Best Free VPN for Mac [2024] – Easy to Setup & Use

Edward Curlin

Still, figuring out which one is the best free VPN for Mac? Well, we’re here to help.

VPNs are great tools to keep your data safe in this online world. You must be thinking why do I need a VPN to keep me safe if I already have a trojan remover or antivirus installed on my Mac. The thing is, VPNs add an extra layer of security when you’re browsing online.

And VPNs not only do that, but they also allow you to access blocked and censored content from any part of the world and even help you block unnecessary advertisements and pop-ups.

Today, we’re going to give you our top picks of Free VPNs for your Mac. Let’s get into it.

Why We Use Free VPNs?

The thing with free VPNs is that although you get free access to the service, it’s limited and not up to the mark of the premium plans. But we believe that having something is better than having nothing.

So, we’ve made sure that you get the best free VPNs out there for your Mac.

List Of Best Free VPN For Mac

1. Express VPN – No#1 VPN That You Can Get

This is the #1 VPN you can get for your Mac for free. Although you need to make a payment before accessing their service there’s a catch, as they offer a 30 days refund policy, you can opt-out of your subscription within the 30 days mark and get your full money back.

It’s available for Big Sur(11), Catalina(10.15), Mojave(10.14) & High Sierra(10.13), X Yosemite(10.10) & X El Capitan(10.11).

Along with the OS, It works on all the MacBook’s and iMac models out there. You can set it up in just three easy steps and enjoy the internet on your safari browser with extra security.

Features:

As you pay for the service beforehand, you get all the features unlocked with no limitations.

You get Servers from 160 locations around the world covering 94 countries.
Optimized servers for high speed.
Split tunneling feature which allows you to choose which content would be proxied and which will be connected to a regular connection.
Network Kill Switch Feature which makes sure that your traffic is blocked if the proxy network is down.
Connect up to 5 devices at a time.

Pricing:

If you wish to buy their premium services after the free trial. Here are the plans that they offer

Single month plan: It bills for $12.95.
Six months plan: It bills for $9.99 per month & $59.95 for a total of six months.
Fifteen months plan: It bills for $6.67 per month & $99.95 for the fifteen-month period.

All these plans have a 30-day money-back guarantee.

2. NordVPN – Overall Best VPN For Mac

This Panama based proxy network provider is one of the best that you can get for your Mac for free. They also have the scheme of 30 days refund so that you can access all their premium features without any limitations for 30 days and opt-out of their subscription before the one month mark.

The NordVPN is the overall best VPN for Mac OS, its interface is more cleaner and easier than ExpressVPN. They even offer obfuscated servers, these servers are nothing but alternative servers which can be used specially to access VPN where the restrictions for such service use is heavy.

You can also shift between protocols like TCP/UDP depending on your preference for speed and reliability.

Features:

By paying beforehand, the user can unlock all the features that a premium user can get. Let’s look at some of them.

You can choose from over 5400 servers which are located in around 59 countries.
Inhouse NordLynx encryption method that keeps your data very safe.
Several Hundred P2P servers that allow you to share large sized files easily and safely.
No Bandwidth limit, you can enjoy your high-speed internet without any throttling.
Connect up to 6 devices at a time.

Pricing:

NordVPN offers three plans if you wish to purchase their premium service.

single month plan: It bills for $11.95
Yearly Plan: It bills for $4.92 per month.
Couple Year plan: It bills for $3.71 per month.

All the plans that NordVPN offers come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

3. Hotspot Shield VPN – Trusted With Speed Reliability

The free trial version of Hotspot shield, unlike NordVPN and ExpressVPN, can be tried for free; you don’t have to make payment beforehand. But the drawback of this is that you get limited features.

There’s a catch in this one too, they also offer a 45 days money-back guarantee scheme, if you wish to get all premium features without any limitations, you can buy one of their premium plans and then opt out of it before the 45 days mark.

Hotspot Shield claims to be the World’s fastest VPN service. We cross checked this claim and this is what we found: With Hotspot Shield’s catapult hydra technology, it managed to gain 26.2% increase in their downloading speed while other VPNs fell at least by 42.5%. That’s really fast!

Features:

We’re listing the features of the completely free version below.

High-speed internet for up to 500 Mbs every day.
Can use a USA based server with reliable speed
Military-grade encryption blocks more than 50 million malware and phishing sites each day.
Patented proprietary protocol named Hydra, which is verified by leading experts as fastest and most secure.

Pricing:

If you think you need to go for the premium version of Hotspot Shield, here are the plans that you can choose from.

Premium Plan: If you purchase the yearly pack of this plan, then you get it for $71.88. If you are buying it only for a single month, then you get it for $12.99.
Premium Family Plan: If you purchase the yearly pack of this plan, then you get it for $143.88. If you are buying it only for a single month, then it will cost you $19.99.

Both these plans come with a 45-day money-back guarantee.

4. Hide.Me – 10GB Each Month

Hide.me VPN gives you service for 10 Gigabytes each month with their free plan where you can choose a server from locations like the USA, Canada, Netherlands, and Singapore. No logs are kept with the free version, and the application doesn’t have advertisements like in the case of some free trial versions.

The 10 GB data limit is really a big move, it’s the most that any Free trial version provides. It’s something that made us include Hide.me in this list. It doesn’t just stop there, with the free version, you get Military grade top notch encryptions along with an IP leak feature which is again a huge provision with a free version.

Features:

Hide.me has to offer you some great features during your free usage, let’s have a look at some of the key ones

You get 10 GBs of usage limit each month. Which is enough to stream some High definition Content and download torrents.
You can choose servers from 5 different locations around the world. (USA, Netherlands, Canada, Singapore)
Military-grade encryption on your traffic. I.e. AES-256 encryption. Very safe.
It also offers IP leak protection.
Split tunneling feature, which is very essential while multitasking.

Pricing:

When it comes to premium purchases, Hide.me offers three plans.

One month plan: billed at $12.95
Six months plan: billed at $4.99 per month (62% savings)
One Year Plan: billed at $3.32 each month (74% savings)

All these plans come with a 30 days refund policy.

5. Tunnelbear VPN – Great For Starters

If you’re new to the VPN scene, this is the VPN for you. It’s super user friendly and does the primary job. With 500mbs of data each month, it’s not the best to use for larger tasks, but it does the small tasks efficiently and very easily. You don’t have to be a geek to use its features.

Tunnelbear is so transparent about their security that they literally publish their Security audits which are independently conducted. You’ll need to manually configure Tunnelbear though because it only manually configures itself on Linux.

Features:

Some key features that you’ll get with the free version of tunnelbear are.

500 MBs of data usage each month.
freedom to choose servers from around 23 countries. (UK, USA, Canada, Germany, Japan etc.)
AES-256 bit encryption is super safe.
Optimized global servers (but only up to 500MBs)
Kill switch feature to protect your data if the VPN service goes down.

Pricing:

Tunnelbear offers 2 plans for premium up-gradation.

Unlimited plan: which bills at $3.33 per month.
Teams plan: which bills at $5.75 per month.

Tunnelbear doesn’t offer any money-back guarantee.

Conclusion

VPNs are a great tool to have for your security and privacy. Most free VPN from Mac are just good on paper and don’t actually work as they claim when it comes to practical use, but these VPNs which we’ve mentioned in our picks are entirely trustworthy and genuine.

Although you won’t get all the features with the Free versions of some of them, but whatever limited service they’ll provide, it will be legitimate.

Choose which of the VPN for Mac works for you and be safe and secure online.

FAQs:

Should I use a VPN on my Mac?

You should definitely use a VPN. Why? Because it adds an extra layer to your security and helps you stay safe in the online environment. You should make sure that the VPN you’re using is a reputed one and downloaded from the official website. If you go for a cheap or molded VPN, then it may do more harm than good to your privacy.

Does Apple recommend a VPN?

Although Apple has a dedicated page on its website for VPNs, it doesn’t market nor stops its users from using a VPN. You can read about it here.

Can I be tracked if I use a VPN?

No, you cannot be tracked once you’re connected to a VPN, your IP address is masked by the service, and if anyone is trying to track you, they’ll see the IP address of the VPN and not yours.

Is it safe to use a VPN when doing Online banking?

Yes, it’s safe to use a VPN service while doing banking online, it gives you an extra layer of protection and keeps you safe from cyber thefts. A good VPN won’t even keep your data logs, so you don’t have to worry about your precious information being stolen & sold.