// ITS FOSS — LINUX & OPEN SOURCE
Here's How You Can Use VPNs for FREE on Linux
"If you are not paying for the product, you are the product."
That's often true, and it's doubly true for VPNs. A VPN service could see all your traffic, so a shady free VPN is worse than no VPN at all.
But you may still find yourself in a situation where you need one. And let's be honest, if it's casual use, paying for a VPN doesn't make a lot of sense, because VPN prices are only reasonable on yearly or longer plans. You don't want to pay for two years upfront just to open one blocked website.
The good news is that a few well-known privacy companies offer usable free plans. They make money from their paid users, not from your data (most of them have independent audits) and the free plan is often a way to generate lead.
You can take advantage of that and use it for your occasional VPN requirements.
In this article, I'll list free VPNs that you can use on Linux. I have split them into two groups: VPNs built into web browsers, and VPN services with a proper Linux client that protects your entire system.
I have stuck to reputable services only, and I'm not including random "free VPN" browser extensions, because most of them are spammy at best.
The most common reason is geo-restriction. Some website owners block visitors from certain countries, and a VPN lets you appear to be somewhere else. This is perhaps the most common such screen I have seen with sites that geo-block its visitors.
Sometimes it's not the website but your government that blocks a site, or even a specific X/Twitter account.
In more "restrictive regions", a VPN may be the only way to get around censorship and reach parts of the open web. It's also handy when you're traveling and need a work or university portal that only works from your home region.