Microsoft is killing its “free” VPN with Microsoft 365 subscriptions, just days after increasing prices

[Windows Central]

Microsoft has announced that it’s killing its Microsoft 365 VPN feature later this month, only a couple of years after it first debuted.

Microsoft is killing its “free” VPN with Microsoft 365 subscriptions, just days after increasing prices : Read more

 

[bradavon]

It's rubbish anyway.

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.

 

[bradavon]

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.

That's been a feature you can enable for a while. I suspect you enabled it without realising. "Safer Wifi" in Microsoft Defender.

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.

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.