Most free VPNs sell your data to pay the bills. Only two are trustworthy. Here is which ones — and which ones to avoid completely.
See the trustworthy ones →Running a VPN server costs money — bandwidth, hardware, maintenance. Free VPNs have to pay for this somehow. Most of them sell your browsing data to advertising networks. Some inject ads into your browsing. A few contain malware. Using a shady free VPN is worse than using no VPN at all — you are handing your data to someone you know nothing about.
The two exceptions are ProtonVPN and PrivadoVPN. Both are funded by their paid subscribers, meaning the free users are a marketing cost — not a product being sold.
What you get: unlimited data, no ads, verified no-log policy, Stealth mode for shutdowns, APK backup on protonvpn.com.
What you don't get: servers in Africa — free plan uses US, Japan, Romania, Poland and Netherlands. This means slightly higher latency for African users. The paid plan adds Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda and Senegal servers.
What you get: 10GB/month, unlimited devices, no ads, no data selling.
What you don't get: unlimited data. 10GB runs out in about 3-4 days of normal use. Once it runs out, you get a very slow connection until the next month.
Any VPN not on this list that claims to be free should be treated with extreme suspicion. Specific ones to avoid: Hola VPN (sells your bandwidth to others), Hotspot Shield free (logs your data), most "turbo VPN" or "fast VPN" apps on the Play Store. If you cannot find out who runs it and how they make money — do not use it.