Best Free VPNs of 2024
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) allows you to hide your Internet browsing data from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), advertisers, and all kinds of websites. It works by establishing a secure connection between your computer and the VPN server and routing your internet traffic through the server. Most people use a VPN to bypass geo-restrictions on streaming services, torrent, and prevent their ISPs from selling browsing data to advertisers.
If you decide you need a VPN, know that the best VPN services are paid. Free VPNs often come with a compromise : if the service doesn’t cost anything, your data is much more likely to be sold by the VPN company itself. However, not all companies do this, and free VPNs can be useful for some small purposes, such as opening a site blocked in your country or watching a show that is not available in your region. Free VPNs usually limit your internet speed, have strict data limits, or offer a limited number of services to connect to.
Now that you know what you’re getting into, here are the best free VPNs you can try.
ProtonVPN
ProtonVPN’s free tier is the best you can find without paying a penny. The service has no bandwidth limits as long as you use the VPN on one device at a time. You can bypass this restriction if you wish by creating a new ProtonVPN account on each of your devices. With Proton’s free tier, you only get access to three servers – in the US, the Netherlands and Japan.
Tunnelber
Tunnelbear’s free plan does not limit the number of devices on your account, but only allows you to use 2GB of free data per month. This won’t help you much if you’re streaming 4K video, but it’s enough to give the service a try and see if it can do what you need. You can access all Tunnelbear servers on the free tier.
Hide me
You get unlimited data with Hide.me’s free tier and access to eight servers. This is enough for most people to get started with a VPN. You miss out on ad blocking, port forwarding, and access to multiple devices at once. Hide.me’s free plan is a strong alternative to ProtonVPN.
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VPN Atlas
Atlas VPN has a free tier that allows you to use up to 5GB of data per month, but you can only choose from three servers—two in the US and one in the Netherlands. There are no restrictions on the number of devices you can use. The site’s marketing can be a bit aggressive and you can expect a lot of emails from them if you sign up.
Hotspot Shield
Hotspot Shield advertises a feature called “virtual locations” that allows you to view streaming content from different regions of the world. In the free tier, you get access to US IP addresses and virtual locations from the same country. This makes it useful for people who want to access American content while abroad. For free, you can connect up to one device per account, and your speeds will be slower than the premium tiers. Please note that the service may display ads on some devices in the free tier.