The following VPN services have a free mode, but remember that somebody has to pay for the bandwidth, hardware and maintenance.
One way or another they will get their money, mostly by trying to get you to upgrade limiting what you can do, for example, no video streaming or P2P. Other providers will show advertisements, and one or two could be a scam logging username and passwords. To ward off fraud it is best to stick with VPN companies that have been around for a long time, tell you who they are and how they make their money.
The following VPN services have a free mode, but remember that somebody has to pay for the bandwidth, hardware and maintenance.
One way or another they will get their money, mostly by trying to get you to upgrade limiting what you can do, for example, no video streaming or P2P. Other providers will show advertisements, and one or two could be a scam logging username and passwords. To ward off fraud it is best to stick with VPN companies that have been around for a long time, tell you who they are and how they make their money.
Unlimited bandwidth free VPN
VPNBook: Free VPN provider with servers in the USA, UK and Romania. You can choose PPTP for mobile devices or the more secure OpenVPN protocol. Their website contains a username and password that you will need to log into the VPN, it changes daily and you have to visit again to find out the new login credentials.
ShellFire VPN: Unlimited bandwidth with a speed limit of 1Mbps, this is more than enough to browse the Internet, you should be able to stream video too as long as it is not in high definition. The free option gives you access to servers in the US and Germany, if you wish to have more bandwidth and servers you will have to upgrade.
Hoxx VPN: Multiple world locations, the free version does not have limits but encryption is 1024-bit, to get a higher degree of protection you will have to upgrade to the paid version.
WifiProtector: The free version of this VPN will ask you if you want to install adaware, you can skip the step, make sure to read everything. You will also be shown advertisements as you surf the Internet, this is how the company pays for the free VPN service they provide to you.
Betternet: Provider with no bandwidth limit or restrictions of any kind, the company has a transparency report with income and expenses in their website and they disclose that the free VPN is funded with the installation of free apps, in exchange for this you will not be shown advertisements and no data will be sold.
OpenInternetAccess: Offering free VPN, Wireguard and proxies, all with unlimited bandwidth. The service is run by a subsidiary of a company called Vanwatech and they claim to make money when people buy one of their other services so they don´t have to sell your privacy. OpenInternetAccess does not keep logs and do not ask for email or any other detail to sign up.
VPNGate: A network of P2P volunteer run nodes, coordinated by the University of Tsukuba in Japan, their aim is to help people bypass ISP censorship. You can choose one of the dozens of available countries but you have no way to know who is running the node and if they are looking at what you do or not.
LimitlessVPN: A company claiming that they do not keep user logs, they offer a free VPN with unlimited bandwidth in exchange for using your computer processing power. There is no advertising or tracking.
UltraSurf: Portable free VPN service and software to help people circumvent ISP censorship. It only runs in Windows Internet Explorer, they have a separate Firefox browser addon download.
FreeVPN.me: New free VPN provider that claims they don’t log VPN usage, allow torrents and have unlimited bandwidth. When something seems too good to be truth, be cautious.
ProtonVPN: No logs VPN with no bandwidth limit, the constraints of this free VPN are that speed is low and only three countries are available. There is the possibility of paying for it and getting many more features.
PenguinProxy: A free peer-to-peer VPN, web requests are forwarded using Penguin Proxy own servers are other VPN users, hiding your identity and confusing advertisers. It only works for web browsing, torrents and SMTP are blocked, there are no advertisements as this is a proof of concept project not designed to make a profit.
Free VPN limited by bandwidth
HotSpotShield: Ad supported VPN service, it gives you a free USA computer IP with 500MB/day limit, enough to browse the Internet but not suitable to watch long movies, once you hit the limit you will have to wait a few hours.InviciBull: They give you 1GB/month of free bandwidth every month for each device you use the VPN on. There are no advertisements or tracking, for more servers and bandwidth you have to upgrade.
Faceless: Free VPN version gives you 2GB bandwidth a month, with limited choice of servers and speed but as secure as their paid for version, with no logs kept and the same level of encryption.
WindScribe: Freemium no logs VPN service based in Canada, this is a new company currently running a promotion offering 10GB/month for free, at some point in the future the free VPN will be reduced to 2GB/month.
ZPN.im: Provider offers 10GB/month for free in 5 locations, no P2P allowed. This provider is located in the United Arab Emirates and states that will cooperate with law enforcement if served with a warrant.
SecurityKiss: Ireland based VPN provider giving you 300MB daily usage with no advertisements or speed limit. They keep VPN logs for ten days to stop abuse.
TunnelBear: VPN service offers 500MB of free bandwidth every month, this can be extended with an extra 1GB if you Tweet about the company.
SumRando: South African based VPN company offering 1GB/month of free bandwidth funded with advertisements. There is the option to pay to get rid of adverts and increase the available bandwidth.
Hide.me: Free VPN service gives you 2GB/month of available bandwidth in two locations with speed only allocated if paying customers do not need that capacity.
TorVPN: Account will be erased if not used for one week, there is a 2GB/month bandwidth limit and the free VPN blocks websites like Paypal and eBay to stop fraud.
Hideman: VPN service giving you free 10GB/month a week of usage, the company does not keep logs for paying users but for free users they keep two weeks of data transfer logs, free version does not have USA or UK node.
Free VPN for iOS and Android
Tenta browser: Currently only for Android (other platforms to follow). PIN protected privacy browser with a free unlimited built-in VPN, Incognito browsing and encrypted visited pages storage.VPNhub: A VPN provider with multiple servers and unlimited bandwidth. There is one catch, the desktop version requires a paid subscription, and the VPN is using advertising to finance the cost of providing the service. If this bothers you, buy the premium version.
Opera browser: Not really a full VPN, the Opera browser for Android and iPhone can hide your IP when browsing the Internet but it will not protect you for any other apps in your phone. Be aware that the logging policy is not clear and that a Chinese company owns Opera, not the best location for privacy.
Social Media Search Engine Monitoring tool
