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.

A good VPN service 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 read more about VPNs in our comprehensive ‘What is a VPN’ guide or you can watch our short explainer video.

In a nutshell, yes they are – VPN services are completely legal and can be used in most countries.

There are a few exceptions, though.

VPNs are currently banned in:

• Belarus
• Iraq
• North Korea
• Turkmenistan

And in these countries you only use ‘government approved’ VPNs:

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

You can read more about the countries that have banned or restricted VPNs 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 outright scams).

When we tested the top 150 free Android VPN apps, we discovered that an extremely high number are potentially unsafe (see the section on Android below).

We also investigated who’s really behind some of the most popular free VPNs. It turns out that 60% had very questionable links to China, as well as worrying privacy flaws.

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

A common question we see is: how do free VPN services make money?

Well, 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 that you can download directly from the App Store or Google Play Store. Once you’re using these apps, you’re often prompted to get rid of the ads by upgrading to the paid service.

Stay well away from the ‘Worst Free VPNs’ listed below, though: many of them make money by selling your data on to advertisers and other third parties.

Also, avoid any free VPN services lacking extensive privacy policies.

Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of free VPN services that you should definitely avoid:

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.

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.

The free VPN services listed above all come with our seal of approval. We’ve tested each VPN extensively and we’re happy with what we’ve seen.

But, even these great 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 popular streaming services
• 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.

You can use free VPNs on most popular devices. Select your device below and see our recommendations:

• iPhones
• Android smartphones (see section below)
• PCs
• Macs
• Fire TV Stick

Free VPNs are also very easy to set up – follow these step-by-step guides to install and run a VPN on your:

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

Most VPN providers have setup guides for most platforms on their websites or you can contact their support team if you need more help.

A lot of free VPN services have speed caps in place, but the (consistently) fastest free VPN at the moment is Hide.me.

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.

With free VPNs, speed can often come at the expense of security, too. Stick to our recommendations and you’ll be safe online.

There are lots of free VPN services for Android, but a scary number will not keep you safe.

We tested the top 150 free Android VPN apps and 85% of them contained alarming security and privacy flaws that could put you at risk.

We recommend using these trustworthy free Android VPNs, or if you want a more complete VPN service then head over to the best (paid) VPNs for Android.

Using a free VPN service for torrenting is difficult, mainly because of the limiting 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.

Some free VPN services, such as ProtonVPN, don’t allow torrenting on their free servers at all:

We’ve put together a list of recommended free VPNs for torrenting, but if you’re serious about downloading files then we recommend paying for one of these VPN services.

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

You can essentially 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 it 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.