Services that offer free VPNs generally have a fairly short life. Almost all those who have alternated over the years have closed or have become paid. In fact, offering a service of this type without requiring any type of payment is rather complicated, especially today, when everyone needs fast and reliable connections.
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As if this were not enough, some of these services lose reliability and start to compromise our privacy. That’s why from time to time it’s good to take a look on the Net and see who’s left among the best and which emerging services deserve attention.
Here are the five best free VPN services that still guarantee a good level of privacy.
Hotspot Shield, reliable and fast protection
AnchorFree free VPN service has been active for many years, and still one of the most popular free VPN services.
The free version has some limitations, in particular on the geographic origin of the servers and on the amount of data available. Furthermore, the main streaming video services (Netflix, for example) are only accessible to users who have a premium paid account. In any case, we can use the program both on computers and on mobile devices, even with the free account.
However, from the point of view of privacy, it is excellent. Hotspot Shield is known as “the largest platform in the world for freedom and privacy on the Internet“. In addition to the VPN service, the site offers many other tools to protect privacy and verify our connection. Unfortunately, like many of the best VPN services, it does not support some countries. However, it takes very little to learn the commands in English.
CyberGhost, VPN only for Chrome but with zero effort
CyberGhost is one of the big names in the VPN world for many years. Most of the products that it offers are paid, but the free VPN, supported by ads, that offers is adequate for most casual users.
CyberGhost’s free VPN service is available only as a Chrom extension and is limited by bandwidth. It is not very useful if we watch a lot of videos or want to have a perennially anonymous connection, but it has the great advantage of not requiring any technical effort. We just have to install the extension and follow the directions.
Most of the servers in this VPN service are in Europe, there are also other places, but the European base can be an advantage, especially if we have to use sites that do not “operate” outside the European Union.
A technical note – the application is based on the Ethereum blockchain. Thanks to this protect privacy, defends against censorship, fraud, and intrusion.
Windiscribe – in addition to the VPN, an arsenal of tools for privacy
Windscribe offers a version for the Chrome browser and a complete application for Windows, depending on what we need.
Of course, the main feature is the VPN, but from the point of view of privacy is excellent the set of additional tools that this service offers us in the free version. Among these, the most interesting function is a firewall to prevent accidental exposure of our IP address if the VPN were to disconnect. But we also find an ad block and integrated tracker and a secure link generator.
The free version has a limit of use limited to 10 GB per month (which in any case are not few) and allows access from servers located in ten different countries. The paid version removes the limits and allows access from up to 40 countries. Thanks to the capacity offered, it is one of the best free VPN for those who need to transfer a lot of data.
Hide.me, total protection from an “offshore” country
Hide.me is a VPN proxy service based in Malaysia, which guarantees a certain level of operational freedom. It offers free servers in Canada, the Netherlands, and Singapore. For the most nerds, the free service supports PPTP, L2TP, L2TP, IPsec (IKEv1 and IKEv2), OpenVPN, SoftEther, SSTP, and SOCKS, in practice all the main protocols used in connections, even in “craft” ones.
In addition to being appreciated for speed, hide.me mid-2015 decided not to keep any connection logs. From the point of view of privacy, this is a huge strength; if there is no recorded data, there is nothing that the authorities, in a lawful or illicit way, can check if they want to trace a connection.
Until recently, the company also published a “transparency” report in which it reported all the authorities that had requested access to data, but lately, this idea has fallen into disuse. Also, Hide.me is based on the freemium model, so it offers both free VPN and paid services, with fewer limits.
Speedify, free VPN and “enhancement” of the connection in one application
Speedify is one of a kind. If we live in an area where an Internet connection is poor it is certainly one of the best free VPNs. In fact, in addition to “screening” our connection, it can combine all home connections, such as Wi-Fi and mobile, in a single, more stable, faster Internet access. And safer, that never hurts.
This unique combination also makes it possible to partially offset the loss of speed to which all VPN services (including pay-as-you-go) services are subject.
The basic plan, completely free, offers 5GB of data per month. All traffic is encrypted using either ChaCha or AES (depending on the device). Also, in this case, the company refuses to keep log and access registers, to protect our privacy. Furthermore, SpeediFy has announced on several occasions that it does not intend to sell user data under any circumstances.
Having multiple connections offers enormous advantages, especially as regards the management of connection errors. For example, the system offers what is called an automatic failover – if one of our connections falls, the other is completely transparent.
Anonymous VPNs – the other options
Those listed are some of the best “generic” free VPNs. If we have specific needs, for example, if we want to simply use a browser anonymously without having thoughts from a technical point of view, Opera offers a free and unlimited VPN service included in the private browsing.
If, on the other hand, our problem is linked above all to sites that can no longer be consulted in Europe because of the GDPR or other bureaucratic obstacles, there are some quick and free solutions that allow us to “virtually” move the origin of our connection out of the ‘Europe.
