Free Streaming VPN: Best Free VPN for Streaming

A lot of people download VPNs for streaming purposes. You see, capable VPN providers can bypass geo-restrictions and grant you access to libraries that would otherwise be unavailable.

Last Update: May 2, 2022
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A lot of people download VPNs for streaming purposes. You see, capable VPN providers can bypass geo-restrictions and grant you access to libraries that would otherwise be unavailable.

The problem is that VPNs usually cost quite a bit of money. However, what if I told you that you can reap from all of the benefits that virtual private networks provide without having to spend a single cent? That’s right. You can get a premium VPN service for free and use it for streaming.

Free VPN providers have a reputation for being unsafe and unreliable. However, there are a handful of options on the market that are truly legit. In this article, we’ll discuss these options.

What Are The Best Free VPNs for Streaming In 2022?

1. ExpressVPN

Expressvpn-screenshot-new

How To Get It Free: You can get ExpressVPN for free by taking advantage of its 30-day refund policy. How so? First of all, you’ll need to purchase a basic 1-month subscription plan for just $12.95. After that, you have to contact customer support and ask for your money within 30 days.

Streaming Quality: ExpressVPN can access any geo-restricted streaming library. That’s because it has more than 3200 servers that are optimized for bypassing geoblocks.

The servers of ExpressVPN are so good at circumventing online restrictions that they can work around the Great Firewall of China. For those who don’t know, this is the most challenging obstacle that a VPN service can face. Most providers available fail at overcoming it.

It’s also important to state that ExpressVPN’s servers are fast. During the many times that I was connected with them, not once did I experience quality drops and buffering while streaming. If anything, this is very impressive given that VPNs usually introduce streaming problems.

Privacy & Security: ExpressVPN is a leader in the VPN industry due in large part to its superb security capabilities. It was the first-ever major provider to have a RAM-based network. By extension, it was the first major provider that could truly back its zero-logging policy.

AES-256 encryption is the type of encryption that ExpressVPN uses. If anything, this is great as this is the same kind of encryption that’s employed by many of the world’s militaries and financial institutions. Therefore, you can rest assured that it’s beyond secure.

If ExpressVPN were to improve anything, that would be its features. You see, it doesn’t have an ad & malware blocker on any of its apps. Moreover, it lacks anything exclusive. On the bright side, the VPN service provider does have an automatic kill switch on all but its iOS app.

2. NordVPN

NordVPN screenshot

How To Get It Free: NordVPN has a 30-day money-back guarantee policy which you can use to avail of it for free. The only thing you’ll need to do is buy any of the provider’s subscription plans ($11.95 for a 1-month) then request a refund within the 30-day window that you have.

Streaming Quality: Few VPNs can compare to NordVPN when it comes to streaming. It is fully capable of granting you access to any streaming website that you wish to access. The reason why is because it has a massive capable network of 5500+ server locations.

If you’re looking to access free streaming websites in China, then you’re in luck with NordVPN. After all, it can indeed circumvent the Great Firewall consistently enough to meet the needs of casual internet users itself. Also, you should know that the provider also has no problems with getting around other national censorship systems.

In regards to speed, many say that NordVPN is the fastest VPN. While I don’t think this is true, the provider is definitely lightning fast. When using it, you’ll absolutely not have to concern yourself with quality drops, lengthy loading times, buffering, and other similar issues.

Privacy & Security: Your privacy and security are taken seriously by NordVPN. As of writing, it’s almost finished upgrading to a RAM-disk-enabled network. That means it’ll soon be able to remain 100% true to its current no-logs policy and keep your data completely secure.

NordVPN uses AES-256 encryption. Aside from that, it supports every widely utilized protocol. It even has a proprietary version of WireGuard that’s known as NordLynx.

The various applications and browser extensions of NordVPN are a joy to use. Besides being a breeze to navigate, they are easy to configure to your exact requirements. Furthermore, they come with a kill switch, ad & malware blocker, split tunneling, and several other features.

3. Surfshark

Surfshark screenshot

How To Get It Free: Being the top-tier provider that it is, Surfshark maintains a 30-day refund policy like all of its major competitors. Due to that, you can get it for free by purchasing any subscription plan ($12.95 for 1-month) then asking its customer support for a full refund.

Streaming Quality: Surfshark is my go-to VPN for streaming. Its network is currently made up of 3200+ servers. Nearly every one of which can be utilized to get around geoblocks and access all of your favorite streaming websites without any problems whatsoever.

Like the two providers that we talked about earlier, Surfshark can bypass the Great Firewall of China without much difficulty. Thus, the VPN service is a viable option for anyone who’s living an on-the-go lifestyle. With it, accessing the global internet freely won’t be out of the realm of possibility.

Surfshark is fast. Its servers hardly ever slow down internet speeds to a noticeable degree. In addition, it should also be mentioned that the provider has sometimes even made my internet speeds faster. How? By fully removing the bandwidth throttling that my ISP secretly imposed.

Privacy & Security: Your security and privacy are two things that Surfshark prioritizes above anything else. For that reason, it has recently become the second major VPN service to upgrade to a RAM-based network. As such, it completely can’t store logging info.

Given its standing in the VPN industry, it should come as no wonder that Surfshark makes use of AES 256-bit encryption. Together with that, it supports all leading protocols. And yes, this includes WireGuard, which is arguably the best VPN protocol for streaming purposes.

One last thing to mention is that Surfshark allows for unlimited simultaneous connections. Due to that, it’s possible to keep a limitless amount of people protected using a single subscription.

4. ProtonVPN

Protonvpn screenshot

How To Get It Free: Unlike most VPN providers, ProtonVPN actually has a free-tier plan that is available to everyone. With that being said, you should know that this free plan doesn’t grant you access to everything that ProtonVPN has to offer. Nevertheless, it’ll definitely suffice for streaming purposes.

Also, if you wish to upgrade to a paid ProtonVPN subscription, you won’t have to spend much money. The provider charges a mere $5.00 for a basic 1-month plan.

Streaming Quality: ProtonVPN is a great virtual private network for free streaming.

Despite being a free provider, it seldom fails to grant me access to the streaming websites that I want to browse. Moreover, the VPN has surprisingly good speed capabilities. Seldom did it ever introduce hiccups like quality drops, buffering, and lengthy loading times.

Sad to say, ProtonVPN is unreliable in countries like China. Our undercover testers there report that they’ve hardly ever succeeded with accessing free streaming websites using the VPN.

Privacy & Security: ProtonVPN will keep you secure. However, you shouldn’t expect much in the way of features that could fortify your levels of online protection. At best, you’ll just have to depend on the provider’s use of AES-256 encryption and its support for mainstream protocols.

5. Windscribe

How To Get It Free: Like ProtonVPN, Windscribe also has a free-tier subscription. Sadly, after availing of it, you’ll only gain a handful of features. Moreover, it’ll not be possible for you to tap into the free provider’s entire sever network. On the bright side, you will definitely be able to bypass streaming libraries and gain access to a plethora of new content to watch.

Another thing to mention is that Windscribe’s paid subscription plans aren’t that costly. Due to that, upgrading won’t be much of a hassle. For a 1-month plan, you’ll only need to spend $9.00.

Streaming Quality: Windscribe is another free VPN provider that’s excellent for streaming. It allows you to connect to a total of 10 servers across the world. The majority of these servers don’t have any issues in regards to providing you access to known streaming platforms.

Unfortunately, the 10 servers of Windscribe aren’t the fastest around. Hence, when you use them to stream content, be prepared to deal with occasional common streaming problems.

Privacy & Security: Even if it's a free provider, Windscribe doesn’t skimp on security. It uses AES-256 encryption and defaults to OpenVPN UDP, which is a good protocol for streaming.

My leak tests show that Windscribe can indeed mask your legitimate IP address. Besides that, you should also know that the provider has a zero-logs policy. As such, there’s no reason to doubt that it’s completely capable of maintaining your anonymity as you browse the web.

Why Use A Free VPN For Streaming?

Gain Access To Foreign Streaming Libraries: Free VPNs with capable servers can grant you access to geoblocked streaming libraries. Such libraries would only otherwise be accessible with the help of a proxy.

However, we recommend that you stay away from proxies because they aren’t as reliable. Moreover, they don’t provide comprehensive online security like free VPNs.

With that being said, no two free VPNs are built equally. Every provider has its own set of features and specifications. As you would imagine, some options on the market are better for gaining access to streaming websites. Meanwhile, others are no good and will only disappoint you.

Enhance Your Cybersecurity: Capable free VPN providers encrypt all your data and keep you fully anonymous as you browse the internet. They do this using a combination of military-grade encryption, high-tech security features, secure servers, and a strict zero-logging policy.

Improve Connection Speeds: Internet service providers often impose a secret bandwidth cap to prevent their networks from getting overloaded. Some free VPNs can manage to get around that bandwidth cap and improve your connection speeds.

Needless to say, for the most part, free VPNs slow down your internet.

Connecting to any provider doesn’t ensure that you’ll have a faster connection. Thus, it’s best not to use a VPN without expectations. That way, you’ll be able to avoid becoming disappointed.

How To Use A Free Streaming VPN

Below are all the steps needed for you to use your free VPN for streaming:

  • Get Yourself A Free VPN

The first thing to do is get a free VPN. Hundreds of choices are available for you to choose from. Out of all of them, you’ll best be off with the five providers that we discussed. And our top 3 recommendations are ExpressVPNNordVPN, and Surfshark.

The reason for that is because they’re all able to easily provide you access to all your favorite free streaming sites.

  • Install It

VPN installation isn’t a difficult task that only tech-savvy people can do. On the contrary, it’s an absolute breeze for anyone to do. The procedure is completely automatic on nearly every leading operating system. If anything, this is great news for those wanting no hassles.

It should be noted though that installing VPNs on routers calls for a setup process that can be quite tedious. Not everyone can get it done without needing assistance from customer service. With that being said, most of our recommended providers sell pre-configured router models so that you can have a convenient plug-and-play experience.

  • Pair With A Server

The next thing to do is pair with a server. You should choose the nearest major location in a country that’s not heavy on copyright restrictions. That way, you’ll be able to avoid any legal consequences that come with accessing free streaming websites within your country.

Another reason why you’d want to pair to a nearby server is to have good connection speeds. You see, the distance of a VPN server has a direct impact on how much it’ll affect your base internet speeds. Therefore, your best bet will always be the nearer server location.

  • Start Watching

Once everything mentioned above is finished, you may start watching content on your favorite free streaming website. As you’re doing this, never disconnect from your free VPN.

If you do so, you’ll only leave yourself open to becoming blocked or hacked by pesky cybercriminals.

How We Ranked These Free Streaming VPNs

The rankings that we have didn’t just come about overnight.

We had to test hundreds of free providers to determine which ones performed the best together with free streaming websites.

In addition, our team had to communicate with people who use free VPNs to access free streaming sites daily. These people were able to give us valuable insight as to which options were the best.

 

By: Erwin Caniba
Eric is the co-founder of VPNOnline. He has been an avid user of VPNs since 2012. He has tested all of the major VPN providers and shares his findings on this website. Follow Eric on Facebook.