Best Free VPN To Protect Your Privacy in 2020

With the advancement of the online world, we often feel the need to protect our online identity. We present to you the fundamentals of VPN and also share a list of the best free VPN which you can consider trying to bring anonymity and control your data privacy online.

What is a VPN? How Does it Work?

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) provides one with online privacy and anonymity. Now, how does it do this?

A VPN basically creates a private network from a public connection. It also masks your IP address so that all your online activities are untraceable, virtually. VPN services establish a secure and encrypted connection in order to provide you with greater privacy than a secured Wi-Fi hotspot. 

VPN services encrypt your data while it’s still in transit. It basically creates a virtual tunnel through the internet, via which all the data travels securely. This tunnel separates your data from the countless others until it reaches the services exit nodes many miles away from where you are. 

A VPN’s scrambling and unscrambling of your data can slow the internet traffic sometimes a bit. The best free vpn will have faster servers that are connected to huge data pipes to minimize this performance decline. The best free vpn/vpn’s also has thousands of servers located in scores of countries. 

Is a Free VPN Worth Getting?

Honestly speaking, I mean writing, there’s no single easy answer to this question. It totally depends on what you want to use your best free vpn for. If you wanna use it just for having a bit more security on your mobile or laptop when using public Wi-Fi, they can just be the ticket. But you should also know that you would be bombarded with ads with your best free vpn. Also, all the free vpn services won’t provide you with safety.

Some free VPNs can sell your data or use you as an exit node for other users without your knowledge. So, you need to be very careful while choosing yours. So, have a look at them, and get the best one for you. 

Best Free VPN To Protect Your Privacy

Hotspot Shield Free VPN

Hotspot Shield is one of the best free vpn services. Those on the free plan is limited to 500MB of data per day(around 15GB per month). Hotspot Shield would keep your data protected using powerful encryption if it ever gets intercepted.

If security is your sole sim, then Hotspot Shield is on the same wavelength, boasting of “military-grade encryption.” With this,you are safe with your online banking and shopping. Not only this, but Hotspot Shield is also known for its user-friendly design, whether on mobile or on the desktop.  On the free plan, you are limited to only one US-based location that Hotspot Shield chooses for you. But if you have the Premium version of Hotspot Shield, then you can choose to anchor yourself to one of the 70-odd countries. Also, if you are using the free version on Android, then you will have to put up with ads.

Furthermore, Hotspot Shield is a US-based company is obliged to hand over data to the Law Agencies. But overall, Hotspot Shield is the best free VPN compared to its competitors in terms of service and data offered.

TunnelBear Free VPN

TunnelBear is a serious free option in VPNs, especially after its acquisition by the security giant McAfee. This best free VPN has free and paid-for subscriptions to choose from. TunnelBear, so now, it collects even less data on users- removing the requirement to supply a first name to sign up and ditching its record of the users’ number of total lifetime connections. 

The major restriction in the free plan is that TunnelBears users are limited to 500MB of traffic each month. This really is a very tiny amount and means that you can only really use it at those times when you really feel the need of having a little extra protection and want to go down the free route. You won’t be able to keep TunnelBear on all the time, and you will also have to forget using it for torrenting and streaming. Plus, if you are one of the inexperienced users, this VPNs lack of functionality will be more hindrance than help. But, if you need an audited and free VPN for very occasional use, then TunnelBear is a great option. 

ProtonVPN Free

ProtonVPN is another best free vpn which offers a free plan alongside a paid one, but the former has some strong points. The most notable of all is that ProtonVPN doesn’t obtrude any data restrictions. To put it another way, you’re free to use as much of data as you want each month. This is highly rare for any VPN service provider and immediately makes ProtonVPN an option that is well worth considering. ProtonVPN was founded in 2014 by a team of scientists who met at CERN (the European Center for Nuclear Research)

But, the free plan, naturally, has enough limitations. They include limiting free plan users to only one device, with just three locations, and the free users would get a lower priority when it comes to speed compared to paying subscribers.

The free plan doesn’t have P2P support either, and the speeds may drop during peak hours when plenty of users are around, and as mentioned earlier, the paying folks get priority. 

In addition to strong technical security, ProtonVPN also benefits from strong legal protection. Because we are based in Switzerland, ProtonVPN is protected by some of the world’s strongest privacy laws and remains outside of US and EU jurisdiction

Under Swiss law, we are not obligated to save any user connection logs, nor can we be forced to perform targeted logging on specific users. This allows us to ensure that your private browsing history does, in fact, stay private and cannot be turned over to a third-party under any circumstances. Our no logs policy applies to all our users, including anyone using our free VPN.

But, if you are okay with it and can live with the terms, then ProtonVPN is an excellent and very impressive provider with a strict no-logging policy, and you can sign up with this best free vpn just your email address, nothing more is needed. There even aren’t any ads on the website, let alone the client. So, if you are a night owl or don’t mind giving up on speed for the sake of money, then ProtonVPN is a great option for you!

Windscribe Free VPN

Windscribe gives a generous data allowance and committees towards protecting your privacy. This makes Windscribe one of the best free vpn options around. When you sign up, you would either get a chance to bag 2GB per month without handling over any info or 10GB if you give your email address.

You can choose ten remote server locations with Windscribe VPN free, including Hong Kong, Germany, Canada, Uk, US VPN, and the recently added Turkey. You would only need to create a username and password to sign up. Providing your email address is optional, but it might prove handy if you forget your password. 

This best free vpn won’t store connection logs, IP stamps, or visited sites: when you are actively connected to a server, it will store your username, the server you are connected to, and the amount of data that’s transferred, but this all is erased within three minutes after the session ends. If this isn’t enough to tempt you to choose this best free vpn, there’s even a built-in ad blocker and firewall. 

However, Windscribes apps do let the side down a little, and their interface too is quite cramped. It can even make it quite tricky to find the settings. But, if you stick to the recommended settings on the website and just keep switching it on and off (or just get used to the UI), then it’s perfectly serviceable.

One point of Windscribe, which is also worth noting, is that neither the free and nor the paid versions get 24/7 support, so you could be left in the lurch if something goes wrong with any of the subscriptions. Though overall, Windscribe is the best free vpn available; it is powerful, simple, and effective. 

OperaVPN Free

Opera VPN is an absolutely free service that comes built-in to the Opera browser. You don’t need to register or hand over any personal information, just enable the VPN in Opera’s Settings, and you’re ready to go.

Honestly, don’t expect many features from Opera. It has just three less-than-specific locations (Europe, Americas, Asia), and although Opera calls this service a “VPN,” but in reality, it’s really just a secure proxy service that would protect your browser traffic using HTTPS.

There aren’t any low-level tweaks, no clever auto-connect when accessed to an insecure network’ features or anything else, and Opera VPN will not protect any traffic from other apps on your system.

OperaVPN just might be the most underpowered ‘VPN’ around, then, but it’s also free and with unlimited bandwidth, so maybe we can count it in. Overall, Opera VPN is easy to use, but it is also hard to be anything else when you’ve almost no functionality. 

Opera VPN is just about as basic as a VPN can be. It used to be surprisingly speedy, but it’s not anymore. Even basic browsing takes a while, and the service doesn’t unblock very much. It could still improve on a few simplest of tasks like getting a site to display US prices instead of your native currency and etc. To be very honest, if you need a serious VPN, or even just a vaguely competent one – look elsewhere.

When Might a Free VPN Not Be the Right Choice?

A free VPN is for those looking to stream or torrent or for people looking for a gaming VPN. It’s because all of these activities require tons of data. But if you’ve got only 500MB to play with, you will only be able to watch one episode in standard definition on Netflix – and that’s only if you can actually access the service.

Also, you will find that your connection speed would drop, which is a killer for gamers and torrents. These activities rely on having high speeds, and only the best paid-for fast VPNs can provide it.

Finally, a few free VPNs struggle with privacy issues, and the addition of ads is a real pain for users. If you want the most secure service, then you’ll have to pay for one. At least then, you will have knowledge about exactly how your VPN is making money, rather than hoping that it’s not using your information to cash in.  

Are Free VPNs Legal?

The answer is YES. VPN software itself is no less legal than any other mainstream software. Still, using it as a torrenting VPN to download copyrighted files still comes under an illegal activity, as does access any other illegitimate content. While a cost-free VPN is absolutely legal to own and make use of, it still doesn’t make illegal activities legal just because it makes the crime harder to detect.

Guys, In my opinion, VPN should be used only on a need basis. The way all governments have increased online surveillance makes it hard to believe that just using a piece of software will save you from multiple trackers and different cookies settings. Although free VPNs often claim about no-log policy but their main revenue stream is through data sharing only. If you need, go on some excellent industry-standard Paid VPNs like ExpressVPN & ProtonVPN, which are my favorite and have better data privacy tools.