots and sending it to the company’s servers, even when the VPN wasn’t switched on.
Here’s what was found, why the “free VPN” model makes this kind of thing likely, and what to use instead.
What is Urban VPN?
Urban VPN is a free VPN brand best known for its browser extension, Urban VPN Proxy, available for Chrome and Microsoft Edge. It also publishes apps for desktop and mobile. It’s popular because it costs nothing and needs no account: install the extension, pick a country, done.
It isn’t one of the 49 VPNs in our comparison database, so we have no scores for it. That’s a choice. We only track services we can assess on the basics: jurisdiction, ownership, audits, logging. Urban VPN fails the first test before you get to speed.
What researchers found
On 15 December 2025, Idan Dardikman, co-founder and CTO of Koi Security, published research on four extensions linked to the same group: Urban VPN Proxy, 1ClickVPN Proxy, Urban Browser Guard and Urban Ad Blocker. Together they had more than 8 million users, according to The Register’s report on the findings.
The core of the finding:
- A hidden module activated when the browser opened AI platforms. The Register lists ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Grok and Meta AI among the targets.
- It captured the prompts users typed, compressed them, and sent them to Urban VPN’s analytics servers (analytics.urban-vpn.com and stats.urban-vpn.com).
- Collection was on by default through a hardcoded setting, with no switch for the user to turn it off.
- According to TechRadar, the code arrived in the 9 July 2025 update (version 5.5.0) and ran whether or not the VPN was connected. Turning off the extension’s “AI protection” warning didn’t stop it.
Then there’s where the data went. The researchers linked Urban VPN to BiScience, a company Dardikman describes as a data broker that sells browsing data for marketing. Earlier research by Wladimir Palant and John Tuckner of Secure Annex had already documented BiScience collecting clickstream and browsing history through browser extensions.
TechRadar put the Chrome user base at around six million for Urban VPN Proxy alone. And the Chrome Web Store had given it a “Featured” badge, which most people read as a sign of quality.
What Urban VPN said
Urban VPN’s position, as reported by The Register, is that it discloses AI data collection in its setup prompt and its privacy policy. Dardikman’s reply was that the policy reveals the data is sold for marketing, and that the store listing didn’t mention AI conversations specifically. Emails The Register sent to Urban VPN, BiScience and 1ClickVPN bounced.
Our view: even if every line of it is technically disclosed somewhere, a “privacy” tool that reads your AI chats by default and offers no way to turn that off is not a privacy tool. Disclosure in a policy few people read doesn’t fix that.
Why this matters more than a normal data leak
People paste things into AI chatbots that they would never type into a search engine. Contract drafts. Medical questions. Code with API keys still in it. Messages they’re struggling to write to a partner or a boss.
That’s the problem with this case. It wasn’t IP addresses or a list of visited sites. It was the content of conversations people assumed were between them and one AI company.
Is Urban VPN safe now?
We can’t confirm that the behaviour has changed, and we haven’t seen an independent audit of the current version. Without that, the safe assumption is the one Koi Security made: treat any conversation you had with an AI chatbot since July 2025, with the extension installed, as captured.
There’s also a structural reason to stay away. Running a VPN network costs money: servers, bandwidth, staff. A service that charges nothing has to pay for that somehow. Sometimes it’s ads, sometimes a paid upgrade, and sometimes it’s your data. Urban VPN’s business is tied to a data broker. That tells you which model you’re in. We cover the wider pattern in our piece on VPN telemetry and data collection.
What to do if you used Urban VPN
- Remove the extensions. In Chrome, go to the puzzle icon, then Manage extensions, and remove Urban VPN Proxy, 1ClickVPN Proxy, Urban Browser Guard and Urban Ad Blocker if you have them. In Edge, it’s the same under Extensions.
- Remove the desktop or mobile app if you installed one.
- Think about what you pasted into AI chats. If you shared passwords, API keys or access tokens, change or revoke them. That’s the step people skip.
- Review saved chat history. Deleting a chat in ChatGPT or Claude now won’t recall data already sent elsewhere, but it’s worth cleaning up anything sensitive anyway.
- Check your other extensions. Any extension with permission to “read and change all your data on all websites” can see what you type. Keep only the ones you trust.
A browser VPN extension isn’t a full VPN anyway
Something worth knowing even beyond this case: most free “VPN” browser extensions are really proxies. They only route traffic from that browser, not from your apps, games or system updates. And because they run inside the browser, they can see the pages you load. That’s exactly the access Urban VPN Proxy used. Our explainer on VPN vs proxy covers the difference.
If you want a browser extension, use one from a provider with an audited no-logs policy that also gives you a full desktop app. Our guide to the best VPN Chrome extensions compares the options.
Safer alternatives to Urban VPN
If you want free: Proton VPN Free
Proton VPN’s free plan is the closest thing to a safe free VPN we know of. It has no data cap and no ads, and Proton is based in Switzerland (5/5 on jurisdiction in our database) with a KPMG-audited no-logs policy (5/5). The trade-offs: you can’t pick the exact server, and streaming isn’t supported on the free tier.
Windscribe’s free plan (10 GB a month) is a decent second option, but note that it has no independent no-logs audit (2/5 in our database). Our best free VPN roundup has the full list.
If you can pay a few dollars: NordVPN
If you want a browser extension plus full apps and streaming that works, NordVPN is our top pick at 4.63/5 overall. It has Chrome and Firefox extensions, a PwC-audited no-logs policy and RAM-only servers. The 1-year plan is $68.85 (about $5.74 a month), with a 60-day refund window.
| Urban VPN | Proton VPN Free | NordVPN | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free | $68.85/year |
| In our database | No | Yes (4.24/5 overall) | Yes (4.63/5 overall) |
| Independent no-logs audit | None we know of | KPMG (5/5) | PwC (5/5) |
| Jurisdiction score | Not assessed | Switzerland (5/5) | Panama (5/5) |
| Linked to a data broker | Yes (BiScience, per researchers) | No | No |
Want to compare all VPNs side by side? Check our full VPN comparison table with scores across 18 criteria.
How to vet any free VPN before you install it
You don’t need to be a security researcher. Before installing a free VPN, check four things:
- Who owns it. If you can’t find a real company and country on the website, walk away.
- How it makes money. If there’s no paid plan and no ads, you’re probably the product.
- Whether it’s been audited. An independent no-logs audit by a named firm is the minimum for us.
- What permissions it asks for. A VPN extension asking to read all site data is normal for how extensions work, which is exactly why the owner matters.
Our checklist for unknown VPNs goes deeper, with red flags to look for in privacy policies.
Urban VPN is not safe to use. Researchers found its Chrome and Edge extension capturing AI chatbot conversations by default, even with the VPN off, and linked the company to a data broker. Remove it, rotate any secrets you pasted into AI chats, and switch to a provider with an audited no-logs policy. Proton VPN Free is the best free replacement; NordVPN is our pick if you want a full paid service with a browser extension.