Using VPN somehow always made laptop got infected by virus

[Kazamatsuri]

I first used hide.me as my first ever vpn, somehow it doesn't work anymore, I suspected my university wifi managed to block it. So I used hotspot shield. There is no problem at all related to virus for a while, while I was trying hide.me and all other vpn prior, but then suddenly hotspot shield website started to open suddenly every now and then and I noticed my laptop became noticeably slower. I knew that my laptop got infected really bad when firefox and chrome suddenly reinstalling, and now the home page changed. I scanned with avira and malwarebytes and removed what I can, including uninstalling hotspot shield and my laptop seemed to turn back to normal. I reinstalled hotspot shield, and the virus came back again, at this point I knew hotspot shield is the cause so I uninstall again. I searched for other alternatives and found mudfish, and AGAIN, my laptop started to act up and the same virus keep coming back. I uninstalled mudfish and now it seems okay.

The thing is, I googled a lot and these 2 vpns seemed safe, why is it the viruses seemed to be coming from them? I used vpn with no problem before. These viruses that keeps coming back are MIO.exe, Kitty.exe, Kyubey.exe, Winsapsvc, Milimili, Eastone, FIrefoxU, and many more. At this point I'm really scared to try another vpn again. Is there no way for me to use VPN safely again?

 

[Ralston18]

What site did you download hotspot shield from?

Could have been a fake site with a booby-trapped download. Or a valid site with a comprised download.

And just because you VPN somewhere that does not mean that the destination is necessarily secure and free of viruses etc..

Then there is the issue of being on/at university. Such environments are full of various people hacking and trying to circumvent the "system" using wifi and wired connectivity.

See if university has a recommended or approved VPN that you can obtain from a legitimate, safe source.

 

[Adnan_33]

better use psiphon https/www.psiphon3.com/en/index.html

 

[ajack46]

Have you installed adguard on your system, sometimes ads bring virus too.