Penguin Proxy is a rare thing in the VPN market: a free VPN that does not rely on advertising or harvesting your data to make money. The VPN is currently a “proof of concept” and is not designed to be profitable.

The lack of any attempt to monetize your use immediately puts this free service above many of its competitors. The company makes clear that future profits will come from the addition of paid features, not from ads or exploitation of your data.

However, it should be noted that Penguin Proxy does collect some user information. The data stored is limited to anonymous request logs, which are kept for two weeks and only used for debugging purposes. The company states that this is only a short-term procedure that will be eliminated in the future.

While Penguin Proxy is a reliable service with fast speeds and stable connections, it does have some limitations. The security of your connection is the main problem.

Penguin Proxy is a P2P proxy, not a traditional VPN with a remote server network. This means that your encrypted data is routed through the connection of another Penguin Proxy user, and vice versa.

So while anonymous, Penguin Proxy is only about as secure as a public wi-fi hotspot. However, if anonymity and content access are your key concerns and you are running quality antivirus and malware protection software, then you shouldn’t discount Penguin Proxy as an option.

The lack of VPN protocol options is another issue. Data sent via the Penguin Proxy client undergoes TLS encryption, but unlike most VPNs, Penguin Proxy only supports HTTP and has no plans to support highly secure protocols like OpenVPN and IKEv2/IPsec.

The company’s website strongly recommends using HTTPS Everywhere so that all data you send or receive enters the network in encrypted form and is unreadable to the provider and other users. Again, if your need for anonymous access overrides your need for security, then Penguin Proxy might serve you well.

Since Penguin Proxy is a P2P service, the number of available connections depends on the number of participating users. There are currently servers in the UK, Canada, China, mainland Europe, and the USA. During testing, we had no problems connecting to servers in each region that the network covers.

Lastly, bear in mind that since your connection will be serving as a relay for other users’ internet traffic, your data usage for both uploading and downloading will significantly increase. So if your internet provider puts low caps on usage, Penguin Proxy wouldn’t be a good choice for you.

Penguin Proxy is a simple yet effective VPN that allows you to surf the web anonymously and with some degree of security. One of its most surprising features is its ability to bypass the stringent geoblocks and VPN blocking used by Netflix and the BBC iPlayer. We were so surprised that we checked this twice. Not only were we able to connect, but the playback was exceptional, with no lagging.

Overall, if anonymity and unblocking content are your main concerns and your internet access is unlimited, then Penguin Proxy should certainly be on your short list of VPNs to try.