According to a Microsoft support website, the Edge browser will get a security improvement in the form of a built-in VPN provided by Cloudflare.
The new VPN feature is known as “Microsoft Edge Secure Network” and is intended to perform similarly to Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 service, according to XDA Developers. When activated, it encrypts all data and uses a virtual IP address to hide your location. Only diagnostic and support data from the service will be collected by Cloudflare, and that data will be destroyed after 25 hours.
Edge Secure Network is a Microsoft product. Secure Network is a free service, according to the support page, although data usage is restricted to 1GB per month. It’s unclear whether Microsoft will offer a subscription-based mechanism to extend the data limit. Perhaps it will be included as a bonus with a current OneDrive or Microsoft 365 subscription?
Nobody, not even those who have joined up for the Microsoft Insider programme, can try out the VPN yet, thus this help page appears to have arrived sooner than Microsoft planned.
Free VPN services aren’t new, but the fact that Microsoft includes one by default in the browser that comes with every copy of Windows may worry competing VPN providers.
Why would customers want to download yet another free VPN when they already have one installed on their computer? Because Microsoft Edge isn’t exactly a popular browser and the built-in VPN’s feature set is restricted, the impact on other services should be modest.
Many browsers, including Microsoft’s, provide some form of VPN service. Although Opera has a free VPN, most popular browsers such as Mozilla and Google Chrome only provide a commercial VPN service, possibly increasing Edge’s value proposition.
