Microsoft Ends Free VPN for 365 Subscribers

Later this month, Microsoft plans to discontinue the VPN service from its Microsoft 365 subscription. The VPN in Microsoft 365, which was first created as a privacy feature, encrypts internet traffic and conceals IP addresses using the Microsoft Defender software. As of February 28th, Microsoft is discontinuing this privacy-protecting feature from Microsoft 365.

Even though there are many other trustworthy companies that offer comparable products, Microsoft is typically the first brand that springs to mind when you think of a dependable Office suite. The primary reason for this is because the business provides a full array of solutions to assist in managing various types of data. For current customers, the firm offered a free VPN service in 2023. However, this VPN service is officially discontinuing after only a few years and a price increase.

As a privacy protection measure for existing customers, Microsoft provided free VPN services to its Personal and Family subscriptions. It is provided by the Microsoft Defender program, which protects your IP address and encrypts your online activities. We regularly assess how well our features are being used. In a support message seen by Windows Central, Microsoft states, “As a result, we are eliminating the privacy protection feature and will invest in new areas that will better align with customer needs,” the VPN service will be discontinued at the end of this month.

The corporation only said that VPN is being discontinued since it routinely assesses the effectiveness and utilization of its services. Although they will need to go elsewhere for VPN support, Microsoft 365 members will still have access to identity theft and credit monitoring in the US. It’s evident that Microsoft removed the privacy protection option since so few people were utilizing it, but the VPN in Microsoft 365 was never sufficiently functional to be extensively utilized. The VPN automatically linked to a local location, and Microsoft limited your monthly traffic to 50GB, making it hard to get past the geo-restrictions that consumers frequently connected to servers in the user’s home country, may have contributed to the fact that users did not utilize the VPN as much as Microsoft would have wanted. The Microsoft brand did clarify, though, that it is spending money in “new areas that will better align with customer needs.”

Only a few weeks after Microsoft increased membership costs for the first time in twelve years, the VPN feature in Microsoft 365 was eliminated. You can choose to upgrade to a traditional plan that keeps the current pricing for Personal or Family subscriptions without the additional AI features, however Microsoft has increased rates by an additional $3 per month per user and merged Office AI features into Microsoft 365, for the first time in more than ten years, the investment is undoubtedly in motion. Copilot AI features have been added to the office suite of applications along with this increase, although the VPN is still being phased out.

Customers of Microsoft 365 in the US will still be able to use identity theft protection and credit monitoring tools, but they will need to find a specific VPN app. Positively, the majority of these specialized VPN companies offer far more flexible use limitations and allow users to select which servers they connect to. Additionally, if you choose to keep pre-hike prices, you may drop to Microsoft’s Classic plan, and the AI isn’t particularly.

Customers of Microsoft 365 in the US will still be able to use identity theft protection and credit monitoring tools, but they will need to find a specific VPN app. Positively, the majority of these specialized VPN companies offer far more flexible use limitations and allow users to select which servers they connect to. Additionally, if you choose to keep pre-hike prices, you may drop to Microsoft’s Classic plan, and the AI isn’t particularly useful to you.