Should one Avoid free VPN Services?

Many people feel that it is unnecessary to pay for something that can be found for free. We fully and completely support this opinion in general, but when it comes to sensitive information and security, we will question whether this is the right place to save.

Especially when a premium solution per month is at the same cost level as a cup of coffee. We will therefore take a closer look at what you can really expect from a free service and in which cases we recommend that you really avoid a free VPN service .

Having said that, there are a large number of areas of use where a free service will often be sufficient, so we should not just ban our recommendation for free VPN services just yet.

The main differences between free and premium VPN options

In this article, we will not compare different VPN services, but rather look at the big main differences between free and premium variants of VPN services. On this basis, we will compare the services that are free to use and do not require a subscription against paid VPN solutions as a general group.

It is entirely possible that there are deviations in our comparisons when it comes to individual players, but as two groups of VPN services, it is these differences that we believe are certainly the most relevant.

Speed

Speed ​​is often one of the decisive reasons why many choose to pay for a VPN service. For the vast majority of people, speed is also a decisive condition for whether they consider a VPN functional or not. There are very few things that are more annoying than a slow and unstable VPN solution when surfing the web or streaming movies and series.

As a starting point, all use of a VPN service will cause you to lose some speed. This is because of the way a VPN is structured by first sending the data to an external server before it goes online. This is often the biggest difference between free and paid VPN solutions. The fastest premium options such as ExpressVPN, NordVPN and SurfShark have marginal delays and you therefore do not experience any particular degree of delay.

Now it would be wrong to say that all free VPN services are slow, but basically we experience a greater delay on free servers than with the premium players. Some free variants such as Tunnelbear, Windscribe, ProtonVPN and Hotspot Shield deliver relatively good speed, but have a number of other shortcomings which mean that they may not be relevant for many users of VPN services.

The starting point for which this large difference in speed often occurs is capacity. It is expensive to run an extensive network of servers and when you have no income from your users it will also be far more difficult to invest in new equipment. Among other things, we have seen several examples of free networks that cannot offer more than 10 servers in a popular country such as the USA, while NordVPN has a network of over 5,000 servers globally.

It is thanks to the income from their paying members that players like NordVPN and ExpressVPN can constantly offer new modern servers with high speed. This also ensures that capacity is maintained and users get a robust speed without downtime.

Primarily, it is precisely speed that we consider to be the biggest reason for staying away from free VPN services. It can quickly become very burdensome and frustrating if you constantly experience that the connection drops out or that it becomes choppy when you try to load films and series. Pretty much everything we do online is affected if we have a slow connection and especially gaming, streaming and uploads can quickly become very time-consuming.

Beyond sheer speed, the ability to quickly change servers is also something we consider important for a good VPN. Situations may arise where you want to change servers quickly, but with many of the free services it often takes a while. Many also find that they end up in a queue if they try to change servers, which increases the waiting time even further.

Unstable connection is also a problem and many find that free VPN services can sometimes “jump out” since very few free variants have comprehensive security measures such as a Kill Switch , you will then risk being “visible” on the network until you can connect a VPN again.

Worse security and uncertain anonymity

As we specified in the introduction earlier, this does not apply to all free players, but it does apply to the vast majority. There is still great variation among the free services and some free variants also have a premium upgrade and therefore work perfectly for their intended use.

When it comes to free VPN services, it is hard to get away from the fact that those who offer both free and paid versions have the best service for free. These have a stable income from their paying members and can therefore lay a more stable foundation for their overall service. Some players that may be relevant to look at if you want to try a free version before you possibly buy are GooseVPN, Windscribe and Hotspot Shield.

When we compare free and paid VPN services, it is anonymity and security in particular that really separate the two groups from each other. The paid services often come with AES-256 bit encryption and a wide range of security functions, while the free ones often offer more basic security on a less stable platform.

An important aid that many premium players offer is a Kill Switch which ensures that your connection is cut if the connection becomes unstable, in this way you avoid being “visible” on the net until a connection is re-established. Very few free VPN services have this function and, combined with far more unstable servers, you will therefore risk being “made visible” constantly.

Perhaps most serious are the accusations that many free VPN services sell user data on to third parties. This is completely at odds with the purpose behind a VPN and naturally a disaster for the actors to whom this is revealed. Free VPN services also need an income and this often comes in the form of sharing or reselling information.

You will therefore in many cases be able to see that the companies “reserve the right to share or sell information about their users on to third parties.” Should you find this in small print, we recommend that you find another alternative as soon as possible. This is often stated in the terms of use for the service and you should therefore take a look there before you consider connecting to the internet with a free VPN service.

Forget Netflix on free VPN services

The reason why many Norwegians get a VPN is because they want access to American streaming services such as Netflix, HBO Max and Amazon Prime. Many players like to advertise which streaming services they work against, but the free players like to just say that they work against everyone. However, our experience shows the exact opposite and you can in most cases just forget about accessing Netflix and similar services through a free VPN.

Netflix works continuously to uncover VPN solutions that give unauthorized access to its services from other countries and they block servers linked to the VPN solutions they locate. This means that you have to constantly upgrade servers, change locations and try to stay one step ahead of Netflix at all times.

The free VPN services simply do not do this, as this is both time-consuming and expensive.

From Netflix’s side, it is basically about copyright and that they only have rights to show a selection of films in the country where they have bought the rights. This means that when others bypass these restrictions from another country, Netflix shows them content they are not actually allowed to show.

Free VPN services tend to have only a few servers, which makes it difficult for Netflix to locate these and block them. Large players such as ExpressVPN and NordVPN, on the other hand, have several thousand servers and can easily move users to a functional server if they experience that one or more servers are blocked. You will therefore probably have to bite the bullet and get a premium VPN in the vast majority of cases if the purpose is to enjoy hours of American content from Netflix.

There are often limitations with the free services

Due to limited capacity, there are many free VPN services that impose restrictions on how much data a user can run through the VPN solution per day. This does not mean that they are necessarily useless as a VPN, but the restrictions that come with having a limited quota can often be an obstacle for many who actively use a VPN.

We’ve found several examples of excellent free VPN services including Surfeasy, ProtonVPN, Windscribe, Tunnelbear and Hotspot Shield. What these have in common is that they offer relatively good security and high speed, despite the fact that they are completely free to use. An important thing to note, however, is that you will experience limitations in the data you are allowed to use these platforms.

The vast majority of free operators have a limit on the amount of data per day, but some also have limits per month. For those of you who are looking for a VPN for streaming, gaming or general security, it will therefore be very limiting to use a free VPN with such quota systems. The vast majority will quickly run out of data and thus again be left without the desired security they initially seek in a VPN.

Many of these players have set very low limits on how much data you can use and this is on purpose. They will let you test the platform but force you to the paid variant as the amount of data on free is nowhere near sufficient. Many will therefore offer you to buy a larger quota or “unlock” the service again by entering into a subscription.

Since there are several different players that offer free variants with an included amount of data, you can of course create an extensive network of free subscriptions and only jump between the different players when you use up the data amount with one. We would argue that this would be unnecessarily complicated, especially considering that many of the most popular services do not cost more than a cup of coffee.

A final tip for those of you who have antivirus from work or the bank is that more and more antivirus companies also offer VPN services as part of their total security solution. Companies such as McAfee, Norton and Symantec all have VPN solutions in their apps that you can easily activate on both PC and phone.

Recommended VPN services

The range of VPN services has exploded in recent years and it can be difficult to find the best player. Many work almost the same and there is little that separates them from each other in terms of both price and quality.

But still, there are some players who are clearly stronger than others, and we have therefore collected our three favorites below. These all offer high speed, strong security and, not least, a pleasant price for their services. This means that you can safely surf the web without fear of privacy or expensive subscriptions.

ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN has long been the dominant player on the VPN market and for many it has been a definite favourite. The company can offer more than 3,000 servers in 94 different countries, which means that you will find a server with capacity and high speed wherever you are. The high quality of ExpressVPN’s server park means that you only experience marginal delays when surfing the web.

NordVPN

Another popular VPN service is NordVPN. The company certainly has everything in place to defend its popularity and offers a massive network with as many as 5,000 servers in 59 different countries. We have nothing to point out when it comes to the speed of the servers, but if we wanted to change servers along the way, it took somewhat longer to connect than what we experienced with e.g. ExpressVPN.

Surfshark

The last player on our list is SurfShark. The company is somewhat smaller than the others we have mentioned, but with 1,000 servers in 50 countries there is more than enough capacity to cover the needs of the vast majority. The company has experienced enormous growth and has even stated that they are actively working to expand their network of available servers.

Affordable price for an extra layer of security

Before you hatch a master plan on how to jump between many different players in order to never have to pay a single penny to a VPN company, we must point out that the price is affordable for the vast majority of people. If you choose to go for the more expensive companies such as NordVPN and ExpressVPN, you will have to fork out between $3-$5 per month. The prices do vary somewhat based on how long the commitment period you choose, but for the price of a bad cup of coffee, the vast majority can safely go for a premium option.

Another good thing worth noting is that the vast majority of serious players offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, which means that you can strictly try a platform for 30 days and then get your money back if you are not satisfied.