Try this safe, secure, and free VPN. There’s no catch

A reliable and secure VPN is part of everyone’s Defence Against the Dark Cybersecurity Arts.

It’s one of the cardinal rules of cybersecurity hygiene: never use any free public WiFi without a VPN. Ever.

It’s the simplest and easiest way to compromise your security – “sniffing” what you send to a server (usually usernames and passwords) for email, WhatsApp, social media, and other apps.

I am a pathological VPN user, as I am with all the security protocols that are unfortunately necessary in this modern, connected, digital age.

For years I have paid for a solid VPN for whenever I travel and use free WiFi or even password-protected open-access hotspots in hotels or conference venues.

Call me paranoid…. and I will take it as a compliment.

You would imagine that in (physically) security-conscious South Africa, you wouldn’t have to tell people what the obvious, and necessary, security protocols are, but there you have it.

Our houses are surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, and the occasional sinister-looking glass-fronted guardhouse, and we have all manner of physical security. But too many online Saffas use “password” as their password or – worse – the same password for many sites.

Cybersecurity hygiene

While I am prepared to suck it up for a VPN service I consider essential, and am therefore willing to pay for, that’s kind of okay. But what about the jobseeker in Vosloorus who wants to use free WiFi to see if he can get a bit of income?

Thankfully, a civic-minded and data-conscious Swiss security firm has a good heart and is giving their utterly excellent Proton VPN away for free. Yes, free.

I have begun using the free offering from those wonderfully paranoid – and generous – Swiss privacy fiends, Proton. The makers of super-secure Proton Mail have also released Proton VPN – and offer a free option that is surprisingly generous. Most free VPN offerings give the user a limited amount of data and other restrictions.

Proton VPN Free gives unlimited data and finds the fastest connection for your privacy tunnel through the internet, If you want to use more than one device or choose a country to VPN to, you need to buy a subscription. That is fair enough – and Proton is being pretty fair about what they give away in the free tier.

I signed up via the website first, before installing the app.

How much?

I discovered Proton when my paid VPN subscription came up for renewal this week – asking a not-insubstantial $83.43 for two years, plus VAT.

Even though this seems high, the quoted price is a significant discount for paying for two years upfront. Without the discount, that is $312.03 for the two years, or $3 a month.

If you opt for a single year, it costs $139.08 discounted to $59.88 if you pay upfront ($4.99) a month.

On a pay-as-you-go monthly basis, the cost rockets up to $12 a month.

I spent some more time trying to work out whether the fee they were presenting me was for one or two years (it’s not clear since I turned off the auto-renew on my soon-to-expire subscription) and why new customers seemed to get a way better deal than existing ones.

Coupled with this frustration was how my now previous provider tried to upsell me from the basic VPN I have been using for five years, to more expensive bundles including its own password manager and cloud storage, I felt guilt-free when I tried Proton VPN three days ago.

It’s wonderfully simple to download the app and set up an account. I tested it on both my iPhone and MacBook Air M3 and it worked perfectly. I will invariably subscribe because that is the rational and honourable thing to do, but I wanted to test the service myself first. I still haven’t flown through an airport nor attended an international conference (I’ve been invited to Kazakhstan in November) but I will update this article if I experience anything untoward.