Firefox assessments a free, built-in VPN various to its paid service

Mozilla is testing a free, built-in VPN service inside Firefox that may complement its current paid Mozilla VPN service.

A assist web page from Mozilla reveals that the corporate has been engaged on an “IP concealment” expertise for over two weeks. Nevertheless, Mozilla has since renamed the web page “Firefox VPN” to point out off the brand new experimental, beta characteristic current within the browser. Mozilla says that the expertise will likely be free, but it surely’s solely being provided to a small, randomly chosen set of take a look at customers.

The free VPN service will apparently complement the paid Mozilla VPN service that Mozilla already affords. Our assessments, nevertheless, discovered Mozilla’s paid VPN service considerably wanting.

Integrating a VPN service into the browser has been a characteristic of area of interest browsers for years — together with Mozilla. In 2019, Mozilla started testing the Firefox Non-public Community, a VPN-like service that obscured the consumer’s IP tackle. The trial was a part of a beta program, and the expertise was by no means actually commercialized. Opera, too, launched a extra refined built-in VPN service. In March, Vivaldi teamed up with Proton for an built-in VPN into the browser, as properly.

Mozilla’s VPN effort will route your internet site visitors by way of Mozilla-managed VPN servers, and also you’ll want a Mozilla account to entry it. “Net site visitors originated in Firefox will likely be routed by way of essentially the most performant VPN location accessible, inside the USA,” Mozilla says, and the characteristic will be toggled on and off.

Firefox says that it hasn’t assigned any utilization limits to the brand new characteristic, and that it gained’t have an effect on your shopping pace, both. When you do subscribe to the paid Mozilla VPN service, nevertheless, it’s best to delete the free VPN choice to keep away from duplication, the corporate says.

As for information assortment, Mozilla says that it collects solely the technical information wanted to maintain Firefox VPN dependable and safe,” it stated. “For instance, we could log whether or not a connection succeeded or failed, or report that your account used 2GB of information on a sure day.”

After three months, logs linked to your account are deleted. Nevertheless, Mozilla stated that it’ll by no means log the websites you go to or hold observe of the content material you obtain.

GHacks was among the many first to report the brand new Mozilla characteristic.