India is a vibrant country with a really large population, and internet use is widespread nowadays, so there is a need for VPNs to provide secure, encrypted internet connections to keep our personal data safe.

But are there any totally 100% free VPN options that also have servers in India to use? Is it possible to get an IP address in India for free? Sports streaming is a huge market in India, and VPNs can play an important part in giving users an Indian IP addresses to access streaming content.

Looking at the usual options, there are 3 main ones that stand out as being free and having Indian servers:

1. TurboVPN free version (unlimited data)
2. Tunnelbear Free (500 MB/month data)
3. UrbanVPN – Unlimited but not private

As per usual with VPN content, the current search results for this aren’t great, with lots of results of non-relevant content promoting “free” VPN services that are not actually free when you check the details, or single companies promoting only their own product. A VPN service that has a 30 or 60 day money back guarantee and is therefore technically “free” to try isn’t really free in my opinion – what most users mean by this is a VPN that doesn’t require any upfront cost in order to use it.

Here, we’ll stay directly on point and answer the specific question – 100% free VPNs (zero upfront cost) that also have servers in India that can be used for free.

Let’s look at the three main options in more detail, before moving onto some Premium options with unlimited use you might want to consider.

Free Option #1 – TurboVPN Free Version (Unlimited Data)

The best free VPN option by far I could find with servers in India is the free version of TurboVPN, who are a Singapore based VPN service who offer a very generous free version of their VPN.

See here for our guide on downloading the free version of TurboVPN. It’s a little tricky to find in the menu system on their website.

Here are some great features to TurboVPN’s free version:

• Free version can be downloaded directly from their website with no registration or user details required.
• Free version has a server in India.
• Totally unlimited data use (a great feature)
• They’ve also got 3 other free locations (USA, Germany, Singapore).
• Speeds are limited to 2 Mbps, but perfectly usable.
• Premium version offers much more complete server choice of thousands of servers in 37 countries, including 2 server locations in India.

But here are some caveats:

• TurboVPN free most likely WON’T work for accessing geo-restricted streaming services.
• Once 1 device/connection allowed (5 on Premium accounts)

However, the unlimited data cap and the fact it’s a proper looking, proper feeling VPN service, basically makes it the best option by far that I could find for a free VPN with Indian servers.

See here to get started with the free version of TurboVPN.

Free Option #2 – Tunnelbear Free Version (500 MB/Month Data)

We’ll continue with the excellent Tunnelbear VPN service, who do have a free version of their product and also a server in Bengaluru, India – perfect!

Click here to visit Tunnelbear’s site. Click the Tunnelbear logo on the top left to go back to the homepage, and click on “Plans”. If you sign up for the Free account, you get 500 MB of data to use each month.

The Free plan is buried away somewhat in the menus and not heavily promoted, as for obvious reasons, they’d prefer customers used paid plans, but you can still find it by clicking back to the homepage and finding the Plans page.

Tunnelbear’s got servers in 49 countries, including in India (Bengaluru), so it can be a great option for short term/basic usage. I tested the India server from my location in the UK, and it did work fine.

It also feels and works like a proper, secure VPN service, with your own IP and no data logging, unlike some other shared VPN services that I’d never use to enter personal data on. It’s not a cheap VPN/proxy hybrid that’s built into a browser and isn’t really secure – it is a fully separate software program you load up and activate, just like a Premium VPN.

However, with the free version, you only get 500 MB of data to use per month. You can tweet at them for an extra 1 GB, but this is your main limitation with this service – you don’t get much data/bandwidth to use. Once you open the interface, there is a data counter so you can see how you’ve got left this month.

For clarity, here’s a quick summary of what you can expect different activities to use in terms of data, given the 500 MB monthly cap with Tunnelbear:

• Basic browsing – Doesn’t use much – 10-20 MB per hour.
• Social media – Uses a bit more – 100-150 MB per hour.
• Multiplayer Online gaming – 50-60 MB per hour.
• YouTube Video (10 minutes):
  • • 480p – 80 MB
    • 720p (HD) – 250 MB
• YouTube video (1 hour)
  • • 480p – 500-700 MB
    • 720p (HD) – 1.5-2 GB
    • You can change YouTube video quality using the settings cog in the bottom right of videos.
• Netflix movie
  • • SD – 700 MB per hour.
    • HD – 3 GB per hour
    • Ultra HD – 7 GB per hour
    • See here for source plus how to change Netflix data usage settings.

Here’s what you could realistically do with the Tunnelbear free version:

• Perfect for short term holiday use (eg. 1-2 weeks or less in India), just logging into your emails once or twice a day, making purchases etc. Any more than 1 week away you might need a Premium service (see last section).
• Very light, basic browsing (emails, shopping, directions, news etc), but you will see your 500 MB/month quote drain quickly – just 16/17 MB per day for a month.
• Anything where you really need a secure connection – making payments, logging into sensitive accounts, entering any other personal information – I’d use the Tunnelbear VPN and not a shared VPN like UrbanVPN we’ll cover below.
• You can use it to keep your connection secure whilst signing up for an unlimited, Premium VPN service that’ll serve you better long term (see section at the bottom).

Here’s what you can’t really use Tunnelbear free for:

• Videos/streaming services/YouTube – uses too much data as indicated above. You’ll run out of your allowance very quickly
• Social media – might get away with a really small amount, but again it can use up more than you might think.

Overall, Tunnelbear’s free version is an excellent, credible starting point to get an IP address in India and a secure connection whilst there. The data limit is the big downside, but you can complement it with our next option below, or go for a Premium service if you need one.

Free Option #3 – UrbanVPN (Unlimited but not private)

Now let’s move to the third major free India VPN option I could find, that almost like an inverse of the Tunnelbear service in terms of pro’s/cons – it’s got unlimited use, but the server speeds/reliability and privacy are not as good.

UrbanVPN pride themselves on being a totally free, peer to peer VPN service, using the connections of users to re-route traffic. It’s like the users are each acting as VPN’s for the other users, almost like a crowd-funded VPN service.

They’ve got servers in 80+ countries at present, including in India, an use of all these servers is unlimited and free.

Click here to get started with UrbanVPN

Here are the main benefits of UrbanVPN:

• Totally free to use
• No need to set up any account or provide any details – just download the program/app and get started.
• Totally free and unlimited server use.
• Available for all major browsers, devices and operating systems.
• Has a server in India.

But unfortunately, there are some negatives to the service:

• There are some reviews that report slow and unreliable servers (unfortunately, this is to be expected on free services)
• An ambiguous privacy policy that doesn’t make it exactly clear how your data is collected, used or stored.
• Zero customer support if the service goes down or you have difficulties (again to be expected with a free service)
• It’s just difficult to know exactly how secure your data is, or where it’s going. Ultimately, security and privacy and too much up-in-the-air with a peer to peer service like this. It’s the same reason I don’t use the Opera browser VPN for logging into really important accounts – I don’t like using generic shared IP address proxies/VPN’s, even if they claim to be “VPN’s”. You don’t know where your data is going, and they don’t offer the same level of security and privacy as a Premium VPN.

UrbanVPN is definitely NOT a 100% confidential, zero logs VPN:

However, that doesn’t actually matter to a lot of users. If privacy is not your main concern, and you just want a VPN with servers in a certain country to access certain websites, then UrbanVPN can do that for you. Just be prepared to have your personal data collected in a way it won’t be if you sign up to a Premium VPN with a no logs policy (see below).

Here’s what UrbanVPN could be good for:

• Video streaming on sites like YouTube (because bandwidth is unlimited), as long as your connection is good enough for it.
• Possibly logging into streaming services that require an Indian IP address, provided you are happy entering login details on a shared/P2P VPN. However, be aware that these free, shared VPN services RARELY consistently work for unlocking major streaming sites like Netflix or Disney Plus. Even some Premium VPNs struggle to consistently do this, so free VPN’s have even less chance. You might have some success, but I’d keep your expectations low overall, and try a Premium VPN if you’re having trouble.
  
• Social media account possibly, again if you’re OK with this. Personally I’d only do this if my passwords for these accounts wasn’t used for any other account.

In this way, you could use both Tunnelbear and UrbanVPN to complement each other – use Tunnelbear for really security-essential stuff like logging into serious accounts and making purchases, and just use UrbanVPN for more bandwidth heavy things like streaming, and possibly logging into less serious accounts like YouTube or streaming services (at your own discretion).

Whatever you’re doing, just be aware of the privacy policy, and that your personal data and browsing history can still be collected whilst using the UrbanVPN service.

With VPN’s though, you always get what you pay for, and free services are always going to be restricted and restrictive, whether it’s with data use (Tunnelbear) or reliability and privacy (UrbanVPN).

Luckily for Indian users, TurboVPN has Indian servers on their free version, and therefore blows both the other two out the water with it’s unlimited use.

However, to get a proper, unlimited, fully secure VPN service, where you know your connection is going to be fast, and reliable in accessing streaming services, and your personal data is going to be safe and private, you need to pay for a Premium service (see further below)

Some India VPN Options That Aren’t Really Free

Let’s clear up some of the inaccurate information that’s currently showing up in search results for “free” VPN’s with Indian servers. We’ll quickly list some VPN services that might have servers in India, but not for free:

• Hotspot Shield – A well established VPN service that does have Indian servers, but not on their free version, only on their paid plans. Their only free server is in the USA
• Hide.me – Another excellent long standing VPN service that we’ve recommended elsewhere, but they only have free servers in 5 countries, and India is not one of them. You have to get their Premium plan to get Indian servers.
• Switcherry VPN – Again shows up prominently in search results, but their free version doesn’t have Indian servers; only USA servers. You need to pay for Indian servers.
• UFO VPN – Again shows up a lot and is titled as a “Free” VPN but you can’t get an Indian server for free with them; you have to pay for a Premium account. There is a free version but it’s very limited in features and doesn’t have Indian servers. See here for the differences between their plans.

We’ve tried to stay directly relevant in this article – only suggesting VPN’s that are 100% free, with zero upfront cost, as well as having servers in India on their free versions.

Some Premium VPN Options With Indian Servers

If at some point you decide you’d like to use a VPN in more locations and have unlimited use and better support, you might want to consider upgrading to a paid VPN plan. Users in India have perhaps less choice than some other countries, but there are still plenty of paid VPN services that offer servers in India.

Firstly, TurboVPN and Tunnelbear both have Premium plans (with more countries/servers and unlimited use) you can upgrade to for very reasonable prices.

However, we’ve also listed some other Premium VPN services for you to browse through, that also offer Indian servers (so you can have an IP address there), plus unlimited use, zero logs,  and 24/7 support.

Some Premium VPN Services With Indian Servers (links are affiliate links)

Provider	Price (12 months paid in advance)	Number of locations in India	Number of Devices Allowed	Main Benefits
Private Internet Access	$3.33/month	1 (New Delhi)	10	Review here
VyprVPN	$3.75/month	1 (Mumbai)	5	Review here
ProtonVPN	$5.00/month	2 (Pune, Mumbai)	2	Reputable brand
NordVPN	$5/month	1 (Mumbai - 30+ servers)	6	Double Encryption & Server Choice
AtlasVPN	$3.29/month	1 (Chennai)	Unlimited	Cheap no nonsense VPN

Signing up for a VPN is usually very easy. You simply visit their site (click on one of our links above for each provider), sign up, pay your subscription, download their product and boot up the program.

Once running you simply select a preferred server location and open the VPN connection. You now have a secure, encrypted connection that will keep all your browsing and personal data safe over public and private Wi-Fi networks.