The best completely free VPN services 2018

We've rounded up all of the best free VPN services so you can take your first dip into the world of VPN without paying

Free VPN services have their pros and their cons. There certainly are plenty of free VPNs you can download right now that will allow you to encrypt your traffic, stay obscured online and allow you access to blocked or IP-restricted sites.But there are also some real dangers with free VPN services. The main one is that they need to make a profit somehow and this is not usually a good thing for the end user. For a start, Free VPNs have less servers, no customer service and come with plenty of technical issues that standard VPN services do not have.

And the way some of them monetise is to turn you into a product they sell on to other parties. That essentially means logging some of your data and flogging it to people you'd rather didn't even know you existed.

Free VPN services based offshore are almost always a lot less sophisticated than paid ones, and that means using a free service to try and access US Netflix etc can be an extremely frustrating experience. Sometimes it might work, sometimes it might not.

You've also got the fact that while VPNs encrypt your data, the VPN service itself has access to that encryption key! So if they want they can easily take a peak at what you're up to, leaving you horribly exposed, depending on what you've been up to.

So our advice is to not use a free VPN unless it really is for occasional, very casual use. For the odd IP-hopping use case, they can work. But if you're planning on using the VPN a lot and for streaming video etc we'd highly recommend going for one of the overall best VPN services - they're not free but they're also pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things.

The best VPN service in the world right now: ExpressVPN
From all our testing, we think that the best VPN out there right now is Express. It's a premium VPN service but still only costs $6.67 per month - that's about the price of a pint of beer in the UK! And for that you get the best VPN in the world, without any security concerns, with 24/7 customer support, guaranteed access to Netflix US, almost constant uptime and a 30-day money back guarantee (no questions asked) if you change your mind. Check out ExpressVPN!

THE BEST FREE VPN SERVICES 2018:

1. TUNNELBEAR

TunnelBear is the best free VPN service you can download today

SPECIFICATIONS

Free: Yes

Number of servers: ~1,000

Server locations: 20+

IP addresses: N/A

Maximum devices supported: 5

REASONS TO BUY

+User friendly apps+Use it on mobile and desktop

REASONS TO AVOID

-Very basic-Only 500MB each month

TunnelBear is the undisputed best free VPN service available today. It's a serious VPN that's serious about customer satisfaction, privacy and security. So the upside is that you're getting a VPN that works, and can be trusted not to hold loads of data on you and sell you out at the earliest opportunity! The downside is that the free tier of TunnelBear only gets you 500MB bandwidth each month. That means for many people having it always-on will leave you caught short well before the end of the month, and absolutely rules out using it to stream endless episodes of Rick and Morty on Netflix. The free VPN tear at TunnelBear is certainly designed as a gateway to the paid tier which offers unlimited data but will cost you real money. If you're going to pay for a VPN we'd suggest getting a premium one like Express, but if you're only interested in a free option then TunnelBear is the one for you unless you need loads of bandwidth.

Want to try it? Check it out at tunnelbear.com

Windscribe is a new name on the block, but its data cap and emphasis on privacy make it a winner

2. WINDSCRIBE

Windscribe is the best free VPN if you need a generous amount of free data

SPECIFICATIONS

Free: Yes

Number of servers: N/A

Server locations: 8

IP addresses: N/A

Maximum devices supported: 1

REASONS TO BUY

+10GB of data per month+Sterling privacy policy

REASONS TO AVOID

-No Android client

There's one other strong free VPN offering that's easy to recommend and that's Windscribe. This free VPN actually offers 20x as much free data as TunnelBear above, so if you're planning on staying connected at all times or streaming video/music through the VPN, this one will get you most of the way there. Of course, there's nothing to stop you installing more than one of these services at the same time and switching between them. Windscribe is easy to sign up for and doesn't require any personal information (makes sense to give your email address though, otherwise you'll be locked out if you forget your password). Windscribe will boost your data by 5GB if you send out a tweet about the service, and if you refer a friend who subscribes to the paid tier you'll be given access to that higher tier at no charge!

Want to try it? Check it out at Windscribe.com

3. SPEEDIFY

Speedify is a turbocharger VPN which will speed up your connection

SPECIFICATIONS

Free: Yes

Number of servers: 30+

Server locations: 20+

IP addresses: N/A

Maximum devices supported: 5

REASONS TO BUY

+Awesome performance boosting+Solid on the privacy front

REASONS TO AVOID

-Only 1GB data-Basic service

Speedify the third and final free VPN service that we recommend thinking about signing up to. It's a little different than the two options above in that it's designed from the ground up to absolutely maximise your connection speed. So if you're on a laptop with ethernet and wifi connections, it'll utilize both to pull bits out of the internet to the max. If you're on a phone it can use your 4G and WiFi connections at the same time to do the same time - to maximise throughput of data, improving download speeds and render times. In our tests this all proved to be more than just hot air - it really did work to speed up our download and browsing speeds. At the same time it's doing all the things you'd want from a VPN, ecrypting and obscuring, so you're private, safe and anonymous. The catch here is that you only get 1GB of free data. You get 4GB in the first month but that drops down to 1GB after that which just isn't enough if you're planning to use it a lot.