The best free VPN services of 2015 for UK users

Disguising your online identity and providing additional security is becoming increasingly popular. We put a selection of free VPN services through their paces to find the best.

A VPN is a Virtual Private Network. At one time VPNs were just for business users but, with the proliferation online user surveillence, both commercial and governemnt, the swelling numbers oof VPN service providers are now of benefit for everyone. See also: How to use a VPN to surf the web anonymously, a step-by-step guide.

You're probably reading this article because you want to browse the internet anonymously or because you want to access websites and services that are not available in your country, such as US Netflix, BBC iPlayer or another site where content is restricted to geographical areas.

Companies offering this type of service provide software that allows you to connect to one of their servers. This disguises your identity and might also make you appear to be in another country – you can usually choose which country in which you want appear.

Additionally most VPN service providers will provide the necessary login settings to let you make use of the VPN client built into most modern operating systems, both desktop and mobile platforms.

Because BBC iPlayer is only available to people geographically located within the UK, using a VPN services is the only way of accessing it while you’re abroad. To provide the necessary security, all VPN services will provide encryption which will give you additional peace of mind, such as while you’re engaged in financial transactions. To learn more about the benefits on offer, see Why you need a VPN.

Here we’ve actually tested a selection of free service providers to see how they perform and to find out if any stand out from the rest. However, before you jump straight to the reviews, bear in mind that free VPN services are - in general - not well suited to streaming video. They typically offer slower speeds and, crucially, limited bandwidth per month. That means you'll be able to watch one or two half-hour TV shows via a service such as Tunnel Bear before getting a message telling you you've used up your allowance for the month. Not ideal.

Another restriction, even with 'unlimited' services such as CyberGhost, is that you'll have access to fewer servers. If those servers are full, then you'll have to wait to connect.

Beware of free VPN services whose business model is to turn you into the product being sold. Advertisements may be inserted into the software application windows, or worse added in place of other adverts in every regular webpage you visit. With the help of other tracking techniques already in place with many of today's websites, such as tracking cookies, web beacons like invisible pixels and JavaScript tricks, you have become a valuable commodity that is now being sold through the free VPN service provider.

If you do want to watch lots of video or download vast quantities of data using a VPN, then you need to be prepared to pay for the service. By doing so, you'll receive faster speeds, truly unlimited downloads and a better level of customer support. Your privacy is also better assured. If you’re just starting out with VPN, you could try a free service first. Only then will you be in a position to decide whether the additional features you get with a paid-for subscription are worth the cost.

How we test VPN software

We used www.speedtest.net to measure the speed of each of the services and report the result. Our reported speeds are, admittedly, just snapshots and, while we would probably have achieved different results at different times of the day, we don’t believe that a result averaged over the day would have provided a particularly useful comparison.

After all, the speed you could achieve will also depend on which server you choose and whether you’re connecting to a foreign server from within the UK or vice versa.

Note that the reported speeds are measured between the speed check website and the VPN service provider’s server so the speed you’ll actually get is the lower of this reported speed and your normal speed. For example, with one of the services we achieved a reported speed of 12 Mb/s. However, if your own broadband speed maxes out at 7 Mb/s, that’s what you would likely experience via the VPN. Note that we’re only reporting download speeds because upload speeds were pretty constant at around 0.35 Mb/s for all the services, throttled by the speed of the internet cafe in which these tests were run.

The latency of the connection – that is the delay before data starts appearing once you’ve requested it– will also be affected. For web browsing this will only be a minor issue and for large downloads its largely irrelevant. However, the increased latency caused by using a VPN service may have an effect on Skype-type video applications and online gaming so, in these instances, VPNs aren’t always recommended. Because of the inevitability of this, we are not showing latency measurements.

There are several other aspects that differ from one VPN service to another and we considered these too. Perhaps the most important is whether you’re allowed to choose the country in which you’ll appear to be located and, if so, which countries are available.

Second, and this is particularly pertinent in the case of free services, we looked at what limitations are imposed. This may be on the amount of data you can use in a month or the maximum bandwidth. There might also be limits on how long you can remain connected and whether you have to endure advertising.

Best free VPN services: HotSpot Shield

HotSpot Shield is one of the most popular free VPN services but the restrictions, compared to its subscription service, are quite severe. First, the free version is funded by advertising and although this isn’t uncommon, many users find that the display of advertisements in a web browser to be quite obtrusive.

Second and most importantly, although the company also has servers in the UK, Australia and Japan, as a free user you’re assigned to one of their US-based servers at random. This means that you can’t use it to access UK-only information while you’re abroad. Worse still, if you try to use it to access popular sites such as Hulu that are available only in the US, many such sites are blocked in the free service.

Note that installing HotSpot Shield will also change your default search engine, as well as change the adverts you see to those now sent by your VPN sponsor.

Hotspot Shield is classified as a form of malware by some security advisories, as it has capabilities to insert itself deep within your PC's operating system and change important system default settings. For a guide on how to remove Hotspot Shield, see for example Malware Tips page.

You’ll be pleased to hear that there is no limit on data usage and the measured download speed was 6.5Mb/s.

Best free VPN services: PrivateTunnel

In contrast to most of the other VPN service providers that offer a free service and one or more paid-for alternatives, PrivateTunnel has a different offering. This attracts no monthly fee although you are limited to just 100 MB of data when you first try it.

When you bear in mind that this would be considered a very small monthly allowance for a smartphone, you get an idea of how restrictive it will be, but this is more a limited demo to give a flavour of the service.

After this trial you simply pay for the amount of data you need. There are prices for 50 GB, 100 GB and 500 GB. Because charging is based purely on data use, there is no limit on the number of devices you can use as there is with some free services. And importantly, there's no time limit within which to use the data.

Currently you can choose a server from USA, Canada, UK, Netherland or Switzerland. While this is limited compared to some other VNP services, in practice it’ll be adequate for most British readers, whatever your reason for going the VPN route. We measured a download throughput of around 10 Mb/s.

Best free VPN services: CyberGhost

The free CyberGhost service is subsidised by the Premium customers, according to CyberGhost. The company has servers in the UK and the USA plus many European countries stretching east to as far as Russia and Ukraine.

The free service offers access to 14 countries, while the Premium and Premium Plus ones allow users to choose from a range of 24 countries. CyberGhost assures us that it doesn't limit bandwidth for free users.

There are some ways in which you’re disadvantaged with the free product. When you are connected, you’ll be logged out after three hours of browsing, for instance, although you can always try to login again immediately.

Another restriction is that you can't use the free iPad app with a free account. In order to use CyberGhost on an iOS device, for example to watch iPlayer from outside the UK, you'll need to have a premium account.

Additionally the servers that allow P2P use are not available to free users.

Speed wasn't a problem during our testing, with SpeedTest reporting 4 Mb/s. That's by no means the fastest, but it's enough for streaming Netflix in SuperHD quality.

Best free VPN services: Tunnel Bear

The name of Tunnel Bear relates to the common analogy of a VPN as being like a tunnel through the internet from your PC to a remote network or server. The relevance of the bear, and of the log cabin theme of the client software, are more of a mystery. Tunnel Bear operates servers in US, UK, Canada, Germany, France and Japan, plus there’s also one in Australia but this is only for paid customers.

The difference between the free and the subscription services are mostly concerned with your data allocation. The free service gives you 500 MB per month although you can request an increase to 1 GB via Twitter. Apparently, bear-related puns increase your chances of success. Beyond this you can pay either monthly or annually for unlimited data. This option also allows you to use the service on additional hand-held devices too. The download speed was reported as a respectable 12 Mb/s.

Best free VPN services: Spotflux Lite

        Although Spotflux offers a VPN client that runs on your PC like all the other services reviewed here, Spotflux Lite is also available as an add-on for Google Chrome. This means that it’ll operate when you’re browsing, but not in other internet-related applications including Skype for which the VPN approach isn’t recommended. As a result you don’t have to turn your VPN connection on and off as you switch between applications.

There's also iOS version of Spotflux, just as there is with CyberGhost, that isn't accessible to users of this Lite version. When you first install Spotflux Lite, you get a three-day trial of the Premium service which additionally offers phishing protection and an ad-blocker.

Today, the company is offering servers only in the USA, although there is talk of other countries being made available later. So, if security is your reason for considering a VPN then Spotflux Lite will do the trick. If you want to watch UK catch-up TV while you’re on holiday abroad, it won’t meet your needs. The measured download speed was 6.5 Mb/s, which is average in our limited test, but still fast enough for most purposes.

In attempting to pick the best service, it soon became clear that all had their drawbacks. Although impressive in other respects, you’re soon going to use up the free data allowance with either Private Tunnel or Tunnel Bear at which point you’ll be paying for the service, or uninstalling it.

Of the genuinely free services, Spotflux Lite offers only servers in the US, and its speed wasn't the best.

Hotspot Shield tries to force you into buying a subscription service and by offering only a US-based server (and also by inundating you with advertising). Its aggressive use of advertising and changing your system software has led some security advisors to classify the program as malware.

CyberGhost is our pick of the bunch. It can be slow to connect and the connection lasts only three hours before you have to manually re-connect. If you don’t need a high-speed connection, though, in most other respects it’s a good free VPN which you can even use for watching video.

In fact, if watching video is your main concern, then check out our guide to watching US Netflix by using the Hola Unblocker browser add-on.