Staying private and secure on the internet has become important than ever before. With the increasing online threats and government regulations on websites, access to an unrestricted, safe and better internet is a VPN away. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) changes your IP address and gives you anonymity on the internet, secures your connection and gives access to geo-restricted websites. With free VPN apps becoming so popular these days, it’s difficult to find the best among the pile. That’s why we have curated the list of the best VPN services for you. It should be noted that a good VPN service cost as little as $3.5/month so if you do have the budget, we strongly recommend you to get a premium VPN as the free VPNs come with their own risks and limitations.
Now coming to list, the apps are ranked on the basis of the free bandwidth they provide, the speed of the server, availability on different platforms, etc. We did a fair test to evaluate all these before curating the list and I should remind you again that these may not be the best VPNs but the best free ones. If you find this list old or perhaps you would like to notify us about a new VPN please do leave a comment.
Easily access blocked content and websites with our FREE web proxy. Hide your real IP address and encrypt your internet connection to protect your privacy. How to hide your IP address Download the software. First, download the free version of Hotspot Shield. Allow Hotspot Shield to change your settings. Once the software is installed. Activate Hotspot Shield when you want to hide your IP. Click “Download” of suitable version for Hide My IP free version and “Buy now” for the premium version; Once the setup file is downloaded run the file and follow the installer instructions; On its completion, a short cut will be created on the desktop click on it; Now you have to log in with your email and password to enjoy the best services. Oct 31, 2014 Easy-Hide-IP is an advanced IP changer to bypass virtually any form of censorship or internet traffic blocking imposed on you by your ISP by selecting any IP. Hide your IP address for free with this easy-to-use Chrome extension. Surf anonymously, prevent websites from tracking you, or change your IP country location. Choose from over 80 IP locations.
The answer to the question is explained well by CyberGhost in the video below or if you are really keen to know more, this Wikipedia page may help.
There are several reasons to start using a virtual private network aka VPN from today. Following are some of the reasons:
I can go on and on but you got the idea anyway. A VPN service protects your privacy, gives access to geo-restricted content and it saves you money.
Windscribe is the best free VPN service that I can recommend you now. They are available on all platforms you & I know of, be it Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux, Chrome, Kodi, etc. They are relatively new in this segment and maybe be that’s why they offer a generous 10Gb monthly bandwidth, 8 free locations and no ads. If that isn’t enough it comes with a firewall and an adblocker as well. Tweeting about their service will earn you 5 extra GB and a lavish 1GB for every friend you refer.
Windsribe doesn’t log your traffic unlike some free VPN providers do so your privacy is guaranteed. You’ll absolutely love their service and the well-designed apps.
With over 200 million downloads, Hotspot Shield is top rated free VPN software. It is available as both free(ad supported) and paid version. Moreover, hotspot shield is available for various platforms including ios, android, windows and mac. Some of the top features of using Hotspot shield VPN include unblocking websites, anonymous surfing, private & secure browsing, wifi security, malware protection and data compression for iPhone and Android.
Hotspot Shield also comes with a Kill Switch, an essential feature for every secure VPN. A Kill Switch simply blocks any traffic when your VPN connection drops thereby preventing your real IP from getting exposed.
This is another great VPN service that offers unlimited data and server selection. Like other good VPNs this one also comes with a kill switch in addition to an always on VPN. The only downside to ProtonVPN is that they reduce the speed for their free users but I must admit that it is still not bad.
ProtonVPN also has support for all major platforms including mac and windows. ProtonVPN has been endorsed by Mozilla, PCMag and several others as the best free VPN service. They are based on Switzerland which has some of the world’s strict privacy laws.
TunnelBear is a popular name in the recent years. The very interesting thing about TunnerBear is that you can choose from over 22 countries with no restriction or speed reduction. They have Mac, Windows, iOS and Android apps in addition to the browser extensions. The only downside to TunnerBear is the bandwidth. You are limited to just 500Mb/month. Tweeting about their service will earn you an extra Gigabyte.
CyberGhost VPN is a well known VPN service. They offer both free and paid VPN service however they have limited their free service to Chrome and Firefox extensions in the last years. Thus you will be only be able to tunnel your browser traffic through VPN and not any other apps.
The Chrome extension is quite responsive from my experience. It connects quickly, allows you to choose from 4 countries and gives you unlimited data. What more do you need!
Betternet has been our top recommended free VPN service but over the years it has lost it’s essense. It’s 2019 and they still doesn’t have a good website explaining their security or log policy. It changes your IP address and if that’s what you are looking for I would say go for it. But if security is your biggest consideration I would ask you to back off from Betternet until we have a better picture of this company.
The ones below have been replaced with new and better VPN services. Some of these may still work while others don’t. OpenVPN doesn’t provide their service for free anymore. SumRando still doesn’t have a mac or ios application.
It should be noted that sometimes, even after using a VPN service certain websites will continue to show your real location. This can happen due to a variety of reasons the most common being the usage of GeoLocation API. Check out this article by TechRadar to know why a VPN alone can’t make you disappear.
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Which one of these have you tried and what do you think is the best? Leave your valuable reviews in the comments and help other users find the best.
We are all individuals worthy of love, but we are also numbers. Consider: When you were born, you were given a name and a social security number. When you got a car, you earned a driver's license number. And when you get online, you receive an IP address. Most of us try to keep these numbers private to protect our privacy, but your IP address is distressingly public, by default. There are many ways to hide or change this number, such as using a VPN, and it's much easier to do than you might think.
Simply put, an IP address is the identifier that allows information to be sent between devices on a network. Like your home address, it contains location information and makes devices accessible for communication.
These aren't random addresses; they're mathematically produced and allocated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), a division of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). These are the same people responsible for sorting out domain names and other factors critical to internet communication.
The allocation of these addresses isn't random either. IANA doesn't directly provide you with an IP address. Instead, they allocate blocks of numbers to different regions. For example, the United States has a reported 1,541,605,760 addresses allocated to it, which is about 36 percent of all the IP addresses available (at least, under IPv4, as opposed to IPv6, but that's a story for another time). Meanwhile, the Vatican has a mere 17,920 addresses. This is probably more than you will ever need to know about IP addresses, but you can now impress your friends with these handy factoids about Papal networks.
Because there's a finite number of IP addresses (4,294,967,296, under IPv4) and only so many available by location, mere mortals like you and me generally don't have to worry about our IP addresses. Our ISPs assign them to us (and sometimes revoke and recycle them), our routers use them, and we continue happily along—until we need to change something.
Although very few of us are actually in charge of our own IP addresses, there are some ways to force a change. Search the internet and you find all sorts of arcane command-line magic words that will, allegedly, get you a new address. There are even some websites that can do the same. You can also disconnect your modem for a period of time, and see if your ISP assigns you a new address when you come back online. Or you can call your ISP directly and ask for a new address, but that might lead to some tedious questions.
Instead of changing your IP, it's probably easier to simply hide it.
When you point your browser to a website, a request leaves your computer, heads off to the server where the website lives, and returns with the information you've requested. Along the way, location and identifying information is exchanged and, sometimes, intercepted by attackers, snoopers, advertisers, and nosey government agencies.
With a virtual private network, or VPN, another layer is added to the equation. Instead of contacting a website's servers directly, the VPN creates an encrypted tunnel between you and the VPN service's server, which in turn connects to the public internet and retrieves the information you requested as normal. This passes back through the tunnel to your computer, ensuring that no one can intercept your web traffic, and that an observer will see the IP address of the VPN and not yours.
The best VPN services go even further, providing bonuses like ad blocking, malware protection, and extra protection for other devices. Some VPNs, such as TorGuard, even offer static IP addresses for sale. Unlike the address assigned by your ISP or acquired by your VPN connection, this is a permanent address, but usually restricted to certain countries.
Using VPNs does add an extra step to your web surfing and that generally means a slower experience. But my extensive hands-on testing has shown that the top-tier VPN providers will slow you only marginally. If you have good enough connection, you might not even notice the difference. Indeed, the fastest VPN I've tested actually improved upload and download speeds.
And let's not forget your mobile devices! They have IP addresses, too. And you're probably using them in a wider variety of locations than your home computer, including on shifty public Wi-Fi hotspots. While using a VPN on a mobile device can be a little annoying, it's good to at least use one when connecting to a network you don't completely trust. All the major VPN companies have VPN apps for Android and for iPhone, too.
In general, VPN apps are identical regardless of the platform. There are a few differences with iPhone VPN apps, however. Apple makes it slightly more difficult to use certain VPN protocols on iOS devices. Thankfully, developers are meeting that challenge and providing the best and most secure options for everyone.
While most of the VPN services I've reviewed have a subscription fee, some do not. There are many
There are many reasons to hide yourself online. IP addresses can be used to discern your physical location, and can sometimes do so with remarkable accuracy. These addresses also act like personal identifiers, a little like a phone number, letting advertisers and adversaries track you online. They can also be used to launch targeted attacks against you.
You may even be hiding from a watchful or oppressive government. Journalists are especially likely to hide their IP addresses when they're reporting in dangerous areas or on sensitive subjects. Of course, I'm not encouraging anyone to break local laws, but I do want people to know how to keep themselves safe, should the need arise.
Hiding your IP address via VPN also makes it possible to watch region-locked content. The BBC, for example, provides free streaming if you live in the UK. If you want to watch from another country, just connect to a VPN server in London and your traffic will appear to be British. The same is true for streaming services like Netflix, which have different content offerings depending on your country. Because of this, Netflix blocks VPNs and VPNS try to keep working to keep Netflix accessible.
Encrypting your traffic with a VPN will also make it harder for your ISP to block certain kinds of traffic. BitTorrent users, for example, may want to use a VPN to prevent their downloads from being blocked. Most VPN services allow BitTorrent traffic, and file-sharing in general, but it's not universal. Make sure you're not breaking the VPN's terms of service when you start leeching seeds.
Even with a VPN, your data moves in a more-or-less straight line between your computer and the stuff on the Internet. But when you make your path more circuitous, you not only hide your IP address but make yourself much harder to find, too.
Tor, which is short for The Onion Router, uses a series of computers distributed across the globe to hide your IP address and make your digital trail harder to follow. Instead of a single request from point A (your home) to point B (the website's server) and back again, your computer sends out layered requests, each one encrypted individually. You're then relayed from Tor node to Tor node (A to C to R to Z and finally to B) before finally exiting the network and reaching your destination.
Even if someone intercepted your traffic between nodes, the layers of encryption ensure they could only discern the previous and next jumps, and still wouldn't know where the chain began or where it ended. The theory is that the attacker would have to map your entire path through the Tor network in order to figure out who you are. Of course, not everything works perfectly in the real world, but Tor is very transparent about its limitations and actively works to improve the network.
Tor is most often associated with secret and seedy Dark Web websites, like Facebook. But it's also one of the best anonymization tools out there, and it's used every day by people concerned about security and others seeking to avoid the restrictions of oppressive government censorship. It's also free.
If Tor sounds like the way to go, but you don't want to muck around with relays and onion requests, just download the Tor Browser. This is a special customized version of Firefox that makes getting on Tor a snap. But although using a VPN may impact your browsing speeds, using Tor will definitely slow down your web surfing speeds.
If the Tor Browser isn't quite your cup of tea, NordVPN also offers Tor over VPN, for extra protection. With these kind of specialized features, it's easy to see why it's an Editors' Choice winner.
There are many reasons you might want to hide your IP address. Fortunately there are also many techniques, apps, and services that can help you do it. While some of them may seem arcane and scary, they're quickly becoming easier to use and more powerful, as you'll see if you explore the links in this story.