Optus Mobile Review ALDI Mobile Review Amaysim Mobile Review Belong Mobile Review Circles.Life Review Vodafone Mobile Review Woolworths Mobile Review Felix Mobile Review Best iPhone Plans Best Family Mobile Plans Best Budget Smartphones Best Prepaid Plans Best SIM-Only Plans Best Plans For Kids And Teens Best Cheap Mobile Plans Telstra vs Optus Mobile Optus NBN Review Belong NBN Review Vodafone NBN Review Superloop NBN Review Aussie BB NBN Review iiNet NBN Review MyRepublic NBN Review TPG NBN Review Best NBN Satellite Plans Best NBN Alternatives Best NBN Providers Best Home Wireless Plans What is a Good NBN Speed? Test NBN Speed How to speed up your internet Optus vs Telstra Broadband ExpressVPN Review CyberGhost VPN Review NordVPN Review PureVPN Review Norton Secure VPN Review IPVanish VPN Review Windscribe VPN Review Hotspot Shield VPN Review Best cheap VPN services Best VPN for streaming Best VPNs for gaming What is a VPN? VPNs for ad-blocking But, as is the trend with online software these days, big-name VPNs tend to be built on subscription models that either charge ongoing monthly fees or attempt to tempt you out of a steeper initial upfront fee for a longer duration, albeit with better overall value. When it comes to finding a free VPN to use in Australia, as it turns out, there’s always a compromise. Of the dozen or so VPNs we’ve reviewed, only Hotspot Shield, Windscribe VPN and TunnelBear offer free trials. And all of those come with disclaimers. Hotspot Shield is one of the fastest VPNs available today but using Hotspot Shield Basic instead of Hotspot Shield Premium changes that. For starters, there’s only one US-based virtual server to connect to, which doesn’t offer the best speeds for basic Australian use. It’s also ad-supported, speed-limited, data-restricted to 500MB per day (about 15GB per month) and only allows for one connection. That’s okay for basic use but not great for seamless background use. Windscribe fares better in versatility, offering 10 servers from popular locations, but none of those servers are in Australia. Still, the free version of Windscribe lets you take advantage of unlimited connections as well as 10GB of data a month. You can tweet to claim an additional 5GB, too. Having a monthly data limit instead of a daily data restriction offers more freedom than Hotspot Shield (even if it is less data), and Windscribe fared well in both our international streaming tests and peer-to-peer assessments (which includes torrenting). TunnelBear is the most restrictive of the three with its free version, capped at 500MB of data per month. We agree with TunnelBear in saying that this free version should really only be used if you’re considering paying for the full version of TunnelBear. There are more servers to choose from, though, and you can also tweet about TunnelBear to nab 1GB more data. Hotspot Shield Free doesn’t let you stream content from Netflix, blocking the site and letting you know that’s a feature only available via the premium service. TunnelBear didn’t unblock Netflix US or Hulu, though it did work with HBO Max and Peacock. Still, 500MB per month doesn’t make for a viable free streaming VPN. That leaves the free version of Windscribe as the remaining pick for streaming the Netflix US library and other international services, care of a more practical 10GB monthly data cap. That said, Netflix has a tendency of sniffing out free VPN servers, so while the Netflix US library loaded in our tests, it wouldn’t play content. Peacock worked well, though, as did HBO Max after a long initial load time, while Hulu also played content after some initial loading issues. Disclaimers aside, of the premium VPN services we’ve tested, Hotspot Shield and CyberGhost VPN are the best in terms of money-back guarantees, both offering up to 45 days to request a refund. PureVPN offers a 31-day money-back guarantee, but it’s more common to see a 30-day money-back guarantee. In order of how they scored in our reviews, NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark VPN, Private Internet Access VPN, Mullvad VPN and IPVanish all offer 30-day terms. As for the others, Norton Secure VPN offers a 14-day money-back guarantee (via Norton 360 subscription), VPN Unlimited offers either a seven-day or 30-day guarantee (depending on the plan), while Windscribe only has a three-day money-back guarantee. TunnelBear doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee for its premium software. Check out the table below to see a breakdown of key features for these VPNs.
