TunnelBear VPN: It's Just Right

REVIEWS / SOFTWARE

- MAX EDDY

Too many security products have for too long relied on a hacker-esque “edginess” in their designs: Think neon-green text on a black background. TunnelBear VPN heads in the opposite direction, with bright colors, excellent design, and a cadre of cute but powerful bears. It’s bursting with charm, yet it also delivers excellent security tools at a good price. It’s a VPN that you’ll actually enjoy using and an Editors’ Choice winner, too.

What is a VPN? When your VPN is active, your web traffic travels through an encrypted tunnel to a server managed by the VPN service. That keeps your information safe from data thieves and other ne’er-do-wells lurking on public networks. It also helps protect against ISPs selling anonymized metadata about your web habits. When your traffic exits to the web through the VPN server, you appear to have an IP address at that server’s location. This protects your real identity as you browse the web.

TUNNELBEAR PRICING AND FEATURES

TunnelBear is one of the few providers we’ve reviewed that offers a truly free VPN service. However, the free TunnelBear tier restricts you to only 500MB of data per month. You can earn more data by Tweeting about the company, which can raise your limit to a total of 1GB for one month. The free version of HotSpot Shield limits you to 500MB per day, while the ProtonVPN free subscription has no data limit.