How to Set Up and Use a Free VPN
While nothing is usually free, there are items/tools that can be acquired for next to nothing. With this idea in mind, we wanted to produce a short article about free VPNs and how you can get one without compromising quality or security. We will briefly touch upon all the options available in the market.
Free VPN. Is It a Reality or a Fantasy?
Concerns about safety while browsing the internet usually go hand in hand. You may be exposed to fraudulent activities without proper protection. On the other hand, there are actions to take like censorship and geo-locking of content. If you do not want to deal with all this nonsense, you will need to use a VPN connection.
Flexibility and safety are the two most critical areas that should be taken into consideration. You cannot simply use the first service you stumble upon. While there are providers that offer free connections, their effectiveness and level of service are quite questionable. For example, you can use something like GooseVPN. It is not a bad service, but it has a limited number of servers in less than 20 countries. This amount is barely enough to bypass some restrictions.
On the other hand, something like TunnelBear is a bad choice due to limited bandwidth. Their free-version gives you only 500mb of traffic monthly which is not enough for torrents and streaming.
How Can You Get a VPN for Free?
Honestly, we do not recommend using a free service. There are reasons to pay for a VPN. A truly secure connection and access to any content you want is a product that most likely has issues. The fewer problems a product has, the more people are willing to pay for it. This issue leads us to modern reality: people want to pay for a stable and reliable VPN.
Getting a free option is essentially exposing yourself to a variety of cyber threats. It is exactly something that you want to avoid when using the internet. We want to focus on a couple of options that may be more reasonable.
Take advantage of trial periods. If you want to get the best free VPN for Mac, Windows, or any other OS, then do a trial run. There are services out there that give you a month or a week for a trial period. While some options will be not available to you, the features you’ll have at your disposal can be quite useful for certain situations. Some companies provide unlimited bandwidth. Others will provide access to thousands of servers. Regardless of the core part of the promotional deal, you will get something for free from an established provider.
Use money-back guaranteed wisely. A vast majority of companies out there will give you an opportunity to get your money back without asking any questions. You will need to fill out a form and ask for a refund before a specified period of time. Some companies will allow up to 45 days of free usage. This method allows you to fully explore all upsides and downsides of their service and pay nothing for the experience.
Use only parts of the full product. Most companies have a lot of various cool features that “sell” the product. However, some of these features may have a sole promotional value to them. For example, if you do not need a full VPN, but you would like to use a proxy server to bypass censorship, you may use extensions for browsers. Even big companies like ExpressVPN and NordVPN will gladly give you an extension.
The Main Takeaways
Using any service for free is a risk that some people do not want to take. There are many hidden issues that can dramatically reduce the quality of your online activities if you use a free service. Annoying ads, constant notifications, begging for purchase — all these issues can bring a dissatisfying experience. You can easily avoid all these problems by paying for a high-quality service.
Most companies provide their services for next to nothing. For example, you can get the full IPVanish subscription for $2.75 per month. You’ll have to pay a hundred dollars for a two-year plan, but it’s typically worth it.
