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Most VPNs on our list don’t offer a real free plan — they offer a paid trial or a money-back guarantee, which is different. Of the 17 providers we’ve reviewed, only three currently run a genuine free tier: Proton VPN (unlimited data, no time limit), hide.me (a generous data allowance with no hard cap on its free plan), and Hotspot Shield (capped at 500MB per day). Free VPNs generally come with real tradeoffs — fewer server locations, slower speeds, and in some cases data practices that are less transparent than a paid provider’s — so treat a free plan as a way to test the waters, not necessarily a long-term daily driver. If a free tier turns out to be too limited, our budget picks start from around $2/month.