VPN provider NordVPN has announced that its Meshnet feature is now free for all users. Even those who do not have a NordVPN subscription can access Meshnet’s best features, including traffic routing and secure file sharing.
Meshnet is a feature that allows users to create encrypted tunnels between devices, similar to a VPN. With Meshnet, users can create their own private VPN completely free of charge.
“We believe that everyone should be able to access the security and convenience of a VPN,” the company said in a recent blog post. “However, not everyone is ready to invest in a premium service like NordVPN. That’s why we’ve introduced Meshnet as a free feature.”
According to NordVPN, Meshnet doesn’t attract huge expenses, allowing the company to give back to its community by making the feature free for everyone.
“While NordVPN relies on a global server network, which is costly to maintain, Meshnet can be made free because it requires less infrastructure and less maintenance,” NordVPN said. “Opening it up to a wider audience doesn’t require us to develop new systems and invest more than we already have.”
With Meshnet, users can route encrypted traffic through almost any device of their choosing, such as connecting to a home computer while abroad or routing traffic through the device of a friend who lives overseas. Aside from browsing abroad and turning a device into a VPN server, other applications of Meshnet include multiplayer gaming and secure file sharing.
NordVPN has also made its entire Linux application available under an open source license, allowing anyone to examine and experiment with its code. The company aims to make its services “widely available to those who need them and to be as transparent as possible.”
“Is this a new feature? No, Meshnet capabilities have been built into NordVPN applications for a while, but now the feature is entirely free to use,” NordVPN said. “This means that you can create your own private VPN completely free of charge.”