Our TunnelBear score
TunnelBear VPN Review (2023): Practical, But No Netflix/Torrents
TunnelBear VPN is a popular choice among casual VPN users because of its free plan. However, before you start using it, you should find out if it suffers from some of the common problems of free VPNs, including poor logging practices and severely limited features. The paid plan offers much more than the free plan, but is it secure or fast enough for your needs?
In this TunnelBear VPN review, we examined both its free and paid plans. We tested TunnelBear based on the four main things you need from a VPN: speed, safety features, usability, and server network. Read on to find out if TunnelBear is worth using or if you should consider other options.
TunnelBear: A Short Review
What We Like
- Free plan
- 2GB free data each month
- Strict no-logs policy
- Annual security audits
- Easy to use
What We Don't Like
- Doesn't unblock Netflix
- Doesn't allow torrenting
- No dedicated IPs
- No live chat feature
After extensively testing TunnelBear VPN, we can say that it’s an easy-to-use VPN. TunnelBear has made several additions since our last review, including increasing the data limit from 500MB to 2GB. This is only enough for a few movies, but if you need a VPN for ordinary browsing, that data plan should help.
TunnelBear now offers unlimited simultaneous connections instead of limiting the number of devices to five. This is great if you need a VPN for multiple devices or want to share a subscription with friends and family. We also like that TunnelBear doesn’t log personally identifiable data and undergoes a yearly security review from Cure53. This underlines how serious TunnelBear is about protecting user privacy.
However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows with TunnelBear. First of all, its speeds on distant servers are slow, and the latencies are unreasonably high. That makes TunnelBear not the fastest gaming VPN on the market, as we discovered in this TunnelBear VPN review.
Even worse, TunnelBear doesn’t work with all the streaming services we tested it against, from Netflix to Amazon Prime Video. If you’re looking to download torrents, TunnelBear can’t help since it doesn’t allow it. From our experience, TunnelBear’s customer service is prompt, but there’s no live chat option.
Overall, we give TunnelBear a score of 7 out of 10. Read our full TunnelBear VPN review to learn all about the features TunnelBear offers.
| 💵 Price | $3.33 |
| 📱 Operating systems | Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, Windows |
| 💻 Connections | Unlimited |
| 💳 Payment methods | Credit card |
| 🔒 Protocols | IKEv2, Wireguard, OpenVPN |
| 📥 Torrent options | |
| 📅 Money-back guarantee | None Offered |
| 📋 Logs | Zero logs |
| 🎬 Works with |
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Speed – How Fast Is TunnelBear?
TunnelBear is a bit hit-and-miss when it comes to speeds. Overall, it earns a score of 6 out of 10 for its speed. Here are our observations about TunnelBear:
- TunnelBear is relatively fast on local servers but is slow on distant servers.
- TunnelBear offers fast enough speeds for surfing the internet and scrolling through social media but not for gaming.
Speed test results for TunnelBear
In theory, every VPN will decrease your internet speeds. However, the best VPNs have barely any impact on your speeds. That way, you won’t even notice that you’re using a VPN, whether you’re scrolling through social media or watching your favorite Netflix shows. That’s why we thoroughly test every VPN to see its impact on user speed.
We run our TunnelBear speed tests (download and upload speeds and latency) using speedtest.net. First, we checked our speeds without connecting to VPN. This gave us baseline values to determine TunnelBear’s speed dropoff. Afterward, we connected to TunnelBear servers on different continents and checked the extent of the decrease. We have summarized the results for you in the table below.
Note that the values below are indicators. Your actual TunnelBear speeds might differ depending on various factors, including your internet connection speeds and location.
| Server | Download (Mbps) | Upload (Mpbs) | Ping (ms) |
|---|---|---|---|
| No VPN | 203.31 | 245.22 | 3 |
| Fastest server | 116.28 | 59.53 | 12 |
| Netherlands | 126.44 | 48.59 | 17 |
| Germany (Frankfurt am Main) | 105.13 | 37.46 | 29 |
| United Kingdom (London) | 90.74 | 27.87 | 16 |
| United States East (New York) | 28.27 | 3.69 | 226 |
| Canada (Toronto) | 65.49 | 11.44 | 99 |
| Brazil (Sao Paulo) | 53.59 | 11.51 | 189 |
| South Africa (Johannesburg) | 66.93 | 8.51 | 189 |
| Japan (Tokyo) | 85.91 | 3.64 | 257 |
| Australia (Sydney) | 61.05 | 14.38 | 275 |
TunnelBear’s speed results are a mixed bag. It’s fast on nearby servers but performs rather poorly when you connect to certain distant servers.
In general, the speed reductions on TunnelBear’s European servers (the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK) were not too high. Our latency was also relatively low.
On the flip side, we experienced significant speed drop-offs when we connected to certain servers further away, like in the US, Brazil, and Australia. Moreover, the upload speeds for the US, South Africa, and Japan were very low, and the ping was quite high, indicating that while streaming videos or gaming users would probably experience interruptions and lag.
Speed during daily use
While connected to TunnelBear’s servers, we went on the internet to perform various tasks and see how the VPN would perform. First, we opened several news sites, including New York Times and the Washington Post, and e-commerce sites, such as Amazon and Shopify. We did not experience any lags or hiccups while at it.
We also performed data-heavy tasks, including watching YouTube and TikTok videos. Although we were able to stream without breaks, the videos sometimes took a while to load. This happened when we connected to faraway servers. Sadly, we couldn’t test Netflix or torrent downloading because TunnelBear doesn’t allow these anymore. But more on that later.
Furthermore, we attempted to play games like League of Legends and Fortnite, but not with much access. Although we could open the games, the graphics took a long time to load, and our gameplay experienced a lot of lag. Hence, we don’t recommend TunnelBear VPN services for gaming; choose ExpressVPN instead. It has high-speed servers in over 94 countries.
Safety – How Secure Is TunnelBear?
TunnelBear is a good choice if you’re interested in safety and security while using the internet. It offers strong encryption, includes several highly secure protocols, and hides your traffic. Based on our testing and research in this TunnelBear VPN review, we give it an 8 out of 10 for safety.
Here’s a snapshot of what we observed about TunnelBear’s security features:
- Just like most VPNs, TunnelBear has strong 256-bit encryption.
- TunnelBear has robust VPN protocols (OpenVPN, IKEv2/IPSec, and WireGuard).
- It does not keep IP or traffic logs.
- The TunnelBear headquarters are in a 5 Eyes country.
- The VPN uses independent third-party research to improve its security.
- TunnelBear has a kill switch option called VigilantBear.
- To create an account, you only need an email address and password.
Protocols
TunnelBear encrypts your traffic using AES-256 encryption and supports three protocols: OpenVPN, IKEv2, and WireGuard. This range of VPN protocols is great to have since each of them works best for specific use cases.
Here’s a summary of the protocols TunnelBear uses on different devices:
- OpenVPN is an open-source encryption protocol. Open source means that a wide community of security developers frequently tests, updates, and improves its standards.
- WireGuard is one of the most recent protocols and is available for users of different operating systems like Android, Windows, iOS, macOS, and Linux. WireGuard has a small codebase (around 4,000 lines of code), which leads to shorter loading times and makes it more challenging for hackers to find vulnerabilities.
- IKEv2 is one of the fastest protocols and offers good encryption to its users. It is considered one of the best protocols for mobile users, as it has the ability to change between mobile and Wi-Fi networks without interrupting the user’s connection.
Logging and privacy
A safe VPN shouldn’t collect identifiable user information. That way, even if hackers access its systems, there’ll be nothing to see. And, even if law enforcement or governments ask for your data, the VPN won’t have anything to give.
TunnelBear claims to have a fierce no-logs policy. This means that it doesn’t collect information that can be traced back to you. We scrutinized TunnelBear’s privacy policy to see if this claim is true.
While conducting our TunnelBear VPN review, we observed that this VPN collects and stores the following information about you:
- Account user data: Your email address and Twitter ID when you complete their Twitter promo
- Operational data: OS version, app version, data used per month, operational events such as upgrading to a paid subscription
- Payment information: Cardholder’s last name, date of card use, and last four numbers of credit cards
- Cookies: This helps TunnelBear to understand how users are interacting with their website
These details are mostly run-of-the-mill and are necessary for running their VPN service.
It’s refreshing to note that TunnelBear doesn’t keep track of your full name, DNS queries, and IP address when you visit their website or connect to their VPN servers. This strict no-logs policy makes TunnelBear an excellent choice for privacy-conscious users such as journalists who cover sensitive topics and don’t want their cover blown.
Our only qualm with TunnelBear is that it’s headquartered in Canada, just like Windscribe, another free VPN. Canada is part of the 5 Eyes, 9 Eyes, and 14 Eyes alliance, which means it’s willing to share citizens’ information with other countries, including the US, the UK, Australia, Spain, and Germany.
The consolation, however, is that TunnelBear doesn’t log personally identifiable data, so there’s barely any data for the Canadian government to latch on to.
Kill switch: VigilantBear
TunnelBear has a kill switch, creatively called VigilantBear. Just like any other VPN kill switch, VigilantBear ensures your data is protected even when you temporarily lose your VPN connection. It does that by stopping your device from connecting to the internet until your VPN connection is restored.
We tested VigilantBear and noticed it works just as promised.
Obfuscation: GhostBear
If you’re unable to connect to TunnelBear VPN services on restrictive networks and censorship-driven countries, it’s likely your VPN traffic has been detected. In such instances, go to your TunnelBear app settings and enable GhostBear.
When you turn on GhostBear, third parties, including governments, businesses, and internet service providers (ISPs), will find it harder to detect and block your VPN traffic. However, if you’re able to connect to TunnelBear servers, don’t connect to GhostBear. That’s because it will make your connection slower than usual.
At the moment, GhostBear is available on Windows, macOS (v4), and Android apps. It’s not available on iOS and macOS (v5) devices as yet.
While this feature is good to have, it’s better to use VPNs that have implemented obfuscation on all their servers or have obfuscated servers. NordVPN is a classic example: you can connect to its obfuscated servers to bypass censorship and geo-blocks in internet-restrictive countries.
Independent security audits
Since 2016, TunnelBear VPN services have been undergoing annual independent security audits by Cure53. The tests cover everything, from TunnelBear’s source code to browser extensions.
The 2021 testing report found more vulnerabilities than in previous years. The TunnelBear company chalks that down to the fact that it expanded the scope of tests this time around. That said, TunnelBear resolved the issues as soon as they were revealed.
TunnelBear’s commitment to conducting yearly reviews is refreshing since it gives users an independent way of verifying if TunnelBear is as safe as it claims.
Does TunnelBear leak your data?
There are various ways your IP might leak. WebRTC enhances video chats and voice applications, but it can leak your IP when you’re connected to a poor VPN. DNS leaks also occur when your DNS queries are sent to your ISP directly instead of being routed through your VPN.
While conducting this TunnelBear VPN review, we used browserleaks.com to check if TunnelBear suffers IP, DNS, and WebRTC leaks. Thankfully, TunnelBear doesn’t leak user IP addresses.
Similarly, TunnelBear doesn’t suffer WebRTC leaks.
What information does TunnelBear need?
To create an account with TunnelBear, you only need an email address and password. You can pay with your credit card, but this will also mean that TunnelBear will have more of your personal information.
Usability – How User-Friendly Is TunnelBear?
Overall, TunnelBear is easy to use and install, although there’s room for improvement. As a result, it scores an 8 out of 10 regarding usability in our TunnelBear VPN review.
Here are our observations after using the service:
- The TunnelBear website is user-friendly.
- You can install the TunnelBear VPN app on any device.
- Both the desktop and mobile apps look pleasant and are easy to use.
- You can pay for your TunnelBear subscription with a credit card.
- TunnelBear’s customer support is difficult to reach but provides prompt responses.
The TunnelBear website and installation process
TunnelBear’s website is very well-organized. Everything on the website is kept very simple, so you are not overloaded with information you do not need.
However, if you want to learn more about the details of the TunnelBear services, you can find a lot of information in the footer (at the bottom of the page).
TunnelBear works with the following devices:
- iPhone & iPad
- Android
- Mac
- Windows
- Browser (Chrome and Firefox)
- Linux (with limited support)
Installing TunnelBear isn’t difficult. Installation might take a while, but the installation wizard will do all the work for you.
Here are the steps to follow to install TunnelBear:
- Go to TunnelBear’s website and click on “Plans” at the top of the page.
- Select the plan you want and click on “Get Started.”
- Download the TunnelBear VPN client for your device and follow the installation prompts.
- Log into TunnelBear with your account details and connect to a server.
TunnelBear’s appearance and ease of use
TunnelBear’s apps are visually appealing and clutter-free. There’s a hamburger menu that contains all the options you need to tweak the VPN. Plus, TunnelBear’s apps have an intuitive server map that can help you find and connect to server locations. TunnelBear’s server map is reminiscent of NordVPN’s server map.
The only difficulty with TunnelBear’s map is that it doesn’t display the server location when you hover over the server pointers.
Furthermore, TunnelBear has a playful tone all around, making the VPN fun to use. For example, when you attempt to connect to a server, a bear will start digging a hole on the server map and appear at its destination when the connection is successful. You’ll receive a message that says, “Rawr! You are browsing from a secure location in …”
In the same vein, when you disconnect from TunnelBear, you’ll receive a message that says, “Grrr! Your browsing is no longer secured by a bear.”
If you love bears or cartoons, TunnelBear will surely tickle your fancy.
Unlimited simultaneous connections
TunnelBear now offers unlimited simultaneous connections. This is a marked improvement from offering five devices per subscription, as many other VPN services do. You can now use TunnelBear on as many devices as you want, from your laptop to mobile devices.
This makes TunnelBear relatively affordable since you don’t have to purchase another subscription if you need a VPN for multiple devices or want to share your VPN protection with friends and family.
Surfshark used to be one of the few VPNs with unlimited simultaneous connections, but TunnelBear has joined the bandwagon.
Split Tunneling
TunnelBear’s split tunneling feature is aptly named SplitBear. Just like any other split tunneling feature, it allows you to decide which apps or websites go through the VPN tunnel and which ones don’t.
However, app split tunneling and website split tunneling are only available on specific devices, as we discovered during our TunnelBear VPN review. We’ve summarized them in the table below.
| Operating system | App split tunneling | Website/URL split tunneling |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | ✔ | ✔ |
| Android | ✔ | ✖ |
| macOS | ✖ | ✔ |
| iOS | ✖ | ✔ |
TunnelBear browser extensions for Chrome and Opera
TunnelBear has a browser extension for Chrome and Opera. The extension works the same as a regular VPN, just in your browser. This is ideal if you do not want all your traffic to pass through your VPN. Moreover, it is a user-friendly way to bypass any geographical restrictions, for instance, when you use Linux.
TunnelBear blocker for Chrome
TunnelBear has developed its own ad blocker for unwanted advertisements and includes several features that the best ad blockers also offer. The ad blocker for Chrome does not only block ads but also helps to protect your privacy.
The blocker prevents email tracking from ensuring nobody can use tracking pixels in marketing emails on you. It also blocks ultrasonic tracking. This way, the sounds picked up through the microphone of your phone cannot be used in tracking.
Moreover, the blocker protects against cookies, scripts, malware, and browser fingerprinting. It does all this to protect your privacy online.
Pricing and methods of payment
TunnelBear has a free plan, which offers 2GB of data per month. The VPN used to offer only 500MB per month but has since increased it, making it one of the most generous free VPNs. However, if you want unlimited data on a free VPN, opt for Proton VPN.
If you want to remove TunnelBear’s data limits, access premium servers, and get priority customer support, you’ll have to subscribe to one of the three paid plans:
- TunnelBear VPN 3 years 3.33mth Deal View offer
- TunnelBear VPN 1 year $4.99mth View offer
- TunnelBear VPN 1 month $9.99mth View offer
TunnelBear’s monthly plan is one of the cheapest around. Most VPNs on the market ask for between $11-13 monthly. However, the longer-term deals are pricier compared to the best cheap VPNs.
For example, Surfshark‘s yearly plan costs $3.99 per month, a dollar less than TunnelBear’s. For the three-year plan, PIA is much cheaper at $2.03 per month, and it adds three months free.
TunnelBear also offers a Teams subscription for organizations and businesses. Monthly subscriptions start at $5.75 per user with a minimum of two users. This offer includes various features, including premium VPN servers, priority customer support, centralized team building, and admin and account manager tools. Our best business VPNs also offer this and more.
TunnelBear accepts payments through various credit card options, namely:
- Mastercard
- Visa
- American Express
While conducting this TunnelBear VPN review, we found that TunnelBear used to allow Bitcoin payments, but it’s no longer available on their website. This means that you can’t pay anonymously. It would also be nice if TunnelBear would accept payments through PayPal and more local payment methods in the future.
How does TunnelBear’s money-back guarantee work?
Sadly, TunnelBear does not offer a money-back guarantee. This is surprising since most of the VPNs we’ve reviewed offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. However, Tunnelbear claims to offer refunds on a case-by-case basis. You’ll have to send a message to their customer support agents explaining why you need a refund.
Customer service
TunnelBear has a help center on the website that comprises the following:
- Announcements and updates
- Setup guides
- Account, payment, and subscription information
- Troubleshooting guides
- Information for those using TunnelBear teams
Most of the information is presented as FAQs and answers which make it easy to read. It’s also good to see that TunnelBear’s setup guides have screenshots that make it easier to follow. We would have loved video tutorials, though.
Unfortunately, getting in touch with support agents is unnecessarily complicated, as we found during this TunnelBear VPN review. First of all, you need to have an account to contact them. This means that if you’re not a TunnelBear customer, you might be unable to query its support agents.
Even with an account, you’ll have to fill out a questionnaire of sorts before getting a response. TunnelBear promises a response within 48 hours, and impressively, we got a reply within an hour. The reply was courteous and helpful.
Sadly, you cannot ask more than one question every hour.
TunnelBear should take a cue from NordVPN, which offers options for anyone to send tickets and live chat support.
Server network – Can TunnelBear Unblock the Internet?
When we review VPN server networks, we are interested in the server spread and what the servers can do. The more servers you have in more countries, the higher your chance of bypassing censorship and geo-blocks. TunnelBear’s current server infrastructure earns it a 6 out of 10.
Here are our conclusions about TunnelBear’s server network:
- TunnelBear offers a decent VPN server collection of over 5,000 servers in over 48 countries.
- It doesn’t unblock streaming services or allow torrenting.
- TunnelBear does not offer dedicated IP addresses.
Number of servers and locations
TunnelBear has over 5,000 servers in more than 48 countries. This is close to what NordVPN, the best VPN on the market, offers: over 5,400 servers in over 60 countries. If you want more locations, Surfshark has servers in 100 countries.
TunnelBear’s server locations cover nearly all continents, and we’ve summarized them below for you:
- America: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States
- Europe: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom
- Asia-Pacific: Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan
- Africa: Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa
While conducting this TunnelBear VPN review, we found that TunnelBear used to have a server in India, but it closed up shop there following India’s law requiring VPNs to store customer logs. If you need a VPN for India, you can use Surfshark since it has over 50 virtual servers in the country.
TunnelBear and streaming (Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, BBC iPlayer)
We tried to access Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, and BBC iPlayer with TunnelBear but to no avail. The VPN couldn’t give us access to the streaming services regardless of the server we connected to.
| Platform | Can TunnelBear unblock it? |
|---|---|
| Netflix | ✖ |
| Disney Plus | ✖ |
| Hulu | ✖ |
| BBC iPlayer | ✖ |
If you need a VPN for streaming, we recommend NordVPN. In all our years of testing VPN providers, NordVPN hasn’t failed to unblock any streaming services, whether American Netflix or the latest Amazon Prime movies. Plus, it has fast speeds to ensure you enjoy movies without any hiccups.
TunnelBear and torrents
TunnelBear does not allow P2P traffic or torrenting, as we discovered in our TunnelBear review. This means you cannot upload or download any torrents when you are connected to the internet through a TunnelBear server. This is because the provider does not want to encourage the downloading of illegal files.
Sadly, this means that you can’t download legal torrents either. If you want a VPN provider that does allow torrents, take a look at NordVPN or IPVanish.
Dedicated IP address
TunnelBear does not offer dedicated IP addresses. This means that thousands of users could be sharing a single IP address. The company says it wants to start doing this for businesses in the future through its “TunnelBear for Teams” plans. If they will ever offer this to private users is still unclear.
GhostBear: An extra weapon against censorship and speed restrictions
GhostBear is an extra feature of TunnelBear. This feature helps to disguise your encrypted data as normal data. Some ISPs, companies, or governments can limit your internet speed or freedom when they detect that you are using a VPN.
By making the encrypted data look like regular traffic with GhostBear, nobody will suspect you are using a VPN.
Our Experience With TunnelBear
TunnelBear is a handy option if you want a decent free VPN for casual use. If a 2GB data limit per month and slow speeds on distant servers aren’t a big issue for you, you’ll enjoy TunnelBear. Plus, it offers good security and privacy features and sticks to its no-logs policy, which we were happy to discover during our TunnelBear VPN review.
However, is TunnelBear a good VPN? As paid VPNs go, there are much better options. This is because TunnelBear doesn’t unblock streaming services or allow torrenting. It would be great to see those two features offered in the future by the service.
Moreover, TunnelBear also needs to focus on increasing the speeds it offers for certain distant servers. If this VPN provider works on the few kinks that are holding it back, it has the potential to be a great VPN service.
Do you still have a question about TunnelBear? Find the most-commonly asked questions and answers about TunnelBear below. Click to reveal the answer.
Yes, TunnelBear is trustworthy. It protects user data using 256-bit encryption and offers a wide range of protocols, including OpenVPN and WireGuard. It adheres to a strict no-logs policy so it doesn’t store information that can be traced back to you.
In addition, TunnelBear submits itself to an annual security audit by an independent third party company.
There’s no record of TunnelBear being hacked. It’s safe to use and protects your data using AES-256 encryption, the most robust of protocols. Plus, it doesn’t keep any data that hackers can trace back to you. We’ve covered all of TunnelBear’s security and privacy features in our TunnelBear VPN review if you want to find out more.
NordVPN is far better than TunnelBear. It is faster and offers a larger server network. Unlike TunnelBear, NordVPN works with various streaming services, including Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer. Plus, NordVPN allows for torrenting, which is not possible with TunnelBear. Read more in our extensive NordVPN review.
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