Of course, most of you are familiar with the advantages such a tool brings about, be it preventing ISPs from snooping about on your internet activity, or to prevent tracking across the web by big tech.
There are many companies that are entirely dedicated to providing privacy-focused tools and services like VPNs that benefit the masses. Many of them usually provide free versions of their tools, with paid tiers to support continued development.
Internxt is one such organization, based out of Spain, that has been around since 2020, developing privacy-focused tools such as an open-source encrypted cloud storage service, Drive and the secure sharing service Send. Its 80% discount on the lifetime plan makes it a lucrative choice!
However, with a recent announcement on X (formerly Twitter), they have introduced their latest free offering, Internxt VPN.
So, join me as I walk you through this, and stay tuned until the end for a quick review.
Internxt VPN: What to Expect?
Introduced as a free VPN service, Internxt VPN allows users to connect to secure servers to hide their real IP address, preventing snooping, and even circumventing website blocking by ISPs or governments.
At the time of writing, the VPN service can only be accessed by installing the Chrome extension on Chromium-based web-browsers. When someone asked (Spanish) whether Internxt was planning for a Firefox or LibreWolf extension, they said:
Esperamos que así sea!
Which roughly translates to “We hope it is”. I sincerely wish that it is coming; otherwise it would alienate a large part of the online user base, particularly on Linux, where many users prefer non-Chromium browsers.
As for the key features of Internxt VPN, you get to take advantage of things like:
No Account Registration Needed
Bypassing Geo-restrictions
Advanced Encryption
A No Logs Policy
If you are interested in checking it out, then you can get it from the Chrome Web Store.
When I tested it out on Vivaldi (a Chromium-based browser), usual browsing tasks were just fine, but heavier tasks like downloading stuff and streaming videos were slowed down considerably.
That might've happened because I was being connected to a server in Bexley, London. However, my location is far away from it, in Asia.
Of course, it's completely free, and hence, it has limited servers as of now. I am hoping Internxt expands their free server list a bit more to cover some major regions like the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
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It is a bit weird to see that the tool's source code hasn't been open-sourced and almost no details about the back-end exists. But, then again, ProtonVPN's Chrome extension currently is not open-source as well. So, maybe they will take time to open-source it, just like ProtonVPN.
I would also like to see a native Linux application for Linux that has more options to tweak the experience, select servers, etc. That would be better than just an extension, though the latter is not that bad.
💬 What do you think? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Abhishek Prakash
