TunnelBear review: A cutesy VPN service for casual users with a free version that doesn’t suck
UPDATE: Aug. 28, 2024, 5:00 a.m. EDT After retesting TunnelBear on iOS and Windows, taking a closer look at its privacy practices, and evaluating its transparency measures against those of other VPN providers, we’ve revisited this review to award it a higher score.
“Beginner-friendly VPN” isn’t contradictory thanks to TunnelBear, a cheery provider with an uncluttered, cartoon-y app, unlimited simultaneous connections, and an unintimidating privacy policy that doesn’t require a law or IT degree to understand. Crucially, it’s also one of the few VPN services that lets you use its service for free (with some major restrictions).
Power users won’t be impressed by its lack of advanced features and inability to unblock regional content. But for casual users and VPN newbies who’d rather be inundated with bear puns than technical jargon, TunnelBear is a worthy pick.
How much does TunnelBear cost?
TunnelBear offers three different subscription options:
TunnelBear Free is designed for “testing and limited usage.” It includes 2GB of browsing data per month on a single device, which doesn’t roll over to the next month if it goes unused. There’s no credit card required to sign up.
TunnelBear Unlimited ($ 9.99/month, $ 4.99/month per year, or $ 3.33/month per three years) unlocks unlimited browsing data, unlimited simultaneous connections, access to its entire server network, the ability to select certain servers on the city level, and priority customer support.
TunnelBear Teams starts at $ 138/year for businesses with at least two users.
TunnelBear doesn’t have a money-back guarantee, unlike many of its peers, and refunds are only offered by request on a case-by-case basis. It accepts Mastercard, Visa, and American Express.
For the purposes of this review, I only tested TunnelBear’s Free and Unlimited tiers.
Hands-on with TunnelBear
TunnelBear works on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Chrome. (I tried it on Windows, Mac, and iOS.) That’s fewer platforms than much of its competition, but realistically, it covers most users on a smartphone and/or desktop.
The TunnelBear app is effectively just a posterized world map speckled with yellow, Super Mario Bros.-esque pipes that represent different servers, and when you boot up the app for the first time, a small sheep will be sitting at your physical location. Toggling on the VPN will colorize the map and make the sheep poof into a teensy brown bear, who then digs down and emerges from the pipe at the VPN server location nearest you — that means you’re connected. (In theory, this default server should be the speediest one for you since your data doesn’t have to travel very far. TunnelBear calls it the “Fastest Tunnel.”) If you look closely, you can see the bear look around once he’s settled. It’s very cute.
Most things about TunnelBear can be described as cute, which feels like a weird thing to say about a VPN — a cybersecurity tool. Its website is peppered with bear references (“grizzly details,” “a helping paw,” lots of “rawrs”). Its bear logo covers its eyes when you type in your password at login. Each of its staff members have bear nicknames and avatars. You can enable bear sound effects on mobile. It would all feel a bit juvenile if most other VPNs weren’t so solemn and intense. Online privacy is a serious matter, yes, but let’s have some fun with it! What ever happened to fun!!!
Anyway, that map is pretty much the extent of the TunnelBear interface. The free version lets you switch between servers in different countries, while a paid subscription opens up servers in specific cities worldwide; you can connect to them by clicking on their pipes or by selecting them from a list. TunnelBear maintains servers in over 5,000 locations in 47 countries worldwide, which makes its network on the smaller side from a geographical distribution standpoint. (ExpressVPN and NordNPN, two other major VPN providers, have servers in 105 and 111 countries, respectively.) In other words, you’ve got fewer location-spoofing options.
The TunnelBear app defaults to an “auto” protocol option that it deems best for you, but you can choose between WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2 in a settings menu. This is also where you’ll see options to enable an automatic kill switch called “VigilantBear” and a split tunneling tool called “SplitBear.” The latter offers varying levels of control depending on your platform: SplitBear for Windows lets you exclude both websites and apps from your VPN connection, for instance, while SplitBear for macOS lets you only exclude sites. There’s no multi-hop.
In my latest roundup of testing, TunnelBear was quick to connect most of the time. Its Mac app often struggled to make an initial connection to my Fastest Server — sometimes it took a full minute to get me online — but hopping on a different U.S. server first before going back to the Fastest Tunnel seemed to remedy the issue. I wouldn’t put too much stake into this; it wasn’t a cross-platform problem and could just be a me/my MacBook quirk.
Browsing with TunnelBear on felt a little pokey no matter which server I was connected to, but that’s to be expected with any VPN, and it was never annoying enough to be totally unusable. I was also able to stream YouTube videos and movies on Disney+ and Max without any lagging or stuttering.
Regional content gave TunnelBear trouble, though. No matter the platform, ITVX showed me a “you’re outside the country” error code 01-01 every time I tried watching Love Island UK on a TunnelBear UK server in the UK. Don’t count on this one for your international streaming needs.
In TunnelBear’s defense, it at least kept my true IP address locked down while I was connected to its server. (It passed multiple DNS leak tests.) It’s important to remember that this is the main job of a VPN, and that extras like unblocking geo-restricted content are essentially just bonuses.
More on TunnelBear Free
A TunnelBear Free plan used to limit you to just 500MB of browsing data per month. TunnelBear’s decision to raise it to 2GB per month in February 2023 made this tier eons more practical for regular use, but you can still chunk through it in a few hours if you’re not careful. I ate through my 2GB in just under four hours by surfing the web, scrolling through social media, and watching some music videos on my Fastest Tunnel, so don’t just leave it on and expect it to get you through the month. A TunnelBear rep named “CubCake Bear” told me via email that this tier is meant to “[serve] as a method to try before you buy, or if your need is minimal on a monthly basis.”
One of the biggest things TunnelBear Free has going for it (besides the obvious “it’s free!” part) is that it isn’t cluttered with ads. A banner promoting a seasonal discount on Tunnelbear Unlimited did appear across the top of the app at one point during a previous round of testing, but it was subtle and unobtrusive and didn’t affect my user experience whatsoever. TunnelBear’s rangers have kept this park litter-free.
Is TunnelBear trustworthy?
TunnelBear has democratized VPNs in two major ways: One, by simplifying the technology itself, and two, by maintaining a privacy policy that’s extremely easy for a layperson to understand. It uses plain language and mixes in explainers that delve into why certain types of customer data are collected and stored — the last name on your credit card is used for fraud prevention, for instance — and it explicitly states that it does not log activity while someone’s using the VPN. (It doesn’t know who you are, where you connect from, or what you’re doing when you’re on it.) TunnelBear Free users’ monthly data consumption is documented so that the company can enforce its 2GB limit, but they’re otherwise protected by the same “no logs” promise.
For what it’s worth, TunnelBear says it doesn’t make any money off its free users, either — by selling their data or otherwise. “Our business is driven solely by our paid subscribers, who help offset the cost to maintain our servers and operate our infrastructure,” CubCake Bear told me.
TunnelBear was the first consumer VPN to publish an independent security audit back in 2017, and it’s completed them every year since. Anyone can view these reports, even those who haven’t signed up for an account. TunnelBear also publishes reports that disclose the government data requests it receives. The latest version details 70 requests between 2021 and 2023, which were mostly “the result of law enforcement authorities seeking to investigate crimes,” it said. TunnelBear twice confirmed whether an individual had an account, but never coughed up any browsing data — because it doesn’t have it.
As far as I can tell, TunnelBear has avoided amassing any obvious dings on its record in the 13 years since it first hit the market (something I can’t say about other industry kingpins). Its acquisition by McAfee in 2018 initially raised some concerns about whether TunnelBear’s VPN would be bundled with its new owner’s, but the company has continued to operate separately. Overall, its record on privacy and transparency is stellar.
Is TunnelBear worth it?
TunnelBear is a refreshingly approachable VPN service that will win over those who just need a simple, easy-to-use VPN that can run in the background during everyday browsing. It’s not quite a Mashable Choice Award winner, but it ranks high among the VPNs I’ve tested.
I don’t think TunnelBear will feel like a good value to VPN veterans and techies who like to fiddle around with lots of features. Those who need a VPN that can unblock regional content will also need to look elsewhere. For comparison’s sake, a NordVPN Basic plan gets you multi-hop, a built-in dark web monitor, an anti-malware/tracker tool, support on more platforms, up to 10 simultaneous connections, and the ability to unblock regional content for the same annual rate as TunnelBear Unlimited.
But for more inexperienced and casual users, I think there’s merit in TunnelBear’s simplicity, and especially in its clean record. You should never sacrifice strong privacy practices in favor of extra fixings — though it would still be really nice if TunnelBear offered multi-hop connections.
The free version of TunnelBear deserves its own shoutout. Many free VPN providers will log and sell user data to third-party advertisers or bundle their products with malware — there’s that thing about free lunches — but TunnelBear Free is backed by the same policies and protections as the paid version. While it won’t meet the needs of a daily user, it’s decent for sparing, situational use and may help you decide whether to invest in a paid plan (or a more feature-rich VPN).
