The Best Free VPNs of 2023

What to Look For in a Free VPN in 2023

When picking a free VPN, there are a few things you should be aware of. The biggest issue is that most of the free VPNs you’ll find online, whether in an app store, via web search, or in advertisements, are untrustworthy. Not only will they not necessarily protect your privacy, they will often add insult to injury and sell your data themselves. Using one of these free VPNs without researching them first can be worse than not using a VPN at all.

Thankfully, there are a handful of exceptions. In all these cases, the exceptions are free tiers of paid VPN services. The good news is that, unlike free trials, these free plans don’t have any time restrictions, so you can keep using them as long as you want. But, since these free tiers are for prospective customers to try out the service before they commit, they come with some restrictions.

For example, all the free VPNs below only let you use a set number of servers and won’t let you connect just anywhere. Most will also restrict your bandwidth to some extent, limiting you to a certain amount of monthly data before asking you to upgrade to a paid tier. This can get annoying, but the tiers are essentially trials, so it does make sense.

Smart operators can use several accounts and thus keep their browsing private. If you’d like more but aren’t too keen on spending too much, check out our overview of cheap VPNs.

Best Free VPN for Netflix: Windscribe

Our favorite free VPN is Windscribe, a great paid service with a fantastic free plan. Like most services on this list, the free plan is a way to try the VPN before subscribing to the paid tier. Windscribe is at the top of the list for three reasons—it’s fast, easy to use and, more importantly, can unblock Netflix on its free plan.

All the other free plans on this list will be unable to crack most streaming services (if any), but Windscribe rises to the occasion. While testing the free servers in our Windscribe review, we were surprised to find several of them connected without any issues. If you are hankering for a certain show and your local Netflix library doesn’t have it, Windscribe is your free ticket.

That said, you don’t want it to be a long show, either. Windscribe does cap free users at 10GB a month if you provide your email address—otherwise, it’s only 2GB. Compared to most of the other choices on this list, which require creating an account, just an email address for a 10GB cap is very good.

In short, Windscribe offers 10GB for free, fast servers, Netflix access, and a decent interface to boot. If you need a free VPN, this should be your first stop.

Best Free VPN for Netflix

Windscribe

Windscribe is a reliable free VPN that offers good speeds and lets you access streaming servers even on the free plan.

Best Free VPN for Browsers: Hide.me

Hide.me is another great free VPN that offers 10GB for free, much like Windscribe. This VPN service also uses an easy-to-use interface, especially with its browser extension. The free tier has eight servers across the globe, so you should have no trouble connecting and using the VPN.

Though VPN browser extensions can have drawbacks, as long as you know what they can and can’t do, Hide.me’s extension is very good. It’s easy to use, and you can quickly connect and disconnect without going through the main interface. Everything is clearly marked, so there is no struggle to figure out what’s what.

However, as you can read in our Hide.me review, it has a few issues. The biggest in terms of its free tier is that the available servers are slow, with speeds of only about 10 percent of your base speed. Still, with 10GB of browsing available for free (and being the only other entry that doesn’t require you to create an account to get started), Hide.me is a solid option.

Best Free VPN for Browsers

Best Free VPN for Privacy: Proton VPN

Next up is Proton VPN, a solid VPN for anybody needing some extra privacy, as you can read in our Proton VPN review. Proton VPN is also the only provider on this list that doesn’t cap its free users. In its campaign for more internet freedom, the company lets anybody use it as much as they’d like.

This is great, of course, but it does mean that Proton VPN’s servers are often overloaded, the biggest cause of VPN speed loss. The free servers are painfully slow, and some are near unusable at peak times.

Still, if you need a free VPN that doesn’t cap your usage and has a strong reputation for privacy, Proton VPN is a service to keep in mind. Free users get access to the special Stealth protocol that impedes detection by surveillance services. It also serves as a good way to get a feel for the service without using a credit card if you want to try Proton VPN before buying.

Best Free VPN for Privacy

Best Free VPN with Lots of Servers: PrivadoVPN

If you want a large number of servers to choose from, PrivadoVPN is a great choice. With 12 servers worldwide and 10GB of bandwidth, this free tier is pretty good—Windscribe offers the same bandwidth but only ten servers.

However, quantity is not always better than quality. As you can read in our PrivadoVPN review, the service comes packed with speed issues, and with few features, there isn’t much you can do to improve your experience. In addition, PrivadoVPN has some default settings you should change to ensure you remain safe while browsing—something you don’t need to do with the other services on this list.

Still, 10GB of protected browsing for free is pretty good once you tweak the settings, especially if you already used up the limits with Windscribe and Hide.me.

Best Free VPN with Lots of Servers

PrivadoVPN

PrivadoVPN isn’t a great VPN, but it’s free plan comes with a generous allowance of 10GB of bandwidth and a massive 12 servers worldwide.

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