The Best Free Australian VPN in 2024: Get an Australian IP in 2022

Key Takeaways:

• Australia’s internet is mostly free, but the newly introduced surveillance law can put your privacy at risk.
• A VPN helps secure your connection by encrypting it so no one can intercept your internet traffic or snoop on your online activities. Most free VPNs are bare-bones and don’t provide adequate security.
• PrivadoVPN is the best free VPN for Australia, but its Australian server is only available on the paid plan. If you need an Australian IP address, TunnelBear can get you one.

From accessing geoblocked content to protecting your privacy against Australia’s new surveillance law, there are many reasons you might want to use a VPN (virtual private network). If you’re on a budget, though, you might be looking for a free Australian VPN. 

While free VPNs rarely match the security and performance of premium VPNs, there are a few good options. These free VPN services will effectively protect you against Australia’s surveillance laws, and many will unblock popular streaming services.

Freedom House rates Australia’s internet as free, so you don’t need to worry about bypassing censorship when using the internet in Australia. However, the Australian government has been expanding its data-collection capabilities.

Evidence (as cited by the Freedom House report) presented before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) in 2020 suggests the AFP made eight and the New South Wales police made 13 requests to access encrypted user data.

For these reasons, you might want a free Australia VPN, and that’s what we’ll help you with in this guide.

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The Top Free VPNs for Australia

What Makes the Best Free Australian VPN?

A good, free VPN service is hard to come by. However, we’ve found four free VPN providers that will secure your connection and help you access geoblocked streaming services. Below, we explain what we looked at when selecting these best free VPNs for Australia.

1. PrivadoVPN — Overall best VPN for Australia
2. hide.me — Access to most paid features on the free plan
3. Windscribe — Fast free VPN for Australia
4. Proton VPN — Secure VPN with unlimited data
5. TunnelBear — Free VPN servers in over 40 countries, including Australia

Since you’re in Australia, you won’t need a VPN with an Australian server because you can access local content with your actual IP address.

However, you might need an Australian IP in some cases, such as if your bank only allows access to its online banking service to users physically located in Australia. TunnelBear offers free Australian servers in case an Australian IP address is a non-negotiable requirement for you.

Here are other things we considered for selecting the best free Australian VPNs.

Security & Privacy

All VPNs use encryption, which is why a VPN connection helps ensure your online security and privacy. However, VPNs use different encryption protocols and ciphers. The best VPNs offer security protocols like OpenVPN, IKEv2 and WireGuard and ciphers like AES-256 and ChaCha20.

The problem, though, is that most free VPNs don’t offer a lot of security features. They also log user data, which puts your online privacy at risk. Ideally, you want a VPN that offers security features like a kill switch and DNS leak protection, and a strict, transparent no-logs policy.

Connection Speed

A VPN connection speed is almost always slower than your unprotected connection, except when your internet service provider (ISP) is throttling your speeds.

The reason for the reduced speed is that your internet traffic travels through an intermediary server when you use a VPN. The longer distance translates to slower connection speeds, which can be bad news for your streaming experience.

Free VPNs are generally slow, except for a few. However, most VPNs in this guide offer excellent speeds and provide a great streaming experience.

Ability to Unblock Streaming Services

All VPNs can assign you another country’s IP address, but not all of them can unblock streaming services. Platforms like Netflix ban VPNs, rendering most free services incapable of unblocking them. If you’re a fan of American shows and want access to Netflix U.S., you’ll need a VPN that can effectively unblock geo-restrictions on streaming platforms.

5 Best Free Australia VPN Choices

We tested the best free VPNs and found four VPNs for Australia based on the criteria discussed in the previous section.

1. PrivadoVPN

More details about PrivadoVPN:

• Pricing: Free; $1.99 per month (two-year plan + three months)
• Provider website: privadovpn.com

PrivadoVPN is the best free VPN on the market and it’s no surprise that it’s also the best VPN for Australia. It lets you connect to servers in 10 countries for free: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

PrivadoVPN is excellent at unblocking websites, especially geoblocked streaming platforms like Netflix, BBC iPlayer and Amazon Prime. PrivadoVPN has reasonably fast download speeds so we were able to stream without buffering wheels. Our gripe with PrivadoVPN is that it offers only 10GB of data monthly.

Excellent For Private and Secure Browsing

Although PrivadoVPN is free, it provides excellent privacy and security. It has a kill switch to prevent data leaks and uses reliable and secure VPN protocols: OpenVPN, WireGuard and IKEv2. PrivadoVPN is based in privacy-friendly Switzerland which has good privacy laws and also follows a strict no-logs policy.

Besides the free plan, PrivadoVPN offers monthly and annual plans and two-year plans. The monthly plan costs $10.99, while the yearly subscription will set you back $2.99. The best deal is the two-year plan which costs $1.99 per month (two-year plan + three months).

All plans are covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee. Read our full PrivadoVPN review for more details.

30-days money-back guarantee

Free

• 10GB
• 1

FREE

Premium

• *Billed $44.85 for the first 15 months, then $59.88 every 12 months. *Billed $53.73 for the first 27 months, then $95.76 every 24 months.
• Unlimited GB
• 10
• Yes

1-month plan, 15-months plan

1-month plan

$10.99/month

15-months plan

$2.99/month

$44.85 billed first 15 months and 12 months thereafter

Save 72%

2-year plan + 3 months

$1.99/month

$53.73 billed every 2 years

Save 81%

2. hide.me

More details about hide.me:

• Pricing: 10GB free plan; $3.75 per month (one-year plan)
• Provider website: hide.me

The best part about hide.me is that you get access to almost all the features that paid users can access on the free version. However, you get free access to eight server locations, including the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France and the Netherlands.

hide.me offers unlimited data on the free version, but with one caveat. You can choose one of the free server locations for the first 10GB each month. However, beyond 10GB, hide.me randomly selects a server for you.

While hide.me can’t unblock Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, it’s an excellent VPN provider if you need a relatively fast, free VPN with unlimited data, perhaps for torrenting. Learn more about hide.me in our detailed hide.me review.

Fallback Protocol

hide.me offers fallback — or backup — protocol, which automatically activates to ensure your connection is always protected. Unlike many other VPNs you don’t have to change protocols manually. hide.me offers multiple protocols, with OpenVPN, WireGuard and IKEv2 being the most popular.

If you need a VPN that offers an excellent feature set and decent speeds paired with unlimited data, hide.me is an excellent choice. You might also give the paid version a try — hide.me is one of the cheapest services on the list. If you don’t like it, you can claim a full refund using its 30-day money-back guarantee.

30-days money-back guarantee

Free

• 5 servers
• 10GB
• 1

FREE

Premium

• Unlimited GB
• 10
• Yes

1-month plan, 1-year plan

1-month plan

$9.95/month

1-year plan

$3.75/month

$45 billed every year

Save 62%

2-year plan + 3 months

$2.22/month

$59.95 billed every 2 years

Save 77%

3. Windscribe

More details about Windscribe:

• Pricing: 10GB free plan; Pro for $5.75 per month (one-year plan)
• Provider website: windscribe.com

Even though Windscribe is free, it beats some of its premium counterparts with its fast connection speeds (see our VPN speed test results). It also unblocks all the popular streaming services, including Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, without any issues.

Fortunately, Windscribe doesn’t compromise on security. It offers the best VPN protocols and cipher currently available — options include OpenVPN, IKEv2 and WireGuard combined with AES-256. It has a transparent logging policy that commits to zero data logging. Learn more about Windscribe in our Windscribe review.

Excellent Free Version

With Windscribe, you get up to 15GB of free data each month (provided you confirm your email and tweet about Windscribe) — one of the highest allowances among the top free VPNs. You get access to servers across 10 countries (Australia isn’t one of them, though) and limited access to Windscribe’s ad blocker called R.O.B.E.R.T.

Windscribe’s best value plan costs $5.75 per month. The paid plan gives you access to unlimited data and full access to all Windscribe servers as well as R.O.B.E.R.T. However, you can tailor a plan that better fits your needs with the build-a-plan option.

The minimum checkout value for the build-a-plan option is $3 per month. You can either add three server locations (for $1 each per month) or combine two server locations with unlimited data and access to R.O.B.E.R.T. (also $1 per month).

3-days money-back guarantee

Free

• Up to 15 GB free with email confirmation and Tweet
• 15GB
• Unlimited

FREE

Pro Plan

• Unlimited GB
• Unlimited
• Yes

1-month plan

1-month plan

$9/month

1-year plan

$5.75/month

$69 billed every year

Save 36%

4. Proton VPN

More details about Proton VPN:

• Pricing: Unlimited free plan with three servers; $4.49 per month (two-year plan)
• Provider website: protonvpn.com

Proton VPN is a good VPN for safe browsing in Australia. Its free version has an extensive feature set that includes a kill switch. split tunneling, and three excellent security protocols: OpenVPN, IKEv2 and WireGuard. The service has a reliable no-logs policy, so you won’t need to worry about any data logging.

While Proton VPN is capable of bypassing geoblocks, there’s one drawback that puts Proton VPN near-bottom of this list, and that’s that you can’t choose what server to connect to on the free plan. That means that if you want to access U.S. Netflix for example, you have to hope that it connects you to the U.S. server.

Unlimited Data

Proton VPN is one of the few free VPN services that offers unlimited data on the free version. However, you can’t choose your preferred server; Proton VPN selects a random server for you each time you click to connect. This will make life difficult if you need a specific IP address.

Proton VPN costs more than premium VPNs like NordVPN and Surfshark even on its best value plan. However, you get 10 simultaneous connections and a feature-rich, intuitive app. You can also just take Proton VPN for a spin using its 30-day money-back guarantee before committing long-term.

30-days money-back guarantee

Free

• Unlimited GB
• 1
• Yes

FREE

Plus

• Renewal prices are different after the first year for the 1-year plan, and after the second year for the 2-year plan.
• Unlimited GB
• 10
• Yes

1-month plan, 1-year plan

1-month plan

$9.99/month

1-year plan

$4.99/month

$59.88 billed every year

Save 50%

2-year plan

$4.49/month

$107.76 billed every 2 years

Save 55%

5. TunnelBear

More details about TunnelBear:

• Pricing: 2GB free plan; $3.33 per month (three-year plan)
• Provider website: tunnelbear.com

TunnelBear is a beginner-friendly VPN provider. The interface is easy to get used to and the server list appears right on the home screen. You get all the essential features like VigilantBear (a kill switch) and SplitBear (split tunneling). However, SplitBear is only available on Android and iOS devices.

TunnelBear also has some additional features, like GhostBear. With GhostBear, you can more effectively conceal VPN usage — especially useful in censorship-heavy countries like China.

The main downside to TunnelBear is the meager data allowance of 2GB per month. That’s too low for streaming content in good quality, though you can use it for surfing the web using another country’s IP address. There’s more about TunnelBear and its features in our TunnelBear review.

Access to Servers in Over 40 Countries, Including Australia

TunnelBear offers one of the largest lists of free VPN servers. One of the server locations is Australia, so this is one of the few free VPNs that can help you acquire an Australian IP address. TunnelBear also has servers in other underrepresented countries like Kenya and Taiwan — it’s one of the best free VPNs to get a Taiwan IP address.

TunnelBear’s best value plan costs $3.33 per month for three years. That’s almost as much as premium VPNs like NordVPN’s two-year plan and even higher than Surfshark’s two-year plan price. Nevertheless, if you want something simple, TunnelBear is overall an excellent VPN service.

Free

• 2GB
• 2GB
• Unlimited

FREE

Unlimited

• Unlimited GB, unlimited devices, priority customer service
• Unlimited GB
• Unlimited
• Yes

1-month plan, 1-year plan

1-month plan

$9.99/month

1-year plan

$4.99/month

$59.88 billed every year

Save 50%

3-year plan

$3.33/month

$120 billed every 3 years

Save 66%

Teams

• Unlimited GB, centralized billing, account manager, price per user per month (minimum 2 users)
• Unlimited GB
• Unlimited
• Yes

1-month plan

$5.75/month

How to Get an Australian IP Address Free

You can get an Australia IP address for free using a free VPN like TunnelBear or any other free VPN that also offers free Australian servers. All you need to do is connect to an Australian server and you’ll be assigned an Australian IP address.

However, you shouldn’t just use any free VPN you find on the internet. Most free VPNs are insecure and slow (read our guide on the worst VPNs). Ideally, you should select one of the free VPNs for Australia listed in this guide to ensure you get a trustworthy VPN service.

Free VPNs vs Paid VPNs vs Proxies

VPNs (virtual private networks) and proxies differ in that VPNs encrypt your connection, while proxies don’t.

Sure, proxies might help you access a few geoblocked websites, but your connection won’t be as secure as it will with a VPN. You also don’t get the security features of a VPN like a kill switch or split tunneling.

Ideally, you should use a paid VPN, as they offer better security and performance, but more importantly, because most of them are trustworthy. Selecting one of the best VPNs will ensure you get excellent speeds, top-notch security and a vast range of features.

If you’re on a budget, however, you may consider a free VPN, but buyer beware — most free VPNs are insecure and some are even dangerous. There are a few exceptions, so if you’re looking for the best free VPNs for Australia, use one of the services mentioned in this guide.

Why Do I Need an Australian VPN?

Australia is a great country with a free internet. However, recent government actions indicate that the internet may not be a safe place in the near future. The passing of the surveillance bill in 2021, especially, is a concern for Australian netizens. The law allows the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to monitor online activity suspected to be criminal without needing a warrant.

This is why you need an Australian VPN to keep your connection safe and your identity anonymous when you’re online. A VPN encrypts your connection, ensuring that no one — not even the ISP — can intercept your data.

There are more reasons to use an Australian VPN too. For example, you might want to watch U.S. shows on Netflix (see our guide on how to access Netflix U.S.). For this, you’ll need a VPN that can bypass geoblocks effectively and offers good connection speeds. You might also use a VPN to keep yourself anonymous when torrenting.

What Are the Risks of Using a Free VPN for Australia?

If you’re using an unreliable free VPN, it might not have the right features to keep you safe online. For example, if the VPN doesn’t have a kill switch, an abrupt drop in the VPN’s connection will leave you unprotected, which means the ISP might be able to log your activity.

When using a free VPN, you also risk a DNS leak. When the DNS leaks, your ISP will be able to see which websites you visited. They still can’t see what you did — what data you entered, which files you uploaded, etc. — but it defeats the purpose of using a VPN.

Final Thoughts

While Australia’s internet is mostly free, you might still want to consider using a VPN to protect yourself against the surveillance law over public WiFi or when torrenting. Free VPNs are generally not a great idea because they’re insecure and slow. However, the four VPNs we’ve discussed in this guide are exceptions to the rule.

PrivadoVPN is your best bet, though each service has its own strengths. If access to an Australian server is non-negotiable for you, go with TunnelBear.

Have you used a free VPN for Australia before? How was your experience using it? Let us know in the comments, and as always, thank you for reading.

FAQ

• Is There a Free VPN for Australia?

  Yes, there are several free VPNs for Australia such as PrivadoVPN and TunnelBear. However, if you need a VPN that can assign an Australian IP address, you should select TunnelBear, since it has Australian servers.

• How Do I Get the Aussie VPN?

  You can get an Aussie VPN by going to a free VPN service’s website, such as PrivadoVPN, and downloading the app. If needed, register for the VPN and log in using the app. At this point, you should be ready to use the Aussie VPN.

• What Free VPN Has Australian Servers?

  TunnelBear is the best free VPN with Australian servers. While many other free VPNs may have Australian servers, most free VPN services are insecure and should be avoided.