Avast Free VPN Review: 3 Free Locations and Why It Won’t Work in India

Avast’s New Permanent Free VPN: What Changed

Until now, “free” Avast VPN meant one of two things. You could take a time-limited SecureLine trial that asked for a payment method, or use the VPN inside free Avast One, which was capped at 5 GB a week and one location. The new plan, simply called Avast VPN, drops both limits. According to Avast’s French product page, you get:

• No time limit on the free plan
• A data allowance that’s unclear for now, because Avast’s own pages conflict (see below)
• Three server locations you choose yourself
• Unlimited devices on one account (smart TVs excluded)
• No subscription, no recurring fee, no credit card
• A kill switch and the WireGuard protocol
• Apps for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS

French tech site Frandroid reported that Avast introduced the offer in France on Wednesday, 4 November 2026. We tested it the next day. On 5 November we tried three English URLs (/en-us/free-vpn, /en-gb/free-vpn and /en-in/free-vpn). All three returned a 404 error, while /fr-fr/free-vpn loaded normally. That doesn’t prove there’s no other English route to the offer. It only shows those three pages didn’t exist. Avast’s main English VPN pages still promote the paid product with a 60-day trial.

The installer itself isn’t locked to French, though. Ours opened in English, and you can switch languages from the drop-down in the top corner. So we downloaded it from the French page and ran it on a Windows 11 PC in Chennai.

Installing Avast Free VPN: Untick Two Boxes First

The first installer screen: both Secure Browser boxes come pre-ticked.

The first screen says “A free VPN with no catch.” Below that are two boxes, both already ticked: one installs Avast Secure Browser, the other makes it your default browser. If you click Install without looking, Avast replaces Chrome, Edge or Firefox as your default browser. Untick the first box and the second one goes away.

The next screen shows what you’re really installing. The progress bar reads “Explore more free tools in Avast One,” because this free VPN lives inside the full Avast One app. We used IObit Uninstaller’s Install Monitor to record the files, registry entries, services and disk space added during setup. Here’s what it logged on our Windows 11 test PC:

IObit Install Monitor: the “free VPN” installs the full Avast One suite.

These numbers come from our own test on 5 November 2026. They aren’t Avast’s published system requirements, and they may differ on your PC. What they show is that you’re getting the whole Avast One suite, not a small standalone VPN client. That means five system services, plus a sidebar that advertises Free Antivirus, Cleanup, Driver Updater, BreachGuard, AntiTrack and Secure Browser.

Account, Plan Choice and Picking Your Three Locations

An Avast account is mandatory

After setup, the VPN tab says “Not connected” and asks you to create a free Avast account before you can choose locations. You can register with an email and password, or sign in with Google or Apple. A region field is filled in automatically; ours said India. For a privacy tool, needing an account isn’t ideal, but no payment details are requested at any point.

The plan screen: Free is selected by default, Premium is $2.89/month billed for two years.

Free vs Premium

Next comes a plan screen. In our test the free plan was already selected, but check before you click Continue. Here’s how the two plans compare:

Premium prices are what the app showed during our test on 5 November 2026 (USD). The $2.89 rate requires paying for two years upfront; it isn’t a month-to-month price. Prices, offers and billing periods may vary by country and account. Premium includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Choose your three locations carefully

Avast warns that your three free locations can’t be replaced after you confirm.

The location picker starts with a “Popular locations” list: Sydney, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Madrid, London, Chicago and Los Angeles. Below it, “All free locations” adds more cities, including Buenos Aires and Perth. We picked Frankfurt, London and Los Angeles.

Before you confirm, Avast warns that you can’t replace these locations after confirming. This is the free plan’s biggest limitation. You aren’t picking three servers to use for now. You’re picking the three city locations locked to your free plan after confirmation. If your needs change, the app’s only route to other locations is upgrading to Premium. One European city, one UK city and one US city cover most streaming and travel needs, so think about what you’ll actually use before you click.

The Connection Test: “VPN Is Unavailable in Your Location”

The result of every connection attempt from India.

With Germany – Frankfurt selected, we clicked Connect. Avast refused with a pop-up: “VPN is unavailable in your location. Sorry, VPN can’t work in your area.” Retrying and switching to the other two locations made no difference.

This isn’t a fault with the installer, the account or the language. It’s a deliberate block. Avast let us install the app, create an account with India as the region and lock in three locations. It only checks where you are when you try to connect.

To rule out our own internet connection, we tested Proton VPN’s free plan on the same PC. It connected straight away to a free Singapore server (SG-FREE#30) over WireGuard and showed “Protected.” That only shows a VPN connection from our PC was possible. It doesn’t mean Proton matches Avast on speed, features or privacy.

Control test: Proton VPN’s free plan connected from the same PC.

Why Avast VPN Is Blocked in India: The CERT-In Rules

Avast explains this on its own support site. Its VPN restrictions in India article (last updated January 2025) says:

• All Avast VPN features are unavailable while you’re physically in India. That covers SecureLine/Premium VPN, the VPN inside Avast One, Mobile Security Premium, Secure Browser PRO and the Ultimate bundles.
• Indian servers are gone for everyone, wherever they connect from.
• Indian customers can still use Avast VPN when they travel abroad.

Avast gives the reason as the CERT-In Directions of 28 April 2022, issued under Section 70B(6) of the IT Act, 2000. The directions require VPN, VPS, cloud and data-centre providers to register specified subscriber information. They must keep it for five years or longer after the service is cancelled or withdrawn. That information includes:

• Validated names, addresses and contact numbers
• Email address and the IP address and timestamp used at registration
• The IP addresses assigned to or used by the subscriber
• How long the service was used, and the stated purpose for using it
• Ownership pattern of the subscriber

Avast says the requirements conflict with its stated no-logs policy, and that’s why it makes its VPN features unavailable in India. Other providers reacted in a similar way. ExpressVPN, for example, removed its India-based servers when the rules took effect in 2022.

What about running Avast on top of another VPN?

Avast’s advanced settings include an “Enable multiple active VPNs” option, which was turned on in our install. With Proton VPN still connected, Avast then showed “Connected” for Frankfurt. However, the virtual IP Avast showed, 134.82.69.54, was the same address Proton had shown for its Singapore connection.

With “multiple active VPNs” on, Avast showed Connected, but with Proton’s IP address.

An IP display isn’t a full routing test. Even so, our test didn’t show that Avast had set up its own tunnel or was sending traffic through Frankfurt, so we don’t count it as a successful Avast connection. Avast doesn’t support this setup, and its location check exists to keep users in India off the service. We don’t recommend it as a workaround.

Free VPN Settings Worth Checking

Advanced settings on the free plan: kill switch on, Premium features locked.

Go to Settings → VPN → Advanced Settings. Here’s what we found in our install, along with what we recommend:

A Note on Avast’s Privacy History

Avast markets this VPN as a no-logs service, but its track record is worth keeping in mind. In June 2024, the US Federal Trade Commission finalised an order that bans Avast from selling or licensing web-browsing data for advertising and requires it to pay $16.5 million. The FTC alleged that Avast sold users’ browsing data to more than 100 third parties through its former subsidiary Jumpshot, which shut down in 2020.

That case was about past data practices. It doesn’t show that the new VPN logs or sells your activity. Still, Avast’s no-logs promise is the company’s own claim. Frandroid reports that Avast has commissioned the security firm VerSprite to audit its no-logs policy every year, with the first report expected in November 2026. When we published, we couldn’t find a publicly available report. Until it’s out and its scope is clear, treat the no-logs promise as Avast’s claim rather than something independently verified.

Who Should Use Avast Free VPN — and What Indian Users Can Use Instead