Free VPN: what actually works
Very few "free" VPNs are honest. Here's the map: who is unlimited, who counts gigabytes, and where the catch is.
The only unlimited one
Proton VPN — a free plan with no traffic cap and no card: ~5 countries, one device, no logs. For daily driving, it's this one.
The gigabyte plans (10 GB/mo)
- Windscribe — 10 GB/mo with a confirmed email, P2P allowed;
- PrivadoVPN and hide.me — the same 10 GB when Windscribe runs out.
Not quite a VPN, but always with you
Cloudflare WARP — encrypts traffic and speeds it up through Cloudflare. It doesn't replace a VPN (you can't pick a country), but it covers public Wi-Fi.
What to avoid
- "Unlimited" VPNs from banner ads live on selling your traffic;
- VPNs asking for a card "for verification" — the charge arrives quietly;
- browser proxies and "turbo modes" don't encrypt anything, they reroute.
Bonus: a privacy stack for $0
VPN + encrypted notes + a password manager + an E2E cloud — the ready kit is in the "Privacy for $0" collection.
Snapshot 05.11.2026 · no affiliate links, official sites only