Best Free VPN In 2024

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Best Free VPN In 2024

With so many scams about, get a free VPN you can trust. Very few VPNs offer a genuinely free option, while others offer free trials. The most common iterations we've seen in VPNs are three- or seven-day free access periods.

A free VPN is a great way to protect your devices if you can't afford a premium service. However, just because a VPN is free doesn't mean it is safe. Most free apps on the market offer sub-par protection and harvest your data to sell to marketing agencies.

Not all VPNs are created equal, and this is especially true when it comes to free services. Even the best free VPNs come with restrictions, after all, and they're ultimately designed to give you a glimpse of the full service, so you'll consider upgrading to benefit from its full functionality.

Because of this, these services often lock features behind paywalls and massively reduce the number of locations you can access with a free plan. On top of that, most services won't invest in rotating IP addresses for free servers, making them (usually) useless if you want to unblock content online.

In short, most free VPNs just can't do what a premium VPN, while a free VPN is designed to provide the most basic level of protection, everything else is a bonus.

Best Free VPN In 2024:

ProtonVPN Free

https://protonvpn.com/

Best Overall

ProtonVPN is our top choice for premium VPNs and free VPNs. The company places no limit on the amount of data free subscribers may use. ProtonVPN does, however, limit free accounts to just one simultaneous connection. Also, free accounts can only access servers in three countries: the Netherlands, Japan, and the United States. Unlike some VPNs, however, you can select which server to use. ProtonVPN has a strong reputation for privacy, in part because of the success of its sibling product, ProtonMail. ProtonVPN similarly has good privacy policies and backs that up with public, third-party audits.

Without data restrictions, Proton VPN is the only service that could be a true daily driver for free. However, the limited server options mean that you ideally want to be in or relatively close to the countries where servers are offered. Additionally, you can only protect one device at a time.

TunnelBear VPN

https://www.tunnelbear.com/

Best for Free Location Spoofing

With its playful interface and deadpan bears, it's easy to dismiss TunnelBear VPN as all show and no substance. But it would be a mistake, as TunnelBear has strong privacy policies that it backs up with a string of annual third-party audits. The free version of TunnelBear VPN allows unlimited simultaneous connections. It does put one hefty restriction on free subscribers: a 500MB per month data limit. You can earn another 1GB of data on top of that if you post about the company on social media. Still, that's not very much.

The free version of TunnelBear VPN lets you access any of its global servers, making it a good choice for travelers or anyone who needs to spoof their location. But given data limitations, this free VPN is best for people who plan to use it only occasionally.

Hotspot Shield VPN

https://www.hotspotshield.com/

Best for Free US-Based Browsing

Hotspot Shield VPN's free subscription has a lot of give and take. We like that free users get 500MB of data per day, but we're not thrilled at the 2Mbps speed limit for mobile devices. Free subscribers on macOS have no data limit, however. Hotspot Shield VPN also uses ads to monetize its free users, but only on Android. Free subscribers can only connect one device at a time to Hotspot Shield VPN and can only access US-based servers. The company has not released the results of a third-party audit.

There are a lot of caveats to Hotspot Shield VPN's free offering, but if you can thread the needle, it might work very well for you. Mac users are best off, since the service places no data limit on those devices. Other desktop users won't have to deal with the speed throttling found on mobile. If you must use a mobile device, iOS is preferable since it lacks ads. Also, you're limited to US-servers, so this service is best for people who are in the US.

PrivadoVPN

https://privadovpn.com/

Best for Free (Almost) Unlimited Browsing

Aside from Proton VPN, PrivadoVPN is as close as you can get to an unlimited free VPN experience. Although PrivadoVPN does limit free users to 10GB of data per month, it won't cut you off once you exhaust that supply. Instead, your speeds will be throttled until the clock resets on your data. Other restrictions include only being able to access 12 servers and only allowing one connection at a time. The company has not released a third-party audit, which is not ideal.

This is perhaps the only time speed throttling is a good thing. With PrivadoVPN, you won't have to worry so much about the 10GB limit, but you may have to deal with slower speeds as a result. The short list of available servers means you should not rely on this service for location spoofing.

Windscribe

https://windscribe.com/

Best Company Transparency

Windscribe VPN offers its full-featured client to anyone who wants to use the service, with only the small caveat of a bandwidth restriction of up to 10GB with an email address at signup or 2GB if you choose to remain anonymous with no email account. This is one of the most generous deals in the VPN industry right now and a must-have for anyone who cares first and foremost about their privacy online.

For those who want the full VPN experience but don't want to pay out of pocket, Windscribe VPN's free account policies are second-to-none. We recommend Windscribe to anyone who doesn't mind a monthly data cap and those who may want to try the product before taking the plunge on a monthly subscription.

Hide.me VPN

https://hide.me/en/

Best for Multiple Server Locations

For free subscribers, Hide.me allots an impressive 10GB of data per month and lets you access five server locations. Especially notable is that Hide.me does not ask for your payment details when you create a free account. Plus, the service has received a third-party audit. There are some restrictions, though. Free users are limited to just a single simultaneous connection. And if you decide to spring for a paid subscription, you have to pay a hefty up-front cost, although the paid version gives you access to many features not available for free.

Hide.me's free plan is good for people who use a fair amount of data, don't need to share a plan with someone else, and travellers. The 10GB data limit is more generous than what we see from some competitors, but you still have to be mindful not to run out before the month's end. A single simultaneous connection means you can only use one device at a time. Having access to five server locations gives you more freedom when traveling or looking to spoof your location.

Please add your free favourite VPN or any user experience of the above.