TunnelBear review

The short answer

TunnelBear is a Toronto VPN known for its bear-themed apps and simple design. It has hired the security firm Cure53 to audit its systems since 2016 and has published results each year since 2017, a longer run than most consumer VPNs. McAfee has owned it since 2018. Its free plan is small, and its refund rules are narrow.

Nobody at Tunnelcheck has tested TunnelBear. This review uses TunnelBear's own policies and blog posts, the Cure53 report it links, and press coverage of its sale, all listed under Sources. Our methodology page explains our approach.

Who owns TunnelBear and where is it based?

McAfee bought TunnelBear in March 2018. TunnelBear said at the time that it would run as a separate team inside McAfee and stay in Toronto. It also acknowledged that a US parent brings extra privacy pressure. A July 2025 TunnelBear blog post still refers to its place in the McAfee family. McAfee itself was taken private in March 2022 by an investor group led by Advent International and Permira.

TunnelBear's privacy policy and terms name TunnelBear LLC as the company you deal with, and neither mentions McAfee. The privacy policy says TunnelBear doesn't store personal data outside Canada and that Canadian law governs its use, though some payment processors may store data elsewhere. Canada and the US are both in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group. TunnelBear's own blog argues that jurisdiction matters less than what a VPN actually collects. Our VPN ownership page tracks parent companies across the industry.

Does TunnelBear keep logs? What the audits say

TunnelBear's privacy policy, dated May 11, 2026, says it does not collect, store or log the IP addresses of people visiting its site, your IP address when you connect, your DNS queries while connected, or the apps, services and sites you use.

It does collect some operational data: your operating system and app version, whether you were active this month, total data used this month, account and payment events, your continent, country and city, crash reports and your device brand and model. The monthly data count is how the free plan's cap works. None of it is browsing history, but it is more than the leanest providers keep.

TunnelBear's audits are security audits, where testers try to break into the apps and servers. They are not no-logs assurance reports, which check logging specifically. Cure53 has done them since 2016.

TunnelBear calls the 2024 audit its eighth annual audit. The post about it links to Cure53's site, not to the report, so we could read only TunnelBear's summary. Our audit tracker compares audit types across providers.

Security features and protocols

TunnelBear supports WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2. You can choose which one to use. See WireGuard vs OpenVPN for the differences.

• VigilantBear, TunnelBear's kill switch, blocks unprotected traffic if the connection drops. See our kill switch guide.
• GhostBear disguises VPN traffic so it's harder for networks to detect and block.
• SplitBear is split tunneling: you choose which apps and sites use the VPN. It's paid-only since December 2025. See our split tunneling guide.
• TunnelBear's features page lists more than 46 countries and over 8,000 servers.

TunnelBear's track record

We found no reported breach of TunnelBear's servers and no case of it handing over user data. The early audits did find real problems. Cure53's 2016 audit found flaws in the Chrome extension, which TunnelBear says it fixed. The 2023 audit found two high-severity issues. Publishing those results is the point of an audit, and TunnelBear has done it for years.

Streaming and torrenting with TunnelBear

TunnelBear makes no specific streaming claims on the pages we read. Watching another country's catalog usually breaks the streaming service's terms, and services block VPN addresses. See why streaming services block VPNs.

TunnelBear's features page mentions P2P-friendly servers. Its terms forbid distributing copyright-protected material through its servers. A VPN hides torrent traffic from your internet provider. It does not make copyright infringement legal. Read is torrenting illegal? and legal torrent sources.

Apps and devices

TunnelBear has apps for iPhone and iPad, Android, Mac and Windows, and browser extensions. There's no dedicated Linux app; TunnelBear's blog explains a manual OpenVPN setup instead. Its pricing page says there is no limit on how many devices you can use. In December 2024 it launched an official Microsoft Edge extension. TunnelBear notes that browser extensions protect only that browser's traffic, so it recommends the full app.

What you get on the free plan

TunnelBear Free gives 2 GB of data a month. On December 3, 2025, TunnelBear moved split tunneling and country selection to paid plans. Free users can still connect and use VigilantBear and GhostBear. Users in censored countries on TunnelBear's Bandwidth Program keep all features.

Two gigabytes is enough for occasional use on public Wi-Fi, not daily browsing. See best free VPNs for comparisons and our public Wi-Fi guide for when a VPN helps.

Price and refund

On 2026-11-13, TunnelBear's pricing page showed the Unlimited plan from $3.33 a month in US dollars. The page didn't show which billing term that price needs or the month-to-month price, so check the official pricing page for the full terms. Teams was $5.75 per user per month.

The refund terms are narrow. TunnelBear offers a 30-day money-back guarantee only on the first year of annual subscriptions bought directly from tunnelbear.com. Monthly plans, Teams and app-store purchases aren't covered. Our VPN prices page compares refund terms.

What we couldn't verify about TunnelBear

• The full 2024 audit report. TunnelBear's post summarizes the findings and links to Cure53's website, not to the report itself. For 2023, TunnelBear links Cure53's full report; the figures in this review come from TunnelBear's summary of it.
• Audits from 2018 to 2022. TunnelBear has posts for its second through sixth annual audits. We relied on the first, seventh and eighth for the details in this review.
• The billing term behind $3.33. The pricing page shows a from-price without the term or the renewal price.
• The corporate link today. TunnelBear's legal pages name only TunnelBear LLC. Its July 2025 blog post refers to the McAfee family, but we found no 2026 statement either way.

If any of these change, we'll update this review. You can ask TunnelBear's support for the 2024 report and the billing term before you buy.

Who TunnelBear suits, and who should look elsewhere

• Suits: beginners who want simple apps from a company with a long audit history.
• Suits: households with many devices, since there's no device limit.
• Look elsewhere: if a US parent company is a dealbreaker. Mullvad and IVPN are owned by their founders.
• Look elsewhere: if you want a free plan for daily use. Windscribe gives 10 GB, and Proton VPN has no data cap.