Most likely, you first came to know of VPN while browsing torrent downloading websites, which tells you to use a VPN. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It is a technology to create a private network and use it to send and receive data across the public internet, thereby protect the users’ information from getting accessed.
In the era of privacy, VPNs are the need of the hour to keep yourself anonymous on the internet. It has a lot of legal and, not so legal applications. Whichever purposes you want to use it for, depends on you. Here are a few notable use cases of a VPN:
- Browse without getting tracked: The internet is full of website trackers. Advertisers want to create a digital profile of every internet user to push them to relevant ads. Showing ads isn’t the main problem; the data selling without user-consent is. Most of the time, you won’t even know how your personal information will be used across the globe. It is said that ad companies know more information about your interests than you know consciously. Using a VPN can stop all of that from scratch.
- Hide your Real IP Address: Whenever you browse online, your real IP address is visible to the websites you visit. Anyone monitoring those sites can also get your IP address and trace it back to you. A VPN changes your IP Address, so you stay anonymous to the internet.
- Mask your Real Location: A VPN service can assign you a different IP address from any country. So, you can easily mask your real location. Someone browsing from India can pretend to be a USA user or UK user or any other country user.
- Access Blocked Websites: Often, some websites are geo-targeted across a region and blocked from users outside that country or region. You can bypass regional restrictions using a VPN. Also, sometimes your Govt. can prevent you from visiting a particular website. VPN bypasses that too. A lot of adult sites are being browsed using VPN by people who get blocked out.
- Access Geo-Restricted Content on Netflix or other websites: You’ll find services like Netflix have different catalogs for different countries. It varies due to distribution rights and permissions. You can bypass that and access the entire library with a VPN even if your state doesn’t get all the titles.
An integral part of a VPN software like Surfshark is NOT to log your browsing data. You see, VPN is designed to keep your browsing data private from the internet, but it can still access that data just because the user is using their tunnels to browse the web. An ideal VPN Company should promote user-privacy and vow to protect the interest of the user by not keeping any browsing logs.
Still, many VPN service providers do not respect this and keep browsing logs with themselves, and even hands them over to federal agents if they demand so. This defeats the entire purpose of using a VPN and staying private. So, you should double-check the privacy policy of each VPN service provider that you intend to use, and only select those with a clear NO-BROWSING-LOGS policy.
In today’s post, we look at the best VPN services that you can use for FREE on your desktop. We selected the ones which do not log your browsing history. But still, privacy policies can get updated from time to time. So, we recommend you should check out each of them before finalizing which one to use.
So, let’s get started. Here’s an overview:
Windscribe
Windscribe is a fast and secure VPN that gives you 10 GB of data every month. You can even get an additional of 5 GB data if you tweet about them. It offers 256 bit AES encryption and is based on the standard OpenVPN tunneling protocol. There are no leaks with DNS leak protection and is safe to use. It even can bypass Netflix restrictions, which is a great deal if you want to watch some foreign content. There’s a kill switch, stealth mode, and adblocker as well. Windscribe doesn’t log user data, so you’re safe even if the government asks about your data. Apart from the 10 GB per month after you enter your email, you can even get an additional 5 GB if you tweet about them!
TunnelBear
TunnelBear is a top-rated VPN service. It is one of the most reliable VPN providers out there. There are both paid and free versions of the app. The free version provides you with 500 MB of data a month of bandwidth. TunnelBear uses the industry-standard OpenVPN protocol, as well as 256-bit AES encryption. The service doesn’t store logs, which is excellent for privacy-conscious users. Apart from Windows, the facility also has apps for Mac, Android, and iOS. They also have a Google Chrome extension if you’re into that as well. It also has a kill switch for when you accidentally get disconnected from your wifi or move between access points.
ProtonVPN
ProtonVPN is another great VPN service that provides unlimited data bandwidth, even for free users. The only downsides are it’s comparatively slower than the paid ones, and that you only get the US, Japan and the Netherland servers with the free version. The VPN service is based not only on OpenVPN but recommends using IKEv2/IPsec for more security. They also have a clear no-logging policy, which makes it more secure as well. There’s even a built-in ad blocker for all those private browsing sessions.
Hotspot Shield
Hotspot Shield is among the fastest VPN providers out there. It even has support for P2P networking. It gives you 500 MB bandwidth a day for the free version. However, there’s just support for the US server. Just like other VPN services on our list, Hotspot Shield also features a kill switch in case your connection gets disrupted for any reason. The service doesn’t keep logs but collects data such as email address, mobile ID, hardware model, operating system version, etc. (Hotspot Shield Privacy Policy) Apart from this if you want to use a VPN for torrenting, Hotspot Shield is perhaps the best choice for you, thanks to its high speed
Avira Phantom
Avira Phantom is a remarkable option for those who have multiple devices and want to use the same account for P2P and BitTorrent usage. One thing to note is that the Windows client uses the OpenVPN protocol, whereas the macOS client uses the IPSec protocol. Avira has confirmed that it doesn’t keep any logs, or your real IP address or any personal information like downloaded file data or website visit data. The app gives you access to 20 servers worldwide for free but doesn’t perform that great when it comes to speed. The app is a solid one for casual torrenting and steaming foreign media.
Hide.me
Hide.me is the service you want to use if you want speed, security, and transparency all in one. The app uses multiple protocols such as IKEv2, PPTP, L2TP, IPsec, OpenVPN, and more. They have a kill switch and AES-256 encryption as well. The app offers 10 GB of bandwidth per month for the free version. Unfortunately, you cannot bypass Netflix’s geo-block with hide.me. There’s also a feature called Stealth Guard, which doesn’t allow apps to run at all unless you’re connected to the VPN. There’s another feature called split tunneling that allows users to choose which apps route their traffic through the VPN and which are directed through your ISP’s servers.
SurfEasy
SurfEasy lets you connect five devices and provides 500 MB of bandwidth a month, but you can get more by tweeting about them. The service runs on OpenVPN and provides AES-256 encryption by default. There’s no logging of any kind of data, except that you need to sign up with your email for using the VPN service. The client has a nice and intuitive UI with super-simple controls, which will get you secured in no time.
Last Words:
So that’s all about Free No-Log VPN services for Windows and macOS. Let me know which one you liked the most. Also, if you have any further queries, do comment below. I will try my best to help you out.
Well, before ending the post, I should remind you, please refrain from illegal activities using a VPN. By unlawful activities, I don’t mean downloading a movie using torrent or visiting a blocked website. By unlawful activities, I suggest doing fraud or cheating with others, or hosting torrent websites yourself, trying to hack websites or similar things which might cause immediate damage and bring legal attraction.
Thank You for reading. I will be back soon with another exciting update. Keep visiting HiTricks.
Karthik is a BCA student who loves to write about science and technology. He also loves reading encyclopaedia when he's not writing.
