Ookla launches Speedtest VPN, a free virtual private network

Ookla, the company that owns and operates speedtest.net, will soon offer another free service for savvy Internet users: a VPN.

The Speedtest VPN, as it’s being called, is available through Ookla’s Speedtest apps for iOs and Android. On paper, it looks fairly good, especially for a free VPN. Ookla promises that its free VPN keeps no logs and doesn’t track user activity. It also taps into a shared pool of over 40,000 IP addresses and assigns them to users randomly to help bolster anonymity.

However, like all free VPNs, there are a few catches. Firstly, the Speedtest VPN is currently in Beta, so there are bound to be a few bugs as Ookla hammers everything out. Additionally, users are capped at 2 GB of bandwidth every month. Perhaps a bit ironically, the data sent and received in Ookla’s speedtest eats up this allowance.

To use the free VPN, users should update the Ookla Speedtest app to the latest version. There, they’ll find a padlock icon along the bottom toolbar. This tab will walk them through making a VPN account and enabling the VPN on their device. Ookla has said it will release a paid tier once the VPN exits beta.