FreeVPN.se Review: Locations and Privacy problems

FreeVPN.se (.me, .lt, .im, .be, .co, .uk, .eu) states that it provides unsurmountable security and privacy and does not keep any logs. It is supposed to be a revolutionary and advanced VPN service, which “puts your security and privacy first, with no compromise”.

And it is absolutely free!

But…

Having tested this VPN, I declare that this service is not a revolution, it cannot provide privacy, they are keeping logs, it is not user-friendly, and a half of the locations do not work.

FreeVPN.se does not offer any VPN applications but only provides settings for PPTP, IPsec, and OpenVPN protocols.

Keep on reading and you will learn:

• The features of FreeVPN.se
• The Pros and Cons that it has (including Torrent and Netflix tests)
• About unobvious privacy problems that FreeVPN.se has
• The reasons why I do not recommend to use this VPN

Freevpn.se, freevpn.me, freevpn.im, freevpn.it, freevpn.be, freevpn.co.uk, freevpn.eu – they are one and the same provider. All of these domains are part of a single VPN. For simplicity, I used to call it FreeVPN.se. Why does one company need so many sites? I will answer this question in the FreeVPN.se Features chapter. For now, I will give you three really good alternatives to FreeVPN.se.

Top 3 Alternatives

Usually, I suggest alternatives at the end of the review. But with FreeVPN.se, I’ll do this at the beginning because I don’t find this VPN suitable for use.

• NordVPN is an excellent VPN service, which you can use for free. It offers more than 7100 servers in 118 countries all over the world. It provides advanced functionality and applications for all devices. Moreover, it does not keep logs. NordVPN is suitable for any purpose. Read the NordVPN review.
• Surfshark is a paid VPN but it costs only from $2.19 per month. It offers opportunities for bypassing censorship, blocking, and geo-restrictions of streaming services. Moreover, it is good for torrenting. Due to the advanced functionality of Surfshark, it is good even for solving very delicate tasks. Read the Surfshark review.
• Turbo VPN is a free VPN for mobile devices. It provides good speed, but it has several disadvantages, like all free VPNs. Read more about it in the Turbo VPN review.

FreeVPN.se Features

Ranking for free VPNs	Low
Ranking for paid VPN	No paid plan
Platforms	There are configurations for all devices with OpenVPN
Speed	50% average, 50% no connection
Encryption	AES-256-CBC
VPN protocols	OpenVPN, PPTP, IPsec
Torrenting	+
Netflix	-
Keeping Logs	Yes
Ads	+
Support Service	Request form on the site
Price	Free

Main Features

• Masking of IP-addresses and addresses of the sites you visit
• Unblocking sites
• Bandwidth Encryption
• A wide range of protocols

Additional Functions and Capacities

• Torrenting is allowed

FreeVPN.se offers 7 locations in 4 countries: FR, PL, DE, NL. At the time of this writing (January 2022), only two of them are actually available - FR and NL. It is possible to establish a connection with these locations but I couldn`t manage to open sites through them for some reason.

Sites do not open through PL and NL locations

The connection speed on the working servers is good for free VPNs (from 10 to 21 Mbps):

FR: download: 21.04Mbps, upload: 11.06Mbps

NL: download: 11.89Mbps, upload: 7.27Mbps

In order to connect to the VPN, you need an OpenVPN client. It is a free open source application for all platforms. You can download it from the OpenVPN official website at the following link.

FreeVPN.se publishes login information and OpenVPN configuration on their sites. PPTP and IPsec protocol settings that are built into operating systems of Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and Linux are also available there. Therefore, it is not necessary to install a third-party client, but in this case, it will be inconvenient to use the VPN. You can change OpenVPN locations on the menu but you have to enter the system connection settings every time you need to change a location when using PPTP and IPsec.

4 configurations for each server are available for OpenVPN — two ports are for a TCP connection (it is rarely blocked, less noticeable, but performs slower) and the other two are for a UDP connection (faster but sometimes unavailable due to the peculiarities of an Internet provider).

There are no real IP leaks, but this is not due to FreeVPN.se but to the installed client.

Data protection is standard and provides strong authentication and encryption (AES-256).

Since FreeVPN.se does not have its own applications, there are no additional functions as well, such as:

• Kill Switch (blocking device traffic to prevent a real IP address from being tracked if a VPN channel fails);
• Split Tunneling (the choice of applications and URLs for which the VPN will be deactivated);
• Ad Blocker (blocks URLs from which ads are loaded);
• Double VPN (a VPN chain for better protection from tracking of a real location);

You can choose a VPN with advanced functionality in our reviews. For example, the best VPN services review or free VPNs services review.

I tested all the features of FreeVPN.se and divided them into pros and cons. Keep reading and you will learn not only about them but also how to use FreeVPN.se with minimal risk.

FreeVPN.se Pros

Speed

As I have already written, FreeVPN.se provides fairly fast servers, fast enough to handle not very large torrent files, for web surfing and other simple tasks.

Not many free VPN providers with unlimited bandwidth and time offer such or faster speed than FreeVPN.se has.

I did not even expect it, but 3 days of tests proved that the speed is stable and acceptable.

However, if you are not satisfied with 10-20Mbps, you would better choose paid VPNs. The prices of the best of them start from $1.99 per month.

Torrenting Support

FreeVPN.se does not restrict users from using torrent. All its available servers allow torrenting:

I carried out the speed test in qBittorrent where I downloaded a real file with a lot of seeds:

The average download speed was about 2-2.5 Mbps.

This is lower than the speed shown by the www.speedtest.net service. However, it is quite enough for infrequent use.

Only good VPNs can provide maximum speed (up to 60-80 Mbps). If you want fast torrenting, read our VPNs for torrenting review. There are a lot of fast VPNs both free and paid.

However, there is a serious disadvantage of using FreeVPN.se for torrent. An analysis of the privacy policy has shown that this provider is not absolutely private. Keep this in mind if you are going to use it for torrenting in the countries where using torrent is prohibited by law. Read more in the next section.

So, I listed all the advantages of FreeVPN.se. Check out its drawbacks as well because there is a description of problem points.

FreeVPN.se Cons

Tracking users by advertising partners

It is time to talk about the reason why FreeVPN.se has not one, but 7 websites at once. One Individual site is for each server. The fact is that there is a lot of advertisement from advertising partners on every page of each site. And each of them is a site of an individual server.

Ad blocks on the webpages

Thus, every time you switch to configure a new VPN server, a new site, as well as new advertising, is opened. It seems that it helps FreeVPN.se earn more efficiently.

It gets ridiculous when it turns out that it advertises other VPN services ☺

It is not a disadvantage, rather an inconvenience. But this inconvenience has a hidden threat.

The fact is that advertising leaves on your device cookies and other data with your individual identifier. It is used every time you visit sites where the same advertising partner is ratified. This helps advertisers optimize their ads.

And it is no sense to change IP using a VPN. It is possible to identify who you are with high accuracy by this identifier.

It's one thing when it happens on sites and another when the VPN service declares that it does everything for users` privacy and then “leak” their privacy to advertising companies.

I think this is a big drawback and a security hole.

Keeping logs

A similar controversial situation existed with the logging policy.

On the one hand, on the setting pages FreeVPN.se declares that it does not keep logs:

On the other hand, in the Privacy Policy it declares something completely different:

It says that Freevpn.se collects, maintains, and uses:

• IP address
• Browser type
• ISP (Internet Service Provider)
• Using time

This does not refer to the VPN server itself, but to the sites with settings. But this is enough to dramatically reduce the users’ privacy. It can be hacked, compromised by employees, used by intelligence services. It is not difficult to compare the information from the logs with the activity on the VPN servers if you access them.

Moreover, there is no mention that no logs are kept on the servers in the Privacy Policy.

I do not trust this provider in matters of privacy.

Complexity of use

FreeVPN.se does not have its own VPN applications. There are only data for setting by yourself on its sites. Moreover, it does not offer the instructions, unlike many other VPNs without their own applications, for example, VPNBook or VPN Gate.

Therefore, only advanced users and people experienced in using VPNs without their own applications can be interested in it.

By the way, FreeVPN.se uses the bewilderment of the users to slip advertising with bright buttons that you want to click on when searching the way of using.

Choice of locations

There are 4 countries, and 2 of them do not work. I managed to use only NL and FR locations. That's all the options. FreeVPN.se (freevpn.me, freevpn.it, freevpn.im, freevpn.be, freevpn.co.uk, freevpn.eu) is one of the two VPNs without US locations that I found during the process of testing more than 50 VPN providers.

How many tasks can be solved using that choice of locations? Definitely not many. The only things it can do are torrenting with mediocre speed and accessing blocked websites (it is not suitable for bypassing censorship due to the absence of the VPN protocol obfuscation).

It is one of the main disadvantages of FreeVPN.se

It does not work with Netflix

FreeVPN.se simply cannot work with US Netflix, because it has no servers there.

The attempt to unlock Netflix for the Netherlands and France is failed:

Netflix identified that I used an unblocker.

Thus, FreeVPN.se is absolutely unsuitable for streaming.

Specifications of use

In this section, I will give some recommendations on how to use FreeVPN.se more effective and with minimal risk.

The choice of a data transfer protocol and a port

I advise you to use the OpenVPN protocol to create a VPN tunnel. It is tried and true, subjected to continual improvement, and there are no vulnerabilities in it. However, you have to configure an OpenVPN client correctly to use it.

This section is all about choosing TCP or UDP and choosing a port.

You can find 4 configuration files for different cases in the archived file that you download from FreeVPN.se (.me, .it, .im, .be, .co.uk, .eu).

The most proven option is TCP protocol with port 443. It will work in most cases. But you have to use it only if your UDP does not work. Moreover, TCP is slower.

Therefore, you have to select UDP 53 first (this port is connected to the DNS server that`s why it is opened almost all the time). If it does the thing, this setting will provide the maximum speed.

You can choose a 40000 port but it can attract the attention of the network administrator if you use a VPN at your workplace.

FreeVPN.se Torrenting Features

If you decide to use FreeVPN.se for torrenting, then do not forget to turn off all torrent downloads and distributions before changing a VPN server.

Otherwise, your ISP will fix the fact of using torrent. FreeVPN.se does not have the Kill Switch, which is triggered when a VPN connection fails.

In some cases, the fact of using P2P / torrent can lead to a heavy fine.

I recommend using CyberGhost VPN for better protection. It not only offers a well-functioning Kill Switch but also provides the servers for torrenting uniquely configured. You can find a link to that service in the CyberGhost VPN review.

Information about the owner

There is no information about the company or individuals who own FreeVPN.se and the other six domains.

It is only known that the service was launched in 2017.

Conclusion

So, is FreeVPN.se revolutionary? It is, unless in the matter of providing advertisement through their 7 sites. Are its security and privacy unsurmountable? Definitely not. They keep logs and users` personal data leaks to their advertising partners.

Therefore, do not pay attention to loud statements on the main pages of their sites. Anyway, there is no one to answer for these words, because there is no specific company behind this VPN.

What is FreeVPN.se good for and what is not?

It is good for:

• unblocking sites
• torrenting

It is not good for:

• privacy
• tasks requiring a wide range of locations (including the US
• non-advanced users

In my opinion, the service can be included in the list of the worst VPNs. It is not trustworthy and does not correspond to its statements. They do not develop the service technically and there are no its own VPN applications. FreeVPN.se is fully focused on monetization through users` clicks on advertised sites, including other VPN services.

I would not use it for anything besides file torrenting in the countries where torrenting is not prohibited by law.

I hope the review was useful to you. Read other reviews on CoolTechZone and you will definitely find a good VPN.