Mozilla has announced that a free, built-in VPN is coming to Firefox later this month.
Firefox’s free VPN will offer 50 gigabytes of monthly data, which is pretty generous for a browser-based VPN. A Mozilla account is required to make use of it, which isn’t a hardship (they’re free), but is a point of friction some may wish to know upfront.
This is not a full-device VPN; Firefox VPN only protects traffic inside of the browser, not data sent outside. It won’t rival the flexibility and security benefits of a full-featured VPN, like server switching to access geo-restricted streaming services – naughty!
Free VPN – what’s the catch?
If you’re cocking an eyebrow at the words “free” and “VPN”, you’ve reason to.
Users of Google Chrome found out last year that free VPN browser extensions (especially no-brand ones) are fairly icky and not without a hidden cost: you pay with your personal data.
Mozilla acknowledges this by saying theirs is “built from our data principles and commitment to be the world’s most trusted browser. It routes your browser traffic through a proxy to hide your IP address and location while you browse”.
Mozilla already offers a paid VPN service in partnership with Mullvad. Firefox’s free VPN won’t be using Mullvad’s infra though; it’s hosted on Mozilla servers around the world (if beta testing of the feature done in late 2025 tracks).
I imagine, with revenue generation a key factor for the company’s new leadership, the inclusion of a free VPN has two upsides: appeal to users, and let them upsell the full-featured Mozilla VPN1 – Vivaldi’s free Proton VPN is (forgivably) not shy on the ol’ upsell.
The free VPN in Firefox will be available with the Firefox 149 update, due for release on March 24. Initially, it’ll only be available if you’re in the United States, France, Germany or the United Kingdom.
Firefox’s desktop marketshare has dropped from 6.3% to 4.2% in the past year. Will the offer of a free VPN help buck the trend, or will divisive upcoming features like AI browsing mode erode what little goodwill remains?
- I think business types refer to this as a ‘freemium funnel’. ↩︎