Looking for a free VPN? You are in the right place. This guide is here to simply show you the best free VPN on the market and explain how you can use it.
You’ll get to see some quality VPN providers who let you use their services for free, and learn what the limitations of these virtual privacy networks are. Plus we’ll highlight some great options for those who don’t mind spending a little extra on their internet privacy and freedom.
The majority of VPNs are paid subscription services. This means that to get the VPN you will have to register an account with the VPN company, and then pay a certain amount either every month, every six months or even every year.
However, some VPN companies will let you use their VPN free online. By doing this, you will be able to use the internet freely and anonymously without having to pay a single penny.
This is hugely important because VPNs let you use internet services without having to disclose any of your potentially sensitive personal information. Plus you will be able to access internet sites even if they are not currently available in your account of location. As such, using a good free VPN is clearly a win-win situation.
You shouldn’t have to look too far to find a free VPN. However, there can be quite a wide range in the quality of these services and such products will have their own individual limitations. So we’ve handpicked three of the best VPNs to show you how they compare in certain areas.
| Free VPN | Servers | Data |
|---|---|---|
| TunnelBear | No restrictions to 47 servers | 500 MB per month |
| ProtonVPN | Three servers in US, JP and NL | No data limit |
| BitDefender VPN | Must use server closest to you | 200 MB daily data limit |
Not only is TunnelBear the cutest VPN you’ll come across, but it’s completely free to use too. This means that you can download the TunnelBear extension and enjoy high levels of privacy when you use the internet.
What’s best is that there is no restriction over the servers in 47 different countries that you can use. As a result, TunnelBear is a great option for anyone living in a place with some severe restrictions over how they use the internet.
Obviously, this freedom does come with some limitations. For example, you will be kept to using just 500 MB of data per month with the free subscription to TunnelBear. Thankfully there are some easy ways to get around this as you can just send a Tweet about TunnelBear and get your monthly cap raised up to 1.5 GB per month.
This is a hugely popular free VPN that has the major bonus of not putting a cap on how much data you can use each month. As a result, you can get the ProtonVPN for free and then enjoy as much streaming or gaming as you want with no sudden loss of privacy. All that you have to do is to set up an account with ProtonVPN and enjoy full internet privacy and freedom.
The drawback of this is the fact that ProtonVPN’s free subscription limits you to just getting three server locations in the US, the Netherlands and Japan. Plus you will only be able to use one device at a time which means no split-screening between your computer and mobile over the VPN.
BitDefender isn’t just a good VPN in its own right, but it also has an excellent free subscription package. This allows you to gain high-level internet anonymity with a relatively generous 200 MB daily data limit. As well as this, you can use the BitDefender free VPN on anywhere up to 10 devices at a time, and all of this is available without any annoying ads.
So what’s the catch? Well, while BitDefender features a geographically diverse range of servers, the free VPN package will limit you to using the server that is closest to you. This obviously might not make much sense if you live in a global region that experiences limited internet freedoms, but it’s still worth checking out all the same.
All of the above free VPN companies will make it as easy as possible for you to use their services. While each company will offer a different approach, you should normally have to do the following things to use their VPNs for free and anonymous internet usage:
Now that you have got your free VPN app or extension, you’ll be ready to put it to use. Here’s how you do it:
While a free VPN will let you enjoy a fair amount of privacy and freedom over how you use the internet, it will have many drawbacks. Here is a quick reminder as to why many people prefer paying a small amount of money to use a virtual private network:
Most VPNs will feature literally hundreds of servers that allow you to access parts of the internet way beyond the reach of your own jurisdiction. However, using a free VPN will often mean that you only get to use a handful of servers and some of these may not offer you much more freedom than using your original server in your own location.
While some free VPNs have no data cap, this is the exception rather than the rule. As a result, by using a free VPN service, you might find that you run out of data surprisingly soon. This might not matter too much at first, but it can quickly get annoying when your data runs out in the middle of an epic gaming session or halfway through that TV box set series.
All VPNs will tend to offer marginally slower internet speeds compared to using your regular connection. After all, your web traffic will be rerouted to another server before it finally reaches your desired destination and bounces back to your device. However, free VPNs tend to suffer much slower download and upload speeds compared to premium VPNs. Plus you might be affected by worse latency issues that can clearly cause problems if you are using your free VPN for online gaming.
Free VPNs will have to make sure that their services make sound business sense. This means that you’ll often be faced with a variety of different adverts for using these virtual private networks for free. Not exactly the end of the world, but enough to make your internet usage potentially a little more annoying than it needs to be.
The good news is that lots of VPN companies will let you use their services as a free trial. This means that you can experience using a premium VPN with a free trial to see whether it’s right for you before you put your own money down.
Again, the free subscription versions of these VPNs might come with some limitations in terms of the servers that you can access as well as how much data you can use. Plus you may be expected to provide some payment information before you access the free VPN service.
However, such free trials can work wonders in helping you shop around to find a VPN that works for you in the long-term. Plus you will be able to benefit from all that the VPN service has to offer in the short-term before your trial runs out.
Above all, using a VPN with a free trial offers you a cost-effective way to see whether you should stick to a free VPN or whether it might actually be worth paying for a superior level of privacy and freedom.
We’ve shown you that there are lots of free VPN services that you can get to enjoy full privacy and freedom over how you use the internet. Each of these services will have their own limitations in terms of which servers you can use and how much data you get, but they should all offer a quality service.
As the market gets even more competitive amongst VPNS, we can expect many more brands to start to offer free virtual private networks in the future. So make sure that you check back to this guide to see what the best free VPN is at the moment.
Don’t miss our guide to see if there is a 100% free VPN that you can get without having to spend any money. We’ll also check to see whether these VPNs have any chance of winning our award for being the best VPN provider too.
While lots of people like using Express VPN for their PCs, the sad fact is that VPN costs money. So we’ve got this guide that’ll simply show you the best free VPN that you can use for your PC instead.
Join us as we see whether you can get a free VPN for Windows. After all, while the Surfshark VPN is worth a look, it’ll cost you a fair amount of money to use that virtual private network.
Make sure that you read our guide to see where you can get a free VPN trial. Perfect for seeing whether that VPN is right for your needs without it costing you a single penny.
Check out our guide to see the best free VPN for Chrome browser. After all, while NordVPN is a great VPN, it'll require that you put your own money down to use its servers.
