Microsoft is killing its “free” VPN with Microsoft 365 subscriptions, just days after increasing prices
The VPN feature in Microsoft Defender, part of Microsoft 365, will be removed on February 28.

In 2023, Microsoft began including a VPN feature in the Microsoft Defender app for all Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers at no additional cost, enabling millions of users to take advantage of a “free” VPN as part of the subscription. Microsoft called it a privacy protection feature, designed to let you access sensitive data on the web via a VPN tunnel.
While functionally limited compared to other VPN services, it was an awesome addition to the Microsoft 365 subscription, one that I’ve found myself using whenever I’m accessing the web on an open network. Unfortunately, Microsoft has now announced that it’s killing the feature later this month, only a couple of years after it first debuted.
“Our goal is to ensure you, and your family remain safer online. We routinely evaluate the usage and effectiveness of our features. As such, we are removing the privacy protection feature and will invest in new areas that will better align to customer needs” reads a Microsoft support document confirming the removal of the VPN feature.
To add insult to injury, this announcement comes just days after Microsoft increased subscription prices across the board. Both Personal and Family subscriptions went up by three dollars a month, which the company says is the first price hike Microsoft 365 has seen in over a decade.
The increased price does now include Microsoft 365 Copilot, which adds AI features to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and others. However, it also comes with the removal of the free VPN in Microsoft Defender, which I’ve found to be much more useful so far.
Microsoft says the VPN feature in Microsoft Defender will be removed on February 28, 2025.This means users have around a month to find an alternative. Be sure to check out our roundup of best VPNs in 2025 if you're looking to another service to jump to.
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bradavon It's rubbish anyway.Reply
It never stays enabled. If you shutdown, restart or even hibernate the PC you must re-enable it each time you turn the PC back on. I got bored manually going into Windows Defender to re-enable it each time I unhibernated my PC daily.
Most of its features are already in Windows Security too. -
Arun Topez Strange move given that they just started pushing notifications to customers (or at least to me/my region) starting like 2 weeks ago every time I connect to a public wifi, recommending to connect to the included VPN every time as the public wifi is not secure. The 50 GB limit ruined it anyway. And as the other commenter said, it never stayed fully connected. More nonsense moves by MS bringing less value to customers while increasing prices.Reply -
bradavon
That's been a feature you can enable for a while. I suspect you enabled it without realising. "Safer Wifi" in Microsoft Defender.Arun Topez said:Strange move given that they just started pushing notifications to customers (or at least to me/my region) starting like 2 weeks ago every time I connect to a public wifi, recommending to connect to the included VPN every time as the public wifi is not secure. The 50 GB limit ruined it anyway. And as the other commenter said, it never stayed fully connected. More nonsense moves by MS bringing less value to customers while increasing prices.
Good to hear the VPN didn't just stay enabled for you too, plain annoying having to manually enable it each time you turn on the PC. -
GraniteStateColin I think I had heard about the included VPN, maybe even tried it once to see what it did, but had completely forgotten about this until seeing this article. If I recall, it had a limit on # of bytes included, which made it uncomfortable to use compared to third-party solutions, most of which don't cap usage. Still, sad to see it removed. It could be handy in an emergency pinch.Reply
When I use a VPN, it's usually more for a unique static IP# I can get with it than anything else (need a unique dedicated IP# for access to some servers, which is impossible when traveling or using Starlink w/o VPN), and sometimes for software testing in other international markets. I don't believe the one in Defender supported a static IP#, even with an added expense.