Best Free VPN of 2020

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) creates a secure and private internet connection (also known as a VPN tunnel) between two or more devices.

This is how a personal VPN works in practice:

A standard internet connection routes traffic from your device, through your internet service provider (ISP), and on to the website or app that you’re visiting.

Instead, a VPN routes your web traffic to a secure VPN server in a location of your choice, and then on to your desired website or app.

The result? Your ISP can no longer see or monitor you what you do online. On top of that, your internet connection is encrypted and secure.

If you care about your online privacy, and want to enjoy internet freedom, you really need to use a VPN.

In fact, a good free VPN will:

1. Keep your online activity private
2. Access geo-restricted websites and apps
3. Secure your data transfers (especially on public WiFi)

You can learn more about VPNs in our comprehensive ‘What is a VPN’ guide. Or, you can watch our short explainer video.

Clearly, the free VPNs above come with our seal of approval. We’ve been testing VPNs since 2016, and we’re happy recommending the five free VPNs in this guide.

But, free VPNs have their limitations and you won’t be able to do everything that you wan’t with them.

First, lets take a look at the advantages of the best free VPNs:

• They hide your web activity from your ISP
• They unblock many websites and apps worldwide
• They protect your web traffic on unsecured public WiFi

However, even the best free VPNs can’t compete with good paid VPNs. The disadvantages of free VPNs are:

• Slow and inconsistent connection speeds
• Limited choice of VPN server locations
• Won’t unblock streaming services like Netflix or BBC iPlayer
• Small data caps limit the amount of data you can use
• Won’t work in high censorship countries like China or Turkey

Overall, a good free VPN service is a great tool for beginners and for casual/light web usage. But, for more web data-heavy tasks, you’ll more than likely need a paid VPN.

In a nutshell, VPN services are completely legal and you can freely use them in most countries.

There are a few exceptions, though. VPNs are currently banned in:

• Belarus
• Iraq
• North Korea
• Turkmenistan

And in the countries listed below you only use ‘government approved’ VPNs:

• China
• Iran
• Oman
• Russia
• Turkey
• UAE

Unless you’re in one of the 10 nations listed above, you can use a VPN without any worries. You can also read more about where VPNs are banned or restricted in our guide ‘Are VPNs Legal?’.

Unfortunately many free VPN services are not safe and you shouldn’t trust them with your personal data. And some are simply outright scams.

In 2019, we tested the top 150 free Android VPN apps and we discovered that over 85% were potentially unsafe!

Additionally, we also investigated who’s really behind some of the most popular free VPNs. We were shocked to find out that 60% of free VPNs had suspicious links to China, as well as worrying privacy flaws.

Don’t worry though, we carefully tested all the free VPNs we recommend in this guide and we can confirm that they are 100% safe.

Now that we’ve discussed the dangers posed by many free VPNs, here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of free VPNs to stay clear of:

1Hola Free VPN

Hola Free VPN is one of the most popular ‘free VPN’ services, but that doesn’t mean you should use it.

It’s actually an extremely insecure peer-to-peer proxy network that’s being incorrectly marketed as a VPN. It doesn’t provide any encryption whatsoever.

Hola VPN also monitors everything you do online, including the websites you visit, and has been known to sell user bandwidth without consent.

Avoid Hola at all costs.

2VPN Proxy Master

VPN Proxy Master is a very unreliable free VPN that has a history of sending confidential user information to China.

There’s no information to tell how VPN Proxy Master is encrypted, and your IP address is collected and stored for an indefinite period, which is bad news for privacy.

Its apps are inundated with pop-up ads and reminders to rate the company in the App Store, too.

It’s not worth the time taken to download it.

3Turbo VPN

We can’t recommend Turbo VPN to anyone who values their privacy. Not only does it send user information to China, it also incorrectly brands itself as a no-log network.

Turbo VPN offers no privacy features, and customer support is non-existent – the apps are full of annoying pop-up ads, too.

It’s a potentially dangerous free VPN service that outright lies to its users.

4Thunder VPN

Thunder VPN is without doubt one of the worst free VPN services we’ve tested.

This Android-only free VPN uses a sub-standard connection protocol (SSL), lacks essential privacy features, and ignored our requests for more information about its encryption.

Like most free VPNs, Thunder VPN claims to be no-logs but that’s an outright lie. It collects lots of information, including your IP address, ISP, VPN server location, and much more.

5Snap VPN

Snap VPN is an incredibly untrustworthy VPN that funnels all of your personal data through China and logs tons of unnecessary information.

We also noticed that it’s almost identical to two other VPN services in this list: Turbo VPN and VPN Proxy Master. This suggests they could be owned by the same company.

Snap VPN’s approach to privacy is totally unacceptable, and we wouldn’t advise taking a chance on it when there are much better options available.

A common question we get from our readers is this: how do free VPNs make money?

It varies from one VPN to another, but if you choose a free VPN that’s provided by a premium service, it usually subsidizes its free service with the monthly subscription fees provided by paying users.

Other free VPNs make their money by running advertisements within their apps. We see this mostly with mobile-only free VPNs available directly from the App Store or Google Play Store. When using these apps, you’re often prompted to upgrade to an ad-free (paid) version of the VPN.

One thing’s for sure: stay well away from the worst free VPNs listed below. Many of them make money by selling your data on to advertisers and other third parties.

Also, avoid any free VPN services that lack extensive privacy policies.

Most of the good free VPNs are offered by reputable paid VPN services. All you have to do is visit the VPN service’s website and download the free custom VPN app for your device.

You can also get a free VPN directly from the iOS App Store or Google Play Store, but the most prominently listed are usually not to be trusted (as we found out in our recent investigations).

We suggest you do your research first – making sure you thoroughly read through privacy policies – and then search for your chosen brand in your device’s app store.

Of course, the free VPN services listed above all come with our seal of approval. We’ve been testing VPNs since 2016 and we’re happy recommending the five VPNs in this guide.

But, even the best free VPNs can’t compete with good paid VPNs. Some of the benefits of using a paid VPN are:

• Faster and more reliable speeds
• Wider range of server locations
• Access to streaming services like Netflix
• No data usage caps whatsoever
• Advanced privacy & security features

Basically, a good free VPN is great for newbies or casual browsers, but for the best experience you’ll have to use a paid VPN service.

Luckily, you can use free VPNs on most popular devices. Below you can see our recommendations for all popular devices:

• iPhones
• Android smartphones
• PCs
• Macs
• Fire TV Stick

And free VPNs are very easy to set up. However, if you need some help, follow the step-by-step VPN setup guides below:

• iPhone
• Android smartphone
• Laptop or desktop PC
• Apple iMac or MacBook
• Amazon Fire TV Stick

Goes without saying, most VPN providers have setup guides on their websites. Or, you can contact their support team if you need further assistance.

A lot of free VPN services have speed caps in place, which means many free VPNs are slow. But, not all free VPNs intentionally slow down your VPN speeds.

All five free VPNs in this guide don’t have speed caps, and in our latest round of speed testing, Hide.me is consistently proving to be the fastest free VPN.

It’s worth noting that free VPN speeds vary a lot depending on what time of day you connect and how many other users are connected to the same VPN server. So, don’t be surprised if you speeds see big swings.

With free VPNs, speed can often come at the expense of security, too. Our advice is to stick to our recommendations for peace of mind.

Using a free VPN for torrenting is difficult, mainly due to small data caps. These usage caps make it almost impossible to transfer anything more than a handful of bulky files before hitting the data limit.

Speed throttling doesn’t help, either, which some free VPNs apply to traffic.

To make matters worse, some free VPN services, such as ProtonVPN, don’t allow torrenting at all on their free VPN servers:

Fear not, though. We put together a useful list of the top free VPNs for torrenting. However, if you’re serious about anonymous torrenting, then you should really consider paying for one of the best torrent VPNs.

Similarly to torrenting, using a free VPN with Netflix is going to be a very frustrating experience.

Almost all free VPNs we tested were detected by Netflix’s filters, and couldn’t bypass them. Windscribe sometimes did work with US Netflix, but it’s very hit and miss.

And if you were able to find a VPN that works with Netflix, it’s either a privacy-unfriendly VPN (like Hola) or the data caps will massively restrict your viewing time.

Ultimately, you’re better off using a VPN that works with Netflix, all the time.

However, we recently found a free VPN extension that’s currently unblocking US Netflix! The HMA VPN proxy extension (for Chrome and Firefox) is working very well with Netflix, at the moment.

Remember though, generally speaking a proxy extension is not a VPN, and you’re web traffic will be visible to your ISP and other third-parties.

Unfortunately, most free VPNs are not equipped with the obfuscation technology needed to bypass aggressive censorship. This means free VPNs, including popular apps like TunnelBear and Hotspot Shield won’t work in China.

Occassionally, free VPN mobile apps like Turbo VPN and VPN Proxy Master work, but these are bad VPNs that we can’t recommend for use. In fact, they’re likely handing your data over to the Chinese government.

If you’re travelling to China soon, the best thing to do is to use a VPN that beats the China VPN ban. They’ll cost you a small monthly fee, but they’ll be worth it. If your stay in China is short, you can always take advantage of their 30-day no-questions-asked refund policy.

You can use a paid VPN for free by taking advantage of the money-back guarantees offered by most top-tier VPNs.

Essentially, you can use their VPN service free of charge for the duration of the guarantee period (usually 30 days).

For example, if you sign up to ExpressVPN, our current top VPN service, and cancel your subscription before the end of its 30-day refund period, you’ll be refunded quickly and with no questions asked.

Other high-quality VPN services you can try for free are:

• NordVPN – full use of the service for 30 days with no restrictions
• IPVanish – seven-day free trial plus a further seven-day money-back guarantee

This is a good way to use a top-rated VPN free of charge, but only if you intend to use the VPN for a short period of time.

Word of advice: set yourself a reminder to cancel your subscription before the money-back guarantee expires otherwise you won’t be able to get your money.

Alternatively, you can also take a look at the latest free VPN trials, where you can try out a top VPN without making any upfront payment.