There was a time when free VPNs were looked down upon and most of them were run by shady companies who wanted to make money by either selling user data, traumatizing them with tons of ads, or even using your connection as a node in their peer to peer network.
However, there has been a lot of competition in the VPN industry for the last decade or so, with new VPN companies making a breakthrough almost every year. This has led to the VPN providers going all out to incentivize their users to purchase their product. It was this competition that led to the redemption of the free VPNs.
Nowadays, there are a lot of free VPNs available in the market which have a good track record and offer you decent security. Although these VPNs have a reduced set of features (since they are free) and cannot offer you 100% protection, most of them will be perfect for someone who wants to use them to safeguard his or her home devices.
Why your home devices need a VPN
Your home devices do not require an extensive amount of protection unless you are using a lot of smart home devices. Chances are that you are going to be using a VPN mainly to make sure that no one can take a look at your browsing history and access geo-blocked data.
If you feel like you need the best security for your home devices due to your job or other factors, then free VPNs are probably not the best idea for you. However, a casual internet user can greatly benefit through a VPN as they will now be able to access an uncensored and unrestricted version of it while staying away from prying eyes.
Let’s go ahead and take a look at some of the better free VPNs currently available.
Zenmate
Zenmate has a very good free version. The main feature that Zenmate is known for is its browser extension. If you are someone who does not use a lot of technology and just wants to make sure that they have the basic security features on their laptop/PC, then this extension is perfect for you.
Zenmate also has full-fledged applications which you can download if you want, but you need to pay in order to get the best use out of it. Zenmate is also recommended when you are travelling, as the browser extension will allow you to access any website you want regardless of whether or not it is available in the country that you are visiting.
However, it is important to remember that a browser extension cannot give you the best protection, as your internet will still be unprotected. If you want a VPN with good protection, then choose Windscribe or ProtonVPN.
Windscribe
Windscribe offers you great security and a lot of features such as the ability to choose from a total of 10 servers, but it restricts your monthly data to 10 GB. In terms of being able to protect yourself, Windscribe is probably the best option you can get. However, like all VPNs on this list (apart from the Zenmate browser extension), you will be restricted to 1 simultaneous connection.
One advantage of having Windscribe is that if you are on a tight budget but have some extra money, you can add 10GB to your free plan and 1 new location for only $1/month. This makes Windscribe the perfect option for people who only use the internet sparingly but want to make sure they have privacy and anonymity when browsing the web.
ProtonVPN
The last VPN we are going to take a look at is ProtonVPN, and ProtonVPN is probably the best free VPN that money can’t buy. ProtonVPN does not restrict your data in any way but does only allow you to have one device connected to their servers at any one time.
ProtonVPN also has a really solid full-version which you can get incredibly cheap if you are willing to pay for multiple months upfront. Their free version gives you almost the same amount of security so you can be confident that your home devices are completely protected. However, one thing we did notice was that the speed of the connection was a little bit slower on the free version.
Conclusion
If you want the best security, then we would still suggest paying for a VPN. However, the 4 VPNs we have mentioned are all good for different purposes and you should be able to select one of them to get a taste of the security you get once you start using a VPN service.