TunnelBear
A reliable and often speedy service, but media enthusiasts should steer clear
SCORE PRICE Free; Unlimited, $10 per month or $60 per year, from tunnelbear.com
TunnelBear is an effective if somewhat middle-of-the-road consumer VPN service, which also caters to business users with a managed Teams tier. It’s been owned by US-based McAfee since 2018, but continues to operate independently and retains its Canadian HQ.
This means it falls under Canadian law, which is ambiguous when it comes to the duties of VPN providers to log any torrenting to ensure that no copyrighted material was illegally downloaded or uploaded. TunnelBear used to forbid users from torrenting, but all mention of this has been removed from its website.
Now, the only information you get about torrents is a vague page saying that you should be able to “share files” when TunnelBear is connected and recommending specific endpoints. Regardless, we wouldn’t recommend this service to peer-topeer users when NordVPN and ProtonVPN exist.
If you’re looking to stream region-locked from the likes of Netflix and Disney+, you’re also out of luck. TunnelBear is adamant that it’s not intended for region-shifting, and we weren’t able to watch any foreign content while connected. Integrated split tunnelling via SplitBear isn’t an option for watching iPlayer while connected, either, unless you’re using the TunnelBear Android app; we’d like to see this capability come to its desktop counterparts. Talking of which, clients are available for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, with OpenVPN profiles and connection instructions made available for paying users of other platforms.
TunnelBear’s performance in this month’s speed tests was mediocre by the standards of the group, except for an exceptional 472Mbits/sec through its London endpoint. 176Mbits/sec in the Netherlands and 138Mbits/sec via the US aren’t exactly bad, but they’re below this month’s average.
It’s reasonably priced at just over £7 a month or £45 per year, and the free tier gets exactly the same access to endpoints in 22 countries that’s given to paying customers. However, the free bandwidth cap of 500MB a month won’t get you very far. In its favour, TunnelBear takes interest in the politics of global internet access and has on several occasions offered unlimited free bandwidth to users in countries where internet blockages are imposed.
T h i s i s a r e l ia b l e b u t unexciting VPN service that’s sometimes v e r y fast – but not this month.