TunnelBear VPN Review
A reliable VPN with a great free tier
Verdict
With fast speeds, reasonable prices and a fair range of features, Tunnelbear is a great choice for most users.
Pros
- Free version available
- Clear no-logging policy
- Fast speeds
- Inexpensive annual subscription
Cons
- Free service provides a relatively small data allowance
Availability
- UKRRP: £7.75
- USARRP: $9.99
Key Features
- Free tier available: TunnelBear VPN has a free tier that gives users 2GB of secure browsing every month.
- Endpoints in 47 different countries:TunnelBear VPN has an astonishing number of endpoints, even with the free tier, which is useful if you want to use a server in a specific location.
Introduction
With consistently fast performance, a solid free tier and very reasonable subscription prices, Tunnelbear is a long-standing participant in the Trusted Reviews VPN group test.
Although free users get 2GB of bandwidth per month by default, in 20 countries – places where being able to access a VPN can be a matter of freedom of speech or even life and death – free accounts get 10GB or even 100GB of data allowance.
Based in Canada but owned by US firm McAfee, Tunnelbear has been adding features recently, including cross-platform Wireguard support and a country search feature.
Pricing and subscriptions
Assuming the free version doesn’t meet your needs, an unlimited Tunnelbear subscription costs £7.75/$99.99 per month, £31.93/$39.99 per year or £95.82/$120 per three years.
The one- and three-year accounts renew at the current standard rate of £47.81 per year. This isn’t too steep, but you may wish to ensure that you don’t have auto-renewal active.
Tunnelbear lets paying subscribers connect a nominally unlimited number of devices simultaneously.
Privacy and Protection
- Features a no-logging policy
- Has been independently audited
TunnelBear has an explicit no-logging policy and is independently audited for security on a periodic basis, which will reassure the privacy-conscious, although the audit doesn’t specifically focus on logging. It’s also published the source code for many of its applications. The company publishes occasional transparency reports, the most recent in November 2023.
TunnelBear used to block standard BitTorrent ports so that it wasn’t put in the position of having to log user activity in accordance with Canadian copyright law, but has now enabled torrenting via its tunnels in Canada, the US, UK, Romania, Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden. This is helpful for anyone who uses software that’s distributed via torrents, such as many Linux distros.
Features and usability
- Supports wide range of platforms
- Can hide the fact you’re using a VPN
TunnelBear provides both free and paid-for VPN services across a wide variety of platforms, with clients for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, browser plugins for Opera and Chrome, and OpenVPN profiles available for Linux users.
Its Windows client opens on a world map that you can use to select an endpoint in the country of your choice, while a pull-down menu at the top of the window lets you select an endpoint location from a list if you prefer. There’s also a button that lets you quickly connect and disconnect from your VPN.
A settings tab lets you configure the client’s behaviour, with options for users who want extra security. Features include VigilantBear, a kill switch that temporarily halts all your internet traffic if you become disconnected from the VPN, and GhostBear, an experimental feature that attempts to hide the fact you’re using an encrypted VPN connection at all – useful if you’re visiting a country or even just an office building where VPNs are forbidden, , at the possible cost of reduced performance.
Performance
- Vast speed improvements in recent tests
Tunnelbear has been picking up speed in our test results lately, and now sits comfortably at the top of our speed tests, alongside NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN and ProtonVPN.
Unlike most free VPN providers, Tunnelbear doesn’t restrict the choice of endpoints to which free users get access. As I nonetheless test each separately, we get to see an example of the range of speeds you can expect from endpoint servers in the same location.
For example, while both of Tunnelbear’s US test results were impressively quick, I got a peak speed of 264 Mbit/s during one test, and 152.8 Mibt/s during another.
These reflect network conditions at the time of testing and highlight the variability of performance network connections depending on factors such as a contention at any given point, although trends become clearly visible over time.
| VPN Provider | UK | Netherlands | United States | Average |
| Tunnelbear | 318.4 Mbps | 284 Mbps | 152.8 Mbps | 251.73 Mbps |
| Tunnelbear free | 281.6 Mbps | 198.4 Mbps | 264 Mbps | 248 Mbps |
| Reference Group Average | 240 Mbps | 316 Mbps | 47.97 Mbps | 201.32 Mbps |
| Reference (no VPN) | 219.05 Mbps | 210.43 Mbps | 144.51 Mbps | 183.81 Mbps |
Tunnelbear wasn’t detected by iPlayer this time around, so you can watch streaming TV without having to set up split tunnelling. However, in the past I have had issues with this.
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
You want a free VPN with lots of endpoints
TunnelBear has an appealing free tier that lets you access a large variety of country endpoints.
You need the latest features
Although Tunnelbear keeps up with the established tech, it’s not at the forefront of VPN development. Tried and tested isn’t a bad thing, but Mullvad and ExpressVPN might be more your speed if you’re looking for new technologies like post-quantum safe tunnels.
Final Thoughts
Tunnelbear provides a great service at a reasonable price and it has improved a lot since the last time I reviewed it.
It’s quick, I was able to watch videos in my local region when connected and it has the basic features everyone needs.
While I’d like features like a dedicated Linux client and RAMdisk servers, Tunnelbear’s approach meets the needs of most users very successfully and it can now compete with the best VPNs on the market.
How we test
We run tests from a London-based connection that typically sees speeds between 500Mbps and 700Mbps, which means that we’re able to get a good idea of what each VPN’s maximum speeds currently are.
We test multiple endpoints from each provider in three locations: the UK, the Netherlands and the U.S.
Tested speeds with three endpoints: UK, USA and the Netherlands.
Researched security and no-logging claims
Tested all available features
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FAQs
Yes, TunnelBear does have a free tier, although it has a monthly 2GB bandwidth cap which limits use.
Yes, TunnelBear has a no-logging policy and has also been independently audited. It’s also owned by the well-known company McAfee.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
