A VPN is every expat's best friend. It helps you get a taste of the life back home by letting you unblock sites that are only available in your home country. What's more, a VPN encrypts your traffic to protect your data on unsecured WiFi.
Too bad VPNs aren't exactly cheap. And with all the expenses you have to deal with as an expat, can you really afford another monthly subscription? Wouldn't it be much easier to just use a free VPN since they're available online?
We can see how that might seem like a good idea (emphasis on "seem"). To give you all the info you need to make a decision, we'll discuss the pros and cons of free VPNs in this quick article. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
Using Free VPNs - The Pros
There's just one pro, actually - the fact that they're free. You don't have to pay for them, no need to check your bank account or PayPal balance before you sign up - you just create an account, download the VPN app, and start using the service.
Unfortunately, that's about it. Sure, you get the same perks (hide your IP and encrypt your traffic) - but only to a certain extent. You'll see hat we mean in the next section.
Using Free VPNs - The Cons
As good as free VPNs sound, they have problems - and tons of them (most of them very serious):
They're Slow
Free VPNs are almost always slower than paid VPNs. At least that's what our many speed tests show. Whenever we use free VPNs and paid VPNs, we always notice bigger slowdowns with the free services. On average, we experience a 30-40% slowdown with paid VPNs and a 60-70% slowdown with free VPNs.
Why?
It's hard to say, but we believe it's because free VPNs don't have large server networks. So, the VPN servers get overcrowded fast. And since the server network is small, you're less likely to find VPN servers close to your location (which are needed for faster speeds).
They Don't Unblock All Sites
Most of you probably use VPNs to unblock sites from your home country - or just any streaming site you want (Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, etc.).
Well, the problem is that free VPNs can't always bypass geo-blocks - especially when it comes to very popular streaming sites. If you use a free VPN to unblock Netflix, for example, you'll see the Netflix proxy error very often.
This happens because free VPNs don't refresh their IPs fast enough - they can't afford to do it. So, streaming sites blacklist them very often.
They're Missing Essential Features
Free VPNs often don't have split-tunneling - a feature that lets you choose which traffic goes through the VPN and which traffic goes through your local network. Split-tunneling is important because you can use it to access your bank's site (which probably blocks VPNs) while connected to a VPN. You just split-tunnel the bank site traffic so that it goes outside the VPN tunnel.
What's more, free VPNs also don't have a kill switch most of the time - a feature that prevents traffic leaks by shutting down Internet access when the VPN disconnects.
Oh, and don't expect to get an ad blocker that speeds up web browsers by blocking ads and protects you from malicious sites by blocking connections to them.
They Have Capped Bandwidth
Capped bandwidth means you're limited to a certain amount of data each month or day. You can't go over it because the VPN won't let you. Usually, free VPNs restrict you to 2 GB per month. However, there are services that can restrict you to 500 MB per month.
That's a huge problem if you want to unblock streaming content. For reference, you'll consume about 3 GB per hour when you watch HD videos on Netflix. So if you use a free VPN, you'll barely be able to watch a movie or one-two episodes of a TV series.
They Might Put Your Privacy at Risk
Free VPNs have been caught logging user data and selling it to advertisers to turn a profit. Some VPNs even hijacked users' bandwidth and sold it to third-parties.
Basically, when you use a free VPN, you're the product.
You'll Have to Deal with Ads
To make some money, free VPNs display ads inside their apps. It's not the end of the world, but it can get annoying fast - especially if you use the VPN app on your smartphone and you have to deal with interactive or video ads.
Plus, some of the ads could be malicious, meaning your device might get infected with malware if you interact with them (yes, hitting X counts as interacting with an ad).
The Apps Are Buggy
Free VPN apps could have annoying bugs and glitches that make the VPN app unusable. You might get random errors while connecting to servers, crashes, or just features that don't work.
There's Almost No Support
Free VPNs can't afford to offer 24/7 live chat and email support like paid VPNs. You might end up waiting for three-four days or more just to get a generic response that doesn't offer any solutions. If you're extremely unlucky, you won't even hear back from the free VPN's support reps.
How to Find a Good Paid VPN
With hundreds of VPNs on the market, it's not easy picking a good one. To find the best expat VPN for you, we recommend checking guides from VPN experts - like ExpatTech, for example. It's a blog from ProPrivacy (a VPN review site) that has helpful articles that showcase cheap expat VPNs, secure expat VPNs, and more.
To Sum It All Up
You're better off using a paid VPN as an expat. Free VPNs are just not worth it - they're slow, buggy, and risky. If you don't agree, please let us know why in the comments.
