Which FREE VPN do you recommend for Android devices?

[Tiamati]

Hello guys! First of all, i know the problems related to free VPNs. But i can't buy any VPN right now, and i'm looking for something to protect the connection in public wifi.

I'm currently using WARP from cloudflare, as it is free and cloudflare is a pretty big company with some privacy based concerns. But i think it is slowing down (too much) the connection. Do you have any idea?

It doesn't actually need to be a 100% free app. Any VPN with an acceptable daily bandwith limit can work, as i never download a lot with my smatphone.

 

[cliffspab]

Sounds like Windscribe would work well for you. 10GB a month for free - more if you look for a code. I don't know if EXPAND20 still works.

 

[Tiamati]

Sounds like Windscribe would work well for you. 10GB a month for free - more if you look for a code. I don't know if EXPAND20 still works.

i dont' use windscribe - despite it is indeed a good option - cause it restricts it's free servers to USA, canada, and would slow down the connection even more than Warp. But ty!

 

[cliffspab]

i dont' use windscribe - despite it is indeed a good option - cause it restricts it's free servers to USA, canada, and would slow down the connection even more than Warp. But ty!

Free servers

United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Hong Kong
France
Germany
Netherlands
Switzerland
Norway
Romania

But if you've tried it already, I'm sure you'll find a better option elsewhere.

 

[ichito]

According to this info it's hard to recommend any free VPN

The frightening truth behind free mobile VPN apps

There’s no such thing as a secure lunch…

www.techradar.com

full report

https://research.csiro.au/ng/wp-content/uploads/sites/106/2016/08/paper-1.pdf

 

[bribon77]

You can try Proton VPN, it's free and not bad, I use it on Windows and Linux.

 

[Tiamati]

According to this info it's hard to recommend any free VPN

The frightening truth behind free mobile VPN apps

There’s no such thing as a secure lunch…

www.techradar.com

full report

https://research.csiro.au/ng/wp-content/uploads/sites/106/2016/08/paper-1.pdf

Yep, i knew that article. But there is a very very small list of vpns i would use even for free. Windscribe is one of them (i actually use their extension sometimes) because it uses the free option as an strategy of marketin. It's limited, but if you don't need all the time, is enough. Warp is another option cause Cloudflare use it to promote its DNS and it's own WARP+ (a paid feature). Proton seems to fit in the same category as Windscribe... However i'm trying to expand this tiny list.

 

[Atlas147]

Hello guys! First of all, i know the problems related to free VPNs. But i can't buy any VPN right now, and i'm looking for something to protect the connection in public wifi.

I'm currently using WARP from cloudflare, as it is free and cloudflare is a pretty big company with some privacy based concerns. But i think it is slowing down (too much) the connection. Do you have any idea?

It doesn't actually need to be a 100% free app. Any VPN with an acceptable daily bandwith limit can work, as i never download a lot with my smatphone.

Warp doesn't actually protect your traffic it only changes your DNS, your traffic is still 100% unencrypted.

Both the recommendations Windscribe and ProtonVPN are the best choices out there if you are not wiling to pay, yes they may slow down your speeds because the free servers are not near you but they are better than nothing.

The alternative is purchasing a VPN to have servers closer to you.

 

[oldschool]

Warp doesn't actually protect your traffic it only changes your DNS, your traffic is still 100% unencrypted.

True, plus it runs slow on Android. I use Windscribe but in U.S.

 

[Tiamati]

Warp doesn't actually protect your traffic it only changes your DNS, your traffic is still 100% unencrypted.

Both the recommendations Windscribe and ProtonVPN are the best choices out there if you are not wiling to pay, yes they may slow down your speeds because the free servers are not near you but they are better than nothing.

The alternative is purchasing a VPN to have servers closer to you.

I don't think so. With WARP i have the option to change only the DNS or the DNS and use warp. When i use only the DNS, my IpV4 and Ipv6 are not affected but with warp both are changed. And the description of the app claim to load pages privatlely.

Besides that:

"Secure All the Traffic…
This doesn't just apply to your web browser but to all apps running on your phone. Any unencrypted connections are encrypted automatically and by default. Warp respects end-to-end encryption and doesn’t require you to install a root certificate or give Cloudflare any way to see any encrypted Internet traffic we wouldn’t have otherwise.

Unfortunately, a lot of the Internet is still unencrypted. For that, Warp automatically adds encryption from your device to the edge of Cloudflare’s network — which isn’t perfect, but is all other VPNs do and it does address the largest threats typical Internet users fac"

"We made encryption free for all our customers and doubled the size of the encrypted web in the process, we've pushed the adoption of IPv6, we've made DNSSEC easy, and we were the first to turn HTTP/2 up at scale. "

Check it here

On Wednesday, the company is finally relaunching Warp, which Cloudflare says is better for its rocky debut—even if it was embarrassing. The VPN builds on Cloudflare's existing mobile app 1.1.1.1, which encrypts "domain name system" connections, so your internet service provider or other lurkers can't see which websites you access. But Warp goes beyond this protection to encrypt the whole journey from your device to a web server and back—even if the website itself still isn't offering HTTPS web encryption. And all of this happens quickly, without draining your battery, and without complicated setup. Seriously. Like, for real this time.

Check it here

 

[Tiamati]

True, plus it runs slow on Android. I use Windscribe but in U.S.

My tests showed that WARP is faster than windscribe in my case (almost 4x) because it connects to a closer server

 

[blackice]

Anything that’s free probably has some privacy concern/trade off. Windscribe seems to be an exception there...as far as anyone knows. I personally pay for one so we have it when we travel, so I use it as needed at other times.

 

[Tiamati]

Anything that’s free probably has some privacy concern/trade off. Windscribe seems to be an exception there...as far as anyone knows. I personally pay for one so we have it when we travel, so I use it as needed at other times.

I'm aware that there is no such thing as "free" app. You are always paying in some way. I try to stay with those apps that the "paymennt" is the self-marketing of the app. That is the case of Windscribe for example. Besides that, i stick with very well known companies that have a lot to loose if something is "discovered". Like what happened to Avast. Of course, it's impossible to have 100% sure of anything in the free market, but for the ocasional use, i don't see a lot of problems

Btw, i tested Windscribe, Proton and WARP today. Proton was by far the worst in terms of speed. Windscribe was in the mid. And WARP was the best till now. However It does cut off 20-30% of internet speed

 

[Atlas147]

I don't think so. With WARP i have the option to change only the DNS or the DNS and use warp. When i use only the DNS, my IpV4 and Ipv6 are not affected but with warp both are changed. And the description of the app claim to load pages privatlely.

Besides that:





Check it here


Check it here

Hmmm interesting points, I''ll admit that I didn't know Warp has encryption properties. I went in to the site to look around and found this

What WARP Is Not
From a technical perspective, WARP is a VPN. But it is designed for a very different audience than a traditional VPN. WARP is not designed to allow you to access geo-restricted content when you’re traveling. It will not hide your IP address from the websites you visit. If you’re looking for that kind of high-security protection then a traditional VPN or a service like Tor are likely better choices for you.

WARP, instead, is built for the average consumer. It’s built to ensure that your data is secured while it’s in transit. So the networks between you and the applications you’re using can’t spy on you. It will help protect you from people sniffing your data while you’re at a local coffee shop. It will also help ensure that your ISP isn’t hoovering up data on your browsing patterns to sell to advertisers.

While Warp does encrypt your traffic in a way, your IP address is not hidden in this process which a VPN would. If you think this is enough privacy for your use case then it would be a good free alternative to a VPN. You could try Warp plus as well I've been getting better speeds with that, I have a 10 GB per month cap with being a early adopter (I think that's where the 10gb came from), not sure if they are still offering it.

 

[ForgottenSeer 85179]

Build your own VPN to your router at home
You only need a DDNS service to always reach your home but that's no big deal as much free services exist for that.

Then your data doesn't go to any external untrustworthy VPN provider. And you can also block ads with a local home PiHole for example

 

[blackice]

Build your own VPN to your router at home
You only need a DDNS service to always reach your home but that's no big deal as much free services exist for that.

Then your data doesn't go to any external untrustworthy VPN provider. And you can also block ads with a local home PiHole for example

That does limit you to your home connections upload speed. Where I’m at we have great download speeds and terrible upload speeds, most people would be limited to 6-12Mbs, and that’s if the vpn compressing causes zero slow down. I would actually do this if we didn’t have slow upload and a data cap.

 

[Tiamati]

Hmmm interesting points, I''ll admit that I didn't know Warp has encryption properties. I went in to the site to look around and found this

I'm glad i could help

While Warp does encrypt your traffic in a way, your IP address is not hidden in this process which a VPN would. If you think this is enough privacy for your use case then it would be a good free alternative to a VPN. You could try Warp plus as well I've been getting better speeds with that, I have a 10 GB per month cap with being a early adopter (I think that's where the 10gb came from), not sure if they are still offering it.

I actually had both IpV4 and IpV6 hidden when i tested with IpLeak. Maybe they have improved it?

Build your own VPN to your router at home
You only need a DDNS service to always reach your home but that's no big deal as much free services exist for that.

Then your data doesn't go to any external untrustworthy VPN provider. And you can also block ads with a local home PiHole for example

I didn't know that, i'll try to learn more about it.

That does limit you to your home connections upload speed. Where I’m at we have great download speeds and terrible upload speeds, most people would be limited to 6-12Mbs, and that’s if the vpn compressing causes zero slow down. I would actually do this if we didn’t have slow upload and a data cap.

That is my case too. My upload speed is currently 25% of the download. So even in the best scenario, it would still be slower than WARP. With warp i'm getting around 50-80% of my download speed, and almost the same latency. It's not bad, considering Windscribe (free) was reducing it to 10-15% of the total capacity and increasing the latency a lot (because the server is in another country). And protonVPN (free) reduced even more (3-5%).

 

[Ink]

None.

There are no benefits to using a Free VPN from a third-party provider.

Privacy is not Free. You must Pay for Privacy.
Disclaimer: Privacy is not guaranteed.

 

[Sammo]

I use my Google Fi VPN.