Freebie Vpns Recommendations?

...are there any, for Windows 10? Given the current state of the internet and identity theft, I'm researching a few options and I was hoping there's a way to try out some VPN stuff that isn't either an outright scam or suffer some heinous drawbacks.

All jokes aside, there are quite a few in the Internet Tools category here, but it's a case of so many options I don't even know where to begin looking, and I'm hoping for something that's relatively plug-and-play.

In before 'switch to Linux', I know, I know.

 

I'm going to quote that commercial "that's not how any of this works" - VPNs are not operating system specific, some that have their own connection client software maybe.
VPNs are generally used for:
Privacy & Anonymity
Security on Public Wi-Fi (<- this comes the closest to preventing identity theft)
Bypass Geo-Restrictions
Avoid Censorship
Prevent Bandwidth Throttling

But is anything really free? In these days, if it is free, you are the product.

 

If you are interested in trying a free VPN, I used the free version of Proton before upgrading to a paid version. It worked very well for me: I simply outgrew the limitations.

 

Why You Shouldn't (Mostly) Use Free VPN Services - MajorGeeks

 

Public wi-fi and a little region-hopping are the main interests, yeah.

Appreciate the information, and I hadn't seen that article.

 

Depends what you are doing, and what you'd like to stop happening.

Opera, for example, has a rather excellent built in VPN that you can toggle as required, but clearly only functions on the browser level.
As far as using a network level VPN goes, again, bazillions of options, and pretty much all the fee options are limited for obvious reasons (masses amounts of data moving through servers nobody is paying for...)

https://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortdate/proxy.html

The best free one happens to wither away a large portion of your sanity installing it (OpenVPN), "the best" in that it has the most options. For me though, it has always been Proton, although it has limited it's free option a lot recently.

So back to what you need it for.
If for general security and limiting your exposure to the evil without, or even to try circumvent any ISP side throttling (or university IT Dept., cough), the only time your ISP and your own Firewalls will not be sufficient to protect you 100%, is when you are actually sending potentially sensitve data over the internet (like your dicpics). Which definetly is not 24/7, unless you have some speciallised reason for that.

But pretty much everybody only enables their VPN when actually required (so browsing midget porn and wotnot), and you did state your primary concern was NetCafes....
So your only real issue with a fully free option, would be data limitations.

If only browsing (and using web based email client), consider the awesome OperaGX (bit of fiddling to settle in, but its just cooler fullstop).
If the data limts are not a worry, Proton.
If the data limits are a worry, Proton + Subscription
...or the infamous and excellent (but not ceap relatively) NordVPN.

Just by the way back on Internet Cafes, I'd hazard 20000000000000000000000000% of the time issues arise because people have Internet&Connection/File Sharing enabled at home, and somehow havent figured out how to disable it on any other connected network. To do this, ask our Overlord (google) because I'm not typing until tomorrow. I have stuff to do. Midgets to find.

The other thing us secret geniuses do, is (if you have a home pc) to create an SSH server at home that you directly connect to via whatever internet you are using remotely and tunnel your traffic through your home based ISP, effectively building your own VPN (ish). Pro Tip : VPN = Virtual Private Network, effectively emulating a hard network (read elevated and separate from all others), so if you anna have some fun...go do that.

Live Long and Force Things.
...or was it Prosper in May?