TunnelBear is perhaps the most entertaining VPN on the market with plenty of bear visuals.
TunnelBear VPN Free Version Summary
| Daily Policy | Anonymous Server Usage Data |
| IP, DNS, or WebRTC Leaks | No |
| Countries | 22 |
| Servers | Unexplained |
| IP Addresses | Unexplained |
| Support | Email and Online Resources Only |
| Simultaneous Connection | 5 |
| Official Website | TunnelBear.com |
TunnelBear (Free) Pros
- User-friendly applications for popular devices
- Minimum logging policy
- Connect securely to 22 countries
- VPN shutdown switch and DNS leak protection
TunnelBear (Free) Cons
- Stingy 500 MB monthly data limit
- No access to Netflix or iPlayer
- No live chat support
Ease of Use
If you like bears, you’ll love the design of TunnelBear. Simply click on a server location on an interactive world map and wait for the bear to tunnel through the world and emerge at the server location of your choice. Applications are really simple to install and use.
You can also keep track of your bandwidth usage, which is a nice touch. The disadvantage of TunnelBear free version applications is that you can’t get pop-ups when you exceed your limit. This will reveal your actual IP address without you knowing if you have not turned Vigilant Mode mode on.
It’s good to see a free VPN that offers advanced settings. Still, it can get boring after you’ve already done it several times to find a server location by sliding TunnelBear’s world map.
Server Locations
For a free VPN service, TunnelBear’s (free) server network is a good size: there are 22 countries available. Popular destinations are covered and few of them exist in Asia, one in South America, but not in Africa. VPN performance may be degraded if you live away from servers.
Speed and Reliability
Before using TunnelBear (free):
When connected to TunnelBear (free):
The speed of TunnelBear (free) is surprisingly good – almost as fast as premium service. It provides buffer-free streaming and multiple file downloads.
However, TunnelBear Free’s performance is limited to a data limit of 500 MB per month.
Platforms and Devices
TunelBear (free) is available on the following platforms;
- Windows
- MacOS
- iOS
- Android
It is also available on Linux with some manual configurations. Unfortunately, there is no manual workaround for other platforms, including routers.
You can use TunnelBear (free) on up to five devices at once. However, we do not recommend this because of this 500 MB data limit.
TunnelBear (free) offers proxy extensions for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera browsers.
Encryption and Security
Is TunnelBear (free) secure? Well, it provides the same level of privacy as the paid service, which is great.
OpenVPN and IKEv2 are VPN protocols used for Windows and iOS, and OpenVPN is only used for MacOS and Android. OpenVPN is our preferred protocol for performance and privacy balance, but IKEv2 is also very secure.
Furthermore, the encryption of TunnelBear (free) is over the upper encryption AES-256.
We also love ‘Vigilant Mode’, a VPN kill switch of TunnelBear (free). Our tests also confirmed protection against IP and DNS infiltrations.
Customer Support
TunnelBear’s customer support for free users is one of the best we’ve seen from a free service.
However, there is no TunnelBear live chat, we only sent a form 24 hours later with the help of “Support Bears” via email and received a later response than we wanted, but answered the question well.
Do you recommend?
We recommend, but it should be noted that there are better free VPN services.
