Best Free VPNs for South Korea

The South Korean government allows a fair amount of freedom on internet usage for its citizens, unlike neighboring countries with so many internet restrictions. However, South Koreans living abroad who wish to access home content would find it difficult to do so without a South Korean IP address.

The fantastic variety of South Korean content on the web should be freely accessible to everyone, especially South Koreans, regardless of their location. Reliable VPNs grant you this access. They also deliver secure and anonymous connections for you to browse the internet freely without restrictions, no matter where you are.

Premium VPNs have money-back guarantee policies that assure a risk-free trial. As much as premium quality “risk-free” VPNs are the best bet, a few “completely-free” VPNs are doing well for themselves and are decent enough to offer adequate security, privacy, and unblock restricted content. But they come with little drawbacks here and there. This review details the best free VPNs to use to access South Korean content.

Best Risk-free VPNs

Risk-free VPNs are paid VPNs that usually offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. This guarantees that you can request and receive a refund within the stipulated period if you need to. The best part is that during the period of test-running the service, you get access to all its premium features while you use it risk-free.

With the best ability in unblocking geo-restricted content, these VPNs grant you access to your favorite South Korean streaming content and sites even while you’re away. You can also trust their privacy features to make your streaming and browsing all anonymous. To cap it all, they offer the most secure encryption, which makes you safe from all sorts of cyber crooks.

1. ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN has over 3,000 servers in 94 countries — including South Korea. This VPN supports some protocols that dictate how your device connects to a server and how secure your connection will be. All these 6 protocols are available in South Korea, giving you a wide range of options to choose from. The servers are high-speed, and the software has a speed-test feature that can prove this to you.

ExpressVPN unblocks and gives you free access to K-drama content from anywhere in the world. It is optimized with AES-256 encryption, it’s own private Domain Name System (DNS), and a kill switch, all in a bid to give you the most secure connection possible. It efficiently masks your IP address and does not keep logs of your data. These features help to make you anonymous whenever you’re online.

With a unique split tunneling feature on this VPN, you get to select what traffic to tunnel through the virtual network while your other traffic accesses the web directly. There is a 24/7 live customer service team on ground that attends to your needs and challenges as quickly as possible, 24/7. Its 30-day money-back policy is available to you and can be used anytime during the stipulated period.

2. NordVPN

Amongst its 5,400+ servers in 59 countries, NordVPN has 10 servers in South Korea alone. These servers are optimized to full speed such that having an ultimately secure connection doesn’t mean slower servers. It can unblock content restricted to South Korea to grant you access from wherever you are. It also doesn’t limit the amount of data you can upload and download. NordVPN comes with unlimited bandwidth.

In terms of security, you have a great defender in NordVPN. It masks your real IP address with a virtual one and it uses the military-grade encryption recommended by the NSA to encrypt your data. Its kill switch feature also makes sure you stay protected at all times — especially if the VPN connection drops. NordVPN abides by a strict no-logs policy to keep your data private always.

The software interface is straightforward to operate and is available on all major operating systems. NordVPN also provides a 30-day money-back guarantee. They also have an all-around active and responsive customer service to answer your questions and solve your challenges.

Best Completely-free VPNs for South Korea

If you plan to hop on just any free VPN plan, you should be ready to make some sacrifices. A lot of free VPNs make you pay in kind by restricting your access to all the features of a paid VPN. Instead, you may experience some or all of the following — limited server locations, low-grade encryption, slow server connection, data logging, and limited bandwidth. Some might not even be able to unblock geo-restricted content.

To you advantage, we have compiled and reviewed the best completely-free VPNs for South Korea in this article as follows:

1. TunnelBear

TunnelBear has over 1,800 servers in 20+ server locations. It is available for free in South Korea and has high-speed and secure servers, which give it a high ranking in this review. This VPN masks your IP address, giving you the freedom to surf the web with absolute anonymity. It can also help you bypass local censorship, so you can covertly access content that is usually not allowed in South Korea. For South Koreans living abroad, you can also gain access to South Korean content from outside the country.

Also, TunnelBear offers AES-256 military-grade encryption. This encryption ensures that your data is protected from hackers, government agencies, and even your Internet Service Provider. This VPN operates a no-logs policy, which means that you are the only one privy to your web activities at all times.

For free, you get a limited bandwidth of 500MB daily. That means you indirectly get 15GB every month. If you tweet about the company, you get a bonus 1GB. That’s how much they appreciate referrals. Hotspot Shield has a user-friendly interface and easily supports iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and even browsers.

2.   HideMyAss (HMA)

HMA gives you unrestricted access to over 1,100 servers in 190+ countries. In South Korea alone, it has 7 servers and 43 IP addresses. This gives you the luxury of having multiple options to choose from. This VPN is effectively optimized for speed and security to get you past hackers, snoopers, and geo-restrictions safely.

This VPN is an audited no-logs VPN. So, to ensure that you always remain anonymous, it doesn’t keep logs of your traffic data. It doesn’t even know how much you transmit, much more the content. Also, it has advanced split tunneling and IP shuffling features. The shuffling function randomizes your IP address regularly. This will keep intruders guessing and lead them off your trail.

HMA uses military-grade AES-256 encryption and kill switch all in the bid to keep your connection as secure as possible. HMA supports the connection of 5 devices at the same time.

3.   ZenVPN

ZenVPN is probably not your best shot at features, but it is a security-intensive VPN that gives you a very decent virtual cyber experience. It has multiple servers in 30+ countries — including South Korea. This VPN uses the uncrackable AES-256 encryption to protect your traffic data and connection. So you can be rest assured your masked IP address is channeled via a highly secure tunnel.

As regards the zero-logging policy, ZenVPN claims they do not save your connection logs. This policy was put in place to make your traffic data as private as possible. This VPN offers the OpenVPN protocol, which has proven to be the safest in today’s market.

ZenVPN has a simple user interface that makes it easy to navigate, and it also supports all major platforms (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux). It also offers you a bandwidth cap of 500MB per month. This allows you to download and upload as much data as you like every month.

4.   UrbanVPN

UrbanVPN is a reliable free VPN that has a network of rapid servers in 21 locations. Its perfect combination of good speed and unlimited bandwidth is topped off with good security detail. The VPN service encrypts your data and masks your IP address so that you can keep an anonymous status all through.

It also uses DNS and IPv6 leak protection to ensure that hackers do not access your traffic data through loopholes. It unblocks content restrictions easily using its wide range of server databases. You can watch your favorite K-dramas from anywhere abroad at the click of a button.

This free VPN has good customer service representation. The UrbanVPN app is readily available on Windows, Android, iOS, and browsers.

5.    UFO VPN

UFO VPN has up to 2,000 servers in 50 countries, including South Korea. This VPN gives you a virtual IP address as it helps you to access geo-restricted content. It can also hide your IP address to protect you from hackers and other cyber intruders.

It has a couple of privacy and security features that are optimized to always give you an anonymous and secure browsing experience. This VPN is quite easy to use, and it has a unique Smart Location feature that helps you select the fastest server available just in one tap. The UFO VPN software is available on Windows, iOS, Mac, and Android. This gives you a wide variety of platforms to use this VPN on and remain protected at all times.

Are Free VPN Services Any Good?

There’s nothing wrong with looking out for free things when they are available. But you should always consider how relatively free it is, compared to the services it renders. With some free VPNs, you might eventually have to pay without actually giving them money. Available servers, connection speed, encryption, anonymity, or data usage will be tweaked by these free VPN services to make you pay. Sometimes, the VPN might not be able to unblock geo-restricted sites consistently.

You can’t trust many free VPNs services, 100%. Some of them go as far as giving false information about the services they render. On the other hand, risk-free VPNs are optimized to satisfaction and are true to the details they put out. Thus, we recommend that you opt for risk-free VPNs as they offer better security, speed, anonymity, bandwidth, and advanced features.

Features to look out for in a free VPN

1. Server availability – The number of servers and their locations determines what geo-restricted content a VPN can unblock.
2. Privacy and Security – What’s a Virtual Private Network without security and anonymity?
3. Server speed – Snail-speed servers are terrible. There’s no use having a secure connection when it’s going to be slow after all.
4. Monthly data limit – How much data a free VPN allows you to upload and download per month suggests what the VPN can be used for. High-bandwidth VPN can allow video streaming, while low-bandwidth VPNs can only be enjoyed by browsing.
5. Platforms supported and Number of Connections Allowed – How many devices the VPN allows to be connected at once is essential so that you can consider sharing with your family. It’s also safe to be sure if the VPN has software for your devices’ operating systems.

Conclusion

To wrap it all up, if you must bypass restrictions and geo-blocked content from South Korea, you’re going to need a Virtual Private Network. As discussed in this review, it is better to opt for a risk-free VPN rather than a completely free one based on some variable factors. However, if you still decide to stick to a completely free VPN, we have highlighted the best free VPNs available on the market, and the factors you need to consider to help you select a good one from our list.