Its Windows client opens on a world map that you can use to select an endpoint in the country of your choice, while a pull-down menu at the top of the window lets you select an endpoint location from a list if you prefer. TunnelBear provides both free and paid-for VPN services across a wide variety of platforms, with clients for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, browser plugins for Opera and Chrome, and OpenVPN profiles available for Linux users. This is helpful for anyone uses software that’s distributed via torrents, such as many Linux distros. TunnelBear used to block standard BitTorrent ports so that it wasn’t put in the position of having to log user activity in accordance with Canadian copyright law, but has now enabled torrenting via its tunnels in Canada, the US, UK, Romania, Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden. TunnelBear has an explicit no-logging policy and is independently audited for security, which will reassure the privacy-conscious, although the audit doesn’t specifically focus on logging. The company accepts payment in bitcoin if you want to add an extra layer of privacy. If you need more than that, TunnelBear costs around $9.99/£7.67 for a monthly subscription or $59.88/£45.99 per year, with the annual fee working out to a middling $4.99/£2.56 a month. Free users can get an extra 1GB per month, by tweeting about TunnelBear (assuming they have a public account and enough followers) achieving a total of 1.5GB. TunnelBear’s free account isn’t as appealing as it used to be, as 500MB a month doesn’t compare well to Windscribe’s free 10GB or ProtonVPN’s unlimited free tier. TunnelBear also has an endearing ursine mascot, reasonably priced paid-for subscriptions, and recently changed its no-torrenting policy.

While it used to feel very generous, that free allowance is overshadowed by rivals such as Windscribe and ProtonVPN’s free services. The Canada-based service is perhaps best known for its free VPN, which gives you 500MB of data every month to use as you please via any endpoint location. TunnelBear has been owned by US security firm McAfee since 2018 and little has changed in that time.

Endpoints for 49 different countries: TunnelBear VPN has an astonishing number of endpoints, even with the free tier, which is useful if you want to use a server in a specific location.

Free tier available: TunnelBear VPN has a free tier that gives users 500MB of secure browsing every month.

Tunnelbear chrome