PrivadoVPN is a Swiss-based provider that’s relatively new on the scene – but don’t let that fool you. It's one of the best free VPNs, and despite a few small issues and limitations, we reckon it’s well worth taking a look at.
With P2P-friendly servers in 10 different countries including France, Mexico, and the US, and 12 different locations to pick from, you should be able to find a server that’s close to you. PrivadoVPN Free is one of the few free VPN providers to support streaming services, allowing you to access services such as Netflix, Disney Plus, and Amazon Prime. Usually this is a feature reserved for VPN providers paying customers, and although it's not one of the best streaming VPNs, it's very good for a free product.
PrivadoVPN Free gives you 10 GB of bandwidth each month. That’s enough to watch roughly 20 hours of streaming content, or spend 120 hours browsing or working online. If you hit your monthly limit PrivadoVPN doesn’t cut you off entirely – but your connection speed will be throttled to 1 Mbps until your allowance renews.
When it comes to features, PrivadoVPN’s free offering is distinctly no-frills. You get split tunneling, and a kill switch, as well as a selection of VPN protocols including IKEv2, OpenVPN and WireGuard. However, there’s no antivirus, ad or malware blocking, no SOCKS5 proxy and no parental controls. You’ll need to sign up to the premium version for that.
PrivadoVPN Free on paper
For a quick explanation of any VPN-related terminology, check out our VPN glossary.
PrivadoVPN's latest features and updates
- "Trusted Networks" setting added to Android app, allowing you to tell the app not to connect when you’re using a known safe network such as your home or work network.
- "Best server" app feature can now choose a server by speed or by location
- App-specific kill switch added to Windows apps, allowing you to block not just all network traffic in the event your VPN connection drops, but only specific apps.
- Android app now has "Pause VPN" support. This allows you to turn off your VPN connection for a set amount of time, then have it resume automatically without you needing to go into the app to enable it.
PrivadoVPN Free review: Features
As is perhaps expected from a free service, PrivadoVPN Free covers the basics, but that’s about your lot. Free users get 12 locations to pick from, and you get a kill switch – a vital tool for protecting your online privacy. This feature blocks your internet connection if your VPN connection unexpectedly drops and, unlike some other providers, PrivadoVPN allows you to set this kill switch for specific apps and not just the device as a whole.
You also get split tunneling, which PrivadoVPN calls “Smart Routing.” This lets you pick which apps go through the VPN and which don’t. This can be important for banking and shopping apps which are sensitive to exactly where they think your device is. There’s baked-in support for P2P/torrenting, IP and DNS leak protection, and that's it. All the other features are for paying customers only, but it still covers the basic functionality we would expect to be able to recommend a VPN.
When it comes to unblocking, PrivadoVPN Free does decently well, though with such a limited number of servers to choose from, you might end up on a server that’s actually located quite far from the location you’re trying to access, which could impact your connection speeds.
Score out of 10: 7
PrivadoVPN Free review: Server network
PrivadoVPN’s free plan offers access to 12 different server locations, which is quite generous compared to other free providers like Proton VPN which only offers 5, or Windscribe which has 10 for free users.
PrivadoVPN’s servers are located in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
As with most free VPNs, there are no free servers in the Asia-Pacific regions, so if you’re hoping to use PrivadoVPN Free to stream content there, you’ll need the paid version.
Compared to the best paid services out there, PrivadoVPN's free selection of servers in slim to say the least – but it's not bad at all considering you don't have to pay for it.
Score out of 10: 5
PrivadoVPN Free review: Pricing
The free version is, well, free. There’s no payment required, no credit card details or 1 cent being sent to your bank to check your account details. You can simply download the app and go.
If you decide you like PrivadoVPN and would like to sign up to get the extra features, then it has a fairly simple subscription plan. There’s a single tier, with the option to pay monthly, annually or bi-annually.
As is common for VPNs, if you want to get full access, there are big discounts available if you’re willing to sign up to a premium plan for a year or more. Paying month by month will always be the most expensive option.
There is one added extra, which is the ability to bundle in antivirus for an additional $1.99. Curiously the ability to add antivirus is missing from the monthly plan, and doesn’t seem to be bundled with it either.
Score out of 10: 9.5
PrivadoVPN Free review: Ease of use
PrivadoVPN Free’s apps are user-friendly and easy to get to grips with. The default settings are enough for even beginners to get online and protected without too much fuss.
When you login to the app, rather than the power-button style connection icon used by a lot of other providers, PrivadoVPN Free instead presents you with what looks like an old-fashioned keyhole that’s red when you’re not connected to a VPN, and the turns a reassuring shade of green once you connect to show you’re protected.
Other than that visual quirk, both mobile and desktop versions of the app are similar to most other VPNs out there. Other than the connect button you have your current location and IP address displayed.
You can click the location to choose a different server from the list, and the gear icon in the corner takes you to your settings. If you’ve ever used a VPN app from another provider, you’ll find it easy to get to grips with PrivadoVPN Free.
Score out of 10: 8
PrivadoVPN Free review: Apps
With PrivadoVPN Free you can install the VPN on all major devices and platforms such as MacOS, Android, Windows, SmartTVs and more. There is no support for Linux on the free version, however. You’ll need to upgrade to the paid version to get that.
The Windows app is also somewhat sluggish compared to other platforms, and in our testing we experienced some annoying connection issues where it wasn’t clear if the app was properly connected or not, but this was resolved by reconnecting.
Score out of 10: 6
PrivadoVPN Free review: streaming and unblocking
Our testing found that PrivadoVPN Free is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to accessing streaming services – but it's better for unblocking content than any other free provider we've tested.
There aren’t any streaming specific servers, so you can connect to any server you like, which is good. However, PrivadoVPN Free struggled to unblock Prime Video, as well as some Netflix libraries, specifically Australia, Canada and Japan. If you want one of the best VPNs for streaming, you're better off going for a premium VPN.
The limited number of server locations also further limits what geo-restricted content you are going to be able to access as PrivadoVPN Free does not offer servers in Asia, Australia or New Zealand. Those are only available to premium users, though free users do get access to a location in India.
When it comes to torrenting, PrivadoVPN supports P2P on all its servers, but you will always need to keep that monthly bandwidth limit in mind. If you're looking for the best torrenting VPN, you should keep in mind that 10 GB doesn’t go far if you’re sharing large files.
Score out of 10: 5
PrivadoVPN Free review: Speed and performance
PrivadoVPN Free’s speed testing results aren’t just really good, they’re also rather confusing. In our testing the free version was much faster than the paid one, putting it on par with the fastest VPNs!
PrivadoVPN Free returned speeds of more than 950 Mbps when using the WireGuard protocol compared to 550 Mbps for the paid version. This is odd because it’s usually the other way around, with free servers being more congested and speeds suffering as a result.
Regardless of these somewhat odd results, PrivadoVPN’s download speeds in both free and premium versions are more than sufficient for online gaming and streaming video. You only need 25 Mbps to be able to stream ultra-high-def content, so PrivadoVPN is more than fast enough.
Score out of 10: 9
PrivadoVPN Free review: Privacy and security
PrivadoVPN is based in Switzerland, as are some of the most private VPNs, as this means you'll benefit from some of the strongest consumer privacy laws in the world. PrivadoVPN is also a no-logs provider which means there should be nothing for the VPN to hand over should it be served with a court order asking for information about its users.
PrivadoVPN does need to collect some information about you so it can provide the service and its quite open about this in its privacy policy. You have to supply an email address when you register, though there’s nothing stopping you providing a one-time-use email address for this. If app should crash then it will log your device identifier as well as crash logs but this is really no different than most other VPN providers.
We would like to see PrivadoVPN undertaking a third-party audit. These are a clear indicator of a provider’s commitment to transparency and privacy and it’s a shame PrivadoVPN has yet to go ahead with one.
In terms of security within its apps PrivadoVPN uses the best and most up-to-date VPN protocols (WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2), which are also used by the most secure VPNs. There’s IP and DNS leak protection to keep your browsing private, and an effective kill switch prevents any data leaks if the connection to the VPN is interrupted.
Score out of 10: 7
PrivadoVPN Free review: History and the future
There’s not a great deal to say here, which is a good thing. PrivadoVPN has kept its nose clean since we last had a look at it, with no major controversies or data breaches. That’s not to say there’s no room for improvement.
While the VPN is backed by Switzerland’s robust consumer protection laws, it’’s disappointing to see there’s still no third-party audit to confirm the company’s claims of being “the best, true no-log VPN”.
We’d really like to see PrivadoVPN get this done as many of its competitors have as it would help reassure potential customers that this provider walks the walk as well as talks the talk.
Score out of 10: 8
PrivadoVPN Free review: Customer support
PrivadoVPN’s customer support offering is good, but it could be better. There’s a useful online knowledgebase and the ability to log a support ticket but that’s your lot. PrivadoVPN does not offer any sort of telephone or 24/7 live chat support, not even for paying customers.
We have found PrivadoVPN’s support team knowledgeable and helpful when we’re reached out to them for help, but the lack of any immediate way to speak to an engineer means you can't quickly get help and support right at the point when you actually need it.
The company doesn’t have a specific SLA for how long it will take for an engineer get back to you, with the support site only saying that an engineer will reply “as quickly as possible” which is a somewhat nebulous timeline, and presumably free customers will need to wait longer than paying ones for someone to look at their issue.
Score out of 10: 7
NordVPN review: final verdict
Subscribe if:
✅ You want the best free VPN. Compared to the competition, PrivadoVPN's free plan is the most well-rounded and capable of the lot.
✅ You want great speeds. PrivadoVPN Free is faster than a ton of premium VPNs.
✅ You want to stream some content from around the world. Although PrivadoVPN Free can't access everything a paid VPN can, it's the best free VPN for streaming.
Don't subscribe if:
❌ You require your VPN to be audited. While we have no reason to disbelieve PrivadoVPN's no-logging claims, the lack of an independent audit will put off those who value privacy over everything else.
❌ You need unlimited data. 10 GB per month is generous, but rival Proton VPN offers unlimited data on free plans.
