Best Free VPN for Android

In short, yes – you absolutely need a VPN on your Android smartphone or tablet.

Without a secure VPN service, not only will your ISP (Internet Service Provider) be able to see everything you’re doing online, you will also be vulnerable to any potential hackers or snoopers, particularly if you connect to a public WiFi network.

Using a VPN on your Android means you’ll be browsing anonymously on a secure, encrypted connection, so your online activity won’t be visible to anyone apart from yourself.

A VPN service also hides your IP address so it’s impossible for your ISP or any other third parties to see your true physical location.

Just because our recommendations for free Android VPNs are safe, that doesn’t mean you should trust every free VPN service you come across.

Here’s a list of the worst ones we advise you avoid at all costs.

1. Hola Free VPN

   Hola Free VPN is just about one of the worst free VPN services you could use on your Android phone or tablet.

   Not only does Hola Free VPN monitor absolutely everything you do online, it’s also not encrypted in any way and has been known to sell user data on to third parties.

2. Thunder VPN

   Thunder VPN is one of the least secure free VPNs for Android we’ve ever seen.

   Along with logging tons of your personal information, Thunder VPN also uses a very outdated connection protocol and just won’t keep you safe online.

3. Snap VPN

   Using Snap VPN on your Android device could well be worse than not using a VPN service at all.

   If it weren’t bad enough that it sends your personal data to China and logs a ton of user information, Snap VPN doesn’t even disclose the level of encryption that it uses, leading us to believe there might not be any at all.

4. Turbo VPN

   We just can’t recommend Turbo VPN to Android users as a reliable privacy tool as it goes against everything the VPN industry stands for.

   Not only has Turbo VPN admitted it sends users’ personal information to mainland China, it also has one of the most intrusive logging policies we’ve ever seen.

5. Yoga VPN

   Yoga VPN can 100% not be trusted to keep you safe online, whether you connect on Android or any other device.

   Yoga VPN collects huge amounts of user data, stores it on its servers for an undisclosed period of time, and stores it in its data servers based in China and Hong Kong. One to avoid.

Our recommended free VPNs for Android are completely free, but these do come at some cost to you in terms of the features on offer.

Premium VPNs that offer free services often use them as a form of ‘taster’ to get people to upgrade to a paid subscription. This means bandwidth caps, reduced number of server locations, fewer connected devices and often slower speeds.

Standalone free VPNs often make money by displaying pop-up ads, so while the VPN service itself is completely free to use, as such, you pay the price when it comes to the user-friendliness of the software.

These types of free VPNs often display regular prompts, asking you to upgrade to the ‘premium’ version of the app. These are often grossly overpriced, which could be how the VPN makes the bulk of its profit.

Beware, though, any VPN services that claim to be unlimited and totally free. We’ve seen many instances of free VPNs making money by selling user data to third parties (such as Hola), and this information is often buried deep at the bottom of their privacy policies.

Using a VPN on Android is simple:

1. Download your chosen VPN service

   All of the free VPN services listed above provide custom Android apps, so simply go to the Google Play Store, download your chosen free VPN and log in.

   Alternatively, you can go to your chosen VPN provider’s website and download the Android app directly onto your device from there.
   

2. Check the security settings

   If there are any extra privacy features such as a VPN kill switch or protection against DNS and IPv6 leaks, make sure to turn these on before you connect to the VPN.

   If it’s possible to manually select your VPN connection protocol, we’d recommend choosing OpenVPN, as this offers the best balance of speed and security.

3. Choose a VPN server location

   Next you need to choose a VPN server – the closer this is to your physical location, the faster performance will be. Hit connect and you’ll be connected to the VPN.

   If you opt for a free VPN service that doesn’t offer a dedicated app for Android, take a look at our step-by-step guide to manually installing a VPN on the device.

Unfortunately for the 200 million-plus users of free VPNs, the reality is that most free VPNs are not safe and should not be trusted with your confidential personal data.

We recently carried out two in-depth investigations on some of the most popular free VPN services and discovered that an alarming amount of them were linked in some way to China, and, even worse, had some extremely worryingly privacy flaws.

Our recommended free VPN services for Android will keep you safe online, though. They all effectively hide your IP address, encrypt all of your traffic and come with privacy-friendly logging policies to boot.

A VPN does exactly the same on Android as it does on any other device.

Instead of your internet traffic being routed to the website you’re accessing via your ISP, it will instead be routed through a secure VPN server in a location of your choice.

Using a VPN service on Android also masks your true IP address, aka the unique identifier of your internet connection, and replaces it with an IP address owned by the VPN service.

This means that as long as you use a VPN on Android, there’s no way any of your online activity can be linked back to you as an individual.

Take a look at our guide ‘What is a VPN?’ for a more comprehensive overview of how VPNs work on Android and other platforms.

Free VPN services are great for short-term use but if you want the best overall VPN service, you’re going to have to sign up for a paid subscription.

Our current best VPN service for Android users is ExpressVPN, thanks to its user-friendly apps for the device, super fast speeds, and excellent privacy features.

You can take a look at our top five VPN services for Android here.

We run regular speed tests on all of our recommended VPNs and can confirm that Hide.me is currently the fastest free VPN for Android.

Hide.me Free only reduced our broadband speed by 11% in our most recent tests, which is actually better than the vast majority of paid-for VPN services on our site.

All of our recommended free VPNs for Android are quick enough that they shouldn’t restrict your online activities too much, but if you want truly fast, reliable speeds you might be better off paying for a premium VPN service.

If you want to use a premium VPN service on your Android device but would rather avoid the price tag, there are a few ways you can test them out without spending a penny.

ExpressVPN, for example, offers a no-risk 30 day money-back guarantee. This means that you can use the VPN service without any restrictions for up to 30 days, then get your money back.

Obviously, you do have to sign up and provide your payment information in order to do this, but the money will be refunded to your account within a matter of days.

We’ve published a series of guides on how you can get some of the very best premium VPN services for free, covering:

• ExpressVPN – 30 day money-back guarantee
• NordVPN – 30 day money-back guarantee
• IPVanish – Seven-day free trial period

These are only short term solutions, though, and you have to remember to cancel before the end of the refund period or you’ll end up being charged for a longer subscription.

Using a VPN to protect your online privacy is perfectly legal, and you’ll have no issues in the majority of countries around the world.

There are some countries, however, where VPN use is restricted or even illegal, and being caught using one could result in a hefty fine or even a prison sentence.

You can find out more about which countries ban or restrict VPN services in our guide ‘Are VPNs Legal?’, but locations to be careful in include:

• Belarus
• China
• Russia
• Iran
• United Arab Emirates (UAE)
• Oman
• Turkey
• Iraq
• Turkmenistan
• North Korea

Using a VPN doesn’t exempt you from following the law, either. If you’re caught doing anything illegal, including breaking copyright restrictions, you’re still liable to be charged.

All of the free Android VPNs listed above should be available in India, but your best choice is a VPN service that has servers in or close to the country.

TunnelBear is the only free VPN on this list that provides servers in India, or if you need a more generous data cap, Windscribe has a server in nearby Hong Kong.