IpVanish is not free. I agree, free VPN’s are data collection and resale operations. Make you marginally more secure doing transactions but privacy... LOL. I want what you are smoking if you think it is actually free and they are not selling all your activity.
Nord is expensive and I have no clue about log retention. HMA I don’t know about but they are smaller but I assume don’t keep logs.
Nord has no retention other than what is being used. I read it on the internet so it must be true.