The five best free VPNs, 2019 edition
[ NATHAN TAYLOR ]
WHEN IT COMES to privacy, VPNs are good for what ails you. They keep your identity and location secret from the sites you visit and stop any nosy interlopers from monitoring the traffic coming to and from your PC.
But you may not feel the need to have a VPN on all the time. After all, they do have a performance impact, and a lot of the time you aren’t in real danger of being snooped. But you still might want to have a VPN service on tap for when you are in a danger zone – like on a public Wi-Fi hotspot – or visiting sites that are geoblocked or that you really don’t trust to keep your identity private. That’s where a free VPN comes in handy.
As you might expect, most free VPNs are limited in some way – by time, speed or volume – so if you plan on streaming or BitTorrenting, they’re probably not much use. Some are purely ad supported, though we’ve often found that such services have pretty poor performance. But if you’re only a casual VPN user, they may be just enough to get by. So set up a free VPN on your PC and mobile, ready for any occasion you might need it.
And which free VPN should you choose? Below we’ve looked at our top five picks for 2019, which should serve as a good starting point. There’s even no harm in setting up more than one, in case the one you’re using runs out of free time or data.
WINDSCRIBE
windscribe.com Free version limitations: 10GB/month, limited choice of locations. Windscribe is one of the most popular free VPN services, with good reason. The core service is excellent, and even includes the ability to stream Netflix and filter ads. The PC and mobile clients are outstanding, with the PC client even having the inbuilt capacity to turn the device into a secure hotspot or proxy in order to the share the VPN connection with other devices in your home. We’ve found it’s fast and flexible, and having it available as a Chrome add-on can simplify setup for inexperienced users.
The free service is also quite generous, offering 10GB per month of downloads before you’re cut off. The choice of countries is limited to 10 – but those include the ones most people will be inclined to use in any case.
SPEEDIFY speedify.com Free version limitation: 5GB/month.
Speedify sells itself on having a unique ability: channel bonding. It uses a propriety solution to combine the bandwidth from multiple internet connections to make internet access as fast as possible. For example, if you’re connected to Wi-Fi, but still have access to 4G – Speedify will combine your Wi-Fi and 4G links into a single super-speed connection. If your PC had two Wi-Fi receivers, it could connect to two Wi-Fi networks at once, then combine the bandwidth.
That makes it fast – really fast – but it’s also
a little risky when it comes to bandwidth limits on mobiles. Thankfully, you can turn it off and just use Wi-Fi for example, but you need to be careful that you’re not accidentally blowing through your mobile data.
Apart from channel bonding, Speedify offers a decent 5GB per month on its free plan, and gives you access to all the servers spread across the world. You only pick the country, and Speedify will select the best server for you.
PROTONVPN
protonvpn.com Free version limitations: speed throttled, no streaming, no Tor over VPN, limited choice of locations. From the same company that created the immensely popular secure email service ProtonMail, ProtonVPN is a Switzerlandbased provider with an extreme focus on security. Some of the more extreme security features like Tor over VPN (which additionally routes traffic over the Tor network for an extra layer of anonymity) and Secure Core (which exclusively routes traffic through privacyfriendly countries) are not available on the free version, but you still get a very secure VPN from a well-known and respected provider in a country with strong privacy laws.
The free version also offers unlimited bandwidth, but it’s speed-limited and only three countries are selectable. ProtonVPN does not specify how it throttles or what speed limits are placed on users, but we received a still very good 5.2mbps on Speedtest.net when we connected to the US, which is more than enough for smooth online activity, and perhaps even enough for SD video streaming.
AVIRA PHANTOM FREE VPN
www.avira.com Free version limitation: 500MB/month. Although it has a rather stingy 500MB limit (which is in line with competitors like TunnelBear and SurfEasy), Avira’s service is fast and reliable and from a reputable security company. It’s available as a client for both mobiles and PCs as well as an add-on for Chrome, which makes setting it up very simple if all you want to use it for is web browsing.
As a free user, you have full access to the 36 locations at which Avira have servers, and technically you can stream or game bypassing geoblocks as well as download over BitTorrent – although 500MB is not going to get you far when streaming. Still, for many users who just want to do some light web browsing or emails when connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot, Avira is more than enough to get the job done.
OPERA VPN
www.opera.com Free version limitation: must use Opera browser. Although it runs a distant fourth when it comes to the popularity of web browsers, Opera does have one major selling point for security-conscious users: the availability of an in-built VPN. This VPN is only available to the browser itself, so you can’t use it for other applications like email clients or games. But it’s absolutely free, totally unlimited and requires no account creation or the giving up of private information. Surprisingly, it’s even extremely fast, maxing out our 50mbps internet connection when tested on speedtest.net.
All you have to do is select an option in Opera (in Settings -> Advanced -> VPN) and the VPN will be activated. A little indicator in the address bar will indicate it’s on. This makes it a fantastic tool for quick and easy secure internet access. It’s a genuinely good browser – and yes, it’s capable of importing your bookmarks – and well worth installing.