Following in the footsteps of Google and Apple, Microsoft, which is known for products like Microsoft Teams has entered the VPN industry, and Edge users may eventually be able to use a free VPN service right from the corporation’s browser.
As per a recent support article, Microsoft Edge Secure Network will be the corporation’s new VPN service, and it will be managed by Cloudflare. It’s important to note, though, that Microsoft, which is known for products such as Office 365 doesn’t officially refer to the new functionality as a VPN, but it works in the same manner as iCloud Private Relay.
While Microsoft Edge Secure Network is still in preview, once it becomes broadly accessible, Edge users will receive 1 Gigabyte of space bandwidth monthly whenever they login into the corporation’s browser utilizing their Microsoft Account.
Rather than establishing a VPN by itself, Microsoft Edge Secure Network is a service offered in collaboration with a web infrastructure and CDN company. As per Microsoft’s support documentation, “Cloudflare is dedicated to privacy and only gathers a limited number of diagnostic and support data acting as Microsoft’s data sub-processor to offer the services.” This diagnostic and support data is likewise destroyed after every 25 hours of collection.
Microsoft Edge Secure Network, like a VPN, encrypts a user’s connection to the internet to help safeguard their data from online dangers and surveillance.
Whenever you utilize the Microsoft Edge Secure Network, your information is transferred from Edge to a secure connection via an encrypted tunnel. This is also true when accessing a non-secure URL that begins with HTTP rather than the encrypted HTTPS.
Edge’s new VPN not only protects users from cyber risks but also stops ISPs from gathering browsing data, such as which websites they frequent. This also prevents advertising companies as well as other 3rd parties from classifying you and giving you tailored advertisements.
At this point, it’s unknown if Microsoft Edge Secure Network would let you pick which VPN server you connect to, allowing you to circumvent geo-blocking. Even so, according to Microsoft’s support documentation, the functionality “allows users to search with a digital IP address that camouflages your IP and substitutes your location data with a comparable geographical address,” so if you want to watch stuff from different locations, you’re still better off paying for a VPN service.
Overall, Microsoft Edge Secure Network will provide Microsoft Edge users with access to a free VPN from a reputable corporation, which cannot be said of several other free offers. When the functionality is no longer in preview, Microsoft Edge users will be allowed to test it out through the browser’s context menu, similar to how you visit collections or web capture.
