Best Free VPN in 2026 (Actually Free, No-Log)

Last verified 28 September 2026. Most "free VPNs" are the product, not the service. They sell your browsing history, inject ads, or throttle you until you pay. This guide lists 17 free VPNs whose free tier we checked against each vendor's own site this month, ranked by how much you actually get and how the company pays for it. NordVPN is #2. It is a paid subscription with a 30-day money-back guarantee, not a free tier. The other picks we would install are funded by paying customers or a larger business. The rest work, but with a bigger catch: tiny caps, ads, or manual setup. Toolradar data: of the 28 VPNs in our catalog, 5 are completely free and another 14 are freemium, so 68 percent offer some no-cost access.

What changed since our last check: TunnelBear removed country selection and split tunneling from its free plan on 26 January 2026. Proton VPN's free plan assigns you a server across 10 countries rather than letting you pick one. Windscribe's free page now lists 10 free countries, down from 11. Atlas VPN no longer exists as a separate service, and Surfshark still has no free plan, only a 7-day trial.

Quick Comparison

The picks we would install

ZoogVPN Free

ZoogVPN gives 10 GB of data a month on a free-forever plan with no credit card required. That allowance sits far above the 500 MB caps that pass for "free" on most tiers, which is why it leads this list: it is a free plan you can use for real browsing rather than a short trial in disguise. The no-log policy has been independently audited, and there is no bandwidth throttling, so the 10 GB runs at full speed.

The free plan includes 5 server locations, enough for everyday browsing and getting around regional restrictions, and clean, ad-free apps for Windows, macOS, iOS and Android plus browser extensions. The differentiator is Shadow, an obfuscation protocol that disguises VPN traffic to get past deep packet inspection and heavy censorship in places like China, Russia and the Middle East. That kind of censorship resistance almost never shows up on a free tier.

The catch is scale. Five locations is a small network next to the paid tiers here, and heavy users will reach the 10 GB ceiling before the month is out. The paid plan, with 70+ locations, unlimited data and support for streaming and P2P, is the natural next step once you outgrow the free allowance.

Pick it if you want a genuinely usable free allowance plus real censorship resistance, and 10 GB covers your month.

NordVPN

NordVPN does not have a free VPN tier. The VPN service is a paid subscription, and the homepage offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. Meshnet, which connects your own devices into a private network, can be used without a subscription.

A subscription covers up to 10 devices at once, with apps for the major platforms. NordVPN encrypts traffic with AES-256, says it does not log your online activity, and lets you choose NordLynx, OpenVPN, or NordWhisper. Depending on the plan, the app also blocks scams, phishing, malware, ads, and trackers.

Pick it if you want that paid network and would rather start from the money-back window than from a free data cap.

Proton VPN Free

Proton's free plan has no data cap, no speed cap and no ads, from the company behind Proton Mail. It is funded by paid subscribers rather than by monetizing free users, which is the single most important thing to know about any free VPN. The no-log policy has been independently audited and the apps are open source. The free plan also includes the kill switch and Proton's Stealth protocol for restrictive networks.

The limits: one device at a time, and you do not pick a country. The app connects you to the fastest free server, and the "Change server" button moves you to a random one across 10 free countries (Netherlands, Japan, Romania, Poland, Norway, Switzerland, Singapore, Mexico, Canada and the US), with a cooldown between changes. No streaming or P2P servers.

Pick it if you want one trustworthy connection with no allowance to ration and you do not care which country you exit through.

Windscribe Free

Windscribe gives 10 GB per month once you add and confirm an email; without one you get 2 GB. Free servers cover 10 countries: the US, Canada, UK, Hong Kong, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway and Romania. The free plan includes R.O.B.E.R.T., a DNS-level ad, tracker and malware blocker, and there is no limit on simultaneous devices.

You can raise the allowance permanently: posting about Windscribe on X adds 5 GB a month (your account needs at least 3 followers), and each friend who signs up adds 1 GB. The desktop apps are open source and the no-logs claim has been tested in court.

Pick it if you want country choice and ad blocking on every device, and 10 to 15 GB covers your month.

PrivadoVPN Free

PrivadoVPN, a Swiss provider, gives 10 GB a month at full speed with only a verified email and no card. Free servers sit in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK and the US, on the same infrastructure paying users get, and there is no device limit.

Two things set it apart from Windscribe: PrivadoVPN says streaming works on the free plan, and it does not cut you off at 10 GB, it slows you down. Ad blocking, malware protection and the full network stay on the paid plan.

Pick it if you want Windscribe-sized data plus light streaming, and you are fine with slower speeds late in the month.

hide.me Free

hide.me's free plan has no data cap and needs no registration: install it and connect. You choose from 8 server locations, one device at a time, with no ads, and free users get the same 24/7 support as paying ones. hide.me is audited as a no-log provider.

The catch is speed. Free accounts do not get unlimited speeds, streaming-optimized servers are paid only, and peak hours can feel congested. For email, reading and general browsing on public Wi-Fi it does the job.

Pick it if you need an uncapped backup connection without creating an account and can live with variable speed.

Opera Free VPN

Opera is the only mainstream browser with a built-in free VPN: unlimited data, no account, no extension, and no ads. You choose between three real server regions (Ashburn in the US, Amsterdam and Singapore) or let it pick the fastest. Opera says the no-log policy is audited by Deloitte and the code was tested by Cure53, and the free VPN is paid for by Opera's search partnerships.

The big caveat is scope. It only encrypts what happens inside the Opera browser, not your other apps, games or system traffic. Opera sells a separate VPN Pro for that.

Pick it if your need is private browsing on public Wi-Fi and you are happy to use Opera for it.

Cloudflare WARP (1.1.1.1)

WARP is Cloudflare's free app for iOS, Android, Windows, macOS and Linux. It encrypts your traffic to the nearest Cloudflare server, has no data cap and needs no account. Cloudflare says it does not sell your data, and sites see a Cloudflare IP instead of yours.

It is not a location-changing VPN. That Cloudflare IP still represents your approximate location, you cannot choose a country, and streaming or licensing checks can break. Video calls and anything using your camera or microphone bypass WARP.

Pick it if you want to stop your ISP or a café network from seeing your traffic, not to appear somewhere else.

AdGuard VPN Free

AdGuard's free plan gives 3 GB a month across 10 locations on up to 2 devices. After the 3 GB your speed drops rather than cutting out, some servers are locked, and streaming is off. It runs on AdGuard's open-source TrustTunnel protocol, includes a kill switch and exclusion lists, and lets you point DNS at an ad-blocking resolver.

Pick it if you already use AdGuard's ad blocker and want a light VPN that fits the same ecosystem.

X-VPN Free

X-VPN needs no sign-up at all and has no data cap. On Android and iOS you can manually choose from 26 free locations in 15+ countries. On desktop and in the Chrome extension the free plan picks the server for you. The company says servers are RAM-only and it keeps no logs.

The catch: mobile apps show ads (desktop is ad-free), and the premium features such as split tunneling and streaming servers are paid.

Pick it if you want uncapped data with manual country choice on your phone and can tolerate ads.

Planet VPN Free

Planet VPN, based in Romania, offers unlimited data with no registration on 6 free servers across 5 countries, and up to 10 devices at once on the free plan. It supports OpenVPN, IKEv2 and its own StarGuard protocol, with a kill switch and RAM-only servers.

The business model is the trade-off: the free version is funded by short ads rather than by paying subscribers alone.

Pick it if you want no cap, no account and several devices, and a few ads are acceptable.

Free, but with a bigger catch

TunnelBear Free

TunnelBear still gives 2 GB per month and remains one of the most polished apps here, with annual independent security audits. But it removed country selection and SplitBear split tunneling from the free plan, and since 26 January 2026 free users are assigned a location. Users in censored countries on its Bandwidth Program keep all features.

That change matters more than the data cap. 2 GB was already only enough for occasional use, roughly one or two hours of video.

Pick it if you want the gentlest introduction to VPNs and do not care which country you exit through.

Hotspot Shield Basic

Hotspot Shield's free Basic plan needs no credit card and lists unlimited bandwidth, a kill switch and split tunneling for one device. Free users connect through US servers; the other countries are paid. It uses Pango's proprietary Hydra protocol.

The catch is the model: Hotspot Shield says the free plan is ad-supported, and its privacy policy lets advertising SDKs collect device identifiers.

Pick it if you need a quick, uncapped US connection on one device.

Speedify Free

Speedify is built for connection bonding: it combines Wi-Fi, cellular and wired links into one faster, more stable connection. The free version needs no account and covers your first 2 GB each month; the allowance does not roll over.

Pick it if you want to test bonding for calls or streams on flaky connections. As a privacy VPN, 2 GB is too little.

Avira Phantom VPN Free

Avira's free VPN gives 500 MB a month, or 1 GB if you register a My Avira account, with AES-256 encryption and a no-logs policy from a long-established security brand. The kill switch is on the Pro version.

Pick it if you only need a VPN for the occasional banking session on hotel Wi-Fi.

iTop VPN Free

iTop's free plan allows 700 MB a day on a limited set of free servers across Windows, macOS, iOS and Android, without payment details. Daily data is more generous than Avira or Betternet, but we did not find a published independent no-log audit, so trust is harder to verify than with the providers above.

Pick it if you need a daily allowance for light use and do not route anything sensitive through it.

Betternet Free

Betternet, from the same Pango group as Hotspot Shield, gives 500 MB a day on US IP addresses, one device, and no choice of location. The free version is supported by ads, and its privacy policy says ad SDKs can collect your advertising ID and IP address.

Pick it if you want a no-registration US connection for a few minutes of browsing a day.

VPNBook

VPNBook is the do-it-yourself option: no registration, no bandwidth limit, and free OpenVPN and WireGuard servers in the US, Canada, UK, Germany and France, plus PPTP and Outline in Poland. You download config files and use a shared username and password that changes every few weeks. WireGuard sessions last 48 hours.

There are no apps, no kill switch and no account security, and everyone shares the same credentials.

Pick it if you are comfortable setting up OpenVPN or WireGuard by hand and need a free exit in one of those countries.

Free VPNs we left out

• Urban VPN: free and unlimited, but security researchers found in December 2025 that its browser extension was capturing users' AI chatbot conversations and sharing them with an affiliated data company. Avoid.
• Hola: the free version turns your device into a peer in the Bright Data proxy network, so other people's traffic can run through your connection and IP address.
• Surfshark: no free plan. There is a 7-day trial on 12- and 24-month plans, then a 30-day money-back guarantee.
• Atlas VPN: discontinued as a standalone service; its users were moved to NordVPN.
• Bitdefender VPN: the standalone VPN is sold as Premium VPN with a 7-day trial, not a free tier.
• Mullvad: one of the most private VPNs available, but there is no free plan. It is a flat monthly fee.

Who should pick what

Best free data and censorship resistance: ZoogVPN. 10 GB a month with no credit card, an audited no-log policy, and Shadow obfuscation that works on heavily censored networks. Five locations is the trade-off, and heavy users will want the paid upgrade.

Unlimited data, set and forget: Proton VPN. Audited and funded by paying customers, with no cap to ration. One device and no country choice are the constraints.

Country choice and ad blocking: Windscribe. 10 GB with email confirmation, 10 countries, unlimited devices.

Light streaming on a free plan: PrivadoVPN. 10 GB at full speed, 10 countries, unlimited devices.

No account, no cap: hide.me for a full VPN, Opera if browser-only is enough, Cloudflare WARP if you only need encryption and not a new location.

By device: see the free VPNs we would install on a Windows PC, a Mac, an iPhone or iPad and an Android phone and a Fire TV Stick. For specific uses, see the best VPNs for gaming and torrenting. Traveling to mainland China? Read the best VPN for China first: free plans rarely hold up there.

Avoid any free VPN you cannot explain. If you cannot identify how the company makes money, you are how it makes money.

FAQ

Are free VPNs safe to use?

Some are, many are not. The safest free tiers are paid for by subscribers of a paid plan (ZoogVPN, Proton VPN, Windscribe, PrivadoVPN, hide.me, TunnelBear) or by a larger business (Opera, Cloudflare). Ad-funded free VPNs can be fine for light use but collect more device data. Free VPNs with no clear revenue model typically monetize through traffic analysis, bandwidth resale or selling browsing data.

Which free VPN has unlimited data?

Proton VPN, hide.me, X-VPN and Planet VPN offer uncapped free VPNs with apps. Opera's VPN is unlimited but only covers the browser, Cloudflare WARP is unlimited but does not change your location, and Hotspot Shield Basic lists unlimited bandwidth on US servers with ads. VPNBook has no bandwidth limit but requires manual setup.

Which free VPN lets me choose my country?

Windscribe (10 countries), PrivadoVPN (10 countries), hide.me (8 locations), AdGuard VPN (10 locations), X-VPN on mobile (26 locations), Planet VPN (5 countries), Opera (3 regions) and ZoogVPN (5 locations). Proton VPN and TunnelBear free plans assign a location for you.

Can I use a free VPN for streaming?

Mostly no. Free servers are shared and widely blocked by streaming platforms, and most providers keep streaming servers for paid plans. PrivadoVPN is the main exception that advertises streaming on its free plan, within its 10 GB of full-speed data. If streaming is the point, a paid plan is the practical answer.

How much data does a free VPN actually need?

For email, messaging and text-heavy browsing, 2 GB per month covers occasional use and 10 GB is comfortable. Video is what breaks a cap: an hour of HD streaming uses roughly 3 GB, which exhausts TunnelBear's or Speedify's monthly allowance in a single film. If you plan to leave a VPN connected all day, only an uncapped tier makes sense.

Related on Toolradar

• Best free VPN for PC
• Best free VPN for Mac
• Best free VPN for iPhone
• Best free VPN for Android
• Best VPN for China
• Best free VPN for Fire TV Stick
• Best VPN for gaming
• Best VPN for torrenting
• Best VPN free trials
• Best free VPN Chrome extensions
• Proton VPN pricing
• NordVPN vs Proton VPN
• ExpressVPN vs Mullvad